Page 24 of Insidious Heart
It was another woman, a brunette like Chris said, who was in her mid-twenties and left brutalized like the last one. She was a waitress at a diner, no criminal history, found in the back of a gas station, and according to early speculation, both of her femurs were accounted for.
This isn’t him.
There is no way this was The Harvester. I didn’t believe the first woman was, but Iknowthis one wasn’t. It’s a complete 180 from his MO; clean, efficient, albeit over-the-top kills, and the postmortem positioning and signature are missing. He usually kills his victims in a house or apartment or something. He never leaves them outside. And he has never killed a woman, or anyone who wasn’t complete and total garbage as a human.
This doesn’t fit at all, and I can’t believe the media and police are stupid enough to just assume this was our vigilante ghost.
“That’s some pretty heavy reading material.”
I jump at the voice behind me, dropping my phone as I spin to see a man that was apparently peeking over my shoulder.
“Sorry.” He smiles, andwow. If he didn’t startle the complete shit out of me, I’d find that smile beautiful. “Didn’t mean to scare you, baby doll.”
I frown at that.Baby doll?That seems a little forward. And probably inappropriate since it’s almost midnight and we’re standing in a dark parking lot in a super shitty part of town.
“Doll face?” He leans against the building and gives me a thoughtful look. “Sweetheart, maybe? Honey could work. What about angel?” He shakes his head. “Nah. Too cliché.”
My frown deepens.
Is this guy, thisstranger, really trying to give me a nickname?
“Aha, I’ve got it.” He snaps his fingers and points at me. “Princess.”
My spine stiffens immediately and my hackles raise. “I don’t like being called princess. Or anything else really, not by someone I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. So, no-go on princess.”
“What are you—”
“I’ll just stick with baby doll until something better comes to me. I tend to go with my gut on these things.”
“What are you doing here? Where did you—”
“What’s with the heavy reading material?” He bends to pick up my phone and that’s when I realize this man is very big.
Big and tall—maybe six foot two or three—in a tight end or wide receiver sort of way, and he even looks like a little bit of a golden boy.
His hair is short but long enough to see its natural curl and bury your fingers in if you were in a position to do so, a dark brown color with a hint of blonde when the streetlight hits just right. His features are almost perfect; thick brows, a Romanesque nose with a hoop in the right side, high cheekbones, strong jaw covered in a light scruff that does nothing to hide matching dimples on either side of a heart-shaped mouth. And they really pop when he smiles, a blinding smile full of perfectly straight white teeth.
This man is incredibly good looking, so much so it’s almost like he stepped off the cover of a magazine or romance novel, but everything about how he’s dressed contradicts that.
A beat up leather jacket over a solid white hoodie, dark wash jeans with rips at the knees and fraying around the pockets and cuffs. He’s wearing heavy biker boots, the steel-toed kind, and I can see the handle of a knife sticking up out of one of his boots thanks to the way his pants are partially tucked into them.
Which should probably make me run back inside the nursing home to wait for Joker there, but for some reason, it doesn’t scare me.
Yeah, probably because most of the men I’m around are typically packing more than a hunting knife, and it’s not uncommon for most people in Rolling Meadows to carry some sort of protection either, but that’s not it.
For whatever reason, this stranger who should definitely scare me, especially in our current situation, just… doesn’t.
He doesn’t scare me at all really, and I’m not sure if it means I’ve finally hardened to the point of expecting and embracing the worst from most people without giving a shit, or Chris just broke my creep radar.
“What a load of bullshit,” he grunts as he taps the screen of my phone. “Total garbage.”
I nod and hold out my hand. “It doesn’t fit.”
He looks up at me with an arched brow, and my god, how did I miss his eyes before?
They’re slightly almond shaped and surrounded by long, thick lashes, but it’s the color that has me just blinking at him.
