Ever After: E&M Investigations, Book Four

By LJ Bourne

The past and present collide in a murderous way, shattering the new life Mark and Eva built, in this thrilling and suspenseful new mystery novel by LJ Bourne.

Old Hurts Hit Hard.

Nearly six years ago, true crime writer Eva Lah and her partner, US Military Special Investigator Mark Novak caught a ruthless serial killer nicknamed The Fairytale Killer. Eva wrote a successful book about his crimes and has traveled the world giving talks on the subject.

Now she is giving the last lecture about him to a group of elite scholars and top law enforcement officials at a picturesque castle. Mark and Eva are both ready to leave what happened six years ago behind them.

Until a young woman dressed as a princess is found dead in Eva’s hotel room. But this murder can’t possibly be the work of The Fairytale Killer.

Eva and Mark race against the clock to find the person behind the killings before history repeats itself in all its gruesome glory. And before this murderer finishes what the Fairytale Killer started.

A must read for fans of Donna Leon, Lisa Gardener and Karin Slaughter!

EVER AFTER, the fourth book in the E&M Investigations series, is a standalone, fast-paced and gripping crime mystery novel full of twists and turns. It's impossible to put down!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Waterside Dreams Press
• Release date: Dec 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9789619646038

Book preview

1

Once upon a time there lived a girl, not a princess, but just as beautiful as one and just as radiant and carefree. As sometimes in fairytales princesses are, this girl was abducted and held captive by a bad man, an evil man, a man who wanted to possess her beauty even though it would mean her destruction. No prince came riding in on a white steed to save her from his clutches, no hero appeared to whisk her away to a better life. Her story had no happily ever after ending.

This beautiful girl grew into a woman who only wanted to die. Even after she was saved—not by a prince but by someone as broken as she—that’s all she craved. And strove for. And tried and failed and tried and finally succeeded.

Her life is no more. She is barely remembered. All talk of her is talk only of The Fairytale Killer.

She will never truly be saved.

She is not avenged.

The work is not finished.

- Handwritten note from The Fairytale Killer

2

EVA

The thick, icy cold and damp morning fog, so typical for this time of year, is laying low to the ground, in places obscuring everything except a few feet of the road in front of us. Mark and I are driving to the hotel where I’m giving my lecture on the Fairytale Killer for the first time in a long time. The radio’s off, we’re not speaking and the low-hanging fog is casting a hazy white half light over the world making everything look creepy yet gorgeously dreamy at the same time.

I understand why this time of year gave rise to the legend of Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, as it was originally called. According to legend, the veil between our world and the world of the dead is thinnest on this night, allowing the souls of the dead to walk among the living. The real world just doesn’t look as substantial in all this mist. Especially in this foggy Dolenjska region countryside, the river lands, with its low rolling hills and wide open plains, currently shrouded by mists. I can easily imagine a ghost or two floating out of them. Or the headless horseman to come charging at us.

When the organizers of this conference first approached me, I said no to giving the lecture. I’m ready to leave the Fairytale Killer—the serial killer who made my career as a true crime writer, who brought Mark and I together and broke us apart for a time too, and who still haunts my nightmares—behind me. After the Fairytale Killer was captured he gave me an exclusive interview, which I turned into a bestselling book and then spent four years giving lectures on the topic all over the world. I think that’s enough.

Plus, even though I’m only just over four months along in my pregnancy, my morning sickness has been getting worse, rather than better, and the nesting has already started kicking in. Mark’s caught that bug too, and we’ve been spending most of our free time getting the house ready for a baby that’s not due for another five months. The sea-themed wallpaper I ordered for the nursery arrived yesterday and I’d much rather be spending the weekend hanging it up than talking about death and cruelty.

But the organizers of this international conference, aimed primarily at professionals, but open to the public as well, begged and cajoled me to come for weeks, until I finally relented. The conference is being held at Otočec Castle, which was once a castle but is now a five-star hotel. It’d be great if Mark and I could share the suite they gave me for the weekend, but I’m pretty sure they only offered it as a way to keep me in the hotel for the duration of the three-day event to answer questions about the Fairytale Killer. Mark is the one who actually caught him, and talking about any of it is actually his worst nightmare, so I didn’t even suggest it.

Not that he’d say yes. The Europol task force he’s heading just started new case—that of a refugee, a blond Afghan woman, who was found in the Dragonja River three days ago. The local police think she simply drowned, but Mark and the task force team aren’t so sure.

