Chapter One

Special Agent Craig Bennington of Washington, D.C.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force refreshed his email for the third time in as many minutes, cursing under his breath when no new message pinged into existence.

He rocked back in his seat, practically tilting the rolling chair onto its back.

Because he couldn’t seem to stop himself, he refreshed the screen again.

Nothing.

He’d sent an email requesting assistance to Supervisory Special Agent Jacinda Hollingsworth earlier that afternoon. It was now close to eleven o’clock. Probably, she was home by now, meaning he was wasting his time hanging around at the office hitting refresh every ten seconds.

Dropping the chair back to the floor, Craig flipped through his files, though he didn’t know if rereading the reports would help—he practically had every phrase of the documents memorized.

Earlier that week, on Wednesday, a man named Hogan Badger died under strange circumstances. Badger had met with another as-yet-unidentified man at a local parking garage.

Security footage showed him climbing out of his Pathfinder, a duffel bag in his hand catching on the steering wheel. Something fell free of the bag, landing in the driver’s side floorboard. Badger didn’t seem to notice.

The two men spoke for less than a minute, exchanged the duffel, and went their separate ways.

When Badger returned to his vehicle, he settled into the driver’s seat and fished a cigarette from his pocket, fumbling with his lighter. As he lit up, something startled him. A nearby car honking.

Badger jerked and lost his grip on the cigarette. Burning tip just a faint orange spark on the footage, it fell to the floorboard.

Whoosh.

Like sparking a fuse line on dry asphalt, sparkling blue fire ignited, then snuffed out almost at once.

But Badger hadn’t died from the flames.

No, he’d asphyxiated. Choked on air that no longer existed.

Craig dropped the folder back onto his desk and rubbed his eyes. To distract himself, he pulled his phone closer, thumbing the icon for the message chain between him and his wife.

Hey love. Kids finally crash?

Little dots popped up almost instantly, making him smile. He pictured April exactly where she probably was—perched at the kitchen island at her parents’ house in Virginia, a half-empty bottle of wine between her and her mom, solving the world’s problems one gossip session at a time.

You realize what time it is, right? Of course they’re in bed. We can’t wait to see you tomorrow. And Mom says hi, just finishing up a bottle of pinot and then I’m putting myself to bed. Wish you were here to help.

The eggplant emoji made him laugh out loud.

Dammit. He sure did miss her…them. His sexy wife. His precious kids. He should have headed out for an early Memorial Day weekend with them. Instead, he’d gotten pulled into this weird case before he could escape.

Hold that thought, babe. I’ll tuck you in tomorrow night. Prepare your body.

Promise?

His dick twitched. Oh, yes, he promised all right.

Promise. Again and again.

Damn. That sounded almost romantic. But April brought out that side of him—the soft side no one else got to see.

Good. Love you.

His heart smiled.

Love you too.

It was time to wrap up. SSA Hollingsworth wasn’t responding. She probably had enough to do after the week her team had just overcome.

Yet against his better judgment, Craig flipped his reports open again.

On Tuesday, the Violent Crime Unit had been involved in a bizarre shootout alongside the Metro PD’s Eighth Precinct. According to the reports, Hollingsworth’s team had caught a traitor FBI agent who’d been leading a local gang, the Cloaks, in a plot to kill law enforcement officers.

“Wild.” Craig shook his head at Special Agent Emma Last’s recounting of events. Last worked on Hollingsworth’s team.

Hogan Badger, Craig’s current victim, had been a known member of the Cloaks. With no strong leads in Badger’s mysterious asphyxiation case, he’d begun pulling recent files describing Cloak activity, hoping to find a thread to pull at while he waited for reports on the strange blue explosive.

Last’s report popped up, one that included descriptions of stolen guns the Cloaks had used during the recent shootout. The Cloaks, already a pretty professional organization with a reputation for violence, seemed to be branching out.

On top of that, as Bennington had begun his investigation at the Sprigg’s Street Garage—where Badger died—his team had received an encrypted email.

Spriggs Street is a message. Decipher it if you can, you useless leeches.

