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“My wife,” he sobbed, trying to push past the officers to get to the house. “My wife is in there. Please. I have to go back in.”

Josie tore herself from the spectacle and made her way over to Conlen. Gretchen trudged along beside her, darting glances at Dean.

“Why is Mr. West not wearing any clothes?” Josie asked Conlen without preamble.

“He says he was out on a job. Some monster toilet clog. He told us he came home covered in shit so he stripped in the garage, threw his clothes right into the washer, and went inside. He noticed several things out of place. Thrown on the floor, broken. Went upstairs and found his wife deceased in the primary bedroom.” Conlen took a quick look around and lowered his voice. “Brennan and I got here first. He was sitting on the front steps like that. Kept going on about how ‘he got her, he killed her.’”

“Who’s he?” Gretchen asked.

Josie had a sick feeling in her stomach that they both knew exactly who “he” was.

“Let’s just say that me and Brennan cleared the house when we got here. The wife? Someone beat the living daylights out of her. She’s got ligature marks on her neck and lipstick smeared across her mouth.”

“Son of a bitch,” Josie said under her breath.

Gretchen frowned. “You call the ERT?”

“Yeah. Dr. Feist, too.”

It would be hours before Josie and Gretchen would be allowed into the house. The two women looked at one another and Gretchen nodded her agreement to Josie’s unspoken question. Together, they walked over to where two of the patrol officers held Dean by his upper arms while the third talked quietly but firmly to him.

“Get him into a cruiser,” Josie said. “Take him to the stationhouse. We’ll talk with him there. His brother is at the end of the driveway. Tell him to go home.”

Josie seriously doubted Carter would go home. She fully expected him to be pacing the lobby of the stationhouse whenever she and Gretchen returned.

“My wife!” Dean shouted as Officer Brennan herded him toward one of the cars. “He killed her. That Last Kiss bastard killed my wife.”

His voice was hoarse from screaming. He was a pathetic sight. Practically naked. Locks of his sandy hair spiked in every direction. Sweat wicked his chest hair to his skin. A dark, grimy substance streaked his forearms. His face was swollen and red from crying. There was a brokenness in his eyes that would haunt Josie’s dreams. He looked simultaneously like a lost little boy and the kind of drunk and disorderlies that patrol dumped in the holding cells every weekend to sleep off their benders.

“Find him some clothes, too,” Josie told Brennan.

Thirty

Josie used the arm of her white Tyvek suit to wipe at the perspiration on her forehead. She had been unpleasantly sweaty even before putting the suit on, especially since she and Gretchen had spent the hours waiting for the ERT to finish processing the scene helping the uniformed officers canvass neighbors and acquiring whatever security footage said neighbors had for the past several hours. Dean and Kirstie West didn’t have home security cameras.

“Let’s go,” said Dr. Feist, hoisting her bag over her shoulder.

Josie and Gretchen followed her into Dean and Kirstie West’s house. Lucky for them, the Wests had central air conditioning. They stopped just inside the door, taking in the destruction. The cheery pastel accents of the living room were in stark contrast to the splintered coffee table, the toppled television console, a cell phone with a shattered screen on the hardwood floor and an overturned lamp with its shade flattened by what was a man’s boot, given the faint outline of treads imprinted on the fabric. An evidence marker stood beside it. Anya made her way up the steps to find Kirstie’s body while Josie and Gretchen took a detour toward the back of the house. The kitchen was in better shape except for a broken window beside the back door. The yellow curtain had been torn from its fixtures. It lay on the floor, also bearing a partial boot print. Another evidence marker rested near it.

“He breaks into the kitchen,” Josie said, moving to the window and turning to face the room. A mug of coffee had been overturned on the kitchen table. One of the chairs was knocked over. “She sees him, jumps up and runs toward the front door.”

Gretchen returned to the living room. “He catches up to her. They struggle. The cell phone is wrecked.”

Josie went to the landing of the steps. “She either runs upstairs or he marches her upstairs.”

“To the bedroom,” Gretchen said. “We still don’t know how it went down with the other victims. Did he chase them or force them to their bedrooms, or get them in there under pretense?”

“Meaning with his first victims, he might have charmed his way into their bedrooms only to kill them?”

Gretchen nodded. “That’s one possibility. Or he killed them somewhere else in their homes and staged them on their beds.”

Regardless, his behavior had changed in the past week. He hadn’t been careful or meticulous here.

The Wests’ house was small. The second floor had a landing rather than a hallway. Standing in the center of it, Josie could see into each of the three rooms. A bathroom, a bedroom that appeared to have been turned into a crafting area, and the primary bedroom, where Anya was moving around, taking photos. The walls were painted robin’s egg blue, contrasting with bright yellow bedding. Josie and Gretchen slipped inside, staying close to the wall while Anya worked. The queen-sized bed took up most of the room. Sprawled across it was Kirstie West. Her final moments had clearly been far more violent than every Last Kiss Killer victim before her.

The purplish welt around her neck was the least noticeable given her other injuries. A patch of her scalp had been torn away. Lacerations sliced the skin of her brow and cheekbones. Her nose was smashed in, no more than a pulpy, bloody mess. Her cheeks, neck, hair, white tank top, and the bedding beneath her were stained crimson. A broken tooth lay next to her head. Her mouth twisted open, jaw dislocated.

More disturbing than all of that was that the killer had cleaned her mouth and then applied lipstick before smearing it. Josie could see the white of Kirstie’s skin where her blood had been wiped away. She scanned the room again. On the floor near the head of the bed was an evidence marker beside a crumpled, bloodstained wash rag. Another marker sat near the cap of Luxe Glimmer’s Devil Divine lipstick. The golden halo was unmistakable. A third marker stood in front of the casing with its devil’s tail dipping into flames. It was cracked in several places, as though the killer had gripped it so tightly that it fractured. The lipstick was blunted and misshapen.