Alpha and Omega arrives on June 4th! Enjoy an exclusive sneak peek to the latest Greystone novel.
Alpha and Omega Sneak Peek
Chapter One
Portents was in her blood. From the docks of Riverside, down the RDJ, and out to the Grove, every inch of the city influenced her being. They were the stories that created a wealth of imagination in a child. As an adult, however, Melanie Gates knew the city to be more than just the place where she grew up. To her, Portents was home.
The patrol car settled along King’s Lane in the Knoll, another night on the job. Gates kept her hands tight to the wheel. Her keen eyes locked on the alleys and the mounting shadows that filled every crack and crevice in the sun’s absence. Three months on the job had granted her comfort with the route, but a nervousness fluttered in her stomach; like something waited to snatch her away from her perfect little life.
That was the fear of a child, not the grown woman she purported to be, though few saw the difference in her youthful gaze. Twenty-five meant little in the eyes of the world these days.
Still, her fear made her wary of the night in Portents. Gates understood the dangers of the brooding metropolis, and the unspoken rule passed down from her parents.
Gates sought to change that edict. She hoped by her presence, her unyielding diligence, she might pierce the darkness of Portents and bring back some light to her city. She wanted to hear the laughter of children in the streets, to see her elders happily walking down the block without fear of violence from every shadow.
Those were the ideals of that self-same child, and she kept them close to her heart every day.
Those ideals were not held by her partner, Richard “Dickie” Delmar. Dickie, for all his experience over his decade-long career with the department, viewed the patrol as nothing more than a casual drive through town rather than a means of serving and protecting the innocent citizens of Portents.
Gates tried not to take his callousness personally. For all her drive, it pained her to see colleagues and friends merely muddle through work for the paycheck waiting at the end of the day. Her recruitment to the Central Precinct had been the proudest day of her life. She shined her badge daily and carried its weight on her shoulders. She never viewed the responsibility as a burden but a privilege.
Carrying Dickie’s weight, though, was becoming troublesome.
“You’re quiet tonight.”
His words caused Gates’ hand to slip from the wheel of the car. She blinked hard to tear her eyes away from the darkness permeating the shopping district of the Knoll.
“I’m sorry?”
Dickie offered her a wide grin that pushed his cheeks up and caused his glasses to lift from his beady brown eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing. I’m actually enjoying the silence. Usually, though, you’re asking ten questions a minute. About the route. About the problem children in each neighborhood. Where the illegal card games are being played. Where the dealers have been gathering of late.” He took a deep breath, and she waited, sensing more on the horizon. Dickie was nothing if not verbose when the mood struck him. “Then there are the questions I really enjoy. Like what uniform you should wear for what formal occasion, as if the brass would ever include us in anything of importance. Or my favorite, where to eat at break time.”
“Okay,” Gates said with a laugh. She pointed at Dickie’s bulging gut. “That last one is you. Or rather, that stomach of yours.”
Dickie patted his belly. “Give it another decade, Mel. Meals are the only priority in this life. Speaking of which…”
He tapped the window. Through the falling rain, Gates noticed the neon lights of the convenience store at the corner of Gentry and Forest. She tapped the blinker of the car, though no traffic was around, and sidled along the curb in front of the shop. Shifting the car to park, Gates unlocked the doors.
“Have at it, Dickie,” she said.
“Now what have I told you about that?” he said as his seatbelt retracted. “Call me Del.”
“Everyone else calls you Dickie.”
“Yeah, but then we could be Del and Mel: team supreme. Completely interchangeable.”
“Which means I get stuck with any tasks you don’t feel like doing,” Gates said with a grimace.
“Now you’re catching on.” His hand settled on the handle of the door, then he stopped. “Okay, kid. What’s your deal?”
Gates held her tongue for a second. She peered around the area, through the rain and through her growing wariness. “I’ve been thinking, is all. I keep reading up on those random acts of destruction throughout the area over the last few months. Not for money. Not for anything other than to cause chaos, from all appearances. And then there’s… Well, I don’t know, Dickie. There’s something going on in this city, isn’t there?”
“There always is,” Dickie replied. “If it wasn’t those clowns or this killer thing, it would be something else. What are you—”
Gates turned toward him, hands in front of her. “I mean, it’s darker. Portents feels darker somehow. You can feel it, can’t you?”
Dickie opened the door. He stepped outside, the rain patting his hat and sliding down to his shoulders. Holding the frame, he peered back at her. “That’s Portents, Mel. You could have gone anywhere to be a cop. What kind of person picks this place?”
“You did.”
He laughed. “I’m an idiot. What’s your excuse?”
