My Detective, My Obsession

“Look at this.”

I hesitated before taking the envelope Rich offered. A faint scent tickled my nose—familiar.

Too familiar.

The paper was folded with perfect precision. Pristine. It didn’t belong in this house, not with the blood soaking the floors and walls like wallpaper.

I should wait for the lab. Let them test for substances. Trace evidence. Prints.

But I wouldn’t. I never did.

Because it was addressed to me.

Anna, written in elegant, taunting penmanship. Just as mocking as the mutilated body in the room next door.

Officers moved around us, taking photos, bagging evidence, and pretending not to glance my way—some I greeted with curt nods. We’d just finished questioning the wife, who now stood trembling in the yard. Claimed she’d spent the night at her sister’s after a fight with her husband.

Some fight. The bruise on her cheek was fresh, the size and shape of a clenched fist.

Everyone at the precinct knew the couple. Welfare checks, noise complaints, domestic abuse. The neighbours had the non-emergency line on speed dial.

“Smell it,” Rich said.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Your ass?”

His mouth twitched. “Not this time.”

At six-foot-three, Rich was an imposing figure—especially compared to my five-foot-four frame. His muscles strained against his shirt, and suspects usually folded the second he walked into an interrogation room. He could’ve been a model if he hadn’t chosen to wreck lives for a living.

His wife was a lucky woman.

I lifted the envelope to my nose. My heart stopped.

Then kicked into overdrive.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

Coco Chanel.

My perfume.

“He was in your house,” Rich said. Eyes wild. Voice low.

I shushed him, casting a warning glance. A few officers had stopped pretending not to eavesdrop.

The precinct was full of gossipers. Secrets didn’t last long.

Rich stepped closer. His cologne mixed with the metallic tang of old blood.

“Fuck, Anna.”

I ignored the pounding in my ears. “Are you smoking again?” I could smell it on his minty breath.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not—”

“He’s getting too close. We need to take you off this case.”

“Not happening.”

“Anna—”

“Drop it. You know you won’t win this.”

He did. And he looked away, defeated.

I turned back to the envelope. My fingers shook as I opened it. Despite the nausea curling in my gut, I had to read it.

Four months.

Seven letters.

Each one addressed to me.

All full of intimate details. Someone who wasn’t close to me couldn’t possibly know such a wealth of information. Taunting. He wanted me to know he knew me while I struggled to find one minuscule thing about him.

And he always signed them the same way.

Detective,

I’ve watched you fumble for months. Close, but still so far.

Do you think about me as much as I think about you?

Did you like my gift?

The man tied to the bed? Beaten to death?

That was for you.

You couldn’t put him away. I put him in the ground.

We’re a team—you serve justice, and I’m the sword that swings it.

But I’m getting impatient, Anna.

I want you to find me.

I’ll let you arrest me… if you beg.

Waiting for you in hell,

The Wraith

My stomach twisted.

“He could’ve bought the perfume anywhere,” I said, barely hearing myself. “Popular scent.”

“We could check the mall,” Rich said. “See if anyone remembers selling it to a guy this week.”

“Yeah…”

It was a good lead.

My hands trembled.

AN HOUR LATER.

“Ma’am?”

“Patience, detective.”

Sweat glistened on Rich’s dark skin. He leaned on the counter of the perfume kiosk, his frustration palpable.

The mall’s skylights let the sun beat down on us. It was warm, and the AC clearly wasn’t running at full force yet. I was sweating, too.

The perfume counter was a wall of coloured glass and dizzying aromas. Sweet, musky, floral, animalic. My brain felt light. High.

We’d been in the shop for ten minutes now, and I swore I’d lost my sense of smell. The woman behind the counter was taking her sweet time looking through the many, many bottles of perfume that blocked her tiny form from her customers.

I pointed to the bottle behind the glass. “There. That’s it.”

The shopkeeper glared at me. She’d been searching the wrong end of the display case—on purpose.

I smiled back.

People around here didn’t trust cops. Not without reason. Our precinct had more cover-ups than solved cases.

“Finally,” Rich muttered as the woman retrieved the bottle.

“Did you sell one recently?” Rich asked.

“No,” she snapped, shaking her head and causing her grey curls to bounce on her shoulders.

Rich’s jaw tightened.

“We’ll need to see your receipts for the last week,” I interjected smoothly. “Print them. We’ll look through them ourselves.”

The woman’s eyes blinked at me hatefully. “Do you have a warrant?”

“No.”

“Well, that means—”

“But if we get one, you should know, we’ll be entitled to look through everything. Every bottle. Every drawer.”

Her face paled.

Drugs, I thought. I’d bet good money the perfumes were masking something more profitable.

“I’ll…get you those receipts,” she said hastily.

“You do that,” Rich said.

She bent over, her loose lilac dress shifting.

I glanced away.

“I need coffee,” Rich muttered.

“After,” I said.

She slammed the receipts on the counter.

“You don’t sell much, do you?” Rich asked.

“It was a slow week.”

Six receipts.

That wasn’t slow. That was suspicious.

I picked them up. The urge to say we’ll be back was strong, but I didn’t need to give the woman a coronary.

“Thank you,” I said instead. “For your cooperation.”

She glared, her brown eyes sharper than a blade to my throat.

Clapping Rich on the shoulder, I steered my tense partner out of the small shop and into the crowded shopping mall.

“Let’s get that coffee,” I said.

Rich groaned. “I think I’m in love.”

I laughed.

If only.

If Rich weren’t married, I’d let him bend me over the nearest table and fuck me senseless.

The ache between my legs that kept me up at night wasn’t going anywhere.

Not from fingers. Not from toys—

I needed touch. A rough, claiming kind.

A mouth that didn’t ask for permission.

A cock that didn’t hold back.

I needed to be taken.

“Nothing,” I huffed and tossed the receipts onto the centre console.

Mid-sip, coffee poised at his lips, Rich plucked a receipt from the pile. He smacked me in the forehead with it, smiling as I swore.

“No,” he said. “We have somebody buying a bottle two days ago. That’s not nothing.”

I sipped my lukewarm coffee. “With cash.”

“Gotta check the videos.”

“Videos?” I snapped. “You seriously think that she’ll have working cameras? And if she does, by some fucking miracle, she won’t give them to us.”

I didn’t mean to take my anger out on Rich, but I was getting agitated by his flippancy about the case. I had a nagging sensation I couldn’t ignore that I was falling behind. It ate at my gut and made me tense. Wraith knew so much about me, and I knew nothing except his killing habits.

Was he watching me right now? Witnessing me fumble to try and keep up?

“Then we’ll get a warrant.”

That wasn’t enough. Wraith wanted me to find him. He would have left clues. I was missing something important.

“Rich—”

A whimsical ringtone filled the coffee-scented cabin of the car. Rich set his coffee in the cup holder and rifled in his pocket for his cell phone. He lifted a finger, signalling he needed a moment, and I nodded.

“Hey, baby,” he said happily.

Whatever was said on the other end of the phone made him chuckle. He had a deep laugh. It never failed to make me shiver. Right now, though, I felt nothing but anger hearing it. Rich didn’t care about finding Wraith. Not as much as me.

Why would he?

Wraith wasn’t killing innocents.

He was cleaning up the streets like we never could.

And Rich had that silver ring on his finger to keep his mind occupied and far away from our bloody work.

I had nothing.

Nothing except love letters from a sadist.

And God help me—

I was beginning to look forward to them.