Surgeon – Chapter Ten

A/N: This is the first time I’ve even opened this book since November, and the first time I’ve written words in it in even longer. The ending of this chapter probably feels stilted and stunted, but my writing muscles aren’t quite what they used to be. I’m still struggling to find the best idea of book one of Jacob and Alice’s series, so I thought I’d try getting back into Bo Austen’s series to try and spark something. Hopefully you still enjoy it despite that, and thank you for your patience. This year has very much not been kind to me, but I’m trying to work around that without pushing it too much. With that said, let’s get into it

NOT EDITED

Chapter Ten

12:30 PM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, MORGUE

After completing the man’s autopsy, Bo picked up the bone snips from the metal cart at the side of the autopsy table. With his free hand, he lifted the victim’s right hand and cut off the index finger. He carefully stripped the skin from the bone and pulled it over the tip of his own gloved finger, like a little finger hat. A hat made of human flesh, sure, but a hat, nonetheless.

He picked up his phone with his free hand and rolled his index finger over the scanner he’d plugged into the charging port. He set his phone aside as it worked on finding a match. He slid the skin from his finger and bagged it. With a shake of his head, he set the bag aside. Like he’d done so many times in his life, he transferred the body to the pull-out drawer in an empty morgue drawer and pushed it inside. With the door shut, his gaze drifted to the drawer Tess Brown’s body still lay in. She’d go unclaimed. Eventually, she’d probably be handed over to a medical school so her corpse could be poked and prodded by students.

Bo couldn’t help the little twitch of his lips. It wasn’t her fault that she had been hand-picked and murdered by whatever monster was running around in Clinstone. It wasn’t her fault that her family was dead, that her boyfriend had died in a car accident, that there was no one left to claim her.

She deserves better than this. He’d work on finding out exactly how much more she deserved later. For now, he had a man to identify. Back at the table, he leaned over to look at his phone. No match in the system. He blew out a harsh breath. Of course. It was rarely that easy. He tossed his gloves into the garbage beneath the autopsy table, washed his hands, and wiped down his phone and the fingerprint scanner. He pulled them apart and set them in his UV light sanitizer. He set the six-minute timer and turned to grab his notebook from the counter.

As he started for the door, he scanned the morgue. With a sigh, he set his notebook back down. No matter how badly he wanted to go into the lab and work on getting the victim identified now, he couldn’t bring himself to leave the morgue a mess, even with the self-promise that he’d clean it after he was done. For most people, ‘later’ was very likely to turn into tomorrow, and ‘tomorrow’ turned into the day after that, and ‘the day after that’ turned into next week. Banking on that mentality simply meant no work ever got done, and although Bo usually had the discipline to make sure it did, he couldn’t risk it. If he let one thing fall behind, it would add up fast, and he would crumble.

In the lab, Bo set his notebook down with his others and headed back into the morgue. As soon as he finished cleaning, he’d finish up his notes on the crime scene and the autopsy. He had already marked down the important details in his shorthand, but that wouldn’t do the detectives upstairs any good. After he’d gotten the detective copies of his notes made, he’d get the man identified.

But first, he had some cleaning to do.

1:42 PM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, LAB

Finished with the morgue clean-up, Bo barely stepped foot in the lab before he could feel that something was just wrong in the room. As he walked in a little further, the pieces of the wrongness fell into place. His blue pen sat on the table by itself, his blue pen that had been tucked neatly between the pages of his red notebook. He did his best not to run to the table as he hurried over to investigate what all was missing.

His red notebook. His blue notebook. One of his black notebooks.

A muscle ticked in his jaw as his teeth ground together. The smell of perfume was still pretty strong at his workspace, the same perfume he’d smelled once already that day. He knew exactly who had stolen his notebooks, and he knew exactly what was being done with them.

Gwen Tanner was making sure everyone upstairs knew just how far from normal he truly was.

1:45 PM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, DETECTIVE JACOB MASON’S DESK

“I need you to see something.”

Jacob frowned as Gwen dropped a small stack of notebooks onto his desk. “I’m working.”

“Well, your job’s about to get a whole lot more interesting.” Gwen tapped the top of the stack with her fingers. “I knew something was wrong with that man, Jake. I knew it.”

“Bo?” Carter asked.

Gwen nodded. “He’s not normal. He’s not just a lab geek,” she said, shooting a glare at Jacob. She flipped open the red notebook on the top of the stack. On the first page, a yellow sticky note had been pressed to the upper right-hand corner. Jacob recognized Bo’s neat, almost computer-like handwriting, the words written in blue pen.

Tess Brown – TH Jan 2, 2020

  • 1st fnd vic
  • TOD: 11 PM T Dec 31, 2019
  • MPR: M Dec 23, 2019
  • H: 5 f 11 in
  • NHC: blonde
  • EC: green
  • DOB: W Nov 5, 1975
  • LKM: AL 6-8 hrs BTOD
  • No D, SA, PA
  • CHCl3
  • TL: PS 5 in TPB (PK)

“So what?” Jacob asked after a moment. “So he uses shorthand when he’s writing the notes down for himself. Everything he gives us is written out in extensive detail. Who cares how he keeps track of it for himself?” He cleared his throat. “Where’d you get these, Gwen?”

“The lab. He was busy in the morgue.”

“So you stole it?”

“Technically. Shut up.” Gwen flipped the page and tapped her finger against the sticky note in the upper right-hand corner. “And then there’s this one. I think it’s the victim you guys found this morning.

?                            ? – M Jan 6, 2020

  • 2nd fnd vic
  • TOD: 10:30 PM T Dec 31, 2019
  • MPR: UK; IP
  • H: 5 f 10 in
  • NHC: brown
  • EC: brown
  • DOB: UK; IP
  • LKM: UTD
  • no SA, PA
  • PDW: H/CM
  • CHCl3
  • NOI

“Gwen, come on. This is stupid,” Jacob said.

“No, it’s not,” Carter said quickly, leaning over Jacob’s shoulder for a better view of the sticky note. “There’s no way he could keep track of all these acronyms. I mean, sure, time of death, date of birth. But the ones that mean nothing to literally everyone else?”

“You’re both annoying.” Jacob closed the notebook. “Look, guys, I get it. I worked with both of them longer than you guys did put together. I mean, Jesus Christ, Anderson knew I was in love with Alice before Alice did. We were friends. Went to the gym together, saw a couple baseball games together, went out for drinks together. I get it. We’re on edge, it’s hard to trust people. But Bo’s just a damn lab geek.”

Gwen rolled her eyes and grabbed the black notebook from the bottom of the stack. She flipped it open and dropped it onto Jacob’s keyboard. “He keeps notes about every single killer. Not just the ones he’s worked, not just the ones in his department, every single killer that has ever existed in the history of ever. The amount of detail he keeps on them is insane, Jacob. No one needs to know as much shit as this guy keeps.” She flipped through the pages before pointing to the title. “This one’s Dallas Silver. They called him Hangman. He’d—”

“Gwen, that’s enough.” Jacob pushed his chair back into Carter and stood up, notebook in hand. “Come on, Gwen. Get your shit together. Is it paranoia? Or are you really that jealous of the guy?”

Gwen’s eyes narrowed as she opened the blue notebook and tossed it back down on his desk. “Yeah? How about now, Jake? Is he still normal?”

Jacob Mason

  • Sapphire blue eyes
  • Brown hair
  • Glasses
  • 6 ft
  • Engaged, Alice Tangwerai (Allie, Al)
  • Three children (Katie, Charlotte, Elijah)
  • Friendly, extroverted, loud, blunt
  • Too trusting and willing to defend
  • Concerned
  • Loving father
  • Younger than fiancee
  • Too kind for his own good

“Oh,” Jacob whispered. His eyes scanned the page for a second time. “I-I’m an open book. He’s just good at reading the pages.”

