[4: BEFORE HE SLIPS AWAY]

SEONG-JAE WAS GRATEFUL THAT MALCOLM did not try to speak to him, on the drive to the crime scene. He had no words himself, as though a single moment frozen in an empty hallway had somehow tapped that well inside him and left it draining dry until there was nothing left. The silence in the Camaro was tense, strained…and yet that was their normal, now. That was…

That was how it had to be, even if Seong-Jae was no longer so certain it was how it should be. He had no other choice.

If Sila was in Baltimore, dogging his steps…

He could not afford to let that stain touch Malcolm. There was enough blood on Seong-Jae’s hands. He would not let Malcolm’s be the next, when he could not predict what Sila would do or who he might hurt to get under Seong-Jae’s skin.

He curled his fingers against his mouth and watched the city roll by in blocks of color that all blurred together in the midmorning sun. Would he find another letter at this crime scene? The letter E, scrawled in blood on a hotel wall? The final one to fill in that message, whispered to him in music-box notes and messages in red.

Love me, love me.

He ground his knuckles against his upper lip.

I am not certain that I ever loved you.

Who are you, now, after all these years?

The Camaro slowed as Malcolm shifted gears. “We’ll be there in a second,” he murmured. “You okay?”

“I am fine.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you do not want to.” Seong-Jae let his gaze drift to the tall, gaudy sign of the corner motel ahead, W-Suites in vertical and surrounded by LEDs that were garish even in the light of day. The motel itself was a typical two-story affair with exterior entrances and walkways lined off by railings, as rickety as though someone had stitched several square tin huts together to form something halfway resembling a communal domicile. The uneven, oil-stained parking lot was rather crowded, several patrons in dirty, ill-fitted clothing milling about or sitting on the hoods or trunks of their cars, herded back by uniformed police officers who used their bodies to fill in the spaces in a cordon otherwise created by patrol cars and police tape. The familiar pale silver hulk of the forensics team van was parked off to one side, and Seong-Jae could not help a sense of relief.

Perhaps Cara Stenson’s presence would help to defuse some of the tension roiling between himself and Malcolm.

The officers blocking the parking lot entrance parted to let the Camaro through, and Malcolm eased it into a yellow-lined spot before casting Seong-Jae a significant glance and getting out. Seong-Jae followed, stepping into a day that seemed too bright with the starkness of mid-autumn sun, the colors overexposed and searing into his retinas, the taste on the air of fading summers and dirty oil.

The main cluster of noise and activity hovered around one of the second-floor rooms, where police tape crossed the open door; flashes of light spilled through the doorway, bright half-second camera flashes punctuating the day. Seong-Jae hung back for a moment, while Malcolm took the exterior stairs up to the upper level two at a time, leaving Seong-Jae briefly alone to take in his surroundings.

This place was dingy, grungy, yet not particularly isolated, positioned on the corner of a busy street intersection and taking up almost the entire block. Murders here would be crimes of passion in the dark of night, rapid shots fired and then swift departure, disputes over territory or property or drugs. A motel room in a prominent public location ran the risk of too many witnesses, particularly if the homicide took place as part of an extended process and the victim did not die immediately. To choose this location for a ritual murder…

It struck him as bizarre.

He followed Malcolm up the stairs, and caught up to find him standing outside the taped-off room, head bowed and leaning in close to murmur with Stenson. Even Stenson’s face was grave, pale, washed of its usual sardonic cynicism, and as Seong-Jae approached she looked up, meeting his eyes, then shook her head and glanced back to Malcolm.

“Brace yourselves,” she said. “It’s bad.”

Malcolm frowned. “On a scale of one to Jack the Ripper…”

“Jack had a fucked up love child with that kid in the Darian Park case, and that kid did this.”

Malcolm went still. His gaze shuttered over. Seong-Jae closed his eyes, swearing under his breath. He might feel some small affection for Cara, but…

Sometimes, her tactlessness went too far.

And that was saying a great deal, coming from him.

