Here’s a taste of The Deepest Cut
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Montaña de Oro State Park
Central California Coast
Eight years ago
He couldn’t wait to pop his cherry. He was nervous but confident. This was good. No… Great. Perfect. Looking up at California State Park Ranger Marilu Feathers, he let a smile tickle his lips and said, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
He pulled one corner of his mouth higher than the other, crafting what he took to be a rakish grin. Then she’d know that he knew it was a corny old saying and would show his mastery of the situation. He arched an eyebrow while he was at it, shooting to look clever, disarming, and maybe a little handsome. At last, he was rewarded. She smiled. She was definitely flirting with him.
Feathers smirked. She was in no mood. It was the end of her shift. It was Christmas Eve and this clown was about to make her late to dinner at her parents’ house with her brother and his family. Her young niece and nephew wouldn’t care, but her sister-in-law would find it an opportunity to remind single, childless, thirty-something Feathers about the importance of schedules for children.
The stranger looked Feathers over with a measure of scrutiny and delight, as if examining a long-sought-after rare book found by chance at a yard sale. In awe, he had watched her lead Gypsy, her big roan mare, down the bluff and gallop across the sand spit toward him, scattering spindly-legged sandpipers and inky black cormorants that were feeding in the surf while brown pelicans and white herons screeched and circled above. His heart thrilled with each beat of the horse’s hooves upon the sand.
He felt his emotions running away with him and, like Feathers had reined in her horse, he seized command of himself. His reward was near. His memories of this moment would keep it alive and fresh forever. All he had to do was hold on. Hold on.
Feathers managed an insincere, “Good evening, sir,” and then the admonishment. “Campfires are not allowed on the beach.”
He knew that. Why else would he have built one?
Standing near him now, she was a sight to behold, sitting tall in the saddle, her dun-colored uniform fitting loosely on her big-boned, lean frame. He was beguiled by her uniform, her round, flat-brimmed Ranger Stetson hat, her gun, and her badge. Her plain face so easily adopted that no-nonsense bearing. He’d seen her laugh, but soon after, her face would again assume that stern countenance, that command presence coveted by cops. It came naturally to Feathers. She had been born for the job.
He’d told her, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Rakish grin. Arched eyebrow.
He decided it was appropriate to return his attention to the marshmallow he was roasting in the campfire on the end of an opened wire hanger. The next move was hers. He was so excited, he could hardly stand it. Get a grip, buddy!
“Sir, you’re going to have to put out that fire. Now.”
“I know, Ranger Feathers.” He pulled the golden, softly melting marshmallow from the flames and swung the wire toward Feathers. “Toasted marshmallow?”
The sudden motion startled the horse and she pranced backward.
“Watch it, pal.” Feathers steadied Gypsy and led her around to the other side of the man. Morro Rock was behind them. The giant, crown-shaped, long-extinct volcano at the mouth of the bay was silhouetted by the fading winter sun.
She was wearing a brass name tag, but his vision had to be extraordinary if he could read it at that distance in the fading light. She leaned forward and gave the horse a couple of firm pats while she eyeballed the stranger.
The watch cap covered his hair and part of his eyebrows. He was seated, but his legs and arms were long. She guessed that standing he would be at least six feet tall. His clothes were bulky, but his build looked average. His face was ordinary. Not handsome or ugly. No distinguishing scars or marks. It was a blank canvas, brightened only by the way he looked at her. It was both adoring and consuming. It put her in mind of the way her brother played with her infant niece, slobbering kisses over the baby while taunting, “I’m gonna eat you up. Eat you up.”
“Didn’t mean to scare Gypsy.” He tossed off the horse’s name. This was good. He was golden. He could almost see the wheels turning as she sized him up, wondering, “Do I know this guy?” It was all he could do to keep from grinning. All she would see was a nondescript, young Caucasian male. He knew how the world saw him. He was learning to use it to his advantage.
He could tell his adoring gaze made her wary. Aroused her instincts of danger. He hoped it appealed to another part of her. She had to be unaccustomed to such attention from men. She was a raw-boned woman with a lantern jaw, a squat nose, and thin lips framing a gash of a mouth. Calling her handsome would be generous. She wasn’t the type of woman who inspired sonnets. But he loved her. He could hardly wait to show her how much. He caught his breath, feeling overwhelmed.
Control, he told himself. Control.
Christmas always made him emotional.
She asked, “Do I know you?” She searched her mind, grabbing at a memory that stubbornly slipped back into the shadows. “Where have I seen you?”
