CHAPTER 1
GRAYSON
The head was ten feet from the body this time. It must’ve rolled in the sewer muck, because black and brown tar cakes the man’s eyes and nose, and twigs and leaves have crusted into his short hair. I tap my pen on my notepad, waiting for the coroner to finish up.
Last time, the severed head was next to the body. So either the killer flung it in a fit of rage, or an animal dragged it off and abandoned it. Wind? Slope? I jot down the possibilities. The forensic team will have a field day with this one.
They found the man’s body off Neponset River Trail. Early-December winter keeps many joggers from venturing out, daylight or not. We’re lucky a runner spotted it when they did. The river’s already half frozen, its banks dusted with snow and Boston’s city runoff.
I look around, blowing out a hot breath that curls into the chilled air in a pale cloud. It hangs there for a second before I step through it on my way to the car. It dissolves into nothing.
Westward, the sun dips closer to the trees along the horizon. Long shadows inch toward the crime scene outlined in yellow tape, and the sky smudges from the bruised gold to gray-blue.
When I reach my sedan, I catch my reflection in the window—wind-tossed hair, dim, tired eyes that echo the dusk setting in. Hell, this case is going to eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My stomach rumbles, reminding me I’ve skipped them all today.
I open the driver’s side door and grab my windbreaker to combat the cold air blanketing the trail. After I put it on, I reach inside, pulling out my pack of emergency Camels. I hit the bottom against my palm.
“Thought you’d quit?” Reed strolls up behind me.
I wrinkle my nose at him and shrug, slipping a cigarette between my lips. Then I fumble around for my lighter in the other pocket. Which … is missing.
“What the hell. Damn it,” I mumble, cigarette still pinched in my mouth.
Reed laughs. “Here.” He flicks his lighter, the flame dancing in the breeze.
I lean in and light my cigarette. The first drag hits like a sucker punch, all too familiar. My lungs don’t need this, but my nerves do. With the second drag, my thoughts slow and it eases the hellhole this case has been the past two months.
I’d sworn I was done. Two years back, I white-knuckled my way out of the habit when my niece was born. My parents and brother told me they didn’t want me around her if I was smoking, so like any good uncle, I gave it up. It was hell, but I did it. My lungs thanked me even if no one else did.
It didn’t matter in the end. They found other excuses to keep me away—my job is too dangerous, too many tattoos scare the baby, not at church enough. Eventually, they cut me off completely. And my parents? Spineless shitheads. They decided cutting contact with their oldest son was worth it to see their grandchild. They’ve always fawned over my younger brother, thought he could do no wrong. That favoritism never faded. It trickled into adulthood, and now, at my age of thirty-five, they’drather orbit my brother—the one with the wife, the baby, the life they approve of.
I don’t conform to their picture-perfect family. Never have. I’ve seen too much shit to sit in a pew with people who pretend to do good and then judge those actively out here trying to make the world a better place. All because they smoke and have a few tattoos?
I take another drag of my cigarette and watch the smoke tangle between my fingers. You know? Part of me doesn’t blame them. People look at the black hair, the shadowed eyes, the tattooed build better suited for breaking jaws than solving murders, and they decide who I am before I open my mouth. They expect a hothead, someone loud and reckless, but I learned quick in my years as a rookie cop that silence gets you more than muscle or power ever will. Ironically, it’s the stillness that’s more unsettling. The way my mind buries itself in the heaviness of the job. I wouldn’t want to be around me either. So it’ll be another Christmas alone. Another New Year’s in the office.
When the second murder with the same MO hit two months ago, we knew it was only a matter of time before a third body surfaced. Now, here we are with the fourth. Reed and I got the case after the first body turned up in downtown Beacon Hill. Boston’s sleepy historic area that doesn’t compute with gruesome murders and severed heads. After the second killing, even outside our jurisdiction, they kept us on it.
“Grayson, come on. The ME’s waving us over.” Reed jerks his thumb over his shoulder. His muddy-brown hair, gelled to perfection, doesn’t budge while mine beats against my forehead in the rising wind. His sharp green eyes flick to the cigarette in my hand. “You’re going to have to put it out, Gray.”
“No shit.” I toss it down and stomp it into the ground.
There aren’t any streetlights this far, and the nearest traffic hums from an overpass in the distance. No pedestrians. Nogawkers. Just the blue and red lights bleeding across the thin, uneven patches of grimy slush. It clings to my boots and splatters up on my suit pants with each step.
The body lies off the path, fancy boots askew, limbs twisted like a rag doll tossed aside. The torso’s intact, but as established, the head isn’t.
Reed and I duck under the tape perimeter.
“Based on temp and lividity, I’d say he’s been dead eight to twelve hours—probably dumped between three a.m. and five a.m. this morning,” the ME mutters, squatting low beside the torso. He uses his knuckles to push the wire frames back up his nose. As he moves, the green felt elf hat he’s wearing, tapered into a drooping tip, jingles.
Reed looks at me, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am. This is lucky. Every other body was found several days after death. This is the freshest.
“Same as the others. Head severed postmortem. No arterial spray, no defensive wounds.” He points a gloved finger at the headless neck. “Cut was clean. Most likely a sharp blade. I see no evidence of hesitation or any indication this was rushed due to a fit of rage. I’d say this was calculated, but I’ll know more once I can perform a full autopsy. Unfortunately, I don’t see any obvious cause of death, but it might be safe to assume intravenous drugs like last time.”
Reed nods and scratches notes down while I study the body.
“Gloves?” I ask.
ME Lloyd stands, pulls an extra pair from his coat pocket, and hands them to me. I wrestle them on then squat near the body. Not much blood. I lift the left arm, inspecting the fingernails. Dirt and debris cake the stubby, chewed-down nails. “The body was relocated postmortem. There’s no way he bled out here; it’s too clean.”