“Malcolm,” he murmured, opening his eyes and stepping closer, reaching for the old wolf’s shoulder—but Malcolm flinched away, stepping back before he could make contact.

“It’s fine,” Malcolm said. “I’m fine.”

You are lying, Seong-Jae thought, but kept that to himself.

“Stay here,” he murmured. “I will look.”

Malcolm’s lips creased bitterly. “Trying to protect my delicate sensibilities?”

Trying to protect you.

But once again, Seong-Jae said nothing except “Cara,” as he tossed his head toward the door, then turned to duck under the police tape.

With a furtive look for Malcolm, Cara trailed after Seong-Jae, leaning in close to mutter, “Did I say something wrong?”

“Malcolm,” Seong-Jae said almost subvocally, “is rather sensitive regarding the Darian Park case. It struck a nerve for both of us, considering the macabre level of violence perpetuated against members of th—”

He broke off as the smell hit him, and as his eyes adjusted to the shift in light as he stepped into the room and fully focused. It was as though some invisible wall had kept the smell caged inside, only a faint hint of blood seeping past, so familiar as to go unnoticed until he walked into the thick miasma of stench like a meat market, heavy with bloody offal, thick and fleshy and gagging. He covered his mouth, breathing shallowly through his fingers, as he stared at the crime scene, a grisly portrait of death staged as though some twisted artist had used the room for their canvas.

The remains of a man had been bound to the bed, spread-eagled and arranged to fit the star formation of a pentagram soaked into the sheets in blood around and beneath him. Slender, wiry, the victim was naked save for a pair of leather underpants with a zipper over the groin, and the leather cuffs binding his wrists and ankles to the bedposts. His short-cropped, silvered hair was dyed with clumps of crimson. A ball gag had been left inserted into his mouth.

Seong-Jae supposed that was why no one had heard him scream, as he had been eviscerated.

His stomach had been cut open messily, ragged shreds as if some great beast had ripped away a mouthful in massive teeth, and his intestines tumbled out everywhere in glistening ropes. The killer had dragged them free, unspooling them and looping them in coiling patterns on the floor around the bed, weaving in and out among puddles of wax that looked as though they had once been candles, likely the source of the cloying sweet-musky scent underneath the stink of a violated body that had become nothing more than a carcass. Several skulls—too small and pointed to be human, likely rodents—had been tossed about like children’s toys, scattered over the carpet and mixed with sprays of black flower petals. Another pentagram had been carved crudely into the victim’s chest, an inverted crimson wound pointing downward as if to draw the eye to the cavern where his belly had been. The rest of his organs had been arranged around him like fruit spilled out of a cornucopia, gleaming and ripe and quivering.

The walls had once been off-white, but now were a muddle of dried crimson smears, many in the shapes of dragging fingertips, slashing brush-strokes of blood over every surface. The most prominent, however, were the letters painted above the bed, broad as if they had been splashed on with an entire stroking palm.

BRING FORTH

Bring forth…? Bring forth what?

He lingered on the curvature of the letters, searching for…he did not know what. A pattern. A sense of familiarity. But there was none—and if he were honest with himself, he had known that the moment he stepped into the room. The crime scene did not have the feeling of Sila’s touch here, that sense as if some strange and fey thing had brushed this place and left something otherworldly and terrible behind, haunted by the ghosts of sly, sweet laughter, terrible for its very brightness in the face of the worst. Seong-Jae was not looking for a message here, not truly. He was only staring at the bloodied missive to avoid the nauseating, hollow sense of horror trying to settle its cloak around his shoulders.

He should be used to this. He had seen worse, so many times.

And every time, it made sickness foul his throat. He wanted to call this inhumane; inhuman.

But perhaps what made it so disturbing was that it was, unfortunately, all too human, a reminder of what so many were, deep down, far too capable of.

He could not endure the smell any longer; it was somehow richer and thicker than at prior crime scenes, perhaps amplified by the lingering effect of the fragrance. Holding his breath against the urge to retch, he stepped back from the threshold, turned away, and almost walked straight into Cara.