“You wish. It’s not just you. There’s one for everyone, even people that don’t work in the station. Every single person he’s glanced at since he arrived in Clinstone is tracked in this notebook, like he’s looking for which of us is the easiest target.” She flipped through the pages slowly, allowing both detectives to see just how much information Bo had gathered in his time in Clinstone. “Misty’s child, Jake. He’s vetting every single one of us.” She leaned in closer to Jacob as he picked up the notebook. “He was best friends with Hangman, Jake. He lived with him, switched departments to keep working with him. Jesus, Jake, he was fired from his job in L.A. because he wouldn’t testify against the serial killer when they finally found the damn fugitive. And this guy, he’s toted as the most intelligent analyst out there. Do you know what kind of mastermind a person could be with an IQ like his? For all we know, he’s already killing people. He’s tracking our every move to pick which of us is next, and we’re just standing here, letting him.”

“I actually thought you were better than this, Detective Mason.”

Jacob flinched, dropping the notebook. He lifted his gaze to Bo’s face. He stood in front of Jacob’s desk, hands locked behind his back. Jacob swallowed. “What’s… what’s with the notebook, Austen?”

“With all due respect, what I keep track of in my personal property is none of your business.”

“You’ve been stalking us,” Gwen cut in. “How the hell do you know all of that about us? About Jake?”

“He’s on the phone with his fiancee every chance he gets. He’s mentioned the names of his children in conversations with her and Detective Lehmann. As I’m not blind, I know what he looks like. The rest of it is simply behavioral, the way he acts around myself and others. It’s my job to read people, Miss Tanner. Whether Clinstone wants to utilize that or not is up to them, but my job in Los Angeles involved reading people and profiling them.”

“Why are you doing it?” she asked.

“Again, it’s my job, and the rest of it is simply none of your business.”

“What’s with the cryptic bullshit when you write about the victims?” Carter asked. “Keeping track of which parts you like the most?”

Bo’s gaze slowly shifted to Carter’s face. “I’m sure you can all appreciate that I, too, am paranoid about my coworkers being murderers. My ‘cryptic bullshit’ is so that when one of you turns out to be a killer, you only know the things I want you to know. I’m not this horrid monster that Miss Tanner is trying to make me out to be. I’m just a lab geek trying to survive in a world that has quite literally come down around me. Twice now, apparently.” When he took a step forward, Gwen countered it with one back, bumping into the corner of Carter’s desk. Bo winced. “Miss Tanner, you’re almost taller than I am. What exactly do you think I’m going to do to you? Both of these men have known you far longer than they’ve known me, and they’re both carrying guns on their hips. Do you really think I’d get away with anything in here?”

“You’d be surprised at what people have gotten away with in here in the past,” Gwen bit out.

Bo tilted his head back toward the ceiling and, after a moment, turned his back to the trio. Jacob’s gaze drifted to Bo’s hands. They stayed behind his back, his index and middle fingers constantly pulling at the blue rubber band around his wrist, snapping it against the underside over and over again.

Finally, he turned back to them. “When I start a new case, I go home and compare the M.O. of the killer to the cases I keep in my black notebooks. If the M.O. matches one or more killers, I track it so we can be aware of the potential of a multi-state killer or a copycat. Being aware of homicides in this country helps cut down on any instances in which a killer could have been caught much sooner had the police departments been communicating with each other.” He nodded toward the red notebook still in Jacob’s hand. “The sticky notes. The one for Tess Brown. The date beside her name is when we found her. Thursday, January second. She was the first victim we found. Her time of death was Tuesday, December twenty-third around eleven PM. A missing person’s report was filed on Monday, December twenty-third. Her height is five feet and eleven inches. Her natural hair color is blonde, and her eye color is green.

“Her date of birth is Wednesday, November fifth, 1975. Her last known meal was at least six to eight hours before time of death. There are no drugs present in her system, and there were no signs of sexual assault or physical abuse prior to death. She was drugged with CHCl3. In lamen’s terms, chloroform. Her throat laceration was accomplished with a partially serrated five-inch tanto-point blade, likely something like a pocket knife.”

Bo’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed roughly. “The victim in the morgue hasn’t been identified yet. The acronyms that we haven’t gone over primarily relate to that. UK is unknown and IP is identity pending. UTD on his last meal is unable to determine. He was poisoned with a flower known as hemlock or conium maculatum, and he was also drugged with chloroform. There is no outside injury present on his body. No scrapes or cuts or bruises. A-and that one?” he asked, nodding toward the desk again. “The blue one is how I keep track of you all. Because if one of you is a killer, you can bet your ass that I will be the first to know because I will never accidentally befriend a goddamn serial killer a second time in my life. I will not be duped again. I will not be the last person to find out you are a killer. I will not.”

Jacob closed the notebooks and stacked them together. With them in hand, he started toward Bo, who countered him with several steps back until he hit the empty desk behind him. Jacob stopped. “Bo.”

“I’m not here to make friends, Detective,” Bo whispered. “I don’t want an apology. I don’t want a big speech. I don’t want understanding. And I sure as hell don’t want that concern all over your face. I-I just want my notebooks so I can go back to the lab and identify this man so I can get this damn case finished so I can quit and go back to California to be with my serial killer friend and his criminal concealing wife. A-and then I’ll be out of your hair, and you can all go back to your normal lives without me in them. I am sorry that me being a freak has upset you all so terribly. But you aren’t the only ones with killer trauma, and at least I keep my trauma contained in those notebooks, away from the way I treat you, and my trauma will never bring me to steal your things and sneak around to try and make our coworkers think you’re planning to kill them.”

“I’m sorry anyway,” Jacob said. “Whether you want it or not.” He held the notebooks out to Bo, but the blonde made no attempt to take them. Jacob squatted down to set them on the floor and pushed them over to Bo. Bo pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, brow furrowed as he stared at Jacob. “I’m not a killer either, and my trauma is contained too. I won’t let it affect the way I treat you. I… I let your notes on me and my kids get the best of me for a few minutes, but I will never hold that against you. We all handle our shit differently, and those notebooks are how you handle yours. End of story.”

“I… believe I said no speech,” Bo whispered.

Jacob couldn’t help the little smile that tugged at one corner of his mouth. The whisper had been less shaky than the last one, and hell, he’d consider words in general a good sign from Bo. But words or not, he wasn’t okay. Even with the notebooks sitting at his feet, he hadn’t moved an inch, and he was still watching Jacob like he was waiting for an attack. “You did, sorry. No more speech. For now.”

“Forever,” Bo said. “No more speech… ever.”

“Yeah, I can’t promise that. I’m a real speech guy.”

Bo chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before finally squatting down to grab his notebooks. He hugged them to his chest like his very existence depended on how close they were to his body.

“I’m gonna have a little talk with Gwen and Carter, and then I’m gonna have my fiancee come to the station and down to the lab so she can make sure you’re okay, even if you don’t want her to. Okay?”

Eyes on the floor, Bo nodded. He rose to his feet, side-stepped his way along the desk, and hurried off for the lab. Jacob let out a long breath before pushing himself to his feet. He turned back to his desk, genuinely surprised to see Carter and Gwen still standing there. “I’m choosing not to tell Myra about this unless Bo wants to report it, but what you did today? It’s unacceptable. I don’t care if he writes down who he killed, how he killed them, and where he dumped their bodies in those notebooks. We do not have access to them without a warrant unless he hands them to us. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Gwen said, her voice quiet. “But I still don’t like him.”

