“Be content it’s not Briar,” Halen says, reading my aversion. “Your room is connected to Dr. Verlice’s, and the conjoining door is to remain open and unlocked. Put your stuff away. We’re meeting up with the feds to head to the scene.”

“I all but inked my name in blood,” I say. “I’m yours to command.”

Dr. Verlice doesn’t take offense to this statement the way Halen does, but he ushers me toward the stairwell, making sure I know who’s in charge.

Once Halen confessed to the urgency of the case, admitting the potential was high the victims may still be recovered alive, events moved swiftly. My meager personal items were approved, packed, and taken to an airport, where an agent cuffed my ankle with a monitor.

I’m able to roam within the approved areas of the town, such as the crime scene, hotel, and main street vicinity, but one step past the figurative town limits, and I’ll be hunted like the FBI’s most wanted.

The rundown of the rules have one major overlap: if I fuck up, I’m sent back to Briar.

“Your actions will be on me,” Halen said on the flight. “I won’t let you fuck up.”

I got a deviant thrill out of her vow.

By the time the major players of the unit are assembled in a caravan of giant, gas-guzzling SUVs, I’ve gotten a feel for the dynamic of the town. Admittedly, I’d already done my homework years ago when news of the disappearances first went viral.

Hollow’s Row has a reputation for bad things.

Our vehicle lurches forward with Halen seated in the passenger seat, Special Agent Wren Alister behind the wheel, and me and my watch dog psychiatrist taking up the two backseats. Agent Alister has one hand on the wheel, the other tapping the keyboard of his console computer. Halen and Dr. Verlice both stare at their phones.

I’m the only one without a device to distract me from the scenic view as we cruise through the narrow, timeworn streets. It’s like a shadow has been cast over small-town USA, as if a dark shroud has fallen over the once-white picket fences and smiling faces.

The gothic revival homes are ancient themselves, some dating back two-hundred years. They appear to have been restored at one point, but where time couldn’t break the structures, loss and pain have chipped away at the classic veneer.

People drift like ghosts on the sidewalks. They are extensions of the dead houses, bound to the skeletons by memories, unable to depart their haunts.

My expertise is not in the social sciences, but even I can appreciate what hardship the disappearance of so many people from a tight-knit community can cause. Many family units lost at least one loved one. Thirty-three members of a family-focused society vanished from existence.

And now, as news of the discovered remains airs through the town’s corpses, these people lurk like animated zombies, their bated breath a death rattle waiting to exhale, to hear the names of those loved ones announced.

They wait for closure.

As our SUV coasts close to a freshly worn trail in the marsh, I look at Halen. “When are the DNA reports being made available?”

She turns my way, a curious furrow notched between her brows. She glances at Agent Alister, and I dislike that she feels she needs his permission. At his affirmative nod, she says, “The DNA of five remains were confirmed to be town locals.”

“That sets a very dark but redundant tone,” I say, and Halen frowns disapprovingly.

Five positive IDs should be all that’s needed to draw a likely conclusion to the rest of the eyes belonging to the missing. Let’s just refer to them as that from now on, for simplicity’s sake.

“I think referring to them as victims is preferable,” Halen remarks, and I realize I must have spoken my thoughts aloud.

I have to be more mindful of that. Spending six months isolated in my head, flushing antipsychotics down a toilet, has the ability to wreak havoc on one’s mental state.

Before I exit the vehicle, I reach down and rub at the irritating itch caused by the ankle bracelet. Agent Alister opens my door, and the pungent marsh scent smacks my face. As I allow my senses to acclimate, I notice another faint odor wafting through the tall reeds.

Death.

The townies call this area the killing fields because hunters discard their kills here.

But the town didn’t get its reputation because of the great hunting. After the mass disappearance, the past few years have been comparatively quiet. Before, however, Hollow’s Row earned the very clever nickname Hollow’s Death Row from neighboring cities due to the high fatality rate.

But that’s another story.

I trail behind Alister as he walks the well-worn path. Dr. Verlice stays behind with the SUV, catching up on “patient work”, but I suspect he doesn’t have the stomach for this part of the deal.

Halen stalks a short distance behind me, as if she’s fearful I’ll pull a Houdini and vanish right here in the killing fields.

“When I give my word, I honor it, Halen,” I say, stepping around the bleached bones of a stag carcass. “I’m not sprinting off into the forest to live off of berries and brambles. Don’t let my presence preoccupy your mind and deter your focus.”

“I’m capable of multitasking,” she says. “You just focus on the scene, Kallum. What you’re here to do.”

And as we come up on said scene, I remove my hands from my jacket pockets, letting them hang loosely at my sides. Caution tape wraps the trunks of several spindly trees, designating the crime scene within. Or what’s left of it.

“Would have been better if I could’ve viewed the scene before the uniforms and techs disassembled it.” I flex my fingers, picking up on the lingering energy of the site.

Halen moves to stand beside me. The hum of her nearness vibrates in my bones, distracting me, overpowering me. “Had you not been such a primadonna, you would have,” she says. “Yesterday.”

“Everything has a price, sweetness.” I give her my devilish smile before I duck under a tattered section of tape. “Especially brilliance.”

Her strained exhale reaches my ears as I move closer to the crop of dead-looking trees. A few straggler techs and officers are conducting useless tests on the trees and grass, but I push them out of my mind, trying to see only what was here before.

I locate the burnt reeds—the area of Halen’s interest—and stalk to that spot. As I crouch down to get a better look, Halen removes a tablet from her satchel.

“Analysis from the lab workup logged a substance on the reeds containing calcium carbonate, potassium sorbate, sulfur dioxide, glucose—”

“Sugar,” I say, touching one of the sooty reeds. I draw my fingers up the blade, and a smudge of sticky residue adheres to my fingertips. “Wine.”

“That’s what the lab concluded.” She scrolls the report. “A tawny mixture, most likely homemade. The analysis states—”

“Halen.” Her name is a guttural command that gains her full attention. “I’m not law enforcement or a lab geek. And neither are you.”

After a heated second where our gazes stay locked, she lowers the tablet. Understanding lights her hazel eyes, and she pushes the escaping white streak of hair behind her ear to break the intensity of the connection before she directs her focus on the fire pit.

“Just talk to me,” I say, my tone yielding. “Why did you first leap to an esoteric connection?” I wipe my fingers off on my black jeans, spreading the residue thin in search of any defining substances, such as blood.

Blood is to rites and ritual as lead is to alchemy. One claims to produce gold, the other to strengthen life force. But when both are present, it’s typically to provoke something very dark.

“The intricate yarn work,” Halen says, interrupting my thoughts and surprising me. “The craftsmanship feels ritualistic in nature. Why that particular thread? Why not rope? Or some other simpler, logical means of adhering the oculus? It’s almost ceremonial, ornate, like the act itself is sacred, and the exhibit is an offering or…”