Then Scott was gone, too, the knife buried to the hilt in his chest.
He staggered outside, fell to his knees next to Sarah. Sobbing her name over and over, begging for forgiveness for not keeping her safe, not killing them sooner.
In the dream she changed, her features morphing, changing. She was no longer a child. She still had the same green eyes and dark hair, but the face and body were those of a woman.
His body jerked as he realized he wasn’t holding Sarah.
He was holding Megan.
Her dead eyes opened and she reached up to caress his face. “You were supposed to save me. We were supposed to be together.”
He jerked awake, his heart galloping in his chest, cold sweat filming his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold on to the last shreds of the dream. He wanted to hold on to it, hold on to Megan, reassure her everything was going to be fine. They would be together. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
He flung his forearm over his head, swallowing back a wave of guilt. He thought of Sarah all the time, lived with the guilt every day, but he hadn’t thought about what led up to her death for a long, long time. Had shoved it so far
back he could almost pretend it had never happened, that it was all a bad dream.
When he did let himself remember, he remembered only the good parts. The euphoric power that surged through him when he cut his mother’s throat. The rush of feeling the blade pop through Scott’s breastbone.
He felt his cock harden under the sheet at the memory. Like a first kiss or a first fuck, there was nothing like the first kill. It was the one and only time he’d killed on pure, savage impulse. Now his kills were deliberate, purposeful, and carefully managed and directed.
He’d learned so much that day. Like how good it felt to have someone at his mercy, begging for their miserable, worthless lives.
Not to mention how easy it was to fuck with the cops. They’d gulped down his self-defense story like a fish sucking down a juicy worm. They’d even called him a hero, fending off a maniac who had already broken his wrist, cracked his ribs, not to mention the other damage.
As for Sarah, he told them she’d locked herself in the trunk. He hated to do that, make her look foolish, but there was no other way.
Sarah
… Her face floated in his mind again, smiling. His sweet sister, the only one who’d ever really loved him. The only one he’d ever really loved.
But she must have forgiven him, because how else was he getting this second chance?
Megan was his second chance at a normal life, a normal love. No more living under the thumb of those who considered themselves his masters, who thought that without their influence, he would be nothing but a mindless, soulless killing machine.
He’d show them. He’d once had a soul. He remembered what it was like to be normal. Before Sarah died. Megan could give that back to him. Her love would vanquish the darkness, wash away his sins.
He felt a form rustling beside him and reached out, his hand meeting smooth, feminine flesh.
He ran his hand down her arm, over her stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut. If he did that, he could almost pretend it was Megan. But the hip under his fingers was too skinny, the bones protruding into his palms. And she smelled like heavy perfume and dirty sex. Nothing like Megan’s fresh flowers and clean laundry scent.
His fingers tightened around her hip, and he heard her gasp as the bone ground beneath his grip. It was nothing like what he needed, but the sound sent a faint tickle to his balls. He gave up the fantasy and opened his eyes. He couldn’t have Megan yet, but at least he could use this bitch for what she was good for. And deliver a warning in the meantime.
“Sorry,” he said, pasting a sheepish grin on his face. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
She gave him a feeble smile from where she sat huddled against the headboard, her short blond hair standing up in spikes. “It’s okay. I know how excited you get.” The sheet clutched to her chest hid most of the marks he’d put on her earlier, but he could see a faint purple bruise darkening on her shoulder.
She was so easily duped, believing his roughness was a combination of overenthusiasm and lack of skill. They all were, accepting him as the nice, fumbling guy they would throw a free bang to as part of the deal. They had no idea of the monster that lurked beneath, no idea how every wince and cry of pain got him rock hard.
The marks would put her out of commission for a couple days, but it didn’t matter. There were plenty of other girls, willing and eager to service Stephanie’s regulars. Not that they would want her lately, even without his marks. Her face was drawn, her eyes bloodshot and ringed with dark circles.
“You need to take better care of yourself, Steph,” he said.
She started to flinch as he reached out his hand, then relaxed and flashed him a tentative smile when he traced his fingers gently down her shoulder.
“I haven’t been sleeping much lately, after what happened to Bianca,” she whispered.
“Did you know what she was planning?”
“No.” She ruined the lie by casting her gaze to the sheets, then looked back up to meet his pointed look. “Well, we lived together and I knew she was up to something. I told her not to do anything stupid, that whatever she was planning she couldn’t get away with it.” Her breath caught on a sob. “And she didn’t.”
He slid his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, the comforting friend. “It’s terrible what happened to her.”
She nodded, buried her head in his neck. He grimaced he slimed him with snot and tears. “I can’t stop thinking about her. How scared she must have been, how much pain she was in…”
You have no idea.
His cock grew painfully hard at the memory of Bianca screaming behind the gag. The tight clench of her sex as her body convulsed in pain. “I’d hate to see something like that happen to you.” Oh, he could see it now. Stephanie up on her knees, her long, skinny
legs splayed open for his invasion as she whimpered against the cold kiss of his blade.
It would be so easy, and so good, so much more satisfying than what he had to get by on between kills.
But he wasn’t authorized, he thought bitterly. They’d told him to deliver a warning. To make sure she understood what would happen if she did something stupid like go to the cops to talk about her former roommate and colleague.
Like a dog on a too-short leash, he strained to be free. But he couldn’t break free, not yet. There were a few more details, a few more pieces to put in order before he could free himself from their imagined hold.