“And he doesn’t like you, so I think you’re even on that one.” Jacob pointed over his shoulder, toward the stairwell. “That lab geek has been through hell and back. The same kind of hell we have been through. I know it’s hard to just put our faith and trust in a new person, but we can’t go through life thinking every single person who joins us at this police station is a serial killer or a drug peddeler or a criminal of any and every kind. We can’t live that way, Gwen. We can’t. And the people we subject to that treatment—they don’t deserve to live that way.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, eyes on the floor. After a moment of silence, they drifted back up to Jacob’s face. “I just… he lived with the guy, Jake. How do you not know your roommate is a serial killer unless you don’t care if he is?”

“They do it to their spouses and their parents all the time. Why not to a coworker? To a friend?” Jacob asked.

Gwen lifted her shoulders, but she didn’t look anywhere near as angry or confrontational as she had before Bo had come upstairs.

“Anderson was practically a warlord amongst the cartels and gangs and mob families by the time we knew what was going on,” Jacob said, his voice soft. “Not a single one of us had any damn idea. I know it’s hard not to be paranoid about it. I know it’s hard not to assume that every guy who comes in here could be the next Anderson. I know. But he’s living that shit right alongside us, just with a different name and a different police station. His trauma presents differently than mine or yours or yours. And that’s okay. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Gwen cleared her throat and shifted her weight uncomfortably between her feet. “I guess so.”

“Good. Carter?”

“He’s taking notes on children like they’re potential serial killers,” Carter said. “If we believe his reasoning, that’s what he’s doing. Children. You want your kids in his little notebook, Jake?”

“He’s not hurting anybody with his notes. You wouldn’t know they existed if Gwen hadn’t stolen them. If writing down my kids’ eye colors and personality traits makes him feel like he has some semblance of control in a crazy fucking world, that’s a-okay with me.” Jacob held up a hand, pointing at the both of them with his index and middle fingers. “For the foreseeable future, neither of you should go anywhere near him. If you have to be near him, you shouldn’t speak to him. He doesn’t want to hear it, and he doesn’t deserve to have to hear it. Are we clear?”

Chewing on the corner of her bottom lip, Gwen nodded.

“Carter?”

“Sure, dude.”

“It’s not a fun little game, Carter. He’s a human being, and you hardly fucking knew Anderson. You weren’t being betrayed by the guy like the rest of us were. Whatever you feel about that situation, you don’t get to take it out on random coworkers. All right?”

“All right,” Carter said, making sure to over-enunciate the last T. “Got it.”

After a phone call to his fiancee, Jacob headed out to the parking lot and waited. It didn’t take horribly long before Alice pulled into a parking space next to Jacob’s car. Jacob walked over to meet her, unable to stop himself from smiling as she pulled Elijah out of his car seat in the back. “This is so much better than Grandpa babysitting.”

Alice offered a soft smile and held the baby out to him. “Charlotte was still asleep when you called, but Lijah was still a little too clingy to leave with Baba.” She closed the door and leaned back against it, arms crossed over her chest. “So what the hell happened?”

“Bo, the new guy? He has these notebooks of information. Gwen stole them and brought them upstairs to convince us he’s a serial killer, like that Hangman guy in California.”

Alice raised a brow. “What kind of information is in these notebooks of his to lead to that?”

“Notes on previous killers, notes on this killer, and, umm…” Jacob cleared his throat. “He takes notes on the people he’s met here. Which is a little weird, okay, I can admit to that. But it doesn’t make him a killer. It makes him paranoid, and rightfully so, clearly. Gwen and Carter proved that today.”

“Carter joined in?”

“Big time.”

“Mm.” She reached out to smooth a hand over Elijah’s curly hair. “What do you want me to do about it? Kick his ass so you can keep your pacifist title?”

Jacob snorted. “You wish. I want you to talk to Bo, make sure he’s okay, make sure he knows it’s not his fault. I’d try to, but I don’t think I’d help the situation any. He said he thought I was better than this, so I think he thinks I was, like, in on it. I don’t want him down there in the basement thinking that I think he’s a monster or a killer. I need him to know I’m on his side, but I don’t think me going and being the one to tell him is, y’know, beneficial right now.”

After a moment of consideration, she nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Are you okay watching Elijah?”

“Literally the best part of my day. I’ll be okay.”

“Perfect.” Alice pressed a kiss to Elijah’s forehead and Jacob’s lips before heading into the police station. Gwen and Carter congregated by the desks, eyes on Alice. She did her best not to actually acknowledge them. As much as she intended to try and help Bo know he wasn’t in the wrong, she still didn’t truly want to be deeply involved in some sort of Clinstone PD feud. One of the best parts of being a stay-at-home mom these days was that raising babies held a hell of a lot less drama than working with adults did. As long as she stayed off the Facebook mom groups, anyway.

Downstairs, Alice found the lab geek exactly where she expected to, though he sat on the floor in the lab rather than at the table. His knees were pulled to his chest, his forehead resting on them. He was the physical embodiment of ‘defeated’.

Lightly, she rapped two knuckles against the open door.

Bo lifted his head, blue eyes slowly coming to focus on her face. “Detective Mason’s fiancee, I presume.”

“You presume correctly. Alice.”

“Bo Austen,” he said, his voice only slightly louder than before. “You’ll excuse me for remaining seated here?”

“Of course. You don’t have to get up on my behalf.” Alice cleared her throat. “I heard about what happened upstairs.”

Bo’s brow furrowed. “I’m normally not like that.”

“Like what?”

“I… don’t know. Defensive, I suppose. Argumentive.”

“You stood up for yourself and your property, from what I’ve been told. That’s not a bad thing, Mister Austen.” She crossed the room and lowered herself to the floor a few feet in front of him. “It’s not wrong to stand up for yourself. Gwen stole your property and rifled through it, exposed it to two other people. You aren’t wrong for being ‘defensive’ about that.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, Mister Austen, but you don’t have to continue going through it on your own. There are people here, people like Jake, who will help lift you up instead of tearing you down. You’re intelligent, Mister Austen, and that intimidates people. I’m sure you’re more than aware of that. But you shouldn’t have to be ashamed of that intelligence, not on behalf of people looking to cause drama and trouble and stir the pot.”

“I’m… used to it.”

“You shouldn’t have to be. That’s the point. You shouldn’t have to be ‘used to’ the abuse of society. You shouldn’t have to learn to tolerate it. It’s okay to be defensive and argumentative toward people who are going out of their way to try and tear you down.” Alice reached out to lay a hand on his knee. His leg tensed beneath her palm, but his eyes finally settled on her face again. “You aren’t a monster, Mister Austen. Your paranoia doesn’t make you a killer. Your trauma doesn’t make you evil. It makes you a victim of circumstance and society and God only knows what else. But it doesn’t make you a bad guy. And there are people here, like Jake, who know that.”

“So… he doesn’t believe that my… notetaking habits make me a danger?” Bo asked.

Alice shook her head, though she was beginning to wonder what these notes had detailed for them to cause such a rift. “Not even a little. You’re just a person trying to wade through his trauma to come out on the other side. If your notes aren’t hurting anybody, you’re just doing what you need to in order to survive, and that’s not a bad thing.”

“Thank you,” Bo said after a long moment of silence. “You may tell your fiance that I no longer believe him to be part of Miss Tanner and Detective Lehmann’s little coup.”

Alice smiled, doing her best to hold back a little laugh. “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

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Chapter Nine

Chapter Eleven

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Writing Update

I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I genuinely have no idea when writing will happen again. This year has been so incredibly rough already, and I feel like my soul has been ripped out of my body over and over again with the loss of two of my dogs in under two weeks.

My chronic illness has taken away the majority of my hobbies and joys, and the universe is working overtime to take away the one thing I have left.

To those who stick around in hopes that I’ll eventually update a book, I appreciate you so much. I just don’t know when I’ll be able to even open one of my books again right now.