She hovered to the side of the door, just inside, her eyes flat as she looked over the crime scene assessingly, her hands in the pockets of her BPD Forensics coat. “I’ve already got my photos,” she said quietly. “So if you need to puke on anything, you won’t do too much damage.”

“I am not amused.”

“I know.” She smiled faintly. “Just trying to distract you.” She tore her gaze from the body, then, fixing her sharp eyes on him. “It gets to me too, you know. I just try not to show it.”

“Why?”

“Because if I’m soft for even half a second, half the assholes on the force would eat me alive.” She reached out to lightly flick his arm. “That’s why you shut off too, isn’t it?”

“Something like that,” Seong-Jae murmured, and stepped outside.

Malcolm leaned against the wall next to the brass 209 nailed to the wood by the door, worrying at his thumbnail with his teeth and glaring at nothing in particular. Seong-Jae leaned next to him, slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat, and tilted his head back to look up at the window of hard, emotionless blue sky visible past the walkway’s overhang.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I said I was fine,” Malcolm bit off.

“You do not always say what you mean.”

“Don’t I?” The look Malcolm threw him was almost recriminating—before it disappeared as Malcolm closed his eyes, exhaling roughly. “Sorry. I’m fucking sorry. I just…” He rubbed his fingertips to his furrowed brow. “The really sick cases are supposed to be few and far between.”

“It has barely been a month since the Darian Park case.”

“Yeah. And I guess I’m not ready to see someone else messed up like that.”

“Death is death,” Seong-Jae pointed out softly. “What was done to the body does not change that the person it was is dead. That is what we should focus on. What we should respect. That is more deserving of attention than the killer’s sadism.”

“I know. Every victim matters. I know.” Opening his eyes, Malcolm fixed a haggard look on Seong-Jae and smiled, wan and humorless. “Hell of a first day back, isn’t it?”

Tilting his head, Seong-Jae lingered on the lines of strain around Malcolm’s eyes, then said, “You do not have to go in if you do not think you can.”

“I have to.” Malcolm squared his shoulders and pushed away from the wall, ducking around Seong-Jae and toward the open door. “This is part of the job.”

“Malcolm—”

Malcolm stopped, stone-still, just past the threshold, his indrawn breath audible. “Fuck.”

“Agreed,” Seong-Jae murmured, drifting to stand at his shoulder. “Malcolm…”

One coarse-knuckled hand raised, silencing him. “I’ve got it,” Malcolm grit out, and stepped deeper into the room, head turning slowly, scanning from side to side. “Sexual,” he said quietly. “This was sexual for the victim. Not for the killer.” He nodded toward the chair in the far corner, and the clothing draped over it. “We got a wallet and ID?”

“Not yet,” Cara said. “I wanted to let you get a look at things undisturbed before we started poking and moving things around.” She eyed them both, then ducked under the crime scene tape across the door. “I’ll be outside. We’re running the plates on all the cars in the lot. Text me the name in case we get a match.”

“Seong-Jae,” Malcolm said.

“Of course.”

Keeping his breaths shallow, trying to numb himself to that stench, Seong-Jae stepped around Malcolm and deeper into the room, carefully sidestepping the scattered candles and loops of intestine, slipping a pair of vinyl gloves from his pocket and snapping them on as he moved. A rectangle bulged against the back pocket of a pair of black slacks draped neatly over the chair; Seong-Jae gently eased the wallet out from inside and flipped it open to look down at the awkward half-smile of the victim’s driver’s license photo, his brown eyes quiet and full of so much more life than the pale, waxy, oddly crumpled shell left on the bed.

“Logan Wilde,” he murmured, and tucked the wallet away again before stripping his gloves and retrieving his phone from his pocket to send the name to Cara. “Fifty-eight. Resident of Fait Avenue.”

Malcolm shook his head. “That’s in the Canton neighborhood. Canton folk wouldn’t be out in this area of Pulaski for many reasons I can think of.”

“Perhaps if he thought he was indulging in something clandestine?” Seong-Jae suggested.

