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September 14 - September 18, 2023
The nightmares came less and less since adopting Cerberus, but when the memory hit, it struck with a vicious malice that left her crippled.
They said she was lucky. She had survived,
Cerberus, the seventy-pound black pitbull with cropped ears that the shelter claimed was friendly but unadoptable because of his harsh appearance.
his gravity drew her to his door.
This animal was pure goodness, and she adopted him on the spot.
named Cerberus after the three-headed hellhound of Hades, and that name felt prophetic.
Isobel Emerson
Bel—her
nickname,
cop in her twenties, but making detective at thirty-on...
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The assault was vicious; the attacker driven by bloodlust.
such excruciating pain,
No one could explain the attacker’s actions.
Something in her broke, and she seized the first escape she could find. Bajka—a quaint and relatively crimeless town—needed a detective,
small cabin on the outskirts of the town a few hours south of the city and fled New York.
The cabin was a single, large room, her bed only feet away from where she stood,
king-sized mattress that dominated half of her home.
Vera
The elderly woman was Bel’s first friend in Bajka.
snagging her book off the table.
she cracked open the novel, her eyes drowning in the written words that always brought her peace.
“I’m sorry to bother you on your day off, but you need to see this.”
The timing of her dream made sense. It was an omen. A warning. A threat.
Lumen’s Customs, owned by Brett Lumen, was home to both his workshop and showroom.
custom furniture
Why was there this much tape?
her partner, Garrett Cassidy,
I want you to run lead on this. We’ll need your experience.”
She had transferred to Bajka to escape death, to hide from torture,
“He wants everything done right,” Garrett continued. “Bajka has seen nothing like this.”
we search and photograph every inch of this room.
We need to document everything. No mistakes. No oversights.”
one work of exquisitely terrifying art positioned
beautifully sculpted wood and twisted metal rose from the ground on a sturdy base before it branched out into a nest of multiple curved candlesticks, radiating out from all sides of the body.
built into the light fixture to serve as its skeleton was Brett Lumen.
designed for the entrance of a castle instead of a wooden death shroud.
entombed within the structure’s base, his lower half hidden by the sculpture.
whoever did this had taken great pains to perfect every curve, every screw, every position.
Well, this is disturbing
“There’s no blood.”
I suspect Brett was killed first, cleaned, and then assembled.”
“Someone planned this for a long time. They tailored every inch of this to Lumen’s body.”
A furniture designer entombed in the works he loved most.”
someone killed Brett and turned him into furniture.
He refused to create duplicates, so entombing him in a one-of-a-kind piece is almost sickly poetic.
“It’s a rosebush,” Bel said, and Garrett looked at her with raised eyebrows.
Those are rose petals.”
some time yesterday,” she answered.
someone cleaned the room well… too well.”
“Or he wasn’t killed here,” Lina added.
“My guess is he is male,” Bel answered. “I’m having a hard time visualizing a woman possessing the strength to pull this off.