He pulled the sticky marshmallow from the end of the hanger with his fingers and blew on it before tossing it into his mouth. He chewed with obvious pleasure, letting out a little moan. He stood and stabbed the wire into the sand where it wobbled back and forth.
He struggled to calm his breath. “Nowhere. Everywhere.”
“What’s your name?”
He retrieved the wire hanger. Walking a few feet toward the surf where the sand was wet and smooth, he wrote in the sand.
Feathers cocked her head and squinted at the scrawling. “What does that say?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, pal…” Feathers reached behind her and pulled a small spade from a loop on the saddle bag. “You’re gonna put out that fire and I’m gonna escort you out of the park. Being Christmas Eve, if you cooperate, I won’t cite you. If you don’t, I’ll arrest you and you’ll spend the night in jail. Got it?”
“Ranger Feathers, you know about death.”
He was standing a few feet away from her and the horse, his hands by his sides. He didn’t want to breathe through his mouth, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been more rock hard. He was afraid that the slightest movement would make him explode, which would be awkward.
Control.
“Tell me what you know about death, Ranger Feathers. I want to know. I want to know everything.”
Excerpt from Chapter 2
Pasadena, California
September, This Year
Pasadena Police Detective Nan Vining was in her kitchen looking at a paper shopping bag that stood on the floor. She was in a ready position, hands by her sides, fingers twitching, feet shoulder-distance apart, as if the bag and its contents were about to harm her and her daughter. It was too late for that. Still, Vining’s instincts overrode logic.
Fourteen-year-old Emily was leaning against a counter, arms folded across her chest, head tilted down, peering at the bag from the corners of her eyes. In contrast with her mother, who was all about action, Em was the introspective member of the household of two.
“Mom, was that the shirt he was wearing when he attacked you?”
Vining exhaled, relaxing a little. Leave it to Em to cut to the quick of the matter. After all, the bag held a garment--a pale yellow, polo-style knit shirt, size large. On the breast was an embroidered logo of a lamb dangling from a ribbon—the insignia of Brooks Brothers. The shirt alone couldn’t hurt them. It was ordinary, nothing that would draw attention, consistent with Vining’s memory of the man who had been wearing it when he’d ambushed, stabbed, and murdered her. For just over two minutes, he had murdered her and sent her on a journey from which she’d yet fully to return. He was not merely a bad man; he was Vining’s and Emily’s personal bad man. And so they had given him a name: T.B. Mann. The Bad Man. In capital letters. In spades.
The only thing that made the shirt extraordinary was the thickly-caked dried blood that had saturated the front and trailed down the back. Vining was sure it was her blood. Testing would prove that T.B. Mann had been wearing that shirt when he’d plunged a knife into her neck after first slicing and disabling her gun hand. The incident had happened in June, the previous year. For twelve months, she’d been on Injured on Duty leave.
Her scars were still pink. There was a diagonal slash across the back of her right hand and a long garish scar on her neck that started behind her left ear and disappeared beneath her shirt collar. This was the one that garnered stares and helped strangers place her as the cop who’d let herself get ambushed. That cruel judgment held truth. She had hesitated during her confrontation with T.B. Mann, and consequently, he’d been able to stab her and flee, leaving her for dead. Her body had complied for two minutes. She often felt her mind was still trying to claw its way back from the other side.
Just as spilled blood had created something horrifying out of a mundane shirt, it had also transformed an outwardly mundane human being. There was nothing remarkable about T.B. Mann apart from the coldness in his eyes. She’d detected the coldness even through the dark brown contact lenses that she’d thought he’d been wearing to complete the disguise he’d donned that day.
Vining had gotten a good look at him. She sought to, even as blood poured from her wounds, knowing that if she survived, she’d need an accurate description to track him down. She’d also had little choice. After he’d stabbed her, the knife jutting from her neck, he’d tightly held her, like a lover. She’d felt his moist, mint-scented breath on her face as he gazed into her eyes. He was panting, his face flushed, as if they’d been engaged in a sexual act. She could have looked away, but didn’t, thinking those cold eyes might be the last thing she’d ever see.
She knew that he wouldn’t take his eyes off her until he was forced to. He had lived for that moment, watching the life drain from her. He’d released her when he’d heard her backup arrive, gently letting her slip to the floor, she thought with great regret at not being around to observe her stepping away from this life. Then he successfully executed a well-planned escape and was gone.
She had many her memories of that day--some clear, some hazy. One that was decidedly clear and as unsubtle as a baseball bat was his erection pressing against her belly. Of course he would get off on his triumph of having ensnared her. That was what defined him. That was what made this ice-eyed nobody into somebody. The sick fuck.
Vining vowed to take that from him and more. Much more.