“Maybe,” Malcolm said, then tilted his head back, gaze tracking splatters of red on the ceiling, before dropping to the missive on the wall. “The pentagram, the candles, the skulls, the flowers…what is this supposed to be? Some kind of summoning ritual?” Deep, thoughtful lines carved canyons in his sharply cragged face. “‘Bring forth.’ Like bring forth the devil?”

Seong-Jae frowned, curling his knuckles against his mouth, taking another slow sweep of the room. “I suppose that is one interpretation,” he said.

“You got another one?”

“Not at the moment.” Not until this feeling of wrongness settled, and he could identify its source. “It is not surprising to see this sort of crime around Halloween, but that does not make it any less horrifying. Even if it feels…” He shook his head, struggling for words. “Bizarrely childish. Almost whimsical.”

“Gleeful,” Malcolm murmured distractedly. “Like I said, this was sexual for the victim…but not for the killer. But they enjoyed it anyway. So much they got out of control. Like a kid splashing in the mud, making a mess just because they can.”

“What makes you so certain it was sexual for the victim? What if the perpetrator dressed and staged him this way after the fact?”

“No.” Malcolm trailed closer to the bed, frown deepening as he circled it, gracefully moving over and around the bits of Wilde left strewn around—but then he paused, one hand gesturing lightly toward the victim’s arms. “Even ligature marks on wrists and ankles. He struggled, but not until after he was tied up. Unless he was drugged beforehand, he willingly submitted to being bound, only to fight the cuffs when he realized he was in real danger.” He grimaced. “Barbaric. None of this was necessary for the kill. But if you look at the strokes, the wounds, the incisions…they’re haphazard. Not preplanned or methodical. The suspect was lost in the moment and likely went overboard.”

“Garish,” Seong-Jae said. “Luridly and deliberately so. Shock value for the sake of shock value. A pantomime of the occult.”

“It’s like a teenager trying to get their parents’ attention. That’s what it is. Acting out.”

“Do you suspect a minor for this?”

“No.” Malcolm’s shoulders heaved as he exhaled. “Just someone who wants to be noticed. This is…it’s performative. Showing off for approval.”

“Whose?”

“That’s the real question, isn’t it?”

“Mm.” Seong-Jae turned slowly, making himself look. Making himself take in the entire picture, and not just the body of Logan Wilde. The entire picture was what had mattered to the killer, he thought. The room was the canvas, Wilde their paint, but something was missing that would complete this picture. Something the killer would have taken with them.

“Looking for something?” Malcolm asked pointedly. “Not taking pictures of the blood splatter?”

“No,” Seong-Jae answered, letting the dig roll off his back for now, shaking his head. “Malcolm, if the killer was putting on a performance…would they not have wanted their intended audience to see it?”

“You think someone was here other than Wilde and the suspect?”

“I do not know. But they would not have needed to be if…”

There it was. That sense of something off, and he strode across the room to the dresser facing the bed. The television equipped to the room was an old, bulky CRT model, so thick it barely fit the depth of the dresser—and it had been unfastened from the anti-theft bars bolting it to the wood, moved to one side. It should have been centered for easy viewing from the bed, still in the fastenings, but…

“Malcolm.”

Malcolm drifted to his side, looking down at the dresser, then back at the bed, before he sucked in a breath. “You’re shitting me.”

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

“The sick fuck recorded this.”

“And moved the television to put their equipment in at the optimal angle.”

Malcolm swore. “So there’s recorded evidence of this out there somewhere, and we’ll probably never find it.”

“We do not know that.”

“Be real, Seong-Jae. What kind of psych profile are we looking at?”

“Ah.” He lingered, thinking, turning the crime scene over for a moment. “If I had to hazard a guess, I would say…this is not serial, or psychopathic.”

Seong-Jae turned back to face the room and let himself unbend just enough—just enough to let the feel of it seep into him, even if it left him sick inside. Slimed. Dirty, as if these few moments of stepping into the killer’s shoes, their thoughts, would leave him forever tainted and unclean. It was not empathy, this thing he felt…but it was still something that bordered on transference, and it made his blood feel black in his veins, dark and icy as he leached himself away to let the impressions the killer left behind seep in.

