Scrawled In Blood

A Serial Killer and Buried Secrets

In the arms of the enemy . . .
A guest at the Briarwood Hotel was stabbed multiple times. Then, the manager is killed in a similar gruesome manner. The only clue is the message HAD TO DIE scrawled on the bathroom mirror. Sheriff Regan Fallon’s quiet town is quickly becoming a bloodbath. When skeletons begin to turn up in heavily wooded areas, he begins to think a serial killer has once again begun to murder the innocent. Fallon soon discovers the dead speak for themselves, that the past cannot stay buried. The new hotel manager has secrets of her own. Escaping from the witness protection program meant to safeguard her, Kylene Domiani strikes out on her own. The Briarwood Hotel is a dream job, but swiftly turns into a nightmare. Is she next on the killer’s list, simply for being the manager? Can she take comfort in the arms of a lawman she doesn’t know, who could easily discover her true identity, and perhaps deliver her into the hands of a drug lord who wants her dead? Length: Novel
Excerpt:
I’m going to kill again. I can feel it in my guts, in the rising waves of anger washing over me. Maybe in a couple of days, maybe in a week or two. I’ve already killed, and the burning madness subsided enough each time that I didn’t think about the rage pounding away in my head. I can’t help myself. The fury comes quickly, then nothing alleviates it but the sight of blood. For an instance after I take a life, after I’ve seen the pleading in that other’s eyes, I feel a smidgeon of remorse. However, that lasts only for a few seconds, and by then it’s too late. I walk away with no one the wiser. No one would ever suspect me. Statistically, I’m not the type who would murder in cold blood. I walk with other people’s children, and the parents think I’m as safe as safe can get. But at heart, and in deed, I’m a murderer. Four times over. I’ll never forget my most recent one. He was in his thirties, and I took pity on him. His life, for what it was worth, wasn’t about to work anyway. He was a heavy drinker, and he abused his wife. You should have heard her screams for help when he beat her. She’d end up in the hospital, but she wouldn’t squawk on him even though she received stitches for her wounds, or a cast for a broken bone. After her stay of a few hours, she would go back to him, and he’d be apologetic, bringing her roses and a box of expensive chocolates. In my heart, I knew he would hurt her again and again if I didn’t do something to stop him. You should have seen the begging in his blue eyes before I plunged the knife in between his brows. He wanted to live his miserable life. I couldn’t help myself. I thrust the butcher knife into him repeatedly. He must have been dead well before I drove the knife in the fiftieth time. The bastard. His wife deserves to die too. Why didn’t she understand how despicable she looked crawling back to him with her tail between her legs? She might be next. Who knows? She has her dirty, little secrets too. You see punishment is handed out by the one you least expect. Evil deeds, although they might not have come to light for many years, never go scot-free because there’s always someone watching, waiting. Most people are like sheep. They’re afraid even of their own looming shadows, and won’t do anything that goes against the grains of society, against the ‘I’m the good Christian’ mentality. Yet there are a few of us who won’t hesitate to discipline. That is our heaven, the comfortable abode where only the just reside—or those who have been pushed to their limit to end another’s earthly sojourn. I would ask you to pray for me, but I know of no such prayer that would wash away the pounding in my head, that would clean my hands of the blood they have shed. I lost faith in mankind a long time ago, and I go through the motions of living each day until my time comes. I pray it might be soon, before the battering in my brain becomes too much to bear and I must kill again.