The large man sat half propped against the cabinets, his legs splayed out in front of him like he was a broken doll. There was blood everywhere, like some prop-master had gone too hard with the corn syrup, so much so, Mal might have laughed if he couldn’t smell the overwhelming copper scent that told him this was real and not just some haunted house. There was so much blood it had caused puddles to form on the vinyl tile.
What the hell had happened there?
Nico’s gaze jerked to the closed curtain hiding the tub, a whine forming at the back of his throat. A small scuffing sound came from behind the once pink curtain. Mal tensed, raising the gun once more, then nodded when Nico leaned in, careful not to set foot on the bloody floor. He whipped open the curtain, the hooks making a shrill sound of metal on metal as it flew along the rod.
Mal instantly dropped his gun. “Casey!”
The girl sat in the bathtub clutching a huge cutting knife, which looked even bigger in the little girl’s small hands. There was no part of her not painted red. Her sweats were crimson, her bare feet caked in rust-colored dried blood, her hair wet and clumpy in some places and dry and stuck together in others.
She was visibly shaking, clutching the handle of the knife to her body, blade out, like she hoped to impale any future attackers without moving from her hiding spot. She had her knees drawn to her chest and the handle in a death grip.
Mal knew he shouldn’t enter the bathroom—it was a crime scene—but the girl’s eyes were vacant, her breathing short and heavy. With one last look at Nico, he stepped inside and crouched down beside the bathtub. “Casey? It’s Mr. Mizrahi. Can you hear me?”
Casey stared at the man’s dead body, eyes wide, teeth chattering.
“Can—Can you tell me what happened here?” he tried again.
Mal spared a look at the body. The man was anywhere between early twenties to mid-thirties. He had inky black hair he’d pulled back in a partial ponytail that made him look like a party popper and wore black jeans and what Mal was certain used to be a white tank top. The man’s skin had a pallor to it that told Mal he’d clearly bled out, but only just recently.
Mal watched as Nico toed off his shoes. “I’m going to go secure the door until we figure out our next move.”
Mal nodded, scooting a bit closer to Casey, approaching her like he would a skittish animal. “Casey, sweetheart, can you look at me? It’s Mr. Miz—It’s Mal. You called me, remember?”
He didn’t want to have to touch her when she was clearly in shock, but she couldn’t stay in the bathtub. “Casey,” he barked sharply.
Her gaze snapped to his, and she blinked heavy lids in his direction, the fog of shock lifting. “Mr. Mizrahi…” She stared at him with terrified eyes. “Am I going to jail?”
Mal frowned. Jail? She looked at the dead body on her bathroom floor then back to him, her fear palpable.
“Of course not. This was self defense.”
Casey stared at him for another beat and then dissolved into tears. “I want my mom.”
Mal’s gears ground to a halt. He didn’t know what to do with tears. He didn’t know how to reassure someone, least of all a strange child. Did he placate her? Tell her it would all be okay? Tell her that her mom was okay? Mal grimaced as he kneeled, blood soaking the knees of his jeans. He carefully removed the knife from Casey’s hands, wincing when he saw the cuts along her palms and fingers, likely from the knife slipping once it was coated in her attacker’s blood.
“Let’s get you out of this bathroom.”
He grabbed her beneath her arms and lifted her with little effort, swinging her until her feet were on the ancient hardwood floors outside the bathroom door. Nico had managed to get the door shut just enough to keep any onlookers from peering inside, but that was about it. Mal left Casey with Nico in the kitchen, watching from the bathroom doorway as Nico gently took her hands and stuck them beneath running water to assess her injuries.
Mal returned to the bathroom and the body collapsed on the floor. He pushed it over to get to his wallet, pulling it from his pocket and checking his ID. Eric Zhang. Zhang was the second most common name in Pearl River and told him nothing about their assailant. He dropped the wallet on the floor and made to stand, stopping short when he saw the ink peeking out from the fabric of his tank top. An uneasy feeling settled in his gut as he crouched back down, pushing the soiled cloth away to show the tattoo.
“Fuck.”
Mal stared at the ink, thoughts swirling. Why would these guys attack a teenage girl?
Nico returned to the doorway. “What’s wrong?” Mal leaned out of the way for Nico to see the tattoo. “No fucking way.”
Mal nodded. “We’re gonna need backup.”
Nico gave a low groan. “We’ve got to get Casey out of here. She’s gonna need stitches. We need Freckles.”
“Doyouwant to call the bat-phone or do you want me to?” Mal asked.
Nico made a whiny sound in the back of his throat, but he was already pulling out his phone, dialing Jericho and putting it on speaker phone.
Jericho answered on the second ring. “How bad is it?”
“Casey’s alive. Her attacker…not so much,” Nico said, glaring daggers at the corpse collapsed on the ground.
