Love Lies Bleeding by Remmy Duchene (carter reed txt) 📕

to grab his coat. They drove to the crime scene while he desperately tried reaching Anderson. His panic grew when Anderson didn't answer his calls. At the scene while everyone rushed to the house, Leo tried again but still no response. That gave him more incentive to climb from the car and duck beneath the yellow tape.

But when he saw the body, it wasn't Anderson. It was the woman who'd helped Leo avoid failing high school. Leo shook his head. He was so confused. She was naked, head detached and sitting between her legs. The room was once again clean with a love-lies-bleeding sitting on the floor beside her body. On the wall was the same damn quote from "The Raven".

"Oh god."

"You know her?" Daniel asked.

As Isha stuck the thermometer into Mrs Harrison's body, Leo turned his head away. His chest heaved, causing his heart to hammer painfully in his chest. He could barely breathe. The room was all of a sudden so warm he wanted to remove his coat. "Yeah. This is starting to not be funny anymore."

"Funny?"

"It never was. Just a figure of speech. I just don't understand. Both these victims are people I know. I'm the connection."

"We'll put a rush on everything, Kim," Isha explained. "Don't start jumping to conclusions yet and driving yourself crazy. This could all be a coincidence."

"I don't see how. All these people are people who were good to me."

"Well I think we should make a list of all those people you can think of and put a shadow on them. We can't be too careful."

Leo nodded and walked from the room. He'd stuck around as long as he could. How sad was it he could now smell death the moment he walked into a room? He hadn't even been a cop as long as some others and it was already ingrained in him. He'd already become jaded against it all and it was killing him inside. It was like the walls were starting to close in on him. All he could think of then was he needed Anderson—desperately needed to feel Anderson's arms around him. How silly was that? He had one night with the man and already he wanted to take up roost.

Pushing his hair back, he took a breath and tried focusing on the people who were more than just friends to him. All his ex-boyfriends were either in different countries now or so far away and all he wanted to do was to give a few of them a good, swift kick. The sad part was he didn't have many people in his life who were any good to him. He had a coach who lived in Elmont, New York, who was amazing and everyone else, aside from Anderson, was gone. He turned to head back into the house to find Daniel but almost crashed into his partner coming out the door.

"I am getting real tired of this asshole being one step ahead of us every time," Leo grumbled.

"I know. Now we wait for Isha's results."

Glancing over his shoulder, Leo pulled Daniel aside and leaned in. "Listen—I have to take off for Elmont in a bit."

"Why Elmont?"

"There's someone there I need to talk to. You remember my old coach?"

"Yeah." Daniel nodded.

"I'm not sure. And I could be so off track on this one, but I think the killer is going around killing people who are close to me."

"Okay, you're nuts."

"I would rather be safe than sorry. You stay here and watch Isha's back."

Daniel nodded. "You're serious about this?"

Leo nodded.

"Sure. All right. But when this is all over, you'll see how nuts this sounds. All this could just be one big coincidence. You be safe."

Touching fists, Leo took the unmarked cruiser and ran some errands throughout the city, including paying his rent and cable before turning the car around. Before he could even think of going to Elmont, he was going to have to make sure things were okay with Anderson.

Chapter Eight

"Hello?" Anderson pressed the phone to his ear using his shoulder while his hands were free to skim the pages of information the two funeral homes faxed over to him.

"It's Leo. I was just calling to check in on you."

"I'm fine. I know I should have called, but I've been busy calling funeral homes and the like. You don't sound so well. What's going on."

"We found another body."

"Oh… I'm sorry."

"I'll talk to you more once I get a chance but I have to go."

"Okay. Talk later then."

He waited until the phone clicked and went to dial tone before he hung up. The air around him seemed to have stopped and Anderson reminded himself to breathe.

So much darkness. So much death.

Anderson spent the day wondering why the latest victim deserved to die and going over funeral arrangements for his father. There were so many people to contact. He figured he would just stick with the people who cared for his father the most and call it a day. There was no use in inviting the whole damn state. By the time evening rolled around, he told the school he would be taking a sabbatical after the current semester. They weren't pleased but they understood. He stopped by his place to grab some fresh clothes but he still didn't feel like staying there. He walked in, went straight for his room, grabbed what he needed, and left again. Next on his to-do list was cooking. Leo deserved a home-cooked meal since he'd been so good to Anderson. But Leo didn't come home nor did he call. When Leo finally walked through the door, it was way past midnight and Anderson was sitting at the dinner table marking some papers and pissed off.

"Hi," Leo said walking over and kissing him. "I thought you'd be sleeping."

"I was thinking of going over to Byung's for a bit," he lied. "But I wanted to make you dinner."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"It's okay. It's not like we're married or anything. There's food in the oven.