Gates sighed. Everywhere she turned brought with it another memory. “This is home.”
Dickie shook his head. “Home is a bed and a sixty-five-inch flat screen. You can find that anywhere. But Portents?”
“I’ve lived here all my life. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” Gates slipped from the car and rounded the front for the sidewalk. Her gaze shifted from the convenience store to the closed storefronts along the opposite side of the street. She drifted up to the apartments above each shop. All held darkened windows. The patter of the rain trailed her steps, like the beating of her heart. It grew faster and heavier with every passing second. “Something just feels… off.”
Dickie scoffed, tossing his hands in the air. “The weather. The phase of the freaking moon. Or the fact that you’re nothing but skin and bones.”
“And you’re hungry. Got it,” Gates finished with a smile. She shrugged her shoulders, then held out her hand for the waiting door. “Go.”
He passed her for the entrance. “Ham on rye?”
“With the spicy mustard this time.”
“Living dangerous, kid,” Dickie joked. “Don’t let that come back to haunt you.”
Dickie entered the shop. The chime carried along the block until the door slipped back into the frame. He left Gates with the falling rain and the growing shadows of her home surrounding her.
Heavy footfalls carried her from the shop down Gentry. The Knoll, while mostly residential, held small nooks of businesses throughout. They were the butchers and the bake shops, the small storefronts that lived and died along with their neighborhoods.
Gates recalled each one from her childhood. There was Vilente’s, where she used to buy ice cream with her friends on hot summer days, or Halley’s, who always carried the best comic books during the cold, blustery winter months. Both no longer existed, passing to new owners with new dreams. Change was inevitable, but she didn’t care for the one that gnawed at her thoughts tonight.
Portents remained her home, but it carried something else on the wind, more than the clouds perpetually stuck over the spires of downtown. What it was, Gates failed to recognize, and that worried her almost as much as what she found at the back of the convenience store during her short stroll.
Lying outside the mouth of an alley rested a woman’s handbag. The contents fell from the shallow opening, lipstick, compact, wallet, and a dozen receipts lying on the sidewalk, all soaked from the storm.
Gates moved for the bag. Next to the purse, tucked into the alley’s shadows, was a larger bag with the CostSmart logo emblazoned on its side. She carefully peered inside to see three shirts and a pair of jeans. They still bore their tags from a recent shopping excursion.
“Hey, Mel,” Dickie’s voice called over the rain. She could hear him chomping on the chips that came with his sandwich. “You think we have time to swing by Cusimano’s for some pastries when they open? I’ve been dying for… What are you doing?”
Gates stood from the bags. She drew her sidearm, eyes locked on the deep black of the alley. “Found these.” She kicked lightly around the items at her feet. “I think there’s something behind the dumpster.”
One step into the alley and the shadows swallowed her. Dickie called to her from the sidewalk, his nerves up. “Mel?”
“Shine your light this way,” she said. “I see… I see…”
All words left her when she rounded a dumpster tucked along the back wall of the deli. All sense of her world vanished, and her so-called home became a much different place.
“Oh, Lord,” she muttered. The prayer offered little comfort. Neither did Dickie’s light when it finally penetrated the darkness. The light reached a pair of legs jutting out from behind the dumpster.
“Is that…”
Gates nodded, her hand over her mouth and nose to block the smell. Even with the rain, a rank stench caught in her throat. Crouching at the side of the body, Gates stared into the eyes of a young woman. A single stab wound through the neck told her the circumstances of the woman’s demise.
The smile on the victim’s face told the rest of the story.
“It’s him again, isn’t it?” she asked to Dickie, who loomed over her. The terror in his eyes gave his answer. His light lowered, and he reached for his radio to call it in.
The Kindly Killer had struck again.
Chapter Two
Greg Loren desired nothing more than the mother of all storms. Blistering winds coupled with raging torrents of rain and a cascade of thunderclaps that could wake the dead. He prepared for such an event, his worn-out trench coat snug on his shoulders. He dreamed of the rain washing over him, cleansing him of every malicious thought and terrible dread he carried with each breath.
So, of course, the rain immediately stopped once the call came in. All weather halted, like the city had simply taken a breath of its own to calm itself from the news of another strike.
Another murder.
Loren waited to be notified. He sat in anticipation as he watched dozens of officers pulled from their duties to attend the fresh scene. The news spread like wildfire. Whispers, innuendos, and quite a few glances passed in Loren’s direction. None, however, brought his invitation to the party.
Patience at an end, Loren left the confines of the precinct. The storm was upon him within, if not without. It churned with each footfall that carried him from the Rath Building for the Knoll—the same walk he took with the start of each shift. The thought of another murder sent waves of burning agony through his veins. Another murder meant another failure in his eyes, the same failure that had trailed him ever since the death of his wife.
