Cellar Door

That’s what I’m doing now.

It didn’t take long to secure the scene, to make sure the blood was wiped clean on the Dumpster. Thunderstorms don’t frequent Seattle, but this year is a rarity. They’re calling it The Year of the Storm. And it makes for ideal counter forensic measures.

The rain washed away the evidence of the altercation. After I moved the silver Skyline inside the warehouse, my face kept obscured, I got rid of the surveillance videos. They’ll be left to wonder what happened to Keller. But hey, they still have their imports.

I’m tempted to take the Skyline. It’s beautiful, and would make a great addition to my collection, but it’s also rare. Easily traceable.

Now, more than ever, I need to be invisible.

I would’ve been done a lot quicker had I not had to clean up the cop’s mess. Makenna did follow Keller. I found a GPS tracker—the cheap kind PIs use—underneath his black Audie. I took the tracker and her car and drove to her apartment.

I’m buzzing as I ride the elevator up. There’s an almost elated high orbiting my head. It’s right there, the answer—but I’ve learned to be cautious. Question everything. Besides, even if the lead doesn’t pan out, you want to know every detail about your enemy. Even if she’s a tiny, smoldering-sexy private investigator who appears harmless. The truth is, she’s the most dangerous type. Completely unassuming until she sticks a knife in your jugular.

She could be one of them; another hired gun sent to take me out. I almost want to laugh, she’s so small, but that’s the point. I didn’t see her coming.

They’ve failed at that tactic once already. Keller missed the mark six months ago, and I had to lay low until I could pick up his trail again. I didn’t even discover Myer was a major player until the hit was put on him.

It could be a coincidence that the woman happened to be working for Myer’s wife and just happened to witness a murder. Her cop instincts might have led her to follow Keller and try to make an arrest herself…

But what I saw last night wasn’t proof of that.

She held her gun with purpose. She trembled not from the cold, sheeting rain—but from the choice she was making in that moment. She was intent to kill Keller.

The why is what I need to uncover.

I use her keys to unlock her apartment door and enter. The space is open and bare. Cement and metal. A typical Seattle loft, with sparse furnishings. There’s a bed in one corner and a glass desk situated in front of a bank of windows. I start there.

I search the drawers, skimming over client files until I find Jennifer Myer. Within, there’s a background check and a list of automobiles. It seems clean. Legit. I don’t like it. Something’s missing.

I slap the file on the desk and start to pull out the next, and my gaze lands on a picture frame buried at the bottom of the drawer.

As I unearth the frame, a hot rush of fury sears the back of my neck. Makenna poses before the police precinct, a beautiful smile on her face, and next to her—with his arm draped around her slim shoulders—is Detective Royce Hudson.

My knuckles ache as my grip tightens on the frame. The bottom reads: Partners in crime.

“Son of a bitch.”

Makenna was a detective with Major Crimes in the Seattle PD. Not only that, she was his partner. I’ve heard her name before, I’ve read the na

me—Detective Makenna Davies—written in reports dictated by her partner, and yet I was too fucking jacked last night to make the damn connection.

That’s where I’ve seen her face.

I can visualize her now, kneeling over him, her dark hair drenched by rain, covered in mud, trying to save his life. I looked into her eyes at that moment…and that’s what I recognized in those dark pools last night, why I was so compelled by her.

I made a mistake.

I left her there. Alive.

The glass frame cracks and slices my hand. A sharp pain fissures across my palm. I lay the frame down and calmly stalk to the kitchen area. I grab her limited cleaning supplies and make quick work of erasing any trace of myself. Then I pocket the frame.

Just the thought of Hudson stokes the fire.

The searing pain is never deeper than a scrape below—that raw torment. It’s pitted deep within my soul, if there is such a thing. Pain makes all this real. Without my agony, I’m a blank slate, waiting to be imprinted on.

Pain made me into the monster Makenna witnessed last night. Her voice rattles around my head, her revulsion stark, crystalline. I have the scars to prove her insult right.

And because of this, I make my next move with zero hesitancy.