Life & Writing Update

Because things have been so slow and sporadic, I wanted to throw out a general update about everything. As most of you probably know, I’m a chronic illness sufferer, but even on my best days, writing is slow and like pulling teeth. It used to be that only certain books or certain scenes were like that, but these days, everything eventually hits that point. I can no longer start a new book with the ease I used to be able to, and I can no longer speak to my characters with the same freeness I used to. I think a lot of that is the brain fog, fatigue, and exhaustion, but it’s hard to know for sure.

Book-wise, I’d like to talk through where I’m at with each.

Truths and Chains currently has two problems. One, I know what the climax is and have known for several weeks. You might know that I’m a pantser and have absolutely no plan for the book when I start it. For me, once I know the ending, I desperately struggle to get there. That’s why I don’t plan out my books in the first place. Problem two is that the events of the book currently occur over way too short of a time. The part of the book I have written and available to read happens in about a week, I believe, and for the purposes of a romance, especially one with Vito Minetti, it doesn’t work. I’m trying to solve problem two right now, but it’ll take some time.

The Surgeon has veered off in a different direction than the original in a couple ways during the rewrite. Bo has evolved more as a character and I know him far better than I did when I wrote the book originally. This is normal for my rewrite edits, and it’s something I’m fine with. But, unfortunately, with the brain fog issue, this does create far more difficulty for me in regards to keeping things straight. I’m in the process of going back and taking notes on the book so I can keep track of what’s from the old book and what’s from the new book, but again, it’ll take me a little bit to get there.

Dallas Silver book one has changed names and crimes about three times now. I’m still settling on which first book is actually what I want to write and which one makes the most sense to actually jumpstart his series.

Young Bo series: I’m actually hoping to get back to this one soon! Possibly before I get back to The Surgeon to see if figuring out baby Bo helps better track adult Bo.

Nora Clark (missing psychic) book several of you voted for to be next. I’m attempting this one but have struggled to get it started. I get stuck there more often than not these days. I actually think it makes more sense for missing Nora to be book two of the series so that the reader already knows her and so we already know more about why the detective looking for her cares so much about finding her.

Christmas Cannibal: soon! I’m trying to research the appropriate beats for a horror-type romance before I get back into it again

I believe those are the main ones. If you have questions about other books I’ve worked on previously, feel free to ask and I’m happy to give an update of where things are at with it right now.

Thank you guys for your patience with the updates. I’m just unfortunately not the same healthy writer I was in 2016 when so many of you started finding my books! But to everyone who stuck around despite that, thank you so very much.

New book vote – Halloween 2023

If you haven’t yet voted on Wattpad, you can do so here! I’m planning to start a new book in October for Halloween! It doesn’t necessarily have to be set in October or on Halloween, but it’ll likely have a more “spooky” tone. That said, it’s time for you to vote on what you want to read the most!

These books ALL have a shot at being written eventually, but the one with the most votes will be written first.

1. When his own personal psychic (Nora) goes missing at the onset of a homicide case, Detective Garcia enlists the help of a teenage psychic (Dominic) to try and find her before she becomes the next homicide to land on his desk.

2. Book 2 in the Man of Darkness series set to Lucifer’s point of view. When the God’s first attempt at an archangel escapes Heaven’s prison, God and the Angels attempt to recruit Lucifer to help lock her away while she tries to recruit him to lock God away. This book will likely feature an alternate universe set in an apocalypse for at least part of the book, based on the scenes I have playing in my head. This means seeing characters we’ve seen in my current books in a different world.

3. When a group skydive goes off course, the kids wash up on a private island that looks like an abandoned amusement park, but the nooks and crannies of the park hide long-forgotten experiments of bringing back long extinct monsters. This would be a dinosaur novel with Until Dawn type vibes

Teaser: Untitled Alice & Jacob story

A/N: Today is Jake’s birthday! Although I’ve been in a bit ore pain than usual and haven’t been able to finish this first chapter, I still wanted to share what I have so far to celebrate almost EIGHT years of writing Jacob Mason. I hope you enjoy**

NOT EDITED

For the last year or so, Jacob Mason had woken up almost every single day to work a long shift at the station with his partner, Alice Dawson. Before that, he had spent two months spending damn near every minute with her, sharing the same dorm in the Academy. That morning, however, when a suspect clocked him in the face so hard he lost consciousness, and he woke up to see Alice’s face through one blurry, squinted eye, he was hit with the fact that he was madly in love with a very married woman.

Alice’s full lips moved, and her warm hand touched his face, but he didn’t hear a single damn word. “What?”

Alice snorted, rolling her eyes. “Okay, well that answers it.” She laughed softly. “I asked if you were okay. Lost you for a minute.” Her fingers delicately touched a painful spot beneath his right eye. “You’re gonna have quite the shiner, Jay.”

Christ, he’d always thought she was pretty, but had she always been that beautiful? He cleared his throat. “Feels like it.” He accepted Alice’s hand and let her pull him up to a seated position on the sidewalk. He covered his right eye with his hand, closing the other. Maybe he could think if he wasn’t looking at her. “Umm… did he get away?”

“What do you take me for? A coward? God, no. He’s in the back of the cruiser.”

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “You tellin’ me you kept chasin’ the guy when he knocked me out cold?”

“Umm, excuse you, I was protecting your honor, Jay.”

Jacob snorted. “ ‘Course. I appreciate it. Consider my honor protected.” He forced himself to look at her again, even though the way the sunrise was hitting her face wasn’t doing him any favors. Damn golden hour bullshit. “He didn’t hit you too, right?”

“No, just ran. But you know me. Top of the class,” she said, gently punching the air between them. That much was true, much to the chagrin of the instructors at Academy and most of the other future officers. She’d been the only woman and the only Black person that year, and they’d given her hell because of it. Sure as hell hadn’t stopped her from kicking ass and taking names.

Yeah, it was starting to make sense why he’d woken up with a love of Alice. And probably a concussion.

“We taking him to the station for questioning?”

“We’re waiting for backup. They’re going to take him to the station, and then I am going to take you to the ER and make sure you aren’t seriously fucked up.”

“So you caught him?”

Alice raised an eyebrow before grabbing his chin to turn his head to the side. “You definitely have a concussion. And you’re bleeding a little too.”

“I’m fine. My head hurts, but I’m fine.”

“You just forgot I caught the guy. We already went over that. Repeating questions is a pretty good indication, Jay.”

He turned back toward her as she tilted her head down toward her radio to request an ETA on backup. He’d already forgotten she’d gotten the suspect into the cruiser, but the way he’d felt about Alice the moment he opened his eyes hadn’t changed or dissipated one bit. So… hoping it’d go away as the concussion faded was officially out of the question.

***

The visit to the ER proved Alice right, and after over twenty minutes of back and forth, Jacob finally managed to convince her to take him back to the station so they could question the guy who had clocked him in the first place. He was a suspect in a kidnapping, and a concussion wasn’t going to stop Jacob from spending every damn second he had on finding that missing little girl.

Though Alice was definitely going to have to do most of the question asking and note taking if they wanted to find out anything noteworthy. Unfortunately, Jacob’s foggy brain wasn’t great for any real cop work. Still, when their real partners finally showed up for the day—Detectives NAME and NAME, Jacob didn’t want them riding Alice’s ass to do the ‘boring’ parts of their job for them. The detectives passing certain tasks off to them was one thing when it was both of them. Forcing dozens of tasks on just Alice was insane, but he knew damn well they’d do it.

Jacob followed her into Interrogation Room One and sat down at the steel table in the middle of the room. Alice gave his shoulder a quick squeeze before sitting down beside him. That was so normal for her, so familiar, but suddenly, today, it felt different. Today, it stirred the flutter of butterflies in his stomach, even though he wished it didn’t. She was married. So married. Sure, he was a fucking asshole, but Alice seemed unreasonably used to it.

