Other than returning my jacket, Halen’s been actively avoiding me all morning. As I watch her diligently setting up her gear, I decide I need something stronger than a lame icebreaker after my confession last night.

What does one do after one rips out their proverbial heart? Greeting card? Flowers?

I’d rather pin her down in the mud and fuck her hard and filthy until she’s forced to break her silence. But since we have an audience, I settle for clandestine glances in a dirty marsh.

When a gust of wind sends another blast of decay through the reeds, I bury my head close to my jacket collar and inhale her sweet scent that still clings to the fabric. Hunger sparks anew and burns at the back of my throat.

My willpower won’t last another night.

“Sir, you need to see this.” One of the feds points past the grove.

While Alister follows the young agent around the barren stems toward a steep ravine cut through the marsh, Halen talks with Detective Riddick, who stepped up to take charge during Detective Emmons’ absence.

“Christ,” Alister says loud enough to draw others toward the site.

I return my focus to Halen. She’s my only concern. My only reason to work this case is to keep her safe.

Her emotions are muddled today. Like the dark marsh waters blocking the GPS signal on my monitor, my link to her is dulled and muted. Frustration at not being able to read her tightens my jaw.

“Shouldn’t you be more interested in what’s going on over there than the cute forensic profiler?”

I slide a sideways glance at Devyn, feeling her rhetorical question hit the mark and doesn’t require a response.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you.” She sidles up beside me in her wading boots. “Halen is far more intriguing than a smelly marsh, but could you humor me anyway with your thoughts on what happened here?”

Halen laughs—she fucking laughs—at something Riddick says, and my back teeth grind. I look at Devyn, then direct a glance at the bare hemlock grove. “What do you want to know?”

She arches a perfect eyebrow in amusement. “I don’t know, you’re the expert. Possibly who did this and why? Let’s start there.”

Halen’s tinkling pixie laugh reaches my ears, and I curl a bandaged hand into a fist. The cuts are healed over, but the sting feels just as raw.

“Wow, they’re really hitting it off,” Devyn comments. “Riddick isn’t that funny. At all. He must be trying to impress her.”

“Well, you know what Nietzsche said.” At her curious expression, I say, “Most people are too stupid to act in their own interest.”

“That sounds dangerously like a threat,” she says, eyeing me, “or like someone who feels threatened.”

A humorless laugh escapes. “Touché. But what if I was referring to myself. Funny how easily philosophy can be misinterpreted.” I flash a smile, then wade through the reeds and lower to my haunches to get a closer look at the hemlock canes.

Using the cuff of my jacket, I nudge one of the white roots that was ripped out of the ground. “They were in a hurry.”

“Professor, a rookie can see the perp was in a hurry,” Devyn says, sarcasm sharp on her tongue.

A smirk tugs at my mouth. “Don’t the locals have their own expert consultant?” I lift my gaze to her. “You should probably get her thoughts.”

Like right now, before I tear Riddick’s spine through his neck and toss it with the rest of the discarded vertebrae in the grove.

“She’s a bit preoccupied right now. Besides, Halen seems to trust your opinion.”

“She thinks I’m a killer.” I rise to my feet. “Do you believe I’m a killer?”

“I don’t know.” She makes a point to look me up and down. “You don’t look anything like a moth to me.”

I smirk and dip low near her ear. “I hide my wings well.”

“Locke, get over here,” Alister commands from his perch on the ravine ridge.

This catches Halen’s attention, and she makes brief eye contact with me.

Devyn glances between the two of us. “Just an observation, but I don’t think it’s your killer nature that frightens Halen.”

I make a sound of amusement. “Show people a reflection of what they fear, and they will question their convictions.”

Devyn lowers her notepad. “Thank you for the lesson, professor.”

“Here’s another,” I say. “Whatever the offender has planned with the hemlock is more important to him than whatever he was hiding down that ravine.”

Her dark brown eyes widen a fraction. “You think it’s something to do with the victims?”

I study her pinched expression, wondering if she was close to any of the missing locals. “Every crime scene so far has been linked to the victims,” is all I say before I start in the direction of the ravine.

A line has formed at the clearing’s edge. Techs snap pictures, gloves slide into place on hands. As I stride closer, I lift my booted feet to climb out of the marsh waters. A jolt zips down my back as I peer over the edge.

Below are tens if not hundreds of deer carcasses piled at the bottom of the chasm.

The unnerving sight of skeletal remains pales to the stench wafting up from the ravine. From this vantage point, I identify the largest as stags. The pelts have been skinned, the skulls exposed.

The antlers have been removed.

Alister talks into his phone: “Bring those two hunters in for questioning,” he orders the person on the other end of the line. “The ones that discovered the first crime scene.” He ends the call, then looks my way. “What do you make of this?”

“Which part?”

Jaw set hard, he rolls up his shirt sleeves and situates his shoulder harness in a firm reminder that he’s armed with a weapon. “The fucking mutilated deer, Locke.”

I grin, enjoying twisting the agent’s short fuse. “It’s not staged,” I say simply. “I don’t see any esoteric or ritualistic connection here to link to your offender’s agenda.”

“What about the Harbinger,” he says, hooking a thumb toward the bare grove. “He invaded one of the perpetrator’s sites already, so it stands to reason he’d hit another. Why would he raid the hemlock?”

If he’s asking about the Harbinger killer, then Halen didn’t relay anything we discussed last night in the rain.

“I’m not a crime-scene profiler,” I say.

The tension gathering around Alister draws a rigid line across his shoulders. He blatantly looks at the faded celestial rose peeking above the bandage on my hand and the sigils inked into my fingers, disgust evident in his tight features. “That’s all you have to say?” he demands. “I couldn’t shut you the fuck up a few days ago. If you’re no help here, maybe it’s time to send you back.”

“That would be a mistake.” I lock with his flared gaze, the veiled threat behind my words as deadly as my stare.

I sense her proximity before she appears at my side. “I agree with Professor Locke,” Halen says, defusing some of the hostility. “This isn’t a dumping site for hunters, but it’s not a tribute or ritual site, either.”

Alister tugs his tie to loosen the knot at his neck. “Get the hell down there and figure out what it is, then.”

The animosity between Halen and Alister is tangible. My instincts say the agent in charge wanted someone to blame for not yet having a suspect in custody, and Halen presented an opportunity with a contaminated crime scene to place some of that blame.

The media are spinning enticing click-bait stories around the victims and the FBI’s lack of progress on the high-profile case. One such headline declared the feds incompetent for not catching the perpetrator in such a small town.

I thought it was a fair observation.

Halen drapes her camera strap over her neck and tucks her notebook under one arm, then starts down the slope. I reach out and take her forearm, helping to guide her down the steep incline. To my surprise, she doesn’t pull away or chastise me for touching her.

As we reach the base, the putrid stench of decaying flesh and death is so pungent, she covers the lower half of her face. “He’s been dumping here for years,” she says.