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  Shit. Levi glanced around. Death Valley was hot, basically the middle of nowhere, and there was no one around to see anything. Except hang gliders apparently. He looked back at the remains.

  “Male or female?”

  The ME glanced at him, then pointed to the pile. “See that?”

  Levi curled his lip. “Male.”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ve all been male,” he said to himself.

  The ME stood and went to his assistant. “Go back to the van and bring the tarp and the cart.” Over his shoulder, Levi watched the assistant wander off and the ME come back to his side. “I don’t know you,” he said again.

  Levi stood, careful to move slowly so the ME wouldn’t freak out at his size. “My name is Levi.”

  “Just Levi?”

  Levi paused. “For now.”

  The ME wasn’t intimidated by him. Levi respected him for that. Hell, this man in front of him had probably seen the worst people could do to each other and was still doing the job. But Levi wouldn’t give in. Not until he knew who was behind these murders.

  “The mayor is an asshole,” the ME said abruptly. “The sheriff’s an alright guy, but the mayor orders him around like a slave.”

  Levi nodded. “I got that impression.”

  “He’s also got a hard on for Trish. Hates her. Wants her gone.”

  Now Levi frowned. “Why?”

  “Who knows? Because she’s a woman?” The ME shook his head and stripped off his gloves. “My loyalty in this investigation is to these victims. Then Trish. Then the sheriff. You’re coming in dead last, buddy.”

  Levi pulled his sunglasses off his shirt and put them on. “Understood.”

  “All I can tell you is that this is some sick, twisted mind. And there are a lot of sick, twisted minds around here. More than you’d think.”

  “In Death Valley? Or the world?” Levi asked.

  The ME snorted. “In Magnolia, the county seat. Be prepared for it.”

  “I heard it’s a small town—”

  “Small town doesn’t cover it,” the ME interjected. “You’d be wise to help Trish catch this murderer, then get yourself out of town.”

  Levi narrowed his eyes. “You threatening me, Doc?”

  “Hell no. I’m warning you. This place is crazier than a pack of loons.”

  Levi heard a rattling behind him and saw the assistant coming back with a cart and the tarp the ME had asked for. “Warning taken.”

  The ME leaned close. “She won’t let me warn her. So keep an eye on her, all right?”

  Levi followed the track of the doctor’s eyes and saw Trish scanning the ground, flashlight trained on the sand, walking slowly. All that dark hair, the round cheeks, the rounded ass, shoved into a monochromatic pants suit and flats. She looked capable. She looked out of her league, judging by the body.

  “I will,” Levi answered, long after the ME had walked away to deal with the body. He stood there, like an idiot, watching as Trish directed traffic and searched for clues.

  Levi watched the ME and the assistant take care of the remains, zipping it into a tarp and hauling it onto the cart. The wheels squeaked as they walked away and another deputy came up to snap pictures of the bloody ground.

  None of this was right. Not Trish being here, not the bodies, not the ME with his warning.

  Levi had a feeling he didn’t have long to figure it out.

  Chapter Three

  After the crime scene cleanup and the deputies had all been given their assignments, Trish walked over to her car, overheated and irritated.

  She stopped short.

  Levi leaned against the hood of her car, his ass parked there like he owned it. So what that he was handsome? She bet that full beard made him hotter than hell out here, she thought mean spiritedly.

  She shuffled forward again, her camisole sticking to her, her panties sticking to her, and her feet aching. She headed right for him and he didn’t move a muscle. Just sat there with his stupid sunglasses on and his stupid massive arms crossed over his chest, his stupid ankles crossed over each other.

  She stopped in front of him.

  The wind had picked up and it whipped around them now. His hair blew into his face and he hooked it back with a casual move. He nodded to her.

  “Detective.”

  Trish heaved a sigh. “Yeah. You.”

  He held his hands out to her. “Hey, I’m not here to step on your toes—”

  “You mentioned that.”

  “Just here to help catch a murderer.”

  “Because they don’t think I can do it,” she shot back.

  He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest again.

  She wanted to throw her flashlight at him, hit him in those sunglasses and crack his nose in two. Instead she pulled her keys out. “I’ve got to stop at the office.”

  “My car’s parked there.”

  “Good because that’s the only place you were going with me,” she muttered, stomping around to the driver’s side. She wrenched the door open and climbed inside, irritated that her slacks stuck to the back of her knees. In a highly undignified, unladylike move, she plopped into her seat and slammed the door. She started the car and flicked the air to the lowest setting. At this point, turning it on high would just cause hot air to cascade over her. The car was already an oven, no reason to make it worse.

  Trish put her hands over the vents and lowered her head. Tears threatened as she sat there. For the victim, yeah, but for herself, too. Because she couldn’t get away from who Trish Redding was and who Trish Redding would always be. Now her boss didn’t trust her. The mayor freaking hated her. And this hunk of man candy was here to show her up and send her home like a dog with her tail between her legs. She didn’t think she could survive that devastation again.

  Someone knocked on the passenger’s window.

  Trish lifted her head and looked over. Oh, yeah. The man candy.

  She moved slowly and hit the unlock button for the doors.