The contents were odd on a couple levels.

First, it seemed like it might be claiming responsibility for an intentional explosion…but the footage clearly showed Badger blowing himself up. Well, igniting the explosive that appeared to suck all the air out of his vehicle. Whatever “message” the emailer meant to send was, instead, indecipherable.

Second, why leeches?

His department had forwarded the message down to Renee Bailey, the D.C. agency’s resident language expert. Her initial report—also sitting right there in his stack—stated that the message was too short for an in-depth analysis.

However, Bailey had cross-referenced another recent VCU case involving a vigilante killer caught by…SSA Hollingsworth’s team.

Once again, an Emma Last report landed on his desk. The woman was busy. Two short messages Bailey had analyzed involved “cockroaches.” She stated the two were similar in style and delivery method.

But of specific interest to Craig, those references to “cockroaches” described D.C. gang members who turned up murdered with their tattoos sliced off. Not Cloaks—these connections were thin, he recognized that—but still.

Cloaks. Gangs. Cockroaches. Leeches. So many circumstantial but potential threads leading back to Hollingsworth’s VCU.

“So if you would just answer me, SSA Hollingsworth, I might be able to tell whether your case and my case are connected.” Craig said this directly to his computer screen.

The pale glow remained steady.

No new messages arrived.

“Be that way.” Technology could kiss his ass.

Well, if Hollingsworth can sleep right now, so can I.

As it was, it would be nearly midnight before Craig reached home. And knowing April and the kids, they’d want his full attention as soon as they returned tomorrow. Rightfully so, after a week of separation.

These files would be here for him Monday morning. Maybe with a refreshed brain, he could make sense of a world going mad.

Hell, he might just need a break. And to get laid.

Tomorrow, Craig would sleep in, mow the yard, maybe even catch up on that game he’d streamed last weekend. Then, once April finally got home, he’d make damn sure the kids went to bed early.

“Time to head out and leave the mysteries for Monday.”

In the mostly empty Bureau garage, Craig turned up the music in his SUV and spiraled down the ramps toward the exit. On the ground level, he spotted another agent loading gear into his trunk a few rows over. As Craig passed by, he tossed off a friendly wave.

He half smiled to himself. “Should be illegal for agents to still be clocked in this late on a Friday.”

Truth was, most agents were workaholics and never kept nine-to-five schedules. Not him, though. Or at least, not most of the time. He was lucky to have a role that allowed him to leave at a decent hour each night.

Once through the garage gate, he made a clean left onto the main road. The city buzzed, the air warm with spring, and the glow of traffic lights glinted off the windshield. He let his music play low as he settled in for the drive—just a few more turns before the highway, then a half hour to home.

That was when a dark-colored sedan, parked along the curb near a deli closed for the night, caught his attention.

Headlights flicked on as the vehicle eased out into traffic. He clocked it immediately—a late-model Camry, maybe black or navy. Nothing to worry about, most likely. Probably someone heading home from the graveyard shift.

Still. Ten years as an agent for the bomb squad had Craig alert at all times. It was a wonder he ever even got any sleep.

Especially with weird shit going on in the city.

He adjusted the rearview mirror, making a note of the vehicle’s speed. Same as his. Not erratic. Not too close.

But close enough to register.

Craig took the ramp onto the turnpike, easing into a faster lane. The Camry followed.

He didn’t speed up. Not yet. He took the next exit, changing lanes without signaling. Watched the mirror. The Camry stayed on the highway.

A beat passed before he exhaled. “Paranoid idiot.”

April would’ve rolled her eyes, said I told you to stop watching those old spy thrillers before bed. Danger came with the job, though. Federal agents made plenty of enemies in their line of work.

A half hour later, he entered his subdivision, the soft hum of normalcy returning. Streetlamps. Sidewalks. Porch lights flickering on a timer like fireflies.

He pulled into his driveway, killed the engine, and sat for a moment. Listened. Watched.
Nothing but cicadas and the distant whoosh of a plane flying low overhead—probably on final approach to Reagan. They flew this route late sometimes. Not often, but it happened.

