Colton's Dangerous Cover
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Lisa Childs
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Chapter 1
The music was loud, even in the alley. Pulsating. Throbbing. It was alive. Like the rage burning inside the Slasher.
After the third assault a couple of years ago, that was what the media had named the attacker: The Slasher.
The Slasher smiled, enjoying the name and the attention. That attention was finally being paid for the right reason. For the power. Not the weakness. This was all about taking power back, about taking it away from them.
He would have found the note by now. The invitation for this tryst in the alley. He wouldn’t know for certain who’d left it for him, but he would think he was going to get lucky. He had no idea...
A door creaked open, letting some light and louder music seep into the alley. “Hello?” a man’s voice called out. “Are you out here?”
Still deep in the shadows, the Slasher called out in a husky whisper, “Over here...”
The guy chuckled, low in his throat, and stumbled away from the door, letting it click closed behind him. Darkness enveloped the area again, but for a thin sliver of moonlight slicing between the tall buildings on either side of the alley.
That thin sliver provided just enough light for the Slasher to see the victim, and for there to be a glint off the sharp blade as the Slasher swung the knife toward the head of the next victim.
Fletcher Colton was dealing with his last case with Salt Lake City PD before he would head home to Owl Creek, Idaho. It was another slasher case. He hoped this job wouldn’t cause him to postpone his start date for the position he’d accepted with Owl Creek PD as lead detective.
This case was getting a little personal for him. This was the second time the Slasher had struck in Salt Lake City. Fletcher hadn’t worked the first case; he’d already been working a homicide, which had taken priority over an assault. So far, the Slasher hadn’t killed anyone.
But the wounds across the victim’s face and chest were so deep that the man was going to have to spend some time in the hospital while they healed to make sure they didn’t get infected. These wounds were even deeper than the ones the last victim had received. The violence seemed to be escalating.
So it was just a matter of time before someone died, Fletcher thought. And even if they didn’t, the Slasher’s victims were going to be scarred for life—physically and mentally as well. The Slasher had to be stopped. These two cases in Salt Lake weren’t the only assaults. Over the past few years, there had been random attacks outside nightclubs in LA and Vegas. And now Salt Lake City. The randomness made it impossible to figure out where the Slasher would strike next.
Fletcher wanted to make sure that it was nowhere. He’d already interviewed the victim at the hospital. Now he was at the scene, watching as the techs collected evidence. Or at least he hoped they were collecting something that could be used as evidence. Lights had been set up in the alley so that nothing would be missed. The light illuminated the spatters and pools of blood from the attack that had been violent and vicious.
And somehow personal...
But the victim had no connection with the last one. At least none this victim, Eric Holt, was aware of. Fletcher couldn’t find any association to the victims in the other states.
What the hell was the motive?
Maybe there wasn’t one.
Was this just some psycho who randomly picked victims to disfigure?
“Not much here, Detective Colton,” one of the techs said. “Not even footprints, and given the amount of blood, I would have expected to find something.”
Fletcher pushed a hand through his dark hair, which probably needed a cut, like usual, and sighed. “The victim wasn’t able to give us any useful info either. Everything happened so fast. He couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman who attacked him.” The guy had been vague about all the details, but then he was pretty drunk—with a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal limit.
That was the one thing all the victims had had in common. They’d been drinking. A lot. This guy had been at his bachelor party. So had one of the other victims...
But the others had just been at the club as far as Fletcher knew. He had to find something else. Another lead. “I’m going inside to do some interviews,” he told the tech. “Let me know if you find any—”
His cell rang, and he pulled it out of his jacket pocket. The contact information read Uncle Buck. In the middle of interviews, he would have ignored it...if not for what had happened recently with his sister Ruby, for how close they had come to losing her forever. But that case had been closed and the deranged guy was locked up. She should be safe, especially with Sebastian Cross so determined to make sure she and their unborn child stayed out of harm’s way.
Still, Fletcher was concerned enough that he swiped to accept the call. “Uncle Buck, what is it? I’m at a crime—”
“It’s your dad, Fletcher. He’s had another stroke. It doesn’t look good. He’s been life-flighted to Boise Medical. You need to get there as soon as you can.”
Fletcher cursed. His relationship with his dad was complicated, but Robert Colton was still his dad. Fletcher loved him even though he got frustrated with him, like he was now. “After the last stroke, he was supposed to quit the drinking and smoking...”
And whatever the hell else he’d been doing that he shouldn’t have been doing, that he wouldn’t have been doing if he’d cared about anyone but himself.
“Fletcher, it’s too late for all of that now,” Buck said, his voice gruff with emotion.