He’s only been working on the case for one day, but he’s already consumed by it, and if his glazed over eyes that are kind of absorbing the fog we’re driving through are anything to go by, he’s thinking about it right now.

Thanks for driving me, I say, smiling at him. For some reason I do a lot of that lately. Just looking at him and smiling as I picture him as a father. I blame it on my pregnancy brain.

He flinches like I woke him from a dream, and glances at me, the look in his eyes suggesting he’s surprised to find me in the car with him. That’s typical Mark when on a case, I get the same way when I’m writing a book or an article.

He grins. Sorry, I was miles away.

Yeah, I noticed, I say and chuckle. This fog will do that to you. I feel like I’m in a dream.

Not a good dream, he says. You sure you even want to go through with this?

We’ve had this conversation a bunch of times already since I agreed to do the lecture, so I just nod.

Are you driving straight to the crime scene after? I ask.

That would’ve been a much shorter drive if he hadn't insisted on driving me here first. We've had that conversation a bunch of times already too.

Yes, he says. Ida’s there, going over the evidence. We’re meeting at the crime scene. And then I thought I’d conduct some interviews at the refugee camp and maybe with the locals in the area too.

I kind of wish I was going with you, I say. But it’s been awhile since I stayed at a luxury hotel. They have a spa and everything and I mean to treat myself.

He glances at me and smiles. We should go to a five-star hotel together one of these days. Then again, that’s probably going to mean another case. So maybe it’s best we don’t.

We both chuckle at the joke, which actually isn’t all that funny.

He curses softly, brakes hard and makes a right off the main road onto one that leads down towards the river.

I almost missed the sign in all this fog, he explains as the trees thin out and the castle/hotel comes into view. It’s built on an island in the middle of the wide Krka River, which flows lazily into the misty distance.

We cross a wooden bridge to reach it, Mark going too fast over it, as usual, making the car bounce up and down and side to side. He brakes hard again once we cross it and makes a sharp turn onto the gravel parking area in front of the main gate of the hotel, sending rocks pelting my window.

As soon as I step out of the car, I’m reminded of everything I don’t like about the dreamy autumn fog. For one thing, it amplifies the cold and my bare hands feel like I’ve dumped them into a bucket of chipped ice after only a few seconds of being outside. My cheeks and nose go the same way by the time I reach the back of the car, where Mark already has my small black suitcase in his hand and the trunk closed.

So we just go through that gate to get to reception? he asks, pointing at a set of what looks like firmly closed double sided metal doors set in the outer walls of the castle.

I shrug and try to take my bag from him. He moves it to his other hand before I can.

I can go in alone, if you’d rather say goodbye out here, I tell him.

He grins. I’ll go with you to your room and carry your bag.

I draw in a deep breath to argue that I’m perfectly capable of getting myself and my tiny amount of luggage the fifty of so meters from here to the hotel proper, but before I can, he’s already collected my computer bag from the back seat and is standing there grinning at me, his brown eyes reflecting the fog shrouded castle behind us and looking very innocent. Maybe I don’t need to make this stand here. It is probably better that I don’t lift anything too heavy. I’m not exactly a young woman anymore.

Eva? a female voice calls out my name and I turn to see a thin brunette in a dark pencil skirt, low-heeled black shoes and a thin white button-down shirt with a big bow tied in the front walking towards us, waving.

Yes, that’s me, I tell her.

I’m Manca. We spoke on the phone, she says as she approaches. I’m cold in my big, floor-length, puffy winter parka, so I have no idea how she’s not freezing to death where she stands.

Pretend I’m just some guy, Mark tells me under his breath. I’m not giving any interviews.

He’s grinning at me when I look at him over my shoulder, and I can’t help smiling too. Used to be any mention of the Fairytale Killer made his eyes glaze over with a hopeless, inescapable sort of sadness. I’m glad to see that reaction has finally passed and the topic is more of an annoyance he’d rather avoid at all costs.

Welcome, Manca says and extends her hand to me. I shake it, expecting the sensation of touching ice, but her hand is actually very warm. I wish I was one of those people with warm hands in winter. Mine are usually cold in the summer too.

She’s looking at Mark, and with his whispered instructions I’m now at a loss of how to proceed.

