But some trips couldn’t be avoided. Sometimes you had to say good-bye.

She knocked lightly, and Greg Wright opened the door. Greg had been in the ME’s office for just over six months, and he’d proven to be incredibly thorough at his job. Greg was thirty-six, not much for talking, but when it came to the dead, he was a master.

“You’re here for Karen.” His gaze held a touch of sympathy. “I figured you’d be showing up soon.”

Lauren took a deep breath and could have sworn she tasted death. “I know she’s being transferred out soon. I just…I wanted to say good-bye.”

He stepped back, turning to head toward the storage area in the next room. Greg was a good-looking guy, with blond hair that curled slightly. He was called Dr. Death by some of the cops—not an insult, but a compliment because he was so good with the bodies. She didn’t know if he minded the nickname or not. It was hard to tell with Greg.

He didn’t let much show.

But then, neither do I.

Lauren followed him and waited while he pulled out Karen’s body. The sound of the locker opening had her tensing. Then the body was there. Covered in a big, black bag. Greg pulled down the zipper, and the sound of it filled the room.

Then she was staring at Karen. Lauren swallowed. Karen’s face was so pale. She could see the stitches on Karen’s chest. Karen had been so full of life, so ready to take on the world.

Now only death waited for her.

“I was about to call you and Voyt,” Greg said, a hesitant note entering his voice. “I found something else.”

Her brows rose.

His gloved fingers pointed to Karen’s throat. To the arching line that sliced across her neck. “There was…something in there.”

“What?” She couldn’t take her eyes off Karen’s neck. Off that wound. Almost like a smile, one that had been carved into her.

“It was a small, folded piece of paper.”

Lauren took an instinctive step back. “That’s not Walker’s MO.” Walker cut. He sliced. But he didn’t leave messages behind.

“Maybe it is now.” Greg walked away from the table and picked up a small, sealed bag from his desk. “He left a message for you.”

Her heart was beating hard enough to shake her whole chest. “What did the note say?” The paper was so small. So tiny. And stained with blood. Karen’s blood. In her throat.

He lifted the clear bag and she could see the careful letters…

“It’s beginning,” Greg read.

Hell. She did not want to deal with this. “He’s not going on a spree in my city.”

Greg looked steadily at her. “Two victims in Baton Rouge killed within forty-eight hours.” He took a deep sigh. “It sounds like that’s exactly what he’s doing.”

Lauren’s eyes fell back on the body bag. On Karen.

“I’ll give you a minute alone with her,” Greg murmured as he backed away.

Lauren didn’t speak. Instead, she stared at her friend and hated that a monster had stolen Karen’s life away.

Greg’s footsteps echoed through the chilled room.

The cold air from the storage area made Lauren’s goose bumps even worse. She swallowed, trying to shove back the lump in her throat. Karen was one of the few people who had gotten past Lauren’s guard. She’d known Lauren’s secrets, and she hadn’t been afraid of them.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren whispered. It was what she needed to say. This shouldn’t have happened. But I will get him.

Her gaze slid down Karen’s body. So many injuries. So much incredible rage.

Her fingers pushed back the bag as she stared at the marks the Butcher had left behind.

Greg’s footsteps returned. “There are defensive wounds there, on both arms.”

She could see them. “Karen always was a fighter.”

“We found Walker’s DNA under her nails. She made sure to leave her mark on him.”

It hadn’t been enough. “Be very, very thorough with your evidence collection. If there’s any more DNA, anything that could belong to someone other than Walker, I want to know.”

She glanced up and found Greg’s dark eyes on her. “When the second body gets in,” he told her, “I’ll check to see if—”

“If he left a note in her throat, too?”

“Yes.”

She was going to have nightmares for the rest of her life. I’m so sorry, Karen. So very sorry.

His stare flickered to the body. “I would’ve headed for Mexico. Run as fast as I could and not looked back. I mean, you can kill folks down there just as easily as up here, right?”

She’d thought that Walker should have gone for the border, too, but not just so he could keep killing. “Dr. Wright, sometimes you scare me,” Lauren said. Blunt. True. He seemed to have a hard time connecting with the emotional side of the victims.

He offered her a smile, even as he bent to rezip the bag. “If I wasn’t a little scary, do you really think I’d ever be able to do this job?”

