“Objection,” the prosecutor speaks up. “Is Mr. Crosby done questioning the witness, your honor?”

“Sustained.” The judge rules in the state’s favor. “Counsellor, do you have any further questions for this witness? Let’s keep it on point.”

“My apologies, your honor,” Crosby says, then gives me a leering smile. “Just one last question for Miss St. James. Is there any evidence—any DNA, fingerprints, hair, fibers…anything at all—that points to my client as the culprit of this vicious, heinous crime?”

A lawyer never asks a question they don’t already assume they know the answer to. The case against Kallum was built on circumstancing facts. With no DNA, no witnesses, the detectives and federal agents had to take motive into account.

Wellington’s wife was looked at hard, but a cheating spouse offing her husband was the weaker motive compared to professional rivalry and revenge. Wellington had insulted Kallum during his keynote speech at the university just hours before his murder.

Then there was Kallum’s confession to the knowledge of the weapon—the lug wrench from Wellington’s own car. He had been first attacked in the parking lot.

And Kallum had no alibi.

Those key pieces narrowed the scope on him when the state was clambering for an arrest to be made.

Then there’s the other, more allusive reasoning.

My gut instinct.

After investigating too many macabre crime scenes, I’ve walked in the footsteps of many killers to build profiles, and I can sense when I’m in the presence of a killer.

The intense and alarming feeling I get when I’m around Kallum bleeds all rational thought and reason from my mind, leaving me with only one conclusion: “Professor Locke committed this crime,” I say, talking around the lawyer and his question. “Physical evidence cannot always be recovered, but the fact is, if you let this sociopath walk out of this courtroom, you’ll be letting a killer walk free.”

The judge raps her gavel on the block. “Miss St. James, I expect better behavior from a professional in my courtroom. Are you through with your outbursts?”

“Sorry. Yes, your honor.”

“Good,” the judge states. “The jury will disregard the witness’s statement.”

A fiery ache lodges in my throat as I meet Kallum’s watchful eyes. His mouth tips into a cruel, lopsided smirk.

Crosby rests his palms on the witness stand, drawing my attention. “Miss St. James, you’re a crime-scene criminologist, correct?”

I reach for a stable breath. “Yes.” He knows this.

“You profile, for lack of better terminology, the scene of a crime.”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s fair to say you’re not technically qualified to analyze my client’s mental state”—he makes air quotes; why, I’m not sure—“am I correct?”

And I realize I declared Kallum a “sociopath” in open court.

“I do hold a doctorate in psychology and a doctorate in criminology,” I say, glancing at the twelve members of the jury. “But no, I don’t conduct psychological evaluations.”

“Do these doctorates allow you to have your own patients?”

My eyebrows draw together. “I don’t—”

“Let me rephrase,” Crosby says. “Do you have, or have you ever had, patients within your own practice, Miss St. James?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I see. Thank you for your time. No further questions.”

I go to stand, and the state’s attorney rises. “I’d like to cross, your honor.” The judge allows, and the lawyer stays standing at the table. “Just one question, Miss St. James. All credentials aside, why are you certain the defendant is guilty of this crime?”

I remove my gaze from the court. I don’t look at the crime-scene images, or the lawyers, or Kallum. I look only at the jury, making eye contact with a few. I’m being seen , being heard , stepping out of the shadows to ensure the people tasked with a difficult burden understand exactly who Kallum is.

“If you can’t convict Kallum Locke beyond a shadow of a doubt for this crime,” I say to them, “but you see the danger in allowing him to walk free, then it’s your responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

While the defense attorney argues for my statement to be stricken from the record, and the judge instructs the jury to disregard what I’ve said, I step down from the witness stand and head toward the isle.

There’s no taking back what I said. My testimony will be omitted, but every person seated in this courtroom heard.

As I walk past the defendant’s table, I can feel his proximity like a black hole, his pull like the gravity of the moon shifting the tide. I purposely keep my gaze aimed ahead, refusing to meet his eyes as I draw closer to the gate.

I’m almost free, until his hand reaches out and his fingers brush mine. The feel of his skin is a heated current, snapping like a live wire finding a connection.

My gaze crashes into his long enough for his words to reach me.

“Time and tide wait for no man.”

I push through the gate, fleeing the courtroom and his threat. It wasn’t anger or resentment I saw there in that evil gaze; it was amusement. Kallum was thrilled I’d stepped out of the shadows, and that I’d done so for him.

OceanofPDF.com

2

Killing Fields

Halen

E vil exists.

Even if you don’t believe in evil, whatever your spirituality consists of, when those two words are strung together, you feel the rattling shiver bone-deep.

It’s that impactful, and it should be this town’s slogan.

Welcome to Hollow’s Row, where evil exists.

I sift through the tall marsh reeds, careful of my foot placement. Mud adheres to the plastic booties covering my rain boots. They make a suction sound every time I lift my foot. The sodden earth feels like walking on an overused sponge beneath my soles.

The sun is a failing disk in a violet sky, casting splinters of neon-orange over the tweed marshland. Fireflies dance like little flares jettisoned from the setting sun as they blink over the horizon. But that’s where the picturesque landscape ends.

As we head farther into the marsh, the barren, gnarled trees rise up from the reeds like black claws, twisted and decayed. They’re too thin, sickly, and widely spaced. I don’t like the trees.

I tried to get here before daylight was lost, but the delay at the airport is just another factor of my career.

Some assignments take a day, others a week. My last case I was onsite for over a month. Hotel rooms and takeout. Starbucks, if the town has one. Otherwise it’s whatever local coffee shop brand I can get on tap.

This town happens to have a chain coffee store, but I left my mocha latte in the rental Volvo. After trekking for nearly twenty minutes, I really wish I had the caffeine.

My life wasn’t always this way, so unstable, always on the move and away from home. But home is no longer home ; it’s some abstract thought from a life I don’t recognize.

After over ten months of coming to terms with this fact, I finally put my quaint Tudor on the market last month. Then I fled to another case.

I rub the ink beneath my sleeve, reminding myself to focus on the present task.

“Right over there.” Detective Emmons points to a cropping of wiry trees ahead. “That’s where the hunters found them.”

Relieved to be close, I nod to the detective as I follow in his footsteps. He’s dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. A wide-brimmed police hat tops his head. He’s tall and stocky, with extremely broad shoulders. Tough skin and hands. He stands out amid the spindly trees and reeds like a scarecrow—if that scarecrow was a linebacker. He was the first to greet me when I arrived at the police station, regaling me with tales of his high-school football glory days.

He’s not a bad detective as far as I can tell, just small-town. As he made detective less than a year ago, the extent of his detecting work has been locating missing teens, who typically disappear for a weekend bender, and lost pet cases.