Authors: Ronica Black
“Don’t know. Depends on what it is.”
“I want you to stop killing.”
“But what if—”
“No. No what ifs. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you worrying about me.”
Jay looked away suddenly, as if the words had stricken her physically.
“Can’t you see that it’s because I love you that I ask you to stop?” Liz begged. “You’re going to get caught someday and sent away to rot in prison. How long do you think it would actually take them to find you here? Not long, Jay. Not long at all. And the only reason they haven’t come for you is because I asked Erin McKenzie not to tell.”
“And she hasn’t?” Jay looked completely surprised. “I didn’t think no one would know to look for me here at Papaw’s.” She said the words in a meek manner, completely oblivious to how obvious the location was. Their grandfather was long dead, but it wouldn’t take much at all to find out who his two granddaughters were.
“I can’t figure out why she hasn’t said anything,” Liz confessed. “Maybe they still think I’m responsible, and if you continue to kill, they’ll eventually arrest me for the crimes.”
“No!” Jay’s head whipped around. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t control it, Jay. None of it. Just let it go. Promise me…no more.”
Jay didn’t respond, and Liz looked up as they approached the house.
“And there’s one more thing I need,” she said with certainty. “I want you to promise me that you’ll leave Erin McKenzie alone.”
“She lied to you, Lizzie!”
Liz held up her hand. “She didn’t tell about you, did she? And that’s after you tried to kill her.” She raised her eyebrows, finishing her point. “Promise me.”
Jay seemed unconvinced. “The way I see it, I should off her so she could never tell.”
Liz stopped walking and looked at her sister. “If you have any respect for me at all, you’ll honor this because I care about her, Jay.”
Jay looked around the yard, avoiding her sister’s intense stare. “I don’t believe it! All the women in the world, and you go and care about a lying cop.”
“I mean it.” Liz could tell some of the steam had gone out of her sister’s rant. “I need to make some things right in my life.”
Valle Luna, Arizona
“Hey you,” Patricia greeted Erin with a relaxed smile. “How was your nap?” She joined the other woman on the back patio.
“Short,” Erin answered with some disappointment.
“Still not sleeping well?” Patricia asked.
Erin shrugged, not wanting to share all the details of her nightmares. “I’m still having the nightmares, but I think it’s getting better.” She looked away from Patricia and let her eyes skim over the thousand waves of sunshine dancing on the surface of the swimming pool.
Patricia seemed to sense that the subject was closed and stood next to her in silence. “How’s the writing coming?” Erin changed to a more comfortable subject. Patricia had been hard at work on a new manuscript, typing away at her computer well into the night.
“It’s coming along fine for the moment.”
Erin sensed the doubt that came out thick with the words. “You’re saying it doesn’t always?” Patricia tensed next to her and Erin shifted her gaze from the shimmering pool to study her more closely.
“Not always.”
“But it’s going well now, right?” Erin didn’t understand the problem or the anxiety on Patricia’s face.
“Yes.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I…” Patricia stared off into the hypnotic dancing water. “I worry that it won’t keep coming.” She shoved her hands down into her jeans. “I worry that I’ll wake up one day and it’ll be gone. That it will never come again.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, I’m serious.”
Erin could tell she was embarrassed and more than likely feeling exposed at what she had just shared. The realization flattered her. She liked that Patricia trusted her so. It warmed her and made her feel connected to the other woman.
“I’ve read your stuff,” she said. “Not all of it, but enough to know that it’s damn good.” She waited for Patricia to look up. When she did, she continued with a broad grin. “In fact, I bet you have thousands of fans just drooling with anticipation for the next book.”
Patricia blushed. “Thanks, but that doesn’t solve my problem. The expectation people have only adds to the pressure. I mean, what if I can’t give them another one? What if it just doesn’t come?”
Erin considered her worries. Of course, she herself had never worried about such things. But it didn’t mean she couldn’t understand. And after all the help Patricia had given her, she owed it to her to try.
“That won’t happen,” she said softly, her mind flying to find the right words. “I’m sure you may have a day or even days when things just don’t click, if you haven’t already. But they didn’t last, did they?”
“No, they didn’t last.”
“You see then, you’ll be fine.” She wished she could sound more convincing.
“This last time, I had stopped for a couple of months because my head just wasn’t in it. And the only reason I came out of it was because I found a new…” Patricia trailed off, her gaze in the clouds.
“New what?”
“Muse.”
“Oh.”
Erin flushed suddenly as she realized the meaning of the word. Patricia had someone? She didn’t know why the possibility surprised her, but more than that, she didn’t understand why it seemed to strike her down deep.
“Well, whoever she is, you should tell her so she’ll be sure to keep inspiring you.”
Patricia’s response was to stiffen, straight as a rod, and avoid all eye contact. “I need to get dinner started now if I’m going to grill. The sunlight will be gone soon.” She headed across the patio to the back door, leaving Erin all alone.
Puzzled, she turned back to the well-manicured backyard where Jack lay lounging on the top step of the swimming pool. Patricia obviously didn’t want to discuss her muse, and that only made Erin more curious. She thought how lucky the mystery woman would be to have someone as kind, generous, and caring as Patricia was, not to mention romantic.
As the evening sun caressed her face, her mind replayed some of the passionate love scenes Patricia had written. Inhaling deeply, she allowed the scenes to soothe her, to stir her insides pleasantly. She hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long, long time. The time off was doing her some good—that much was evident in the brush of bronze on her skin and the lighter shade of green in her eyes. But her memory had not remedied itself, and the nightmares still came, the flashbacks hot on their heels when she awoke.