  He opened the door and folded himself into the seat, then reached between his legs to pop the seat back as far as it would go. Then he leaned back against the headrest and sighed, his eyes closed.

  “Let’s just sit here a minute,” he said.

  Trish didn’t answer.

  “Fucking hot,” he muttered.

  “It’s Death Valley.”

  “Yeah. Fucking hot.”

  “Did you think it would be a picnic?”

  He sighed and ran his hand through that swath of long hair again. “No, I didn’t think it would be that.”

  Trish faced straight ahead. The heat had gotten to her today, that’s why she thought this guy was attractive. Normally she didn’t let things like that settle in her mind. She definitely didn’t think about it, not at a crime scene. Especially when this man was the enemy. That damn mayor.

  “What do you do in real life?” she demanded. Because really, if this jerk was going to stick around, she might as well know something about him.

  “Surely there’s a dossier on your desk about me.”

  “Humor me,” she retorted.

  He chuckled. “All right. I own a pawn shop in Vegas.”

  She raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him. “Really? And that qualifies you to come and work on unusual murders?”

  “You didn’t ask what I used to do. Just what I do now.”

  “Are we going to have to get technical?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know. Are we?” he shot back.

  Trish looked away. She placed her hands back on the vents, waiting for cooler air. Her pride was hurt, sure, but this guy rubbed her the wrong way, too. He was too tall, too built, too…much.

  “I used to work for the government,” he said gently.

  Trish refused to respond.

  “Not in an official capacity, of course. It’s not like I’m FBI or any kind of law enforcement. I’m a professor, well, I was a professor in college. Burned out—flared out, actuall
y—and moved on.”

  “What did you teach?” she asked unhappily.

  “Theology.”

  “For that they called you in for murders?”

  “Satanic rituals and murders, yeah.”

  Trish made a face. “That’s not what we have here.”

  “What makes you sure?”

  She refused to make eye contact, but she still saw him, how could she not? Sitting in her front seat, all big and huge and muscle-y. She shook her head. “I just…I don’t know. I just know.” She sighed and turned the air higher. “That’s probably why the mayor called you in. It’s an angle I looked at and rejected after the first murder. He’s certain we’ve got witches and warlocks and Satanists in town.”

  She slouched back in her seat and took in the panoramic view around them. The beauty of Death Valley lulled her into a false comfort. So she forced herself to keep going. To keep thinking about that poor first victim. “After we found the first body the mayor showed up at the office, wanted the murderer found. Like we weren’t working on it. He demanded that we look into the Satanist angle. Said that based on the crime scene pictures he was certain it was a cult.”

  “I saw the pictures.”

  His low voice vibrated over her nerve endings. “And?”

  He shook his head. “Not Satanists.”

  “Did you tell the mayor that?” she demanded.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t want to hear it.”

  Trish’s mouth fell open. “That’s it? You just didn’t tell him your opinion because you knew he didn’t want to hear it?”

  “Hey. I know what he wants me to find. If I can look at pictures and immediately tell him that I don’t see what he does, do you think he’d let me come out here? Just because you don’t have Satanists in black capes running around doesn’t mean you don’t have a serial killer.”

  Trish floundered. She stared at him like he was insane. “He’s trying to take my investigation.”

  “Your bigger problem is three dead bodies, not the status of your investigation. You think your pride is more important than that?”

  Trish’s heart thundered in her ears. Anger seeped through her pores. She watched as he leaned his head back again. He had no idea. NO idea what his being here meant. She turned the air conditioning to high and put the car in gear.

  “Trish—”

  To get him to shut up she turned on the radio. Loud. And pointedly ignored him. The car’s wheels spit gravel behind them and she turned in the direction of the highway. Ignoring him as much as she could ignore a seven foot giant in her front seat. The jerk.

  She let the nonsensical news stories flow over her. There was bad in this world. There was bad in Death Valley. So she kept her car radio tuned to entertainment news. None of those crazy ass celebrities cared. They worried about awards and dresses and who was friends with whom. Not dead bodies mutilated and dismembered, cast aside like a sack of meat.

  Levi moved to turn the radio down and she slapped his hand away.

  “We are getting confirmation that celebrated and award-winning director Ezra Rubenstein has died. He was found in his home early this morning by a housekeeper. The 9-1-1 call was discreet and the news media didn’t get a hold of the information until the afternoon. His death is being categorized as a heart attack. Mr. Rubenstein directed over thirty films and won Best Director twice. He is survived by six daughters, two of which still lived at home, but were not home this weekend. His most famous daughter is Allyson Hawes, herself an accomplished actress. Mr. Rubenstein was sixty-four. Details of his funeral will be released as soon as they are known.”

  “Well, that’s sad,” Trish remarked.

  “Good director,” Levi agreed. He leaned forward again and this time she let him turn the radio down. “Can we start over?”

  “Is this where you give me the speech about how three people are dead and we need to come together to help find their killer?”

  He grinned. “Something like that.”

  Trish squeezed the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “I’ve tried to make this town better.”