Jacob shook his head just enough to draw his focus back to the case, back to work. Oscar Hayes sat at the other side of it, arms crossed over his chest and a smug little smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “I got you pretty good, huh?”

“It might be wise not to admit to assualting a cop,” Alice said.

Oscar glanced over at her before shrugging. “Didn’t admit to nothin’.”

“Sure.” Alice shuffled the papers in front of her before tapping the bottom of the stack against the table. She’d done that a million times too, but today, it brought a small smile to Jacob’s face. He figured it was a leftover habit from her law school days. She’d been doing it the whole time he’d known her. The near professionalism of the act had made her a little intimdating in Academy, something that probably would have come in handy if she had become a lawyer rather than switching course for police officer.

“Why’d you run, Mister Hayes?” Jacob asked.

“You were threatening me. I ran for my safety.”

“Our body cameras would show otherwise,” Alice said.

Oscar offered another shrug. “Your body camera can’t determine how I felt, and I felt threatened.”

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Surgeon – Chapter Nine

A/N: I entered one of my megaE pups (Ripley) in a contest for cutest pup! If we can place high enough, we can earn a small monetary prize that’ll go right back into the sanctuary and helping megaesophagus dogs! Vote for Ripley here

If you don’t know, I have five now and am hoping to finally add a small one to the family this year (I’ve got my heart set on one as we speak 💜).

This is a totally free way to support our megaesophagus dogs, as voting is free once every ten minutes, up to ten times a day! Thank you to anyone who votes. Even if we don’t place high enough for anything, you support is still deeply appreciated!

NOT EDITED

Chapter Nine

10:03 AM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, LAB

Jacob knocked on the open door of the lab before poking his head into the room. “We have a scene. Ready to head out?”

Bo glanced up at the detective before clearing his throat. “Me?”

Jacob smiled. “Yeah, you. Who else would I be talking to? One of your bajillion notebooks?” he asked.

Bo chuckled, but it was forced. Each of his notebooks had a purpose, a set purpose that made it important. ‘Bajillion’ made each one seem inferior, unimportant, pointless. Deep down, he knew Jacob hadn’t meant it that way, but it was the way his brain translated it, the way his anxiety perpetuated it. Knowing it was his anxiety twisting the words like a knife didn’t make the blade any less sharp.

He tucked his pen between the pages of his notebook, closed the cover, and stood up. “Just me?”

“Just you. No Gwen. Don’t worry about it. She’s, uh, in a sitdown with the chief for today.”

“It’s okay, really. I’ve met much worse coworkers.”

“That doesn’t give her the right to be an asshole. We’re just on edge. Your department isn’t the only one who had a killer running through it,” Jacob said as he started out of the lab.

Bo grabbed his satchel and camera bag before hurrying after Jacob. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Our old chief was crooked as shit. I don’t know if he ever killed anyone, but he was peddling drugs and framing the innocent and making sure the criminals walked free. Throw in a homicidal defense attorney, and you have a wonderful recipe for a bunch of cops and lab techs who can’t handle welcoming a new guy into the department just because of where he worked last.”

“I… didn’t know that.” Bo couldn’t help but shake his head. He should’ve done more research on Clinstone. It wasn’t the tiniest town in the world, but it wasn’t the biggest, either. He hadn’t figured he’d need to check of the police department had previously been run by a drug peddler, but you learned new lessons all the time. Clearly.

“Should’ve done your homework, huh?”

Bo laughed. “I was, uh, I was actually thinking the same thing.”

Jacob’s smile was soft, almost comforting. “Just give everyone some time. They’ll see you aren’t a bad guy. You’re just a… big nerd in a big world, looking for a job where you can get your nerd on. Who you worked with or what station you came from doesn’t change that. Your just a big science geek in a little body.”

Admittedly, that was probably the most efficient and accurate way anyone had ever described him.

Bo bit back the urge to tell Jacob he wasn’t exactly looking to make any friends while he was in Clinstone, that he didn’t plan on staying after this case was solved, but it wasn’t worth the energy. Jacob was friendly and persistent. Despite the constant rejections when he offered to take Bo with him and Carter to lunch or breakfast, Jacob continued trying. Bo assumed he’d do the same if told Bo wasn’t in the market for new friends. Or any friends, for that matter.

Instead, he settled for a simple, “Thank you,” in response.

“You betcha.”

10:23 AM; CLINSTONE COMMUNITY CENTER, BACK DUMPSTER

“Our killer sure likes dumpsters, huh?” Carter asked as Bo stepped up onto the bottom lip of the dumpster. “Two kills in, and it’s already a little repetive. Gonna get pretty old pretty quick.”

Bo shook his head as he leaned forward and snapped a picture of the victim. They weren’t only two kills in; Bo was relatively certain of that. The confidence in the slash across Tess Brown’s throat had been relatively good proof of that. The man in the dumpster, whoever he may be, likely wasn’t their first victim, either, even though he’d definitely been there a while.

“That’s a little fucked up, don’t you think?” Jacob asked. “These vics aren’t, like, a plotline in a bad TV show. They aren’t repetative. They’re dead.”

“They aren’t repetative. He is.”

Bo glanced up at the sky, choosing to keep it to himself that they had no proof the killer was a man. The more he kept to himself, the smoother things would go for the remainer of the case. Holding his camera in one hand, he climbed onto the top lip of the dumpster, using his knees to balance himself at the corner as he leaned down for a closer picture of the victim.

“Whoa, careful, Austen.”

Bo turned his head just long enough to get a look at the worried look on Jacob’s face. At his current angle, he had little to no chance of falling backward and risking any serious injury. Falling forward onto the victim and destroying evidence was technically possible, but his knees had created a solid based on the dumpster, and it was unlikely he’d fall forward without being pushed. Again, he kept that to himself. Instead, he offered a simple, “I’ll be fine.”

He brought his full attention back to the victim. His head and neck, the only parts of his body visible outside of his clothes, were a black-green color. Bacteria had caused an extreme accumulation of gas inside, pushing the victim’s eyes and tongue forward. The skin was blistered and marbled with the intricate patterns of visible blood vessels. Purge fluid leaked from the man’s mouth and nose, and Bo could see what appeared to be a tear rather than an intention laceration along the victim’s neck. The tear indicated the body tissue there had broken open to allow a much-needed release of the gas and fluid that had built up after his death, similar to the way a fruit would split when left out in the sun for far too long.

After being assigned to Dallas and Kathy’s ‘case’ for so long, Bo’s field work had been minimal, and it seemed like it’d been an eternity since he’d seen a victim’s corpse so far gone. He snapped another picture. “Vic’s a male, maybe in his mid-forties. He’s been dead for a while. Five, six days.”

“So around the same time Tess died?” Jacob asked.

“Somewhere in there.”

Beneath the skin, it was clear the muscles had deteriorated at an incredible rate, a rate that was far quicker than that of a normal decaying corpse. Likely, he’d been poisoned with something that caused a deterioration og the muscles. From what Bo could see of the victim’s hands and wrists, it didn’t appear like he’d been tied up, so the poison had to have been something a person could slip the victim without him tasting it, without him knowing something was wrong until it was too late.

Conium maculatum, possibly? It would’ve caused a gradual weakening of the muscles and intense pain as they started dying off. Symptoms would’ve kicked in around thirty minutes after the digestion of the poision, and death came several hours later, essentially serving as a sweet relief by that point. All parts of the plant were poisonous, and it wouldn’t have been hard to throw some leaves into a salad.

“Vic was likely poisoned,” Bo said quietly, setting his camera on the lid of the dumpster.

“With what?” Jack asked. Bo offered a shrug as he pulled his phone from his back pocket. “You don’t have a guess?”

