Chapter 1
Alligators Are Helpful
WES
“This is messier than when we give them one of my pies.” I’m in the doorway of a Fort Lauderdale apartment, staring at a very dead middle-aged white man on a beige area rug in the living room.
Fuck me. This isn’t just messy. It’s a disaster.
“Seriously? Death by your mince pie is disgusting.” Noah casually lounges on the expensive gray leather couch, careful to avoid the red splatters that he put there during all the stabbing. Luckily, that should easily wipe off the leather. Noah pushes up his dark-rimmed glasses to rub his eyes. “They foam at the mouth.”
“At least with pie, there’s no blood,” I grumble, adding a swear under my breath. This carpet is no longer beige. “And you’re in no place to criticize my techniques right now.” I wave my hand at the pile of predator on the ground.
This one was wealthy, and he’d lure young immigrant women to this shitty apartment where he’d beat and fuck them, and recently escalated to killing. He liked Venezuelan and Colombian women in particular.
“Did you fly down here to lecture? Or help?” Noah glares at me from across the room.
“Both. On the beige rug, Noah? Really?” I gesture at the large area rug that’ll have to be disposed of.
“Well. It didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped.”
“Oh really? You had an actual plan for where the blood would splatter?” I cross my arms and arch an eyebrow.
“A semblance of one.”
“Be serious right now. What’s the plan?”
This morning, my brother snuck out of our little Maine lake town, drove to the Boston airport, and got on a plane to Florida. He waited until I was elbow-deep in testing out a tweaked apple pie recipe for the Portland Springfest pie competition in March. I wasn’t paying attention to my phone and must’ve missed the geo alert notifying me that Noah was out of the area. He’d counted on that. As soon as I realized it, I raced to follow him. He’d probably counted on that as well.
“I don’t have a revised plan just yet. But I’d have figured it out without you, you know.” He yawns to emphasize how unconcerned he is.
“You would have, huh.” For fuck’s sake.
“And anyway, I have a psycho younger brother who obsessively tracks me, so I knew he’d come eventually to help sort it out. That’s you, by the way.”
I close my eyes for a beat and pray for strength. Protecting my brother from himself is almost a full-time job.
“Are you sure there aren’t cameras?” I say when I’m ready to face this.
He shrugs.
“Did you check the hallway?”
Noah blinks and pushes his glasses up the bridge of hisnose. One look at him and you’d think he has a boring desk job as an accountant or financial advisor, not a side hustle as a serial killer.
I swear to god.
“Not yet.”
I just stare at him.
“It’s an old-ass building. There’s no way there are security cameras.”
While Noah talks and justifies why he went off plan, I’m coming up with one that’ll take care of this mess and get us back to Maine.
It takes three hours to thoroughly clean the apartment and drag the man’s body and heavy rug out of the building and into the rental car for disposal. Noah was probably right—there was only one camera in the stairwell, and the lens was smashed to bits. I hacked into the city’s closest street-view cameras, which are on a bigger road a few hundred feet from the apartment building’s entrance. I don’t think they would catch anything considering the distance and angle of the cameras, but just in case. By the time I’ve done the best I can to cover our tracks, it’s the middle of the night. Dark is helpful cover when you’re filling a trunk with a body and blood-splattered rug.
“You’re getting sloppy.” I let out a long breath and lower the window in the rental car as I pull away from the apartment building. This was a mess, but I’m enjoying the warm Florida air, even in the middle of the night. February is cold as fuck in Maine.