The case was all he knew anymore. Each victim had become ingrained in his mind. Every scene had been memorized and cataloged for future study. For all his knowledge, Loren remained ignorant in far too many ways. Now his ignorance had left him out of the case completely.
He couldn’t let that stand.
By the time he arrived at Gentry, cordons barred the street from foot traffic. Officers littered the block, pushing back the first reporters to catch wind of the latest news. Leaks continued, even under the tightest of orders. Promises were handed out like bribes for a newsworthy headline or ten, all to be cashed in at a later date for fortune and fame when the killer finally met his end.
Loren looked forward to that day very much.
This one, though? Not at all.
Head down, Loren cut through the cordon with the raising of his badge. He didn’t have to make eye contact to be recognized. All knew who he was and his reason for being at the scene. Called or not, the case was all he had left, and Loren refused to take any dismissal sitting down.
He slipped by forensic technicians in a frenzy to gather what they could before the next wave of showers hit the area. From there, he circled the plainclothes detectives, Jefferson Quinn and Alan Messick. To so much as glance in their direction gave the impression of asking for permission, something Loren never cared to do. Instead, he pressed on for the open alley behind the convenience store.
A hand stopped him from entering—one Loren had been waiting for since his arrival.
“What are you doing here, Greg?” The slim, middle-aged Hispanic man with salt and pepper hair asked. Captain Alejo Ruiz’s eyes thinned at Loren’s presence, evident disapproval at the detective’s presence.
“You know why I’m here, Ruiz,” Loren said. He shuffled off the hand. Ruiz quickly cut him off from the alley.
“Then you know why I didn’t call you in,” the captain said. Friends for as long as they had known each other, times like these made things easier to think of Ruiz as Loren’s captain and little else. The more professional things turned, the uglier they became as well.
“It’s my case.”
“It was.” Ruiz took a deep, calming breath. He lowered his voice and pulled Loren close. “You look like crap, Greg. Have you slept?”
Loren sidestepped Ruiz. He didn’t bother to rise to the man’s bait. “Where’s the victim?”
“Dammit, Greg…” Ruiz sighed. “You can’t just barge in on an open investigation and expect—”
“Don’t,” Loren snapped. “Don’t you dare cut me out. I’ve spent months on this case. I’ve… I need to see this through.”
Ruiz stared him in the eyes, bloodshot and weary to match his own. A slow nod caused droplets of rain to fall from his hair. Before they had touched the ground, Loren stood in the alley.
He stopped at the sight of the young woman’s body behind the dumpster. She sat with her back against the brick wall of the cafe next to the convenience store. Fully clothed, there was no sign of physical harm anywhere on her extremities. Nothing screamed out to Loren about a struggle between the woman and her assailant.
The only injury had surely caused her death—a sharp stab through the throat. Blood spatter ran across the side of the dumpster. She lay where she’d died, pulled into the alley’s darkness and out of view of anyone who might have saved her from such a grim fate.
“Her name was Lydia Giles,” Ruiz said, the initial report in his hands. “Twenty-six years old. She worked at a salon a few blocks over.”
“Which one?”
Ruiz squinted to read his sloppy handwriting. “Uh, Ophelia’s on—”
“Breckenridge,” Loren interrupted. “I know where it is.” He crouched beside the victim. His gaze never left her, trailing up her body for evidence, though he found nothing but frustration in the effort. “She leave work with anyone?”
“No,” a voice said from the front of the dumpster. The sound of a woman behind it caused both Loren and Ruiz to turn at the arrival of the officer. She held her hat tight in her hands, timid in approach but with a fierce look in her wide, green eyes. “She didn’t leave with anyone last night, sir.”
Ruiz beamed at the officer and held out his hand for her to join them. “Greg, this is Melanie Gates. She’s one of our latest recruits from—”
Loren shifted away from them with a loud grumble. He tossed a wave as he returned his focus to the body. “Great. Congratulations. What time?”
“I’m sorry?” Gates asked, confused.
Loren sucked air between his clenched teeth. “What time did the salon close?”
“Nine.”
“And the body was found at?”
Ruiz stepped ahead of Gates. “Delmar called it in at 11:30.”
A large window of time. The late hour didn’t help matters. It limited the number of potential witnesses who might have seen the victim walking the Knoll on her way home, if that had been her destination. Too many questions vied for Loren’s attention, not the least of which centered on the change to the dead woman’s lips.
They twisted in a curling grin, the calling card of their killer. Those grins haunted Loren’s every waking moment. He stood from the body, unable to take the sight any longer.