“Not one worth sharing.” Bo wouldn’t be able to get a fingerprint out here, not with how decomposed the victim’s flesh was. He’d need to cut off the stiff fingers and use the glove method of fingerprinting. It had certainly been a long while since he’d had to do that. There was sa time where he would’ve hated the idea of it, dreaded it from the moment he realized it was necessary. Today though, he simply felt glad to be useful, even if only for a day.

He turned on the flashlight on his phone and leaned into the dumpster. He heard Jacob let out a heavy breath—presumably further concern. Using two gloved fingers, Bo pulled down on the victim’s bottom jaw. The smell of death and decay was beyond terrible, even from behind Bo’s mask, garbage, and the smell of the cold, winter air.

There was nothing obviously obstructing the mouth or stuck in the back of his throat, though Bo wouldn’t know for certain if the poison had made it all the way to his stomach until they got the man to the lab. Bo stuck his gloved hand into the victim’s front pocket, quickly followed by the other. Keys. That was a good start. He pulled them out and slipped his finger through the keyring before reaching beneath the victim to get at his back pocket.

Nothing. He tried the other back pocket, unable to stop himself from smiling as his fingers slipped around what felt like a wallet. He leaned back out of the dumpster, turned off his flashlight, and shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Evidence bag?” Bo asked, turning to the detectives.

Jacob pulled a small bag from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and stepped close enough to the dumpster to hold it out to Bo. Bo dropped the keys into it. While Jacob sealed the bag and grabbed another, Bo flipped open the wallet. No ID. It was possible the killer had taken it, or maybe the man simply didn’t have one. Whatever the reason, Bo would have no choice but to try and fingerprint him.

He dropped the wallet into the next bag Jacob held out. He grabbed his camera from the lid of the dumpster and held it against his shoulder as he used his free hand for leverage to clilmb down from the dumpster.

“You wanna take these to the car?” Jacob asked. “I’ll help Austen finish up here.”

“Sure, man.” Carter grabbed the bags and headed for the parking lot.

After watching him for a moment, Jacob’s blue eyes settled on Bo’s face. “You’re quiet.”

“Maybe I don’t have much to say.”

“From what I’ve read about you, you’ve got so much intel swirling around in your head that I don’t know how the hell you ever shut up.”

Bo almost snorted at that one. It was a fair assessment, if nothing else. “I suppose that’s fair,” Bo said softly. “I’m still… figuring out my place here in Clinstone. I’m used to working in L.A.. I’m used to working under Jamal Pitman. I’m used to… an entirely different group of people, entirely different crime scenes, entirely different functions and operations. I’m just trying to find my place, and right now, ‘quiet’ is where I fit in.”

“You’re sure that’s all?”

It didn’t matter how many times Jacob Mason correctly identified something about him. Bo still wasn’t looking to make friends here. He was simply trying to survive the new environment until the case was over and he could go home. Maybe running away had been the wrong call. Nowhere in The United States would ever be Los Angeles.

So Bo offered a nod. “That’s all.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll wait here until transport to the morgue arrives.”

“You sure?”

Again, Bo nodded. He didn’t exactly mind the silence of waiting near a corpse. “I’m sure. I’ll see you back at the station.”

After a moment, Jacob nodded, accepting he’d lost the battle again. “Sure. See you there, Austen.”

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Chapter Eight

Chapter Ten

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Surgeon – Chapter Eight

A/N: Happy birthday, Bo! If Bo were a real person, he’d be 34 years old today.

NOT EDITED

Chapter Eight

Monday: January 6, 2020

8:00 AM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, LAB

Bo had not slept well over the course of the weekend. There was so little he could do in Clinstone. He hadn’t worked strictly forensics in… years. Since he was interning in Los Angeles. He had spent so many years going with a detective to interviews and interrogations that he had truly almost forgotten what it was like to simply be locked up in the lab, looking at photographs and filing them away, labeling bags of evidence and filing them away, writing up a crime scene report and… filing it away.

He had spent the weekend working out dozens of different angles for their killer, for the motive. Now he just had to work up the courage to show it to one of the detectives. Or maybe the chief. She knew his old boss, and although he didn’t think they were exactly friends, she was likely the most prepared for how much of an investigation he was used to being involved in, for how much extra work he was willing to do for the same amount of pay.

The clearing of a throat pulled Bo’s attention to the short brunette standing in the doorway. He tucked his unclicked pen into the pages of his notebook and folded it shut. The way she stared at him made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but he tried not to make it obvious that it bothered him any. Instead, like the quiet mouse he was trying to conform back to, he rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Bo Austen.”

She closed the distance between them to shake his hand, but that look was still there in her brown eyes. “Gwen Tanner, medical examiner.” She dropped his hand and wiped her own on her jeans. Bo’s brow furrowed. Again, he tried to cover it up as quickly as he could. “Did Misty come by and clean?” she asked.

Bo bit back a snort. He had assumed they must’ve both liked the tornado war zone aesthetic of the lab’s shelves and drawers, that there was no way one would ever assume the other had tidied up the place. “No, that was me.”

“Oh.” She said it slowly, as though she didn’t know what else she could possible say to him.

Bo’s teeth sunk into the inside of his bottom lip, catching on the oh so familiar scar given to him by five-year-old Bo falling off his bike. Hard.

“Why?” Gwen asked.

Bo blinked, eyes shifting back to the woman’s face. “Why… did I clean?”

“Mmhmm.”

“I… I work better in an organized environment.”

“Mm.”

He didn’t understand the one-worded answers or what he must’ve done to upset her. He’d only known the woman for two minutes. What the hell could he have possibly done? Still, he wanted to blend in, to fade back into the background of the police department. He just wanted to finish this case and get out, go somewhere further from California next time. “I’m sorry?” Bo offered.

Her gaze snapped to his face. “For what?”

“Cleaning?”

Her eyes narrowed briefly. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You wanna show me the shit you moved around, dude? Or am I expected to find everything in my workplace that you fucked with on my own?”

“N-no, I-I can show you.” Bo barely managed to rake a nervous hand through his hair before he caught sight of Jacob Mason standing in the doorway.

“Hey… Gwen?” Jacob asked.

Rather than turning around, her gaze shifted to the ceiling. “Yeah?”

“How about you go upstairs and take a break, huh? Chill out for a few?”

“I’m fine, Jake,” Gwen said through her teeth, eyes still on the ceiling.

“He’s not an idiot. Or some kind of intern. Or some sort of burden here in the department. He cleaned the room. That’s it. You don’t gotta be a dick about it,” Jacob said as he walked further into the room.

I don’t need your help! Bo wanted to scream. He had learned at far too young of an age that asking the big guy for help was never the solution. It only ever made things even worse once the big guy turned his back again.

Gwen turned to face Jacob, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Get the fuck out of my lab.”

Jacob pushed her hand away. “I’m not intimated by this, Gwen. I’m just asking you to chill out. We’ve known each other long enough that you can trust me on this, right?” His voice came out much quieter than before as he added, “He’s just a lab geek, Gwen. Just a lab geek.”

Gwen glared at him in silence for what felt like an eternity before she shoved past him, pushing his shoulder with her own. The lab door slammed shut behind her.

After a moment, Jacob cleared his throat. “Sorry about that.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

Jacob lifted his shoulders. “Still.” A pause. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Bo forced a laugh. “I can handle a bit of push and shove from a colleague. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

“I’m sure it’s not. But that doesn’t mean every place you go from here on out should be hostile.” Jacob nodded toward the door. “It’s not you, you know? Gwen’s just… working through some stuff. She picks a fight with just about everyone right now. Today it was you, tomorrow it’ll be me. I wouldn’t take it to heart.” He lifted a hand and pushed it into his hair. Bo took a small step back, a nervous little tic he usually had complete control over. “I already know the answer, but… you wanna grab breakfast with me and Lemon?”