In the meantime…“The police will be looking for you. You know that.” He slid his fingers in her short, choppy hair, tightening his grip until she raised wide, frightened eyes to his face. “Now that they know who Bianca really is, they’ll be looking for anyone connected to her.” Which pissed him off to no end. He left no loose ends, and he couldn’t be blamed for this one. It wasn’t his fault they hadn’t done a good enough job covering up Bianca’s past. And now the police knew who she was, where she’d lived, and so did Megan.
Megan, who was going to find herself in serious deep shit if she didn’t stop sniffing around places she didn’t need to be. She’d found the Web site, as he’d discovered last night from the access report. Not that he was worried. He knew there was no way she could access it without a code or find out who was running it. Still, the bits and pieces of information she was picking up were bound to lead somewhere if they weren’t careful. He couldn’t let them be discovered. Not until he was ready.
Stephanie’s bottom lip quivered.
“You won’t talk to them, will you?” She shook her head, and the fear in her eyes, the knowledge of what would happen if she talked, made his cock throb in time with his heartbeat. “That’s good,” he said. “I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”
His breath sped up as he flipped her onto her stomach and yanked her to her knees. He shoved into her tight, unwilling body, reveling in her gasp of pain. Good whore that she was, she quickly muffled it with a feigned moan of pleasure. But he could see the way her hands fisted in the sheets, white-knuckled desperate. The way her skin flinched when he put his hands on her.
She took it, like they all did. They knew what to expect when they were called in to see him. Did they suspect that he was the monster of their nightmares?
Whore.
She made herself available to anyone who would pay for it. She may have catered to an exclusive clientele, but that didn’t change what she was. She deserved every ounce of pain he inflicted. She wasn’t worthy of pleasure.
He’d save all of it, the gentle touches, the passionate kisses, for Megan. He’d worship her body when he got the chance, drown her in pleasure until she forgot everything but his touch.
Soon,
he thought as he collapsed on top of the blonde.
Soon.
I
f Cole had learned anything over the past few days, it was that he should stay the hell away from Megan Flynn. After a fifteen-year career in which he’d followed all the rules, dotted every I, crossed every T, he was now holding on to his detective shield by the skin of his teeth. All because Megan Flynn had a way of drawing him in, getting under his skin, and getting him to make stupid choices in some misguided attempt to protect her.
He should be home, relaxing with a beer in front of the TV. Or better yet, he should take advantage of the break in the weather and take his boat out to the San Juans, use his enforced vacation to get his head together. Focus on what was important and not let himself get dragged down by a desperate woman chasing a lost cause.
Yeah, he should be doing a lot of things besides sitting here in the dark, parked across the street from her house like some creep, waiting for her lights to go out so he could go home and get some sleep. But damn her, she’d thrown herself into her misguided mission to save her brother with no regard for her own safety, had put herself in dangerous situations. It was only a matter of time before she ended up hurt. Or worse.
And the need to protect her overrode everything, including any last shred of common sense.
He was hopeful that her run-in with the Seattle PD and Special Agent Tasso had reined her in a bit. Cole had spent the day tailing Megan. Her first stop had been to pick up Devany to take her to breakfast at a diner near the trailer park where the girl lived. Cole couldn’t hear their conversation, but Devany was pissed about something. She slumped in her chair, picking at her food as Megan talked to her. After only a few minutes, Devany pointed an accusing finger at Megan and stormed out.
After breakfast, Megan had dropped Devany back home. To Cole’s surprise, Megan didn’t go back to Redwood Acres. He wouldn’t have put it past her to take the opportunity to go poke around the Slasher’s latest crime scene.
Instead she headed back toward her place, to the café where she liked to work. She spent several hours on her computer and made a few phone calls. Nothing out of the ordinary.
And no visit from the knight in shining armor who had so gallantly rescued Megan from the clutches of the evil police, Cole thought with a grimace. Not that Cole had wanted to see Megan charged with breaking and entering, no matter how big a part she played in getting him suspended—that was all on his stupid ass, and he was kidding himself if he tried to convince himself different.
But it stuck in his craw that Captain America had been able to come in with his money and big-shot lawyer and make Megan’s mistake disappear, all while Cole was sitting in Lieutenant Chin’s offices ass handed to him.
A background check on the guy had revealed nothing—the guy was as perfect on paper as he was in the flesh. College, a stint in the army Rangers with honorable discharge. Now he owned his own computer-consulting company, which clearly provided enough money and connections to help him bail Megan out of any scrape she found herself in.
That wasn’t the only background check Cole had run in the past couple days. Sean’s pending execution was bringing people out of the woodwork and into Megan’s life, not all of them with records as spotless as Nate Brewster’s. Guys like Jimmy Caparulo. Cole grimaced as he remembered the story Megan had told him about Jimmy.
Based on what Cole had discovered, since he’d left the army a little over three years ago, trouble was pretty much a constant in Jimmy Caparulo’s life. His record was spotted with multiple DUIs and two arrests for assault. After his gig at Club One, he’d been hired by a private security firm, basically working as muscle for hire, his employers willing to overlook his past brushes with the law. Megan wasn’t totally off in her assessment, though—turned out Jimmy still lived with his aunt and contributed a significant portion of his paycheck to pay off her medical bills.
Ailing aunt or not, Jimmy was trouble, no doubt about it, and the way Megan attracted trouble like bees to honey…
Right, chump. If that’s how you want to justify following her all over the place and sitting out here in the dark with your thumb up your ass, that’s your business. Admit it. You can’t stay away from her. You can’t stop thinking about how it felt to kiss her, touch her, but you’re too
much of a coward to go up those stairs to her and go after what you really want.