The moment stretched…then snapped when he undid his seat belt and opened the door.
As Craig headed toward his porch, the tension of the week caught up with him. He imagined April’s phone pinging, the Ring camera letting her know someone was approaching the house.

He waved and blew a kiss toward the lens. For a second, he considered grabbing his crotch and saying something filthy to her, a promise of what would come tomorrow night. But what if she was still up and her mother saw?

Mortifying.

A soft blue glow from the door cam blinked at him as he keyed in the code—something April insisted on installing after the neighborhood break-ins last fall. Craig had joked they should just get a giant dog instead.

The lock clicked. He stepped inside, warm air wrapping around him. Habit made him toss his wallet onto the console table just as he reached back to shut the door—

A heavy force slammed into his back and through his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. The pressure was instant, white-hot. A delayed sound followed—muffled, almost lost beneath the deep roar of a plane overhead, low and loud, rattling the windows like a passing storm.

Another shot rang out, this one splintering the doorframe.

Craig stumbled back, arms flailing for balance. His legs gave out first. He collapsed against the wall, then slid to the floor, trying to process what the hell just happened.

Pain radiated from his chest. Warmth spread fast through his light-blue shirt—the one April bought him. The color of powder. He pressed his fingers over the wound as the nonsensical thought spiraled away. Wet. Thick. No chance at slowing it.

He reached for his weapon, but it was so heavy and his hand trembled so badly, he could barely hold it.

Through his daze, a shape emerged. Someone in black, stepping through the open door like a shadow come to life. No face. Just movement. Fluid. Deliberate.

In one hand, a knife. Long, straight-edged, curved. Meant for cutting more than skin.

Craig couldn’t lift his arm, couldn’t shout. Blood filled his mouth as he tried. A cough sprayed wet and red.

He slumped sideways, cheek pressed against the cool wooden floor, eyes struggling to stay open.

April. The kids.

He pictured them at the kitchen table, messy hair and laughing mouths, April trying not to smile as she shushed them for the tenth time.

Don’t let her find me like this, Craig begged the ceiling, the silence, the shadows. Please, not her.

His gaze flitted back toward the figure standing over him—knife still in hand, not yet used.
Didn’t need to be.

Everything slipped sideways.

His final breath rattled free.

Then…nothing.

Chapter Two

Special Agent Emma Last had always had a lead foot—she was notorious in the FBI for it—but this afternoon, she pushed speed into a new high gear. Stop signs blurred. Red lights didn’t register. The only thing she saw was the stretch of road ahead, and the only thing she felt was pounding certainty in her chest.

Not Marigold. Please, not her.

After calling her supervisory special agent, Emma barely remembered getting in her car. One second, she was staring down at a severed hand resting against her apartment door like a grotesque calling card. The next, she was halfway to Marigold Florence’s house, tires screaming through corners, her phone clutched in her hand like a lifeline.

She’d called. Again and again. Straight to voicemail. No text. No read receipt.

Knowledge coiled like a poisonous snake in her gut.

She’d known the moment she saw the ring—blue apatite set in silver, worn smooth from the way Marigold always rubbed the stone when she was thinking. That hand hadn’t just belonged to anyone.

It had belonged to her.

Just a half hour ago, Emma had imagined spending her Saturday afternoon unwinding on her yoga mat, maybe even feeling Oren’s presence drift in for a quiet moment. Her dead boyfriend’s visits had become less frequent since Salem, as if he’d finally found a little peace.

She’d been ready for quiet. Maybe even a glass of wine.

Instead, she’d found horror.

Now the image haunted her more than any ghost.

The way the hand had been posed…fingers curled in like it might still reach for something. A sick parody of a message she didn’t want to receive.

Emma squeezed the wheel tighter, willing the world to move faster. Marigold had taught her about the Other. With her flowing silver-streaked brown hair, collection of healing crystals, and uncanny intuition, Marigold represented a calm center in Emma’s chaotic world. Her cozy home had become a refuge where Emma could find peace and guidance when her incomprehensible abilities threatened to overwhelm her.