Breakfast would be a good time to go over the profile he had worked on over the weekend, but he knew he wasn’t ready for that. Convincing himself to talk to one detective about it was bad enough. Showing his work to two of the detectives was even worse. So he shook his head. “I’m all right. I appreciate the offer, Detective.”

“Okay. Well, uh, if you change your mind?” Jacob jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “We’ll be upstairs for another five minutes or so. You know where my desk is, yeah?”

“I do. But I’m okay. Thank you.”

“Okay.” Jacob looked as though he wanted to say more, but instead, he turned and walked out of the room, closing the door with a soft click behind him.

Bo tilted his head back and closed his eyes, drawing in a long, deep breath. Jupiter, what he wouldn’t give to be back in California, back before Dallas ever met Kathy, back before the detective changed departments to be with her, back before… all of it. What he wouldn’t give to go back to life before he knew his best friend was one of the most prolific serial killers in the United States. What he wouldn’t give to go back to life before he knew he had lived under the same roof as that serial killer, that he’d ridden to crime scenes with that serial killer, that he had shared breakfasts and coffees and beers with that serial killer.

Jesus, what he wouldn’t give.

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Chapter Seven

Chapter Nine

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J. Pitman’s Legend – Prologue

A/N: It’s Jamal’s birthday today! So here’s the prologue of book one of his series 💜

NOT EDITED

The black teenager lifted his head as a car pulled into the driveway. The boy sat on the balcony just outside his bedroom window–though it was in less than ideal condition for something made to support the weight of a human being–dark eyes scanning the landscape below him. Inside, his younger brother lay asleep on the bed. The boys, aged fifteen and twelve, had been alone in the house for the last week and a half while their father had been on one of his ‘business trips’. As per usual, the boys had been left to fend for themselves until his return. It was only when their father was gone for longer than twelve days that he called in their uncle to babysit.

The older boy didn’t mind watching his younger brother, and he certainly didn’t mind being all alone at the house. It was something he had gotten used to over the years, and for quite some time, he had longed for it. Hell, after the last babysitting… adventure with their uncle, he had practically prayed for it.

The boy stood up as the driver’s side door of the car opened. He vaulted himself over the railing that lined the edges of the balcony, grabbing the wooden platform before he could go too far. He hung there for a moment before dropping down to the ground below, bending his knees just enough to protect his ankles from the shock of the fall.

He jogged toward the parked car, more than aware that his father didn’t want to wait long for him. He tucked his hands behind his back, the way he had been taught to stand since the day he turned four.

“Everything from the first,” the boy’s father commanded as he climbed out of the car.

“You don’t want to know anything from the end of December, sir?” the boy asked. He was more than used to relaying the events in the news to his father, telling him of everything that had transpired worldwide while he was gone. The boy had been responsible for it since he was able to read.

“Did I ask for December?”

“No, sir.”

“Then do you think I want December?” The man stared down at his son for a moment before shutting the car door and heading toward the house. The young boy followed. “January. Lay it out.”

“Of course, sir. My apologies. January first, sir. The transit workers went on strike. The subway was shut down for… some time.”

“You’re pausing. Don’t pause. Memorize your material,” the man said as he walked inside.

“My apologies,” the boy repeated. He stepped into the house, closing the door behind him. “UCLA beat Michigan State fourteen to twelve in the Rose Bowl. Missouri beat Florida twenty to eighteen in the Sugar Bowl. Alabama beat Nebraska thirty-nine to twenty-eight in the Orange Bowl.” The boy followed his father into the kitchen. “January second, sir. Green Bay Packers beat Cleveland Browns twenty-three to twelve in the NFL Championship.”

“Damn,” the man muttered.

“January third, sir, Floyd McKissick was named national director of CORE,” a pause, “sir.”

“Good.”

“And, uh, today, the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album, as well as their single We Can Work It Out, hit number one. And Georges Pompidou was re-appointed as Prime Minister of France, sir,” the boy said.

“Don’t stutter, Jamal.”

“I didn’t stutter, sir.”

“It’s been a long week, Jamal. Don’t test me. You know what I mean. No pauses. No umms and uhs.”

The boy, Jamal, nodded. “My apologies, sir.”

His father grunted. “Where’s the other one?”

“Sleeping, sir.”

“Wake him up for me.”

“He needs to sleep, sir,” Jamal said. “He’s was up most of the night.”

“That’s not my damn fault, is it?” his father asked.

“No, sir.”

“Then wake him up.”

“I won’t, Dad,” Jamal said.

Jamal flinched as his father whirled around toward him. “Don’t fucking call me that. It’s ‘sir’ or ‘Mister Pitman’. Don’t want no one thinkin’ you have any sort of favoritism, you hear?”

“Apologies, sir,” Jamal said. He knew better than to call his father anything other than ‘sir,’ but anytime he called him ‘Dad’ or ‘Father,’ it drew his father’s attention away from his little brother. That was all Jamal wanted. Anything to keep his brother out of wrath’s way. “Are you home for long, sir?”

“No, I’m leaving again tomorrow.”

“When will you return?”

“Next Saturday,” the man said.

“We’ll need more food before you leave, sir,” Jamal said.

The man shook his head. For a moment, something human crossed his face. “I can’t, Jamal. I don’t have…” He cleared his throat. “I’ll have your uncle swing by, bring some food.”

“Please don’t.”

Slowly, he cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

Jamal swallowed before clearing his throat. “Apologies, sir. It’s nothing. I just… don’t want to bother him.”

“All right. Well, you’re resourceful. You’ll figure it out on your own.”

“Yes, sir.”

His father waved a hand. “Go.”

“Yes, sir.” Jamal offered a respectful bow, hands still tucked behind his back. He walked out of the kitchen and headed up the stairs and to his bedroom. He shut the door quietly, twisting the lock to keep his father from bursting in without any warning. He grabbed a book from the small desk against the wall and sat down on his bed beside his sleeping brother. He leaned back against the headboard and opened the book.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Nearly a year ago, the human rights activist had been assassinated less than eight miles away from the house Jamal and his family lived in.

It was one of the only books Jamal owned, and he had read it a total of seventeen times since his father’s boss had bought it for him. Jamal let out a quiet sigh as he started reading the page before him. He’d finish the book again that night, see his father off the next morning, do his best to steal food for himself and his brother without getting caught tomorrow afternoon, and then live the week in peace until his father’s return the following Saturday, the fifteenth.

It was a ritual, one he was entirely used to. In two months, he would start working with his father and his father’s associates, and that would be quite the change in the ritual. A welcome change at that.

But he knew that didn’t mean it would be easy. It would never be easy. The Pitmans weren’t ‘easy’ people. They lived life as hard as they could until the day they died. Jamal planned to do the same, build his own life, a legend even greater than his father’s.

When Jamal was done, the Pitman name wouldn’t make people think of his father. No. When Jamal Pitman was done, the Pitman name would strike fear in the heart of anyone that knew the legends and rumors surrounding the name, the legends of Jamal Pitman.

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Chapter One

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Surgeon – Chapter Seven

NOT EDITED

Chapter Seven

Sunday: January 5, 2020
7:15 AM; MINNESOTA, THE SURGEON’S HOUSE, BASEMENT

In her little basement prison cell, Cleo sat on a footstool positioned near the end of the bed. The older man, the one who had been her kidnapper, sat behind her on the edge of the mattress, running a brush through her hair. She forced herself not to fight him or try to stop him. From what Natalie had told her, fighting would get her killed, and she didn’t want to die. She wasn’t ready to die.

In the cell beside hers, the young green-eyed man simply observed as Natalie brushed her own hair. He stood with his back to the cell door, arms crossed over his chest, that same detached look in his eyes.

The older man combed his fingers through Cleo’s hair. Satisfied it was knot-free, he set the brush on the bed and rose to his feet. Cleo watched with bated breath as he opened up the cell door. “Come here, darling,” he said softly, a hand extended to her.