Luckily he’s good at thinking on his feet, and deftly sets my suitcase back on the ground, smiles widely and offers his hand to her. Hi, Manca. This is quite a place. We were just admiring it.

She smiles back, Mark usually has that effect on women, and glances back at the castle. We were lucky to secure it for the conference and we’ll have it to ourselves for the whole weekend. Eva’s talk will have a much bigger impact delivered in a castle, given that the Fairytale Killer’s victims were all posed as princesses. Are you⁠—?

I can’t wait to see the inside, I say hastily before she can officially recognize Mark and start asking all those questions he never wants to answer. I’ve never stayed inside a castle before, but always wanted to. Let’s go inside. You must be freezing.

I reach down for the handle of my suitcase and extend my free hand to Mark signaling I want him to give me my computer bag. He looks like he’s going to argue, so I just shake my head and yank it from him.

Follow me, Manca says and starts walking back.

As soon as her back’s turned Mark gives me a quick hug and a kiss, his lips fire against my fog-chilled skin.

Sorry, he whispers. I’m just really not in the mood to talk about that psycho.

Go, you’re off the hook, I tell him. I’ll call you later.

And I’ll answer, he says, then stands there by the car, waving to me every time I turn back to see if he’s still there. Silly, but it warms me in ways even the sun can’t.

He’s put what happened in Berlin behind him, I can see that now. And after I give this one last lecture, and spend two days answering all the questions that always come, I will too.

MARK

It was damp, foggy and freezing where I dropped Eva off and it’s the same on the banks of the Dragonja River, although a little warmer. Mists shroud the spot where Asal’s body was found four days ago. This is a lonely stretch of the river, shrouded from view by thick foliage and now mostly leafless trees that grow right at the edge of the water. She was found floating in the shallows, by a small stretch of rocky shore where nothing grows. The river flows silently here, but up ahead I can hear it whooshing.

There is a well-trodden walking path about a hundred meters from this bank, but only a very narrow lane leads to this spot from it. I didn't notice any houses near here, but I can see a row of them on the other side of the river and about 500 meters eastward, a village of sorts. They might’ve seen something. I get my bearings as best I can and continue on towards the water, where I can see Ida jotting down something in that hard cover notebook she always carries everywhere.

Asal was a refugee from Afghanistan and she made the long and dangerous journey on her own. She studied human rights law back home, and she probably made the right choice fleeing here in the end. As far as her longevity was concerned, human rights activists, especially female ones, don’t last long over there.

But that didn’t save her life. Or give her longevity. She was only twenty-five years old.

Either she got tangled up with the wrong guy on the way here, or she met the wrong one once she arrived. I’m going to find out which it is.

If she wasn’t travelling alone, she probably wouldn’t have ended up dead on this overgrown piece of shore that, by the looks of it, is rarely visited. Across the river, the foliage is cleared away, but a thicket of trees still grows near the bank directly opposite this spot.

I’m not surprised she had to come alone. Going in search of a better life takes more than just money, it takes guts, and morale is low among the people of Afghanistan. It’s one of the things that depressed me the most during the one and a half tours I did there back when I was still just a soldier. After decades of war that’s still going on, it’s hard to find the will to do more than worry about the rest of today. Tomorrow is already a stretch. It became so for me after a while, so I can imagine how much worse it is for someone whose father and grandfather lived and died in wartime.

Asal had been a tall, green-eyed beauty with long, thick hair dyed a honey-blonde color. We’re still looking into it, but chances are she has no family, or her family disowned her. A lot of things changed for the better under Western occupation of Afghanistan, but some customs and traditions are too rooted into the fabric of the land for two decades to make a dent in. Such as that women have no business being lawyers or human rights fighters.

Still, it would’ve been better for Asal if she has stayed at home.

Are you getting lost in mourning the victim? Ida asks pointedly, startling me out of doing exactly that.

Ida is a forensic criminalist, on loan to my Europol task force, as she has been from the first case we took on. I’m hoping she’ll make the switch permanent one of these days, since she’s one of the best and most efficient crime techs I’ve ever worked with and I don’t want to risk losing her. But she is dating Simon now, the founder of the task force, for lack of a better word, and maybe that’s what’s making her decision to join us too complicated.

She was too young to die, I say and shrug.

And in such a frightful way, Ida muses.