But Marigold wasn’t just a medium. She wasn’t just a source.

She was Emma’s.

Her anchor when the veil between worlds blurred too thin. Her friend when things turned dark. Her calm in the storm.

Emma blinked hard. The world outside the windshield fractured under the wet shimmer of oncoming lights.

She hadn’t had time to process—hadn’t let herself. The moment she saw the hand, she’d called Jacinda, rattled off Marigold’s address, and told her to get MPD moving. Now all she could do was get there first.

Before the yellow tape.

Before the confirmation.

Before the worst became real.

She tried calling Marigold again. Zero response.

Emma took the last corner in the suburban neighborhood on two wheels and screeched to a stop in front of Marigold’s home. Two FBI-issue SUVs rounded the opposite corner.

She hopped out as SSA Jacinda Hollingsworth—as well as her fellow special agents, Mia Logan, Leo Ambrose, and Vance Jessup—pulled up in front of her.

Bookended by dogwood trees, Marigold’s house was a quaint and well-maintained townhome on a charming block in a safe neighborhood. Nobody passing on the sidewalk could’ve ever guessed it served as the home to a psychic who made her living by dealing with the supernatural. Or that that same sweet woman might’ve been in there bleeding out.

Or possibly murdered.

Though she was desperate to get inside, Emma paused after climbing out of her Prius, waiting on the others. She remembered coming here for the very first time, one desperate night when she hadn’t known where else to turn for help with the Other. She’d been lucky, then, that Marigold was the real thing. The woman had helped her more than she’d imagined possible back then.

“Emma.” Mia met up with her, dark eyes a vivid contrast to her pale complexion. “No one’s called 911 from this address. We checked on the way. I’m sorry.”

“No answer from Marigold.” Emma rolled her neck where the muscles had grown tight as steel. “I’ve tried her tons of times.”

“Looks like a schoolteacher’s house.” Vance nodded to the curtains on the above-ground basement windows as they stalked toward the door.

He was right. Emma noticed for the first time that they were decorated with little images of sunsets and clouds. Why hadn’t she caught those details before?

“She have kids?”

Emma’s throat closed up as shame hit her like a brick. For the past four months, their conversations had revolved around the Other and Emma.

Me. Me. Me.

“I…dunno. An adult daughter somewhere, I think. But Marigold definitely lives alone.” She was sticking with the present tense until she knew for certain.

“Are you sure it was your friend’s hand? How can you be positive?” Vance was thinking like an FBI agent, and she reminded herself not to snap at him in irritation.

Emma pulled a much-loved apatite stone from her pocket. “This was a gift from Marigold. She wears a ring with the same stone on the middle finger of her right hand. The ring was there. Still on it.”

Vance nodded, not forcing the issue further.

Emma and Leo stepped onto the front porch while Vance, Jacinda, and Mia took the rear entrance. The front door was closed, and Emma was ready to take a battering ram to it if need be. Leo had grabbed one from the vehicle.

“Let’s go, let’s go.” She was two seconds from breaking the door down with her bare hands.

“Emma, let me.” Leo held up a calming hand and tried the knob. It was unlocked.

Not good. Not good. Not good.

Marigold never left her door unlocked. The tiny motion was enough to make Emma’s breath hitch. She braced herself for the worst.

Leo opened the door, unholstered his weapon, and stepped inside. “Front breached.” He kept his voice low as he spoke into his mic.

There was an echo—Leo’s voice in real life and his voice in Emma’s ear. The effect was disorienting.

“Copy. Rear breached. Don’t shoot us.” Vance’s response didn’t make Emma smile.

She swallowed emotion. She’d become so used to Marigold’s peaceful presence greeting her. Not this…silence.

With a quick glance at Leo, she moved inside just as a gasp from Mia broke the still air and warned Emma of what she was about to see.

Leo stopped abruptly in the front doorway, and Emma bumped into his back. The living room was lit by a dim lamp—Marigold had never liked bright light. Emma looked around Leo’s shoulder…and immediately wished she hadn’t.