Look at me.

He stepped forward, sinking down into a crouch before one of the scattered skulls, reaching down to almost touch it before pulling back. “Narcissism,” he murmured. “The killer was proud of this. Gratified by their staging, their performance. They wanted praise for this. The art of it. The narcissism was the most prominent here, with little evidence of other psychopathic Dark Triad traits that would hint at serial markers, fetishization, or a tendency toward taking trophies. If the killer recorded this, they did not do it to relive the crime later, or as a memento.”

Look at me, look at me, praise me.

He lifted his head, making himself look at Wilde’s face—blank, empty, somehow sunken in, as if he had deflated. “The killer wants their performance to not only be seen, but to be approved of.”

Look what I did for you.

Malcolm drifted to linger at his shoulder. “Wouldn’t this be enough? Leaving behind this staged crime scene for us to find?”

“Only if we were the ones the killer wanted to perform for.” Seong-Jae frowned, following a scattered trail of black petals. “I do not think we are. We are incidental, unimportant. The killer was not concerned with us, other than not leaving evidence.” He lifted his chin toward the hand- and- finger-shaped smears on the wall. Even on a cursory assessment it was not hard to tell they had been done with gloves on, too smooth, and they likely would not be able to lift any prints anywhere. “The murder itself may not have had a sexual component, but…there is a sense of romanticism to this nonetheless.”

“So the killer wanted to impress someone. Someone they’re obsessed with?”

“Or in love with.”

“Huh.” Malcolm hunkered down into a crouch next to Seong-Jae, elbows braced on powerful thighs, fingers laced together. “People do crazy thing when they’re in love.”

Seong-Jae arched a brow, glancing at him sidelong. “You quoted that from a Disney film.”

“And you recognized it.” But that actually prompted a smile from Malcolm, no matter how faint and sad. “So what do people usually do with their videos these days, when they want them to be seen?”

“Facebook,” Seong-Jae answered, and Malcolm barked a bitter laugh.

“I don’t think we’re going to get lucky enough to catch a murderer on Facebook a second time.” He braced his hands to his thighs and levered to his feet. “But it’s something to think about. We can get Sade on it while we check hotel security footage, take a look at the victim’s home life. And I need to make a phone call.”

“To whom?”

Malcolm smiled grimly. “To the owner of this hotel.”

^

MALCOLM DIDN’T BREATHE EASY AGAIN until he was outside, letting the morning sun burn into him as if it could cleanse him. Seong-Jae wasn’t far behind, and although his expression was as stoically closed as ever, there was a hint of strain around his jaw, an ashenness to his skin, and he was quick to move to the railing of the walkway, leaning against it and gripping hard at the metal as he stared out over the busy lot.

Propping his hip against the railing and leaning next to Seong-Jae, Malcolm fished his cellphone from his pocket, scrolled through his address book until he found W, then hit Call and lifted his phone to his ear.

After two rings a short, sharp “Hello?” answered. He had to take a moment before he could speak, to make sure he could keep his tone even when his throat was tight and aching, and everything in him felt dead and dried out.

“Lillienne,” he said. “It’s your favorite person.”

Lillienne Wellington’s haughty, offended sniff carried audibly over the line. “Detective Khalaji. If you are my favorite person, I fear for those I truly loathe.”

“Maybe you should. I’m getting real tired of finding dead bodies at your hotels, Wellington.”

“Considering I legally own seventy-five percent of the hotels or franchises in Baltimore, the statistical likelihood of a dead body in a hotel room being one of mine is—well, as I said, seventy-five percent.” She paused, then continued a bit more hesitantly. “Unless I am once again a suspect, I don’t see any reason for you to be calling me.”

“Are you a suspect?”

That prim, cultured tone dropped with a curse and an explosive sigh, before she demanded, “Are you calling just to fuck with me?”

“Such indelicate language for a high-powered business mogul.” He elbowed Seong-Jae lightly and mouthed She’s swearing at me already. Seong-Jae only rolled his eyes, while Malcolm continued into the phone, “This was a courtesy call. From one friend to another. I thought you’d want to know before a secretary gave you a sloppy secondhand report, or you saw it on the news.”