Oh, God. Cleo rose to her feet, her legs unsteady beneath her. I’m not ready to die. I’m not ready. She forced herself to cross the small bedroom, forced herself to grab his hand. It was soft and warm as he threaded his fingers through hers, such a deep contrast to the ice-cold evil she expected to feel every time he got close to her.

He led her out of the cell and up the basement stairs. Down a hall, he opened a door and gently pulled her into the room. “Here you go, darling. Clean towels here,” he said, laying a hand on the folded towels on the counter. “There’s a washcloth in the tub. Shampoo, conditioner, soap. Everything you need.” He brushed a thumb over her cheek, and she did everything in her control not to flinch away from his touch.

“Take as long as you need. Enjoy the hot water on your shoulders. I’ll be in the hall when you’re done.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He met her gaze, his smile soft. After a moment, he walked out of the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Cleo’s eyes scanned the bathroom. No cameras. No obvious death traps. He was simply… letting her take an honest to God shower. She turned around, catching her reflection’s eyes. Jesus. Her face was tired and unbelievably fearful. Still, she was amazed at how well she was holding herself together. There wasn’t exactly a gold standard on how a kidnapping victim should act or how they should hold themself, but… but she was doing okay. She could keep that up.

She and Natalie were going to survive this. They were strong. They were fighters.

They were survivors.

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Chapter Six

Chapter Eight

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Surgeon – Chapter Six

NOT EDITED

Chapter Six

Saturday: January 4, 2020
6:30 AM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, MORGUE

    “Oh, geez, I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone would actually be in here this morning,” a rather pregnant blonde said.

    “That’s all right.” Bo tucked his pen between the pages of his notebook and closed it. Setting the notebook down beside him, he pushed himself off the floor. He crossed the room and stuck out a hand. “Bo Austen.”

    “Ah, you’re my replacement.” She shook his hand. “Misty Archer.” After dropping Bo’s had, hers moved back to her stomach. “We probably wouldn’t be meeting if my little guy here stuck to the plan. I’m two days ovedue.”

    “Stubborn, huh?”

    She snorted. “Yeah, I guess he’s just not reayd for the world yet.”

    Bo forced a chuckle, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. Truthfully, he couldn’t blame the kid. He wasn’t ready for the world, either.

    He glanced down at her left hand. Wedding band. Married. Archer was likely her married name. “Is there anything I can help you with, Mrs. Archer?”

    “I’m just looking for… something,” she said, eyes scanning the room.”

    “I tidied up a little. So… what can I help you find?”

    “Well, umm, it’s a black binder. There’s a name on the cover. Sanders.”

    “Stan Sanders,” Bo murmured with a ond. “It’s in the lab.” He walked past Misty and pulled open the door, holding it open until she had walked into the lab. She didn’t thank him, something that bothered him just a little. It generally didn’t bother him much, though he’d always been taught that a simple ‘thank you’ was polite and normal, but with the way most people in the criminal justice system had treated him in his time in the field, it felt like a personal attack. He hated that.

    He crossed the room, forcing himself to keep his pace as nomal as he was pretending to be. Truly, he just wanted to get Misty Archer out of the lab before she had a chance to tornado up the place again. He pulled open a cabinet door and grabbed the binder in question. He turned and held it out to her. “Here you go.”

    She took it without a thank you. Bo tried not to let it get to his head. For Misty, this was likely nothing more than a simple conversation, a simple interaction, a simple transaction. Focusing on every little thing she did or said probably wasn’t on her mind. What stuck in Bo’s head as some sort of attack or dig wasn’t her problem.

    “Nice job on the lab. It looks… nice,” Misty said.

    The words pulled Bo back to the present. Nice? “It’s just easier for me if things are organized,” he said quietly.

    “Mm.” She looked around the lab again. “You have OCD or something?”

    “Obsessive-compulsive disorder isn’t about cleaning or organizing, Mrs. Archer.  It’s about obsessions and compulsions, not the level of one’s tidiness.” Bo cleared his throat, tucking his hands behind his back. He bit down on the inside of his lower lip, fighting off the longer explanation he wanted to give. He’d learned long ago that long explanations often led to arguments. ‘You have an answer for everything, don’t you?’ ‘You don’t have to be an ass about it.’ ‘You don’t have to mansplain it to me.’ ‘Wow, you just know everything, don’t you?’ He wasn’t here to fight. He was here to work, solve the case, and go somewhere else, somewhere further away.

    “No, I don’t have OCD,” he finally whispered.

    Misty’s brow furrowed for the briefest of moments. Bo couldn’t help but be thankful for the dark-haired, green-eyed man that came into the lab before Misty had a chance to respond. The little girl at his side—maybe five or six years old—looked a lot like Misty, though her brown hair was closer in color to the man’s. The overdue baby would be her second child.

    The man held out his hand. “John Archer.”

    Bo shook it. In 2010, Chevrolet UK commissioned a university professor to come up with an equation for the perfect handshake. The professor had done it, though it was admittedly quite a ridiculous thing to look at.

    √ (e^2 + ve^2)(d^2) + (cg + dr)^2 + π{(4^2)(4^2)}^2 + (vi + t + te)^2 + {(4^2 )(4^2)}^2

    Each letter stood for a specific part of the handshake, a part that would make said handshake perfect if executed correctly. John had failed eye contact, but he had gotten a verbal greeting up to par, as far as Bo was concerned. The smile on his face was false—which the equation factored in as ‘non-Duchenne’—so he’d failed that section too. An incomplete grip and a sweaty palm wer low scores on John’s end as well. It had been a strong shake, though. That counted for something.

    The position of John’s hand had been all right, and the vigor had been okay, but his hands were cold and rough. Contrl and duration had been much better than the previous factors, but the negatives outdid the positives.

    John had scored a whopping twenty points out of the posible forty-five the eqation alloed for. Forty-four pecent. Failure. Bo would have given him an A for effort, bt effort ddn’t begin wih the letter A. So instead, he mentally marked him down with an F for failure.

    Even before Bo had learned about the existence of such a crazed equation, he had only ever known one person who gave the perfect handshake, and that was Dallas Silver. Dallas had done quite a lot of things perfectly. He’d secured a detective job, married the detective working the Hangman case, befriended cops and lab geeks alike. He’d played nice with just about everyone, secured a cushy, perfect little life inside of a perfect little family to perfectly hide who he truly. And boy, had he wildly succeeded at hiding. He’d hidden it from Bo for almost a decade before he made himself a fugitive.

    Bo kept these things to himself, of course—the handshae equation and evaluation, the murderous people he had once trusted with his life. Instead, he offered a smile to John and said, “Bo Austen.”

    “John’s my husband,” Misty said. “And that’s our dauhter, Karen.” The little girl lifted a hand and waved. Bo repeated the action befor averting his gaze. By Jupiter, he wanted this to be over. The only children he’d ever really been around had been Dallas’s kids, and he didn’t need reminders of them. Not now. Not today.

    Not ever.

    “Well, it was good meeting yo, Bo. I’ll see you again when I get back from maternity leave.”

    Bo nodded. “Of course, Mrs. Archer. It was good meeting you, as wll. And congratulation.”

    Misty smiled. “Thank you. And thanks for the binder.” She held it up for a moment before grabbing her daughter’s hand. Finally, the Archer family walked out of the lab.

    Bo let out a deep sigh, shoulders sinking as the door swung shut. With his headspace for work entirely shattered by thoughts of Dallas Silver and the people he had carved up and hanged in between working and hanging out with Bo, he rolled up the sleeves of his blue and white checkered flannel shirt. If he couldn’t work, he could clean. Again. Anything was better than the deafening silence of the lab and the shattering loudness of his mind.

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Chapter Five

Chapter Seven

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