2 Chapter 2

He crumbled before he reached it. Darkness finally won.

* * * *

Jeremy carefully measured a single shot of whiskey and poured it into his black coffee. He never allowed himself more than that, even on nights when his neck and shoulders ached from tension, and his jaw felt tight. Due to his self-imposed limit, he made sure he didn’t lose a single drop. His tongue darted out to catch the liquid that had caught on a fingertip. The heady aroma from the rich blend of coffee filled his sinuses, and he tasted the bitter coffee on the back of his tongue long before he brought the mug to his lips.

A sudden thump outside his door startled him, sending hot liquid down his chest. Fuck. He set the coffee aside and stripped the shirt, peeling it away from his skin before the burn took hold. It briefly occurred to him to pour a fresh cup and relax like he had planned, but the sound outside his door couldn’t be ignored. He had heard it before, and it always meant somebody who didn’t have the means or the attention span for a pet was trying to do the right thing by dropping it at his door.

Jeremy yanked open the door and peered into the darkness. “Hello?”

He expected to find a dog or a cat. Maybe a snake—it wouldn’t be the first time.

Jeremy did not expect to find a man.

“Sir? Sir?” He dropped into a crouch, immediately seeking out the stranger’s pulse. Throbbing against his fingertips, it raced at an unhealthy tempo.

Straightening, Jeremy reached inside the door and turned on the porch light. He gasped with horror at the sight greeting him, but as the shadows shifted across the man’s strong body, he realized it wasn’t blood coating his skin. Not completely. The scratches on his ribs and shoulders still bled, but the huge, scarlet mark on his back wasn’t an open wound. It was a tattoo.

Jeremy didn’t have time to puzzle out the details of the gruesome tattoo. He needed to get the man off the splintery porch. Hooking his arms beneath the stranger’s, he realized he couldn’t flip him over—the tattoo looked fresh, and an infection over that large a surface area could have dire consequences. Jeremy had the feeling the unconscious man had enough problems without adding a horrific infection to the list.

Moving very carefully, he half-pulled, half-dragged the stranger into the house, moving through the kitchen for the small guest bedroom behind it. His back strained with the effort, turning into a burn that weakened his pace, but he didn’t stop moving. The stranger probably only weighed around one-sixty, but when it was dead weight, it might as well have been three hundred.

Mud trailed across the carpet where Jeremy brought him in. It would have been cleaner to lift him onto the small bed, but that required strength he just didn’t have right then. Better to clean the man off and catch his breath before making the next move. He left him sprawled in the middle of the room as he went back to the kitchen for a bowl of water and some dish towels.

His surprise guest hadn’t moved when he returned. Kneeling next to him, Jeremy rearranged his arms so they were relaxed at his sides, with less strain across the muscled shoulders. The skin on his wrists had been rubbed raw, though nothing looked as irritated as the tattoo mapping his back. Carefully, Jeremy began washing away the worst of the grime, using as light a touch as he could manage.

The tattoo was fresh, the colors bold in spite of the swelling. As more of it was revealed, Jeremy’s strokes grew shorter, his stomach churning at the picture it portrayed. The man didn’t stir while Jeremy washed him off. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He didn’t want to know what kind of man would want this sort of grotesquerie imprinted permanently on his skin.

At its center was a woman. Though she was naked, long black hair twined around her upper body, covering her face and breasts but not her sex. Her legs were caught in a wild flail, and her outstretched arms dripped scarlet blood into a pool on the checkered floor below her. Her wrists were slashed, long, vicious cuts that ran the length of her inner arms, but that wasn’t the extent of her torture. A noose wound around her throat. The unnatural angle of her head meant it had snapped her neck.

There were no other identifying marks, no pockets to contain identification. But after he shone the lamp onto the man’s face, he realized he didn’t need a driver’s license to get the man’s name. He recognized most people in town by sight, but he knew Detective Brendan Wheeler professionally. Wheeler had never struck him as the sort of man who would permanently scar his body with a horrific death, but then, Jeremy had only talked to him two or three times.