Instead of the usual full body jumpsuit I normally see her in, she’s wearing her normal clothes today—a brown wool sweater, dark green parka and a pair of black jeans. Her long brown hair is pulled back into a high ponytail at the back of her head and she’s wearing no makeup. We met here to check out the crime scene, based on the notes the forensics team took. Neither of us were part of the initial investigation, which might make things difficult.

If you ask me, they just wanted to sweep it under the rug, Ida says bitingly, as she pulls a thick file of notes and photos from her backpack.

I agree. The Croatians don’t want anything to do with it, and the Slovenes would rather the Croatians handle it, I say. That’s the main reason why the task force took the case, even though no one really wanted us to.

I’ve been here for two hours, trying to make sense of it, she says, balancing her backpack against a boulder and opening the folder on top of it.

The first picture is of Asal’s body, her skin bluish in death, but her face is peaceful, eyes closed. It seems like she’s just sleeping. She’s covered up to her neck in a white sheet, since it’s a morgue photo.

Wasn’t she strangled? I ask, picking up the photo and peering at it more closely. I don’t see any marks on her neck. Except for this scratch.

I point at a small, thin red line on the right side of her neck, which could’ve been done by one of the branches of the many bushes and trees around here.

Ida shrugs. The autopsy makes no mention of the scratch, and that is just one of the things that prove how rushed this investigation was. The cause of death is suffocation, possibly done by putting a plastic bag over her head.

I don’t want to picture it.

The coroner wants to go with suicide, she says.

That’s new, I say. How do they figure that?

Because of these, she says and flips he flips through the photos in the folder and picks up a close up of Asal’s right wrist. Two cuts, about two inches long, run from her palm upwards.

It’s the same on the other hand, Ida tells me.

Suicide? Is it possible? And did they find the plastic bag she was supposed to have put over her here?

Ida exhales loudly through her nose. No, but they say it could easily have gotten washed away by the river.

It doesn’t look like she bled from these cuts, I say.

No, it doesn’t. But they found some blood under one of those trees. She points at a copse of leafless trees about five yards from where we’re standing. Of course they didn’t take a proper sample. I took some now, but it will take some time for the results to come back that prove it’s the victim’s blood. It could just be a random person’s.

Or animal blood, I say and walk over to the trees she pointed out.

A dark brown spot that could be blood, measuring about four inches in diameter, covers a river rock under the tree and there are perfectly circular dots of the same color encircling it. This looks like it came straight down from the tree, rather than from the side or something like that.

I look up. The tree’s branches are thick enough to support the weight of an average person, I think, and they’re low enough to the ground for someone to climb up.

You’re right, Ida says. Those are directional blood drops and they didn’t come from a blow. They might have dripped from the blade that made the cuts on her wrist.

And just like the phantom plastic bag, the knife wasn’t found either, right?

She scoffs as she shakes her head.

Does that look like rope marks on that branch? I ask, pointing up at the lowest one and trying to decide if what I’m seeing is a fresh, man-made rent in the bark or something that happens to tree branches naturally.

I’d have to take a closer look, Ida says. Give me a leg up.

She’s pulling a pair of dark purple latex gloves from the pocket of her jacket and is already holding a compact camera in the other hand.

I can climb up, I offer, but she flashes me a look like she’s shocked by the idea and shakes her head vehemently.

This scene has been poorly handled and disturbed enough as it is, she says. Don’t worry, I’m a good climber.

I wait for her to put on the gloves, then lace my fingers together to make a step for her. The soles of her shoes have very pointy hard rubber nubs, which dig into my palms painfully as she steps on them. She grabs onto the branch in question but continues standing on my hands as she peers closer at the damaged branch, then snaps a few photos.

Something made these cuts recently, she says. A chain maybe, not a rope. I’m coming down.

This consists of her sort of leaping off my hands and wincing as her feet hit the ground.

I’ll have to come back with a ladder, she says, shaking out her left foot and making me wonder if she sprained something. It’s definitely manmade. Something was hanging here. And I want to examine it properly.

Proper might as well be her middle name, that’s how by the book she is.

Is your leg OK? I ask since she’s still shaking it out, but she just waves her hand dismissively, pulls her notebook from the pocket of her jacket and starts scribbling in it.

I leave her to it and walk along the spot, searching for other points of entry.

There’s only the one path leading here, Ida says. The one we used.

And it’s unlikely she came here from the other bank, I say. The river is at least five meters wide here and probably quite deep in the center.

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