Apex (Three Red Women Book 1) Read online

  Apex

  E.M. Miller

  © Copyright E.M. Miller 2021

  Black Rose Writing | Texas

  © 2021 by E.M. Miller

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Content includes mature themes such as sex, violence, murder, sexual assault, large volumes of gore, and the use of firearms and other weapons.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-872-6

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

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  To the mother that raised me to be unbreakable, willful, and unrepentantly complicated.

  To my baby sister, for whom I will be strong until my dying breath.

  To the community and family of brilliant and powerful women that taught me what it means to be such.

  To the ladies that are liberated by their multifaceted souls.

  To the people that revel in their secrets.

  And most importantly, to my father, may he rest in peace.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Rosevine

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Note from the Author

  BRW Info

  apex predator : noun

  /ˈāpeks/ /ˈpredədər/

  Definition of apex predator ecology : a predator at the top of a food chain that is not preyed upon by any other animal

  Prologue

  The crinkle of damaged speakers croaking out country music followed him out of the bar. A blue glow descended on the chipped, concrete steps. His heart thumped hard with the anticipation of what he was about to do. He’d had his eye on her all night. She’d looked confused, weary, starving for something different. Girls like that don’t know what they want until it’s given to them, and his favorite hobby was doing just that. Women like to play coy, lead men on a little chase, and he was no fool. He always caught them, and if they didn’t want to be caught, they wouldn’t let him.

  A part of him had a stomach specifically reserved for churning when he knew something wasn’t considered right. It was distant, but it existed, and he almost let it get to him sometimes. But another, stronger part of him was hungry, and it drowned out the conscience that most people were ruled by. A feeling that strong couldn’t be wrong, he figured. Looking at the girl opening her truck door, that hunger flared. Her skirt hinted at something shapely beneath, and her little, scuffed heels on her feet would make it harder to run. That was a shame. He kind of liked it when they ran.

  “Hey, little miss,” he drawled, tucking his dip behind his back molars.

  She turned, and he almost hissed aloud in satisfaction. Her face was open, eyes wide with innocence. The natural submission in her gaze nearly snapped his control in half before he had a chance to play his game.

  “I noticed you all alone in there, you lookin’ to meet someone special?”

  She cocked her head. Her exposed throat looked smooth and clean; young skin. His tongue darted out to wet his lips.

  “I’m just passing through the area,” she replied, her soft voice wavering a bit. She gave an unsure smile. “I thought I’d stop in for a bit of a break from the road.”

  “Aw, you a little tired, sweetheart?”

  “Actually, yes, I’ve been traveling for quite a while…”

  “Where you headin’?”

  “Back west. I’m movin’ into my daddy’s house.”

  “Well, miss, if you give me some company tonight, I can offer you some rest from the road,” he crooned, coming in closer and resting an arm on the truck.

  She angled herself away from him a bit, blushing prettily. She busied herself with something in the backseat, avoiding a response.

  “Come on now, honey, you were lookin’ pretty lonely in there, I’m just tryin’ to help you out.”

  “I don’t know, I should probably get back on the road,” she said, casting him a bashful smile.

  He reached out and drew a finger from her shoulder down to her elbow. She tucked her arm against herself, looking downwards. Anger flared in him. The prudish little bitch. As if she hadn’t been trying to entice him with her coquettish behavior. She needed to be taught what her flirting would get her.

  “Why don’t you give me a minute to show you-”

  He reached out, gripping her upper arm. She squirmed against him, and something flashed in her eyes. Not quite fear, but something else. Something like...readiness.

  He found himself wrapping both arms around her to keep her from wrestling out of his grasp.

  “Fiery little bitch,” he bit out, pushing her towards her open backseat door. He maneuvered her slight body over the floor of her lifted vehicle, feeling victorious but a bit uneasy. Despite his sudden attack, the young woman didn’t struggle much or make any noise. Part of him wondered why, but his hunger overrode the flicker of doubt.

  Reaching between them, he fumbled one-handed with his zipper, keeping a firm grasp on her delicate wrists with the other hand. As he pulled the tab down and prepared to push up her layered skirt, he heard her finally utter a sound. He thought he recognized the syllables that fell out of her mouth, but he had to be wrong. A chill ran up his spine, quelching his hunger immediately.

