Blood Bath, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series Book 4) Read Free

and I both know she already told you I was telling the truth or you wouldn't be talking to me about this case. And please tell me you didn't lock my dog in one of those disgusting cells downstairs."
    "What the hell did you want me to do with him? He looks like a Great Dane that swallowed a mastiff. I can't have him running around the station. We gave him water, and Mike even shared his cheeseburger. The cells have been fully renovated thanks to you. Think of it like a big dog crate." He stifled a yawn.
    I chose to ignore the fact he blam ed me for the destruction of the jail when he was the one who took the amulet, the only thing hiding me from a demon, before locking me up a few weeks ago. "Fine, can someone take him for a walk later?" I wasn't sure what effect the iron bars of the cell would have on Conry since he was basically a fae creature but it certainly wasn't the time to find out. The less time he spent in the cell the better.
    There was a knock on the door. Masarelli got up and poked his head into the hall. He grumbled something to whomever was out there before shutting the door and si tting down.
    "Pollyanna says you're clean." He sounded a little di sappointed.
    I thought he was upset he couldn't use detainment as a threat to get my help instead of not having a legitimate reason to arrest me. "I haven't heard anything about a rogue. vamp or otherwise. What makes you think it's not suicide? Maybe something was going on at school or home?"
    "That's what we thought at first. There's one problem. We overlooked it with the first two girls. The lacerations and lack of any defensive wounds all point to suicide. By the third girl we couldn't ignore the evidence. Notice anything out of the ordinary in the picture?" He spun it around and pushed it closer to me.
    I shook my head. Whatever he wanted me to see, I wa sn't. "Young girl, seventeen, maybe eighteen. Wrist slit along the vein not across."
    "What else?" He wasn't going to make this easy and just tell me what I was missing.
    "No blood on the floor or outside of the tub. The water was drained. Was forensics already on the scene when this photo was taken?" I had it figured out but wanted to be sure.
    "No, that's exactly how we found her." He nodded, confirmation I was on the right track.
    "Okay, so if the tub was empty when the girl bled out, where's all the blood? If she filled the bath with hot water to speed up the process and ensure success as the direction of the wound suggests, where's the water?" I knew these were questions Masarelli had already posed to his investigation team. "Let's say it drained on its own before you found her, bad seal on the drain plug, where's the ring from the bloody water inside the tub?"
    "Exactly. I'm ashamed to admit we assumed the tub drained and didn't question the lack of any residue on the porcelain. Seemed pretty cut and dry at the time. The girl's parents were a mess, we just wanted to get the scene processed and  the body out of there." His expression darkened and I knew he silently berated himself for the oversight. "With the third girl we swabbed the drain and pulled apart the plumbing. We went back to the first scene and we went over the bathroom with Luminal, no trace of blood anywhere."
    "Okay, so five girls found in tub s, wrists slit, no water or blood in any of the bathrooms. What else do they have in common? What's special to the killer about these girls?"
    "So far just their age. All of them are eighteen, give or take a few months but not one of them is a minor. Different hair, different eyes, different body shape, some with tattoos some without. No patterns in home life or social status e ither. There's no physical pattern why these girls and not five others."
    "Are they witches?" The last time Masarelli and I worked together a n extremist group was killing witches. To keep the witches from casting while held captive and tortured, their hands were cut off and cauterized. In one case however, the witch’s hands