Page 26 of Knotted their Beauty

It just dawned on me that he’s the same guy from the show earlier, the one Arlo took Cali to. The one my nanny was rightfully drooling over.

A thought that makes me want to scowl a little, but I’m not sure why, even if it's relatively fleeting and not enough for me to focus on.

“No,” I grunt as my cell beeps. “I’m here on business, so if you’ll excuse me…” I grab my phone and get to my feet, ignoring the faint scent of blueberries as I walk past the smiling viking toward the water.

“Maybe I’ll see you around, then.”

I glance over my shoulder to find the man still staring at me before his eyes shift to over my shoulder then meet mine again as his smile grows. “Unlikely.”

“We’ll see about that. At the very least, I plan to see your nanny again.”

I roll my eyes as I look away, annoyed with the way my chest warms and my heart rate picks up over the thought of running into that guy again while we’re here. Arlo doesn’t need to be anywhere near him, the Viking is the opposite of his sweet and innocent nature.

I’ve always thought I’m too possessive to share, but…

At the same time, I’m drawn to the viking, too. I’d be okay with him in our space, I almost want that. Almost, because at the end of the day, I don’t need to start looking at things as if Arlo and I share them, including that good looking blonde.

He seems like a complication neither of us need.

One I intend to keep far away from Arlo.

“‘Bout damn time, bossman.”

I frown at Sylas Walker as I duck under the yellow tape, rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt as I start walking toward the crime scene.

“Hi, Ves.”

I nod at Marley Chandler as I move past her, relieved to see both of them despite how incredibly annoyed I am. I’m not irritated with them, or even the situation. It’s lingering thoughts of that attractive stranger and my nanny, and Butler that has my hackles up, and I have no doubt my team knows the latter. Thankfully. “What do we got?”

“White female. Mid to late fifties.” Walker snaps a few pictures as he talks. “No phone, no purse, no ID. And no eyelids or teeth.”

He’s not wrong about that.

The severed head of this unknown female has been positioned so it’s laying on the back of the skull, dingy white hair fanned around it, her filmy eyes staring straight up into the sky while her empty mouth gapes in the same direction. No lids, no teeth, and apparently, no body.

“It’s over there,” Chandler says as she stands next to me, pointing a gloved hand down the boardwalk to our left. “Most of it, anyway.”

I squint toward the lump about fifty yards away before I turn to her. “Most of it?”

She uses the back of her wrist to push her hair out of her eyes as she nods. “We haven’t found her hands and feet yet.”

Interesting. “We’re sure it’s the same guy?”

“We still need to compare the handwriting, but we’re almost positive,” she says as she holds up an evidence bag with an antique doll’s head inside it. “But this feels⁠—”

“Personal,” I grunt as I start to slowly walk the scene.

The Orphan has never made it hard for us to ID one of his victims. Hell, one of them had his driver’s license shoved up his ass, presented in downward dog. It’s like he wants us to know who he’s killing, even if we don’t know why, and the fact that he got rid of this victim’s teeth and prints leads me to believe something is very different about her. I’d even put money on him going the extra mile to keep this woman’s identity as secret as he can for now.

“Cause of death?” I ask as I crouch next to the severed head.

“Nothing definitive yet,” Chandler says as she crouches next to me. “He did a serious number on this one.”

“Which is saying something.” Walker stands on the other side of me. “Considering his last vic was missing multiple layers of his skin.”

He’s not kidding about that.

If The Orphan goes to those kinds of extremes for complete strangers and this kill is personal? There’s no telling what kind of damage he did to someone we think he might actually know.