“Aren’t you kind,” she retorted scathingly. “Which property?”

“The W-Suites on North Point.”

“Ah. That neighborhood.”

“Any significance?”

She sighed. “Only that we’ve had security problems with break-ins, unlawful activity. The usual for that area.”

“Not helpful,” he pointed out.

“I’m sorry, were you calling me for information? I thought you were calling to be an asshole.”

“I can multitask.”

The temperature of her voice dropped to subzero. “Is there anything else you need, Detective Khalaji?”

“I’ll let you know,” he said—and was suddenly talking to an empty dial tone. He pulled the phone away, eyeing it, then dropped it back into his pocket. “Huh.”

“That,” Seong-Jae murmured, “was borderline sadistic. You enjoyed that far too much.”

“I find my pleasures where I can when dealing with this kind of shit. What can I say? I missed the job.” He bumped Seong-Jae with his elbow again. “I even missed you. Surly as you are.”

Seong-Jae grimaced. “The feeling is not mutual.”

“Yes, it is.” Malcolm settled against the railing, crossing his ankles, letting his gaze drift back to the open door of the room without really allowing himself to focus enough to see inside. Now that he no longer had to force any semblance of composure for Wellington, he let his artificial, frozen smile fall away, until it felt like gravity had hold of his mouth, dragging it down. “I’m tired,” he said softly. “I’m so tired, Seong-Jae.”

“I know.” And then Seong-Jae shifted subtly closer to him—just enough that they pressed lightly arm to arm, minimal contact and yet it brought with it a warmth that helped to chase away the cold prickles leaving Malcolm feeling as dead as the body inside that macabrely painted room. “So am I.”

Malcolm held that way for long moments. Moments that he needed, when at least…at least it made him not feel so alone with this. Even with his last partner, he’d never felt as though there was someone who saw him, someone who understood how much every case eroded at his foundations when for most people on the force it was about toughing it out, putting up a front, pretending to be callous and unaffected until you became callous and unaffected. Malcolm couldn’t do that.

And it helped to know that Seong-Jae couldn’t, either, and showed it in all his small and quiet ways.

Malcolm turned his head to watch his partner; Seong-Jae was still lost somewhere, it felt like, bent with his elbows draped against the railing, looking out across the lot and beyond, a subtle knot between his brows and his lips slightly parted as though he’d started to say something and then forgot he even meant to speak. Malcolm nudged him with his shoulder.

“You okay after that?”

Seong-Jae blinked, glancing at Malcolm as if just remembering he was there. “After what?”

“You…went somewhere, for a minute,” Malcolm said, after a moment to turn over his thoughts and try to capture them in words. “Away. Like you stepped out of yourself and let someone else step in. It’s impressive how you do that, that insight, but…” He shrugged. “I’m guessing it takes a toll on you.”

Seong-Jae looked at him strangely, then huffed and glared out over the lot again. “Was I so obvious?”

“No.” Malcolm smiled faintly. “I just know you.”

Seong-Jae only grunted, the muttered grudgingly, “…I suppose you do.”

Malcolm knew he should look away. Let Seong-Jae have his pride and his deflections; let him avoid anything like even the smallest admission that maybe, just maybe it was all right to let his defenses down around Malcolm. But Malcolm couldn’t stop himself from watching him, drinking him in. It hurt—it hurt so fucking much, but the pain that sat on his chest and slid its knife into his heart wasn’t for Seong-Jae; it was for that man put on for display like some kind of doll, used and abused, his life taken from him so callously.

If anything Seong-Jae eased that pain, especially when right now…whatever was wrong between them had been set aside, and Malcolm felt as though the other pieces of his puzzle had been locked into place again. Even if unspoken tensions brewed, they were still partners, and somehow when they came together on a case…

It just worked.

He straightened, levering to his feet, and tossed his head. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s let Sten and her swarm have the crime scene, and go have a look at that security footage.”