  “I know, I know—”

  “No, you don’t,” she interrupted. “I came here to make a difference, and then right after I get here, a man is elected that sincerely hates women in any capacity other than his mother. I can’t fight that on my own. Especially when he drags theology professors to town claiming that they can help with murder cases.”

  Levi frowned. “You don’t think I can help?”

  “Did you hear the part about the fucking mayor?” she demanded. “Screw loose. Seriously.”

  Levi leaned back against the seat, now facing her. “You don’t think the mayor—”

  “No.” Trish snorted. “No, far from it. But we’ve got bad elements in our town. And we’ve got strange elements in our town. He wants them all to be guilty so he can be a hero. And I’m not going to just start arresting people to make him happy. He doesn’t like that.” She paused a moment. “He doesn’t like me, either.”

  “Why?”

  They hit the highway, Trish pausing to look both ways before bumping off the gravel and onto the pavement. She headed left, toward town. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s none of your business.” She reached over to turn the radio back up, the soothing gentle words of the Hollywood news report washing over her. She didn’t listen, none of it mattered, but she still kept it loud. The last thing she wanted was another conversation with Levi. Actually, the last thing she wanted was to like Levi, or depend on him, or even think that he could help her.

  She wanted him to go away.

  Chapter Four

  Magnolia, California, had eight hundred or so people living in it. At least, that’s what the sign said. Levi didn’t believe it when he’d driven into the town this morning and he didn’t believe it as Trish drove them back there now.

  He also didn’t think a magnolia had ever grown in this armpit.

  Trish drove them straight to the sheriff’s office: a red brick structure that shared a parking lot with a red brick town hall. Across the street from the two red brick buildings were two others, both a light tan, one with a post office on the ground floor and the other with a lawyer’s office. In the middle of the street was an 8’x8’ raised plat of grass that housed a non-working fountain.

  Levi rolled his eyes at the monstrosity as they drove past it. A fucking fountain in fucking Death Valley.

  Trish pulled in and shut the engine off. “I’m not sure which is your car…”

  A clear sign for him to go. Fat chance. She’d effectively silenced him with the loud radio and if he never heard another fucking Hollywood socialite’s name again, it would be too soon. But Trish needed to share her files with him. All he’d seen was what the mayor had chosen to show him, he was sure there was more.

  “We have work to do,” he told her, shoving open his door.

  The heat was oppressive, but so much better here than out in the desert. He still tore off his suit jacket as soon as he was standing. He slammed the car door behind him and stalked off toward the sheriff’s office.

  Fuck if he’d wait for her.

  He didn’t look to see if she followed, no doubt she did, but he wanted inside of air conditioning right now. He blew in through the doors and past an unmanned desk, around a counter and directly to Trish’s office.

  When he’d come to town he’d met the mayor and the sheriff here. They’d given him a “tour” of the office. Levi hadn’t lied when he said he’d helped law enforcement before, but he’d never been called out to a shitty hole-in-the-wall place like this before. He didn’t even do this anymore. What the fuck was he doing here? He was supposed to help look for relics, supposed to man the fucking online auctions and underground deals on the dark web. No, instead he gets a fax with grainy photos and about fifteen words and he hightails it to Death Valley.

 
; He tossed his jacket onto one of the two chairs facing Trish’s desk. He ran his hands through his hair and tried to contain his frustration. Sure these were horrible murders. Sure some shit was going on. Sure some innocents were dying. But he had other things to do and yet here he was, trying to help a woman who didn’t want the help, trying to help a town that didn’t know when to die, trying to be a fucking hero.

  He spun around, his hands still in his hair.

  And froze.

  Trish was a goddamn marvelous detective.

  He dropped his hands and went closer to the wall. Trish had filled the wall with corkboard and covered it with her case. There were 8x10 glossy photos of the crime scenes, even photos of those that found bodies or came to gawk. Every picture was labeled in a neat, bubbly hand. There was a large sheet of paper where she’d written Victim #1 and all the information she knew. Then one for Victim #2. Levi stood there, dumbstruck. Funny how the mayor hadn’t shown him this.

  “Oh, yeah. My wall.”

  He spun to see her standing in the doorway, her brow knitted in concentration. Her big blue eyes were glued to the wall. She came forward and tapped the first victim’s picture.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this fresh and this macabre. One time, when I was a rookie detective, we caught a man who’d just killed his wife. She was still warm, still bleeding, but already dead. That was probably the closest I’ve come to fresh. But this…” She shook her head. “The blood was still wet.”

  He looked down at her, at the crown of her head, the thick brown hair and the massive elastic band that held her tresses in a ponytail. For a second, he wondered what all that thick hair looked like around her face.

  “We still don’t have names,” she continued, oblivious to Levi’s stare. “We know all the victims are male, but that might not mean anything. Not a lot of people hitchhike through that area and the missing person reports haven’t dredged up anything new over the last few days.”

  “No one missing from town?”

  She shook her head. “No. And believe me, if someone was missing from town, about half the town would know. The other half would find out when they talked to their neighbor.” She sighed. “The ME doesn’t even know race. Teeth are gone. Skin is flayed off of fingers, so we can’t get prints. This is probably the most heinous thing I’ve ever seen.”