ISLA POV
The dead man's eyes are still open.
I hate when they leave their eyes open. It makes them look surprised, like they can't believe someone finally caught them.
"Detective Monroe! My office. Now!"
Captain Williams's voice booms across the penthouse, making the forensic team jump. I don't jump anymore. After six months of hunting the Reaper, nothing makes me jump except the nightmares.
I'm staring at body number twenty-three.
Judge Harold Pierce lies on his marble floor in silk pajamas, arms spread wide like he's making a snow angel. Except there's no snow. Just blood. Dark, thick blood pooling around the carved letter on his chest.
The R.
Always the R.
"Monroe! Don't make me say it twice!"
I pull my latex gloves tighter and crouch beside the judge. My knees crack—I'm twenty-nine, not ninety, but six months of sleeping three hours a night ages you fast. The R is perfect. Elegant. Like someone wrote it with a calligraphy pen instead of a knife.
Except there's no knife wound.
The R sits on his skin like a brand, the flesh around it slightly burned. No cuts. No stab marks. Just this impossible letter that shouldn't exist.
"How?" I whisper, touching the edge of the mark with one gloved finger.
Cold shoots up my arm. Not regular cold—the kind that freezes your bones and makes your breath catch. I yank my hand back, heart pounding.
What the hell was that?
"MONROE!"
I stand up fast, maybe too fast, and my vision goes spotty. When did I last eat? Yesterday morning? The day before?
Captain Williams waits by the floor-to-ceiling windows, his face red as a tomato. He's a big man—used to play football in college—and when he's angry, he looks like a bull ready to charge.
I walk over, stepping around the evidence markers. Twenty-three bodies in six months. Twenty-three Rs carved into twenty-three chests. Twenty-three impossible murders with no weapons, no witnesses, no screams.
Twenty-three failures.
"Sir—"
"Don't." He holds up one meaty hand. "Don't give me excuses. The mayor called me at 4 AM. Four in the morning, Monroe. Know what he said?"
I stay quiet. Safer that way.
"He said if we don't catch this Reaper psycho in two weeks, he's bringing in the FBI. The FBI, Monroe. Do you know what that means for this department? For your career?"
"It means we've got two weeks," I say.
His eye twitches. "It means you've failed. Twenty-three bodies. Six months. Zero leads. Zero suspects. Zero progress."
Each word hits like a slap. He's right. I have nothing. The Reaper is a ghost who walks through locked doors, kills without weapons, and disappears without a trace.
"These aren't random victims, sir," I say, even though we've had this argument seventeen times. "Judge Pierce took bribes to dismiss assault cases. Body twenty-two was a rapist who walked free on a technicality. Body twenty-one—"
"Was a human being with rights!" Captain Williams's voice echoes off the marble. "I don't care if they were saints or sinners. Someone is murdering people in my city, and you can't catch them!"
My hands curl into fists at my sides. I want to scream that the system failed these victims' victims. That Judge Pierce destroyed dozens of lives. That maybe—just maybe—the Reaper is doing what we can't.
But I don't say it. Can't say it. Because thinking that way makes me just as bad as the killer.
Doesn't it?
"We have a new forensic psychologist joining your task force today," Captain Williams says, voice dropping to something dangerous. "Dr. Rafe Ashford. Top of his field. He's profiled serial killers for the FBI, Interpol, everyone. If anyone can get inside this Reaper's head, it's him."
"I don't need a psychologist. I need evidence—"
"You need results." He steps closer, voice low. "Two weeks, Monroe. Catch this guy, or I'm pulling you off the case and putting you on parking violations. Understand?"
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth hurt. "Yes, sir."
"Good. Dr. Ashford will meet you at the precinct at 9 AM. Play nice."
He storms out, leaving me alone with the body and the forensic team. I turn back to Judge Pierce, studying the R one more time.
Who are you? I think. Why only the guilty? Why the letter R?
My phone buzzes. Text from my partner, James Chen: New development. Get back here NOW.
I nearly run to my car.
The precinct is chaos when I arrive. Phones ringing, officers shouting, coffee spilling. Normal Tuesday morning insanity. I push through to the conference room where James waits.
He's fifty-two with gray hair and kind eyes that have seen too much. Been my partner for three years. The only person who doesn't think I'm crazy for working myself to death on this case.
"What's the development?" I ask, shutting the door.
James slides a folder across the table. "Medical examiner found something. Finally."
My hands shake as I open it. Inside are close-up photos of the R marks from all twenty-three bodies. Except now there's something new highlighted—tiny symbols inside the letter R. Microscopic. Almost invisible.
"What am I looking at?"
"Ancient symbols. ME sent them to a linguistics professor. She says they're from medieval England. Ninth century. They mean..." James pauses, his face going pale. "They mean 'judgment delivered.'"
My blood runs cold. "Ninth century? That's impossible. No one alive today would know—"
"That's not the weird part." James pulls out another photo. "Look at this."
It's a painting. Old, cracked, hanging in some museum. A medieval execution scene. And standing in the background, barely visible in the shadows, is a figure in black.
With silver eyes.
Carved into the executed criminal's chest is a perfect R.
"This painting is from 1198," James says quietly. "The Reaper's been killing for over 800 years."
The room spins. My vision tunnels. 800 years. Impossible. Insane.
But I'm staring at the proof.
"There's more," James says. He sounds scared. James never sounds scared. "The professor? She went home last night to keep researching. Someone broke into her house."
"Is she—"
"She's alive. Terrified, but alive. Know what the intruder did?" James's hands shake as he shows me a final photo. "He left this on her desk."
It's a piece of paper with one sentence written in perfect calligraphy:
STOP LOOKING FOR ME, OR DETECTIVE MONROE DIES NEXT.
My name. The Reaper wrote my name.
The door opens behind me.
"Detective Monroe?"
The voice is smooth, cold, beautiful. I turn around and freeze.
The man standing in the doorway isn't human. Can't be human. No human looks like that—platinum blonde hair, silver eyes that seem to glow, perfect face like a statue carved by angels.
He's wearing an expensive suit, carrying a leather briefcase, and smiling like he knows every secret I've ever kept.
"I'm Dr. Rafe Ashford," he says, extending one pale hand. "I believe we're going to be working very closely together."
His silver eyes lock onto mine.
And I swear—I absolutely swear—I see them flash black for just one second.
The same black I saw in the eyes of the figure in that 800-year-old painting.
My heart stops.
Oh God.
The Reaper isn't coming to the precinct.
He's already here.