“Ronne been here yet?” He shook his head at his own question. “No, don’t answer that. I can’t smell the aroma of death that seems to trail her.”
Ruiz’s arms crossed over his chest. “She’s not your biggest fan, either.”
Loren peered past Ruiz for the departing Gates. She offered an angry glare back before joining the cordon with the other officers. “Who is these days?”
Ruiz slapped at the detective’s shoulder. “Gee, with your winning personality, Greg, how can you be surprised?”
“You want to know what surprises me, Ruiz?” Loren pointed to the deceased and the sneering grin. “This.”
“Don’t start—”
“Seven victims in as many months. That we know about.” Loren paced the width of the alley, his hands strangling the air before him. “I’m no closer to finding this bastard.”
“We will,” Ruiz said. “We have every available patrol on the streets looking for this guy.”
“When they aren’t distracted by the nutcases breaking into local businesses for the fun of it,” Loren shot back. “Any idea who they are?”
“None,” Ruiz answered. His own frustration came through clearly. “We never arrive in time to catch them in the act. Surveillance footage is never clear, not enough to make any kind of identification.”
“Of course.”
“Hey,” Ruiz called, ending Loren’s pacing. “We’re doing our best. All of us.”
“Yeah,” Loren commented, a nod towards Gates. “The wealth of experience.”
Ruiz’s gaze thinned. He closed the gap between them, then dropped his voice to a whisper. “Gates found the body. This poor woman could have stayed hidden for another day or two before—”
“I know.” Loren threw his hands in the air. “I know!”
He slammed his hands against the brick, then settled beside the body once more. “Seven months, Ruiz. Seven months and he still doesn’t make sense to me. A different method used with each kill, like he just picks something at random seconds before the act. Yet when he strikes? Precision. One blow, maybe two. Never unrestrained when all signs point to that.” He leaned close to the open wound that caused the woman to bleed out. “What was it this time?”
“A pen,” Ruiz said. “From the victim’s purse.”
If it wasn’t that, what would he have used? Loren agonized over the methodology of his opponent. The not knowing caused the storm to churn in his guts faster. He needed the damn rain.
Attempting to stand once more, Loren found himself next to the upturned lips of Lydia Giles. “That damn smile.”
Ruiz held out a hand to help him up. Loren hesitated for a brief second. “Come on, Greg. Let Hady’s team handle the scene.”
Loren took the hand and found his footing. “Don’t handle me, Ruiz.”
“Then don’t force me to, Detective.” Ruiz tracked his lowered gaze and caught Loren’s eyes once more. His own were filled with nothing but concern, the very thing Loren hated to see. “When was the last time—”
“I slept, Ruiz,” Loren snapped. “Dammit, I slept.”
“A full eight hours?” Ruiz pressed. “In a bed?”
“The couch is—”
“All the answer I needed.” Ruiz shook his head, concern replaced by judgment. “Now you see why I didn’t call you for this? You’re pushing too hard.”
“If that’s what it takes to catch this guy, I’ll—”
“Make a mistake.”
Loren scoffed at the accusation.
“You have, Greg, and you will again,” the captain continued. “And people will get hurt because of it. You especially.”
“Me?” Loren asked. “Or my career?”
“Both, if you have it your way.” The clearing of a throat from the sidewalk interrupted their less-than-private discussion. Ruiz nodded to his subordinates and waved them over. “Quinn and Messick can handle the scene. They’re up to speed on the case and—”
“I can—”
Ruiz shuffled Loren for the street. “Let the department—let me—finish this one.”
Loren ripped away from Ruiz’s grip. He took a step back for the body, then stopped. At the far end of the alley, a shadow shifted in the dark. A figure slipped in and out of view in the blink of an eye.
Ruiz reached for him. “Greg?”
“Did you see that?” Loren pointed toward the shadows. “A woman. She was…”
He trailed off, unsure of what he saw—if he saw anything at all, the way he felt.
“Greg?”
Loren shook his head. “Forget it.”
The last thing he needed was a psych evaluation on top of everything else. He had already been through enough questioning from everyone since losing his wife. Their stares spoke to their doubts in him. He never included Ruiz in that group, though, until now.
Ruiz ushered him from the scene, the hand a guide as much as a forceful shove away from the murder and mayhem that followed Loren’s life. The captain wanted him out, away from the case and away from the answers he needed.
“Go home, Greg,” Ruiz said. “Get some sleep. Promise me.”
He wanted to fight for access. He needed the case more than Ruiz or anyone could understand. Surrounded by a dozen officers and even more analysts, Loren swallowed the argument.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I will.”
