by Amy Faye
"Erin, hey. We don't have to if you don't want to."
"No, it's fine. I just—"
"If you don't want to talk about it here, I understand. We can talk about it in the car, if it would help."
"Sure." She wasn't sure that she wanted to talk about anything, no matter where it was. She wