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The Devil You Know
One - Detective Pierce

One - Detective Pierce

“From the sounds of it, this one is fucking grusome Pierce.” Her Captain’s voice was raspy and coarse. He’d probably rolled out of bed not long before she had.

“What was called in exactly Captain?”

“All dispatch could tell me was that there was a body off the exit halfway between Bellingham and Mount Vernon. They said the caller was shaken, kept sobbing about blood and eyes.”

“Fuck.” It was too early for this. “I’ll check it out then come in and report back.” She ended the call and placed her phone in the cup holder next to her coffee.

The rain pounded against her windshield as she drove to the scene. It was early, far too early and her coffee had yet to kick in, meaning her vision blurred as she struggled to see through the slithering streaks of rain tracing across the glass in front of her. It was a cold winter night, morning now actually. She had the defroster blasting the front windshield, trying to hold off the fog that would distort her ability to see even further.

Dispatch had said the body was off exit 240, just north of the Skagit Valley. It was a vacant space between towns, full of nothing but the vast emptiness of towering trees. She’d done a few traffic stops out here back when she was a uniformed officer and even with her training, her gun on her hip, this place had always unnerved her. It was so dark, so silent, so empty and alone out here. She knew that at this time of day it would be pitch black, so dark not even the shadows of the trees would be visible. She hoped the uniformed officers had set up enough spotlights for whatever horror she’d be walking into. They didn’t get a lot of calls for bodies here. In Whatcom, up north, they got plenty of overdose calls, and in King County to the South there was plenty of death, but Skagit was quieter. The population here was diverse, a lot of migrant families mixed with new hipsters who moved here for the hops grown in the valley and used to make their favorite hazy IPAs. It was a mismatched but peaceful community here.

Kaitlin had grown up here, lived here her whole life. Her father had been a sheriff's deputy here, her grandfather before him. She’d never seen a life for herself other than the one she was currently living - a detective in her hometown. She was a stereotype she knew, a hometown sweetheart who followed in her family’s footsteps, making detective younger than most others due to her unrelenting determination, bordering on obsession, to the job. She even worked so hard that she had no personal life, just a sad cat waiting at home for her. She had leaned into the stereotype, she knew she was becoming when she’d decided to adopt her tabby Thomas three years ago.

When she drove up on the scene the darkness had been driven away by a cascade of bright lights. Red and blue cruiser lights painted the dark sky in swirling rotations. Bright spotlights broke through the oppressive stillness of the trees, casting a brightness on the horror that resided here. Kaitlin could sense it as she approached, before she even put the car in park a sense of impending dread filled her soul. Something bad had happened here, something awful.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Detective Pierce.” One of the uniformed officers greeted her as she exited her vehicle. She pulled on her hood, shielding her head from the soft wind and steady rain of the Washington winter. The uniformed officer escorted her towards the carnage on display beneath the spotlights. He was a tall man with tan skin and dark features. He looked young, nervous. She wondered how long it’d been since he graduated the academy. His hood was down, the rain cementing his hair to his face.

“What do we got here?” She asked as they approached.

“Female. White. Appears to be in her 20s. Nude. It’s . . .” He trailed off, clearly unwilling or unable to put into words the scene. She could see the fear quivering in the young man’s face. That fear unnerved her.

“Please officer, continue describing the scene.” She prompted with both compassionate and unapologetic authority in her tone. That no nonsense attitude is one of the reasons she’d risen to detective so quickly, she didn’t back down.

He took a calming breath, steadying himself before continuing. “It’s a gruesome scene detective. She was tortured, assaulted, had her throat slashed, then was posed.

Whoever did this is a sick fuck.”

Kaitlin slowly approached the body on the ground. Jesus, he wasn’t being dramatic. This was gruesome. She was -. She had been a beautiful young woman. Her creamy

white skin was dotted with a splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Across her neck was a giant, gaping slash. Streams of dried and oozed blood pooled from the horrific wound. The cut was so gaping, she could see the tendons of the young woman’s throat sliced open. Strawberry blond hair was swept around her face in soft, delicate curls, blood stained the lower half, turning the soft pale red a sickening shade of death and decay. Her naked body was covered in an array of various injuries - cuts, bruises, bite marks, scrapes and burns all marred the delicate landscape of her pale flesh. Dark, deep bruises were formed along her wrists, clear signs she’d been bound. The hell this poor woman went through before she died must have been unbelievable. Her green eyes must have once been strikingly beautiful, now they just sat open staring up at the night sky, blank and empty. Kaitlin had the urge to close her lids, shield her from the steady stream of rain still coming down.

Without taking her eyes from the grotesque scene laid out on the side of the road in front of her, Kaitlin resumed her conversation with the uniformed officer.

“Any leads on ID?”

“A wallet dumped nearby held a license that appears to be her. Name on the ID is Allison Lewis. 26 years old.”

Kaitlin felt entranced by the young woman’s eyes. She was so sweet and soft looking. Who could do such a thing to someone like this? And then to dump her like a piece of trash, leaving her here cold and naked and wet and alone in the darkness. The killer would have had to look at those hollow piercing eyes, completely devoid of life, when they placed her here and left her. They looked into her open eyes, and posed her with her head to the sky and her legs spread so far apart her entire center was exposed. What kind of fucking psycho could do that? Kaitlin leaned over the body, careful not to touch anything, staring into the woman’s eyes as if her soul might still linger her, willing her to listen as she told the detective who did this to her. She wanted justice for this young woman, and she wanted it badly.

“What happened to you Allison?”