Ruiz left him with a nod. He joined Quinn and Messick at the body. Forensics gathered evidence. Hady’s team arrived and set to their tasks. Everyone worked to solve the case, except Loren.
They left him alone in the street, feeling nothing but the storm inside his veins as the rain began to fall again.
Chapter Three
Quick steps took her away from the alley, while quiet curses followed each stride. Loren had almost seen her. Soriya Greystone wasn’t ready for their first meeting. Not while the Kindly Killer remained at large.
The enigmatic murderer sat at the heart of all her troubles of late. She had been hunting for her elusive prey since Loren lost his wife. In her failure to save Beth, Soriya had promised to look after Loren. She could think of no better way than to catch the killer he had sought mercilessly for so long, especially if the killer had been behind Beth’s sudden fall.
Soriya’s guilt over the loss of her friend carried her out of the alley and across the street. The bright lights of squad cars faded to the background. The deep dark of Portents stood before her, and she welcomed the thick shadows like a warm blanket on a chilly night.
Rain dampened her mood further. The killer had struck again, and left no clue to his identity. She had studied the previous victims endlessly for some insight. All appeared to be randomly selected, almost by chance rather than sought after by the murderer. The only clear thought carried throughout the investigation was that the killer was male. The force behind the strikes used against his victims and the height required in each circumstance made the determination clear.
That was it: Kindly was a man. No other evidence presented itself, not after months of searching.
It was no wonder Loren looked so exhausted. His face had been haggard and desolate, like the man had not found a peaceful rest in ages.
Soriya’s anguish accompanied her as she left King’s Lane, heading to the bottom of the hill that linked the district to the rest of the city. Riverside sat to the east, with Grant Square to the west.
Her promise to the memory of Beth remained unfulfilled. Her own diligence to see a killer caught came up short with each passing night, and each new victim added to Kindly’s tally. Yet, Soriya discovered no new insight into the case. Her mind crashed against nothing but dead ends, despite the months spent on the hunt.
She needed a distraction.
The city was typically full of them. Myths and legends hid within Portents. Most were benign, wanting nothing more than to live their lives among humanity. Despite their extraordinary origins, they worked, played and loved as anyone else and none were the wiser. There were always others though that wanted more, and took what they desired, until Soriya put a stop to them.
That was the job, and had been her task—one she had trained for since the age of five. During her training, Soriya learned to battle the worst of the worst, from this world and every other out there. Minotaurs. Witches. Gods and goddesses alike. All brought their own delusions of power and glory, always at the expense of the innocent and Portents.
But for all her training, for all the threats Soriya had tackled since assuming the mantle of the Greystone, the Kindly Killer remained active in her backyard. He took lives without worry of being caught, and his pattern of attack made him more brazen. The gaps between deaths narrowed with each subsequent victim. Where weeks would slip by, now only days passed before another body dropped.
So lost in thought, with the pounding rain offering nothing but a soundtrack for her anger, Soriya barely heard the horn of the sedan down the block on Lascombe. Only the twin beams from the car’s headlights alerted her to its presence, and to her own position right in its path.
Soriya leaped toward the far side of the street. She felt the heat of the car’s engine against the bottom of her feet. The driver’s side mirror skimmed across her legs in her flight from certain death.
Knees and elbows slammed into the sidewalk. Soriya’s body flipped end over end until she hit the solid brick edifice of the nearest building. Slowly, she rolled to her back and stared into the rain pelting her face.
“Idiot.”
A car almost ended her life. Not some demon from the netherworld, not a mythical beast loose in her city, but her own distraction while crossing the damn street. Soriya slapped the ground, then fought her way to her feet. Her knees screamed when they touched the ground. Layers of skin had definitely been lost on her elbows as well.
“I can’t believe I almost…” She stopped at the sight of the sedan.
At the end of the block, it turned back in her direction. Gray paint chipped in several places with streaks of other colors dotting the chassis as if it had collided with a rainbow or a plethora of brightly colored objects—hard. The car was old, an antique compared to most vehicles on the road. Its hood jutted out far from the windshield and the rear on both sides shot up like horns. The engine boomed as the driver stepped on the accelerator while the car stayed in park.
“What is—”
The sedan shot forward like a bullet from a gun. There was no mistaking the intent this time. The car hopped the curb on a straight path for her position.
The occupants hadn’t been warning her with their flagrant use of their horn: they had been announcing their arrival. They did the same this time, and she saw them through the front windshield.
There were two of them. They hooted and hollered at her, demanding her full attention. Both wore masks, hiding their identities. None of that fazed Soriya in the slightest.
No, what kept Soriya frozen in the path of the murderous sedan was the fact that the driver’s mask bore a massive smile across the face.
