Harrison felt the bile rise in his throat but he forced it back down. It was a scene, unlike anything he had ever seen before. He vowed to bring the person responsible to justice, whatever that meant. Harrison preferred it to mean a bullet from his gun. The awful scene before him did nothing but fill him with rage.
On the floor lay the body of Desiree Cortez. Disturbingly, she was not in one piece. Her legs had been spread so wide they had dislocated from their sockets. It gave her an eerie configuration, almost inhuman. Her tongue had been removed and now rested in a drying pool of blood only a few feet from the body. Several fingers and toes were missing. The killer may have taken them as a memento. Harrison had searched everywhere for the missing digits to no avail. There was evidence of multiple stab wounds. One, disturbingly enough, had been delivered to her right eye. The bloody crosses were present on her cheeks, much like the others before. Unlike before, these crosses had been carved. Harrison wouldn't be sure until after an autopsy but he had the strong suspicion the woman had been raped before the end, perhaps even after the end. Harrison had found something silver under the couch and had rolled it out with a pencil. It was a shiny, silver vibrator slick with blood.
The scene was almost unbearable. Only one thing seemed clear. The killer had been in a rage when killing Desiree. Her left eye fared better than her right, having not been stabbed, but not by much. It was swollen and bruised and looked like the killer had delivered several powerful strikes. Purple welts covered her abdomen and arms. The last two deaths had been brutal, yes, but seemed relatively quick. For some unknown reason, the killer had been whipped into a frenzy. Harrison feared for his town now. It was bad enough having a killer in their midst, but this? This was inhuman. This was disturbing. This had to be stopped.
As Harrison squatted next to the body, he spotted something across the room in the far corner. He stood up and approached the object, taking great care not to touch it. Again, with his pencil, he tugged at the black mass. It was a candle, much like the one found with the first body. It may have even been the one Sasha had lost. It slipped free of his pencil and toppled to the floor. He let it roll a few feet away without stopping it. There wasn’t a chance in hell he would risk contaminating whatever fingerprints might be on the candle. Beyond any DNA left on, or disgustingly, inside the body, it was their only chance of evidence.
When the candle came to a stop, Harrison noticed something carved into the side. From the angle, he could see two letters. S A. Harrison turned the candle with his pencil and read the five little letters that nearly stopped his heart. S-A-S-H-A.
"What the fuck?" Harrison nearly shouted. Framing her was no longer the goal. This was an outright death threat. Someone in town was warning her. They wanted her gone. Harrison had had enough. He couldn’t understand how someone could do all of this over something so simple as a newcomer. Rape and dismemberment? Who in town could do something so twisted and so vile? There was no one he could think of whom was mentally unstable. Not to the degree this crime had insinuated.
But there was a bigger problem at stake. If the town knew the severity of this crime, and the branded candle, a panic would surely surge through the town like lightning. There was a difficult choice ahead, no matter how Harrison proceeded. The town needed him, now more than ever. They trusted him. With a killer terrorizing the community, people were already panicked. To let loose the details of the black candle bearing Sasha’s name would only condemn her. The town already distrusted her. Though most people in town might not have truly believed Sasha was the killer, they surely thought her to be the catalyst. The clock was ticking. Soon, the town would either run her out or worse.
Which brought him back to his current dilemma. He had two choices laid out before him. Either, he would hide certain details about the case in order to protect Sasha or he would force her to leave to protect the town. Hiding the details might spare Sasha from being run out of town but the killings would continue. If she were gone, they might stop. Of course, there was no guarantee of anything and he couldn’t lie to himself. His feelings for her were getting in the way of making the choice. It seemed the right decision would be to send her away.
However, Harrison didn’t believe that. Sure, the killer might stop. But for how long? Once a killer, always a killer. Eventually, they would get thirsty for it again. The bodies would start up again and he would be right back where he started, only without Sasha. No, sending her away would be a band-aid to a gaping wound.
He started to despise himself for even thinking about casting Sasha away like a piece of waste. Thanks for the sex, now get out of my town and take your murdering stalker with you! It was out of the question.
His mind was made up. The candle would be left out of the official report. He would be the only one to know the truth. He was thankful no one had stumbled across the crime scene before it had been reported. Instead, Harrison had received an early morning call from Brian Anderson, one of
