But standing here? Watching her stare at me like I’m about to ruin her entire life? I can’t let it happen.
I step closer, voice low and steady, like I’ve rehearsed this my whole damn life. “Willow,” I say, tasting her name out loud forthe first time. “We need to clean this up. Now. I’m going to help you.”
Her breath jerks in, sharp as a blade. “Who the hell are you?”
I should lie. I should tell her I’m a cop, or a neighbor, or anyone but what I actually am—another freak who knows exactly how to bleach blood out of that oak.
Instead, I meet her eyes and give her the truth she needs in this second. “Someone who really doesn’t want to see you go to prison.”
Something flickers in her expression. Confusion. Suspicion. A thread of hope she’s trying like hell to strangle.
“Stay there,” she says, fixing me with a hard stare, daring me to run out of here. And that’s when she moves—snapping out of it. She turns, yanking open a cabinet. She rummages around inside, and a moment later, she produces another tarot deck. She shuffles through them without looking until one leaps out, landing on the floor with a soft smack. She crouches and grabs it, smirking to herself when she picks it up.
The King of Swords.
The same card, from a different deck, is lying in front of the guy’s dead body, accompanied by Death and Justice.
Willow crosses to the table, and I watch in morbid fascination as she dips the tip of her index finger in the pool of blood. And I realize exactly what this is when I watch her draw an X over the card in the man’s own blood: a trophy.
Only one kind of killer bothers to take or make a trophy. A fucking serial killer.
I’m standing here absolutely frozen by morbid fascination as I watch her return with the card and the rest of the deck to the cabinet. She tucks them away and then pulls out a brand-new tarp, still neatly folded in its packaging.
My eyebrows lift. She was prepared. I mean, damn, she has a murder tarp. Not a random bedsheet or a tablecloth, this isn’ta panic move. Adesignated tarp,new and ready in her cabinet, like she was expecting company tonight.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Willow has most definitely done this before.
The tarp snaps open with a practiced flick, edges unfolding in a neat square across the floor.
She steps to her victim’s side, but in avoiding walking over the tarp, her hip catches the edge of the table just barely, rattling it. Instantly, the dead guy slumps sideways, and neither of us moves fast enough. The bastard drops to the ground and hits the tile with a sharp thud. I cringe, praying he doesn’t start bleeding all over the floor. That will make clean-up so much more complicated.
Willow rounds to the body and squats. She glances at me, face pale but sharp. Gone is the frozen woman of a few moments ago. “If you’re going to be here where you don’t belong, don’t just stand there like some kind of murder voyeur.”
Holy shit. Why do her sharp words make my dick twitch even more?
I knock out of my own freeze and crouch, my hands hooking under his armpits. Willow grabs his ankles, and we lift. Shuffling sideways, every step of it awkward, we cross onto the tarp. The plastic crinkles as we drop the dead weight onto it, the sound loud and obscene.
Willow doesn’t flinch.
Next, she pulls out some rags, the kind you use once and then throw away. She also comes out with a bottle of cleaner, the serious kind. Damn. She’s good.
“Take care of the splatters on the floor,” she instructs as she heads for her blood-soaked table.
“Got any oxygenated bleach for the wood?” I suggest as I crouch and start cleaning. “Cut with water. Don’t use it straight, or it’ll discolor the wood. Might look suspicious.”
Her head snaps toward me, eyes narrowing. “Bleach on oak? I don’t think so. The stain’s dark. Hides everything. I just have to wipe it down.”
“Until someone gets curious,” I shoot back. I check the ingredients on the back of the bottle I’m holding. It is indeed the good stuff. I go to spray the tabletop when Willow throws a hand out, stopping me.
“No!” she says, glaring at me with actual annoyance. “You’ll fuck up the finish.”
Oh. Shelikesthe blood stains.
She snatches a rag, scrubbing fast, precise. “Trust me—no one’s curious about a tarot shop. Who would ever ask to look under the tablecloth?”
“A forensics team?” I point out dubiously.