A face entered her mind, the eyes brilliant and blue, full of fire and desire. She shuddered as she recalled her intimate encounter with Elizabeth Adams. Even though she had been high on Ecstasy at the time, her memory was unclouded. If anything, the drug had heightened her senses, sharpened them to the point where she had craved the physical contact so intensely it seemed every incredible detail was imprinted on her memory.
“Crave.”
Erin tensed, the sultry voice strumming her heated insides.
“It’s called Crave by Calvin Klein.”
The voice continued, caressing her ear, as if the speaker were there whispering to her. She remembered the very moment the words had been spoken. Liz standing before her, a tall, lean, yet powerful-looking female Adonis, her incredible legs hugged by the soft, tight restraint of black leather. Her perky breasts heaving with her every breath under the waving weight of the mesh vest. Erin clamped her thighs together tightly as the scent of Elizabeth Adams entered her senses. She had always heard that smell was the strongest sense tied to memory, and now she understood why.
Her body instinctively reacted to Liz even though she was nowhere near. Every achingly erotic memory she relived wound her tighter and tighter, and she knew there would be no release, not even self-induced. Nothing, it seemed, could take the place of Elizabeth Adams. Clenching her thighs, her body tense, she shuddered as she allowed the memories to continue.
Liz stood before her in the black leather and chain vest. The mask was gone and she was looking at Erin so intensely, so soft and yet so hungry. Erin felt the pulsing flesh between her legs twitch at the thought of long, talented fingers, of her dark-haired lover playing her, pulling at her from up, deep inside.
“Wine?”
Erin jerked forward, her eyes flying open in surprise.
“Sorry.” Patricia offered a goblet of red wine. Her expression showed she was concerned.
“You just surprised me is all.”
Erin rubbed her face as if she were tired, hoping the heat she had been feeling with Liz in mind wasn’t as plainly displayed as it was felt. Anxious to erase Patricia’s look of worry, she thanked her and took the goblet, sipping at the dark, flavorful liquid.
“Dinner should be ready in a short while.” Patricia sipped from her own glass.
Erin’s gaze wandered over her face, then froze at her lips, where the wine had stained them full and crimson and vaguely reminiscent of blood.
“Make me bleed, baby.”
A hot vision branded her mind, searing itself in. Liz. Sexy, confident, powerful, pulling the beautiful actress into her to feed. Their mouths hungry, Liz sucking and tugging with her teeth. Erin nearly moaned with need. The memory turned her on even now, almost more than it had the moment it had happened.
“You okay?” Patricia moved the goblet from her mouth, her brow creased with concern once again.
“Fine.” Erin cleared her rocky throat. “Just memories. Flashes, really.”
Patricia’s eyebrows rose with what appeared to be hope. “That’s good, right? I mean, you want them to come, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure anymore,” Erin confessed. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
She took another sip of wine, hating how, when they did come, the violent flashbacks made her feel. Whatever had happened the night of the shooting, she was sure it was bad and sometimes she was grateful for not being able to remember every gruesome detail. She had shot and killed someone, a young woman. That in itself was tough to deal with, even without the memory of having done it.
“I don’t think you’ll ever be at peace until you do remember,” Patricia said and walked quietly away.
Erin fingered the rim of her goblet and thought back to what the paramedics had said about that night. They had found her on the floor with Patricia’s head in her lap. She had been covered with Patricia’s blood, the head wound having bled profusely.
They had tried to speak to her but she wouldn’t answer and gave no response whatsoever until they tried to remove Patricia from her arms. Then she had screamed and cried, convinced that Patricia would soon die, and as they wheeled Patricia away, she had collapsed. The paramedics had sedated her and when she came to in the hospital the next morning, she couldn’t remember the events of that evening.
She pictured herself on the floor, Patricia unconscious and bleeding in her arms. Her heart ached at the thought of Patricia hurt and wounded. She meant so much to her, yet she had only known her on a personal level for a short while.
Staying with the writer in her home and in such close proximity seemed to have heightened Erin’s deep attraction to her. She was noticing things she had never noticed before. Like the way Patricia chewed her bottom lip when she tried to fight back a mischievous grin. Her hearty laugh, her kindness and intellect, her passion with words. Not to mention her body.
Erin bit her own lip as her mind’s eye looked Patricia up and down. She thought back to the previous night and how sexy Patricia had looked in a snug gray tank top and matching cotton panties. She had about fainted on the spot as she had stumbled upon her in the kitchen well after midnight, standing there, leaning into the fridge. The refrigerator light lit up her body, showing off firm, ample breasts, a smooth, flat stomach. Her vision carried down to Patricia’s panties. She imagined touching her tight ass, running her hands over and down to come forward to her heated center.
What would she feel like?
Her mind’s eye traveled from Patricia’s panties to her legs, her beautifully muscled thighs, smooth and tan from swimming. She imagined kissing them, teasing them with her tongue, up and down the inner thighs.
Her vision faded with growing darkness, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not return to her pleasant fantasies. Other thoughts weighed too heavily on her mind.
Work. The investigation. Her own current situation. She had been on medical leave for almost two months, since the morning after the shooting, which meant she was excluded from the investigation. She’d heard Tracy Walsh was being pegged as the sole killer. She would’ve loved to have been a part of it, especially since something gnawed at her continuously, telling her that her fellow detectives hadn’t found all the missing pieces. They believed Walsh was responsible for the serial killings and that she might have had help from Kristen Reece, whose murder they also blamed on Walsh.
As for a motive, they’d found evidence in Walsh’s apartment that showed she had a strong obsession with Elizabeth Adams. These included pictures all over her walls of Liz, letters she had written to her, and journal entries, as well as stolen items from the club. According to the official police version, this obsession drove her to extremes in order to win the affection and attention of the powerful woman.