No.

“The dead fascinate me. They always have.” He paused. “But what’s your excuse?”

The door opened behind him. She caught sight of Anthony.

“Someone has to make sure justice is served,” she told him.

“That someone has to be you?”

Anthony was close enough to overhear them. “Yes.”

“Why?”

The truth was tied to her past. “Someone I loved was taken, a long time ago.”

Anthony wasn’t speaking. Greg kept watching her.

“I tried to get her back,” Lauren whispered as she thought of all her desperate searches, searches that had turned up nothing. “But I never could.”

Greg swallowed. “She was—”

“Killed. Or at least, I think she was.” Lauren knew her smile was grim. “But it was hard to prove without a body.”

His eyes widened.

Anthony’s footsteps had come closer.

“Who was the victim?” Greg asked.

The case had happened long before Greg started working as the coroner. The disappearance had happened years ago, when Lauren was just thirteen. “My sister, Jenny.”

“What?” The shock was Anthony’s. His footsteps headed toward her. His fingers wrapped around her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He hadn’t exactly stuck around long enough.

She turned her head toward Greg. “Let me know when you finish the autopsy on Stacy Crawford’s body. If you do find another note…” She exhaled, trying to focus back on him. “Call me right away.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Greg murmured as he started to secure the body once more.

Lauren’s gaze dipped back to the black bag. Life could just end like that. In a big, black bag. Zipped up.

Anthony’s hands tightened around her. “Lauren…” A tight, hard edge was in his voice.

She couldn’t handle talking anymore about Jenny, not then. Not in the room made for death. Lauren pulled away from Anthony. Greg would have noted that they’d been too close—hard to miss a grab like that, but at least Greg wasn’t the type to gossip.

And why do I care? At this point—why?

Lauren cleared her throat. “Walker left a note with Karen’s body. It said, ‘It’s beginning.’”

Anthony’s jaw hardened. “No, it’s ending.”

She wanted to believe him. But the dead around her wouldn’t let her give in to that fantasy. It wasn’t ending, and it wouldn’t end, not until Walker was dead.

“He didn’t leave notes before.” It bothered her. The FBI profiler was still out in the swamp, but she wanted to talk to Cadence again.

Walker had never taunted the cops or the media. He’d just killed. Brutally. Again and again.

“He’s been locked up for five years,” Anthony said quietly, but his gaze was guarded. “A lot can change in five years.”

Her eyes held his. “And a lot can stay the same.” Before she could say anything else, there was a commotion in the hall. She heard the grind of wheels and the rumble of voices as her whole body tensed.

The swinging doors opened, and a body was wheeled in—a body covered in a zipped black bag. Another lost life. Stacy Crawford’s start in a new town was just a cold dream now.

A cold, dead dream.

When the transport team saw Anthony and her with Greg, they straightened up quickly and pulled out their paperwork for the ME to sign. Lauren barely glanced at them. Her eyes were on the bag.

She’d talked to Stacy last night. And now…

Greg had wanted to know why she was a DA—it was about justice. She wanted to bring justice to the victims. To their families.

She’d never been able to get justice for her own sister.

She wanted to stop killers and not just watch the bodies of their victims pile up.

The transport team left. Greg watched as she closed in on the body. There was one thing she had to know right away.

“Check her throat,” Lauren ordered.

Anthony had closed in on the body, too.

The hiss of the zipper filled the air. Lauren’s shoulders locked as Stacy’s body was revealed. Stacy wasn’t as stark white as Karen had been. Her skin had a more ashen color, and she smelled far more heavily of death.

A fresh kill.

Lauren’s spine was stretched so taut that it ached.

Very carefully, Greg’s gloved fingers went toward Stacy’s throat. There was a slice there, a gaping hole that looked like a twisted grin. Lauren could feel the frantic thudding beat of her heart. It felt like it was trying to leap right out of her chest.

Greg’s gloved fingers pressed lightly against the wound on Stacy’s throat. He had a pair of tweezers in his left hand.

Lauren leaned forward. Then she lost her breath.

She could see the folded paper that his tweezers had just caught. Rolled up, nestled just inside of Stacy’s throat. “He didn’t do this before,” she said again. It just felt so wrong. “Not when he hunted years ago in Baton Rouge.”