  “What did you just say?” he asked gruffly, trying to conceal his distress.

  Her words came out on one breath, “Victor Baker.”

  His breath hitched, and for a moment, he lost his grip on her. That moment was long enough for her to whip one hand out of his grasp and pull a pipe out from under the seat. She whirled with a speed he didn’t expect and swung the pipe into his temple
. Victor crumpled to the ground, and the young woman stood over him for a beat, gazing down at the pile of unwashed clothes and sweat-slicked flesh. His forehead bore a white-rapidly-turning-red mark, and a fluttering began in her stomach.

  . . .

  Jane always felt the flap of wings inside when her scenes began. The foreplay of subterfuge was at best amusing; the real hunt began when she made the first move. She felt her blood pounding hot in her ears as she removed the chains she’d prepared from her backseat. She tsked to herself at not having attached the spring clips beneath the hitch ahead of time. Efficiency was everything. She would make a note for herself next time.

  Crossing the chains around and under Victor’s arms, she grunted as she lifted his dead weight to lock the clips into place behind him, lest he regain consciousness as she dragged him behind the truck. She handcuffed him with a flourish, as if tying the bow atop a Christmas present. Her finished work was beautiful, just a bit of blood, nothing that would stand out amongst the traces of bar brawls amongst the gravel and broken glass of the parking lot. It wasn’t finished, though. She still had some finishing touches to make.

  Jane started up her truck and made sure the radio was still all static, silently thanking the radio jammer sitting atop her console that faithfully prevented any security footage of her escapades- not that she suspected the cameras actually worked. The bar was perfect for her hobby: isolated and the site of too many expected crimes to be suspicious in a way that drew attention to her. She was truly blessed that her new friend, Victor, happened to frequent the establishment. She hummed to herself as she pondered her good luck. People sure have loose tongues around here, she thought. I didn’t even need a database to find him. She also suspected that no one would look too deeply into Victor’s upcoming accident.

  Pulling out of the bar, Jane prepared to switch off the jammer and play her favorite tape. Every time “Runaround Sue” played, Jane felt as if she were hearing it for the first time all over again. She crooned along to Dion DiMucci’s addictive notes, drowning out the sound of a suddenly very awake Victor, who was just discovering his unfortunate situation. Despite her bliss at accomplishing yet another scene, a deep, dark stirring began in her chest at the distant sounds of Victor’s pained howls.

  He deserves this.

  Victor Baker spent his time bumming drugs off of friends and finding vulnerable women to confirm what he thinks of himself. His reputation started out as a bit of a cad as a young buck, and rapidly declined into that of a full-on predator. Not many went about town with Victor these days, she’d heard, because he was the kind to follow girls into dark places when they weren’t looking, and made sure to always be a couple drinks behind them. He was the perfect monster to quench her thirst in the midst of her travels.

  Victor hollered a couple miles more, but Jane had made sure to leave the chain long enough that his head reached the road despite the angle and the speed of the vehicle. His weight wasn’t enough to pull the chain taught, and instead, he flopped about in the rear-view mirror, going silent as she sped up. Jane grinned a mirthless grin, and hummed the last few notes of her favorite song.

  After arriving at the creek, which lay deep in a bed far below the bridge she was parked on, she tossed the chain to the other side of the narrow bed and reattached it with practiced hands.

  Jane did it the way an artist cleans up her materials after painting a masterpiece.

  Jane took her bike out of the back of her car and sped back up the road to the bar.

  An artist removes her painting from the scene of elegant, acrylic destruction.

  Jane tossed the bike in the back of Victor’s dusty pick up.

  The artist brings her brushes to a sink, removing them from their jars and pallets.

  Jane drives the truck back to the creek, and uses Victor’s chains to lever him into the front seat.

  The artist lovingly massages the paint from her brushes, using soft suds and warm water to keep the pigment from creeping up to the wood.

  Jane uses a rock to smash in the windshield and pulls Victor through the artfully-created hole.

  The artist sets the brushes aside to dry, and removes her rags to be washed with her destroyed clothes.

  Jane detaches the chains and gives the gas pedal a nudge, quickly flitting out of the way, to send the truck careening over the edge of the bank and into the creek with a deafening crash.