A table had been knocked on its side in the living room, and a wide spray of blood arced over the couch and across the wall. Small pools of crimson congealed around the floor, and Emma cringed at the smell.

And worse, so much worse than she’d imagined, Marigold’s body was…everywhere.

A whimper escaped Emma’s throat. She lowered her weapon and locked her knees so she wouldn’t sink to the floor.

A leg and forearm leaked pools of blood on Marigold’s couch. A headless, armless torso—naked and soaked in red—was propped up in a corner, the gristle of muscle bleeding from each opening and the spine sticking up an inch from the severed neck.

A hand, her left hand, had been balanced on the top of her flat screen, bloody fingerprints showing where the fingers had been pressed downward to grip the top of the screen.

One foot perched, as if jokingly, on top of one of Marigold’s canvas slip-ons where she’d left them by her couch. Another sat at the opening of the hall that led to her bathroom and bedroom, and drips and pools of blood beyond suggested where Emma would find the rest of her friend and mentor’s body.

Emma’s knees buckled, and she grabbed the doorframe to steady herself. The smell of copper and something else—fear, perhaps—hung heavy in the air, making her stomach lurch. The violence before her was personal, theatrical, meant to send a message without words.

It sure did.

For a moment, the whole team stood in silence. With a shake of her head, Jacinda started giving orders behind

Vance and Mia. “Jessup, Logan. Clear the rest of the house. Last, Ambrose. Don’t you move. I mean it.”
Vance and Mia obeyed without another word.

Part of Emma resented being told to stay still. Every fiber in her body was on alert. Tiny hairs on her forearms stood up. The other part of her knew Jacinda had made the right call. She didn’t entirely trust herself to move. Leo put a steadying hand on her elbow. She noted he was shaking too.

“Clear.” Mia’s voice was calm from somewhere upstairs.

“Clear,” Vance echoed.

The pair returned and stood at the edge of the living room with Emma and Leo. Everyone holstered their weapons.

“It would take time to do this.” Mia scanned the carpet. “And strength. And…organization.”

“This is…” Leo faltered, running a hand down his face. “It looks chaotic, but this is methodical. Professional.”

“More than one person,” Vance agreed, his voice tight. “Has to be. The level of dismemberment, the staging…one person couldn’t control the victim and do all this.”

Though Emma gagged at the word dismemberment, her training kicked in, momentarily overriding her grief. “Two minimum. Maybe three. One to subdue, one to…work. Maybe another keeping watch.”

While the living room was a site of devastation, Emma followed Mia into the reading room, where Marigold spoke with clients.

This was where the real struggle had happened. The evidence was unmistakable.

The table lay upended, knocked against the wall with one corner having broken the window. A large pool of blood took up the whole center of the room, soaking into the wooden flooring.

And there, in the middle, was her friend’s head. Marigold’s long hair was soaked in blood, and her eyes were as dead and cold as the Other.

Axe marks had created massive gouges in the hardwood, where additional blood pooled. Even a few of Marigold’s precious stones—which had rested in the bowl from which she’d chosen the smooth apatite for Emma—had found their way into a few of the crevices.

Around the room, Marigold’s collection of crystals and tarot cards lay scattered, many coated in blood. The antique Victorian chair where she’d conducted readings was overturned, one leg splintered.

On a shelf, untouched amid the chaos, stood a framed picture of Marigold and Emma from just two months ago—a rare moment when Emma had allowed herself to be photographed, smiling hesitantly beside Marigold’s beaming face.

Emma’s vision blurred as she stared at the photo, then back at her friend’s severed head. The contrast was too much. She turned away, pressing a fist to her mouth to stifle a sob threatening to escape. She couldn’t break.

Not here. Not now.

Emma reached into her pocket to find the stone Marigold had given her, rubbing it between her fingers. She pulled in a deep breath, wondering if Mia could see the tremor pulsing through her nerves.

Marigold had been killed in this reading room, without any doubt. Chopped up right there before they moved the rest of her body parts into the living room like a deranged Easter egg hunt.

All body parts except one.