Pretty Broken Things - Melissa Marr Page 0,2

serial killers are men—managed to take his victim into a well-trafficked area. She was either alive and killed on-site, or he carried a dead body into the woods. Both scenarios tell us something about him. I'm only contracted to transport bodies, but after a few years doing so, I couldn't help but learn more than a little about investigations.

People talk. Morticians listen better than most folks realize.

“You ought to send the old man out on these,” Mac mutters just loud enough that I can’t miss it, but low enough that he can pretend I wasn’t supposed to.

Maybe he’s trying to piss me off so I can better face the dead girl. Maybe he’s just more of an asshole than I realized. Either way, I don’t reply. I might be a woman, but I’m stronger than my uncle when it comes to this. Hell, according to my mother, it’s because I’m a woman. A Southern woman. No wilting lilies here.

I glance at Henry. His expression has grown even sterner. “Detective?”

Henry nods, and we step behind the make-shift curtain.

These days, I’ve had far too much familiarity with violent death. I’ve been the caretaker for five of the Creeper’s victims.

“It’s him, isn't it?”

Henry doesn’t reply. He’s behind me, but he says nothing.

For a moment, I need to go through my checklist again to settle my nerves: My feet are covered in booties, and my clothes are under coveralls.

The only excuse I have to pause is to straighten the goggles on my face.

Finally, I look at her: The dead woman is covered in blood-stained clothes, leaves, and dirt.

Brown hair. Caucasian. Late twenties.

I squat so I’m crouched beside her. The smell makes me glad I hadn’t eaten.

I catalogue her injuries. Broken radius and ulna. Six stab wounds. Bruising from restraints. I don’t need to see the crude tattoo on her wrist to know it’s there. The Creeper. She was killed by him.

Still, I brush away the dirt gently until I see it: Flower buds. It’s new. The ink doesn’t have that washed out tone that older tattoos have. He marks them.

“He sent a letter this time, Jules.”

I look up at Henry.

“Chief says you ought to be kept away from this.” He glances at the girl. “But . . . I convinced him that you’d be safer around us, so we ought to make use of you.”

I laugh. Henry’s not enough of an asshole to really think that, but he knows how to keep me from the panic that is already starting to fill me. There’s an art to managing people, whether it’s at the police station or a funeral home. It's one of too many things Henry and I share.

“What did the letter say?”

After a pause, Henry says, “’Thank Juliana for looking after all of my pretty things.’”

“They’re not things, and they’re not his.”

“I know.”

I look at her, the nameless dead girl in front of me. I can’t erase the last days she’s suffered, but I will give her the respect he hasn’t. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I face my nightmares. It’s the same thing that drives Henry: we are their last resort, the ones who protect the dead after they are no longer able to be saved.

“He sent a message to you, Jules.”

“My name’s in the paper.” I bite out the words. The truth, though, I know it’s not because he’s read my name. This was personal before I was in the paper. I’m not sure why, but I think the Creeper has targeted me. Henry thinks it, too. Still, I lie. I pretend I think it’s not personal because if it is . . . I’m not sure how I’ll sleep at night.

“Jules . . .”

I look at Henry and carry on with my illusions. “My identity is not exactly a secret. I work for the county, so he knows my name. It's not a crisis.”

“You know it’s not that simple.”

We both know. My Uncle Micky will know it too. Someone will leak the note, and the newspapers will examine it to the point of absurdity. People will speculate again. There’s nothing I can say or do to prevent any of that from happening.

None of it means I know what to do about the larger situation. What’s the right thing to do when a killer knows your name? They don’t cover that in any of the various classes I’ve taken, not mortuary science classes or my assorted college courses or even the floral arranging ones at the community college. I collect