A twinge of guilt struck Fletcher. He shouldn’t have been thinking about that, let alone voicing his thoughts aloud. He shouldn’t have been thinking about anything but his dad’s health and about his family. Buck’s relationship with his brother hadn’t always been the easiest either, but they were brothers. If his dad didn’t recover from this stroke like his last one, it wasn’t going to be easy for anyone to handle, especially not Fletcher’s mother.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Fletcher assured his uncle.
He had already turned in his resignation to leave Salt Lake City PD for Owl Creek. Someone else would have to take over this case. Someone else would have to catch the Slasher before anyone else got hurt.
Kiki Shelton’s hand shook as she scrolled through the messages and posts popping up on the screen of her cell phone. Oh, no...
Not another one...
She had to call, had to make sure everyone she knew was all right. She glanced toward the closed door off the kitchen that was dark but for the dim glow of the under-cabinet lighting. Soft snores emanated from behind that door. Her grandfather had gone to bed a while ago, but he was a light sleeper, especially when they were fostering a puppy for Crosswinds.
Fancy was a little two-month-old shepherd mix with tan fur everywhere but her muzzle, which was as black as Kiki’s hair. Except for her deep auburn tips. The puppy bounced around Kiki’s bare legs, excited that someone else was awake at this hour. Kiki wanted the two of them to be the only ones, so she opened the patio door and stepped onto the deck attached to the back of the cottage.
She didn’t want her grandfather to overhear her talking on the phone. He already worried about her too much. He didn’t need to know that there had been another attack. In addition to the texts and calls sent directly to her, news of the slashing had also popped up on all her social media accounts.
Thank God Jim Shelton still refused to pay attention to any of them. But he would probably catch it on the news. He never failed to watch the network broadcasts every morning and every night, flipping from channel to channel to get different takes on the same story.
There was only one take on this one. There was a maniac brutally attacking people.
Concerned that someone else had been hurt, she made the call she’d been anxious to make.
“Kiki!” the male voice cracked with the exclamation of her name.
“Are you okay?” she asked Troy. He was usually her assistant, but she’d loaned him out to another DJ since she hadn’t had a gig this weekend.
He’d been there. In Salt Lake City. At that very club where the attack had happened...
“It’s messed up, Kiki,” he said. “I stepped outside to smoke and saw the guy lying there...”
“I’m so sorry, Troy,” she said, her stomach churning over the thought of what her friend had found, had seen. And that poor man. “That’s horrible. Are you okay? Is he?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. It was way worse for him, but I think he’ll live. But it was so bad...” His voice cracked again, and she could hear his shudder through the home. “It’s just messed up, Kiki...” He slurred a bit; maybe he’d had something to drink or maybe he was just tired.
It was late. But Kiki was used to staying up late; so was Troy. “You need to get some rest,” she suggested.
“Every time I close my eyes I see him there, all cut up and bleeding...” She heard the shudder again.
“Take some time off for a while,” she said.
“If I’m not working, I’ll just keep thinking about it...”
“Then join me early in Owl Creek,” she said. She had some gigs set up for them in the area in a few weeks. “It’s safe here. Nothing much happens.”
She wouldn’t tell him about what had happened at Crosswinds—how she could have lost a good friend. But that criminal had been caught, so Owl Creek was safe again.
Like it had always been...
Kiki’s safe haven. After she’d lost her parents in a horrific car accident when she was six, she had come to live with her grandfather along the shore of Blackbird Lake. She leaned on the deck railing and stared out at the surface of the lake, which reflected the night sky and the stars twinkling in it along with the big crescent moon.
It was beautiful here and so quiet, just cicadas chirping in the night as fireflies flitted around like sparks, appearing and disappearing. Fancy tore around the yard, chasing after them, her little teeth snapping as she tried to capture them in her mouth. But it was still quiet, despite the antics of the puppy.
So quiet and so beautiful that it always seemed to recharge Kiki, especially after a long winter and spring of playing clubs in LA and San Francisco and Salt Lake City. But the money she was saving and the reputation she was building was worth all the hard work.
She should have been working the club in Salt Lake this weekend, but she’d wanted to stick around Owl Creek to make sure Ruby was okay and that her grandfather could handle the new puppy. Every time she came home, it seemed like he’d aged while she was gone. And she didn’t want him being alone so often, even though he insisted he was as spry as he ever was. And the truth was, he probably preferred to be alone. Either working with puppies from Crosswinds, at his tackle shop or his favorite place, out on his boat on the water, fishing.
“You sure, Kiki?”
She had pretty much forgotten Troy was still on the line. “What?”
“You sure it’s safe there?”
She thought of what Ruby Colton had just gone through. But that was over now. “Yes, it’s safe here, Troy. Come to Owl Creek.”
But as she clicked off the cell, a strange shiver chased down her spine. Maybe it was just the night breeze. Maybe it was foreboding. After what had happened with Ruby, was Owl Creek as safe as Kiki had always believed it was?
Or maybe that just proved that something bad could happen anywhere...