  The artist beams at their finished work from across the room, satisfied with the outcome.

  Jane watches the water rush over the rapidly sinking vehicle, Victor’s prostrate form at an awkward angle on the hood of the car.

  Both artists walk away from their work with a contented sigh.

  Chapter 1

  Golden Eagle, Aquila chrysaetos

  Jane took in a deep breath and exhaled into the air, searching for that misty cloud that used to appear in Louisiana, the one that played with the humidity in the early morning air, comparing, toying, and finally, dissipating. Here in West Texas, however, smack in the middle of the desert, her breath fell flat, not a trace of it to be found clinging to the soup that used to be her environment.

  It’s not that Jane wasn’t glad to be home, she was in a way, but she knew that with the move would come questions and complications, as well as the distasteful activity of establishing a reputation in order to avoid being detected. It helped that she naturally looked sweet, and was just interesting enough in public not to draw attention to her pristine demeanor. One must have a bit of dust on the carpet to keep people from looking for the piles of dirt underneath.

  However, establishing herself as a Good Girl and a Law Abiding Citizen meant that she would need to hold off on her hobby for a little while. No scenes while she was in the process of reintroducing herself to her old hometown.

  At that thought, she frowned up at the ceiling of her front porch.

  The creaking porch swing swayed to and fro, and she looked up at the moving slat board above her. Sitting on this swing with her father was one of the many cherished memories she had of her childhood here. No amount of gory endings could erase what she knew about her family.

  Her mother, although deceased by the time Jane was self-aware, was said to be the loveliest and gentlest of her brood. Her sisters all had one thing or another wrong with them; gapped teeth, a screeching voice, limp hair, one leg shorter than the other...but Jane’s mother was perfect. At least that’s what she heard from everyone in town. Her father never refuted the claims, but chose to emphasize other traits to his daughter.

  “Janie, your mother was the most clever creature I ever met. Besides myself of course.” And here he would wink, and Jane would giggle at her humble father’s rare mention of his intelligence. “She could whip up an answer to any question I had, and she always knew where everything was, right down to a thumbtack. Your mama had golden hair like yours, but a little less red, and every time she would flash those green eyes at me, and toss that hair, I knew she was lookin’ for a kiss.”

  Jane would take this moment to stick her finger in her mouth and gag.

  “She hated that my job isn’t safe, but she knew things, just like you know things. She knew how important it was for the town to be safe, even if I wasn’t always safe.”

  Jane always pursed her lips at the mention of her father’s dangerous career. She chose to think of police work as daring and exciting, something that she and her father bonded over. However, a little niggle in her brain would remind her every now and then that he put his life on the line for his community fairly often. That niggle would turn into a frantic writhing when he was late coming home, or when she heard about a violent criminal on the radio. That didn’t keep her from desperately wanting to follow in his footsteps.

 
Sitting up and swinging her feet onto the rough, unfinished porch, Jane shook the memories out of her ears before they led to something upsetting.

  Time to get to work.

  Creating a personality that enfolds her into the arms of a community was only ever as difficult as the formula she chose. Sometimes she was shy and easily shaken. Occasionally, she would be a bubbly, green gal who giggled when she was nervous. She was always vulnerable, and never overly aware.

  The difficult part this time would be recreating a personality amongst people that already knew her.

  Once upon a time, Jane lived with her father in this sturdy, desert-creek-side bungalow with two hounds that slept on the porch, and the memories of her mother blanketing every surface. Detective Fairweather was put on a pedestal by the community long before his death, and the trust that he had instilled in everyone lingered in his young daughter. There was no shortage of peers who wanted to take Jane in when she was orphaned, but unfortunately, that’s not the way the foster system operates. Her small town was insignificant enough to escape a place on a map, and was most certainly not considered a suitable location for her to live when the incident occurred. A town rife with murder hardly warrented the trust of Child Protective Services.

  Fort Zemsta was a remnant of Old West, outlaws and corrupt law enforcement echoing in the fibers of the community like a ghost that refused to be forgotten. Her father was a litmus test for those who were up to no good- if a man trusted Detective Fairweather and treated him well, then he was a law-abiding citizen. If a man kept one eye on him and didn’t take well to his presence...one could ascertain that such a man had a sinister reason for doing so.