Reese

“Oh, I think there is more than one. A lot more. And the weapons might have ended some of them, but they were all consistently beaten too.”

I scan some of the photos and look up at Sugar.

“Okay, seems like a police matter, but I’m listening.”

“That’s just it. They couldn’t find anything. Since nobody has turned up fitting the MO in the last year, they are assuming the person responsible is dead or in prison. Only one of my old contacts called me and said not everything is as it seems.

“Bodies might not be turning up, but an alarming number of vagrants are disappearing.”

“I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and point out that, as vagrants, they could have just moved on. But I’m sure you’ve thought of this yourself.”

She nods before sliding out a photo from the bottom of the file. I look into the jaded eyes of a boy who looks like he’s barely eighteen, and yet his eyes tell me he has seen more than anyone his age should have.

“This is Michael Jones. He’s a seventeen-year-old runaway who has a semi-permanent spot down by the park on Lexington. He hasn’t been seen in six months, but my source saw him eight weeks ago being beaten to death in an underground fighting ring while people cheered.”

I blink as I process her words before I can open my mouth. She slides me another photo.

“Melanie Jenkins. She’s nineteen and turns tricks over on Fenton. Her pimp, Benny, says she went off with a client three months ago and hasn’t been seen since. She was also seen fighting. Michael killed her before meeting his own end.”

“It’s tragic, Sugar, but not something we haven’t seen before. These kids are desperate. They’ll do anything for money. It’s the only way they can survive out there.” I stroke my finger down Melanie’s cheek, remembering all too well how brutal the streets could be.

“Michael maybe. Though from what everyone said, he was a jumpy kid who kept to himself. But Melanie was bone-deep terrified of fighting. It’s why Benny was so protective of her. Loud voices and the sound of fists hitting skin was enough to put her in a catatonic state.”

Sugar hesitates to continue, so I brace myself, ready for the blow.

“She was beaten every day of her life, both her and her mother, until she turned fifteen, and she was beaten so badly that she was in a coma for two months. When she woke up, it was to find both her mother and father dead in a clean-cut case of murder-suicide. She went into the system with nothing but a borrowed set of clothes and a debilitating case of PTSD.”

I swallow hard, memories surfacing of my sister Amy’s smiling face before her eyes turn glassy and unfocused.

“You okay?”

I take a deep breath before nodding. Sugar is one of the few people that know my history. She dragged me off the streets and gave me a home, a sanctuary where nobody could hurt me. But more than that, she taught me how to be strong, making sure I would never be weak and useless again. I owe her everything, so I wouldn’t bullshit her now with a lie.

“I’m okay. It just hits a little too close to home.”

“I know, and I wouldn’t have said anything, but it’s important. There is no way that girl would volunteer to fight, no matter what the prize might be.”

I let her words sink in, a dark feeling spreading across my gut.

“You think she was taken against her will? To what? Fight in some underground club? That doesn’t make much sense. She wouldn’t be a worthy opponent for any fighter, and I don’t say that to be cruel. She wouldn’t stand a chance. The crowds at these places are brutal. They’d want a bloody fight, not a slapping match that would be over before they finished their drinks.”

Sugar lifts her hands and shrugs. “That’s the part I don’t get either. But it doesn’t change the fact that she was forced to do it somehow and for some reason, we’re not seeing yet.”

I chew on my lips, trying to shift the pieces around, but nothing fits together.

“Has her body been found yet?”

Sugar shakes her head. “Neither has Michael’s, but my contact at the police station says they haven’t noticed an increase in vagrant deaths. If anything, there is a decline.”

“So there is an increase in vagrants disappearing but not in bodies being found. If they are being killed, then where the hell are the bodies being dumped? Maybe we’re trying to tie this together, but the reason it won’t fit is that it’s two separate cases. It’s hard to prove murder with no bodies.”

“Maybe, but my gut screams otherwise.” Sugar’s gut is rarely wrong.

“Which means if it’s the same person taking these people, they have changed their method of disposal. They’re evolving,” I muse.

She nods. “I think—and it’s only a theory—I think these people were being forced to fight each other to the death, but it’s the one running the show that’s the real evil here. I think he’s a serial killer, and this is all just a game to him.”

I lean back and blow out a breath. The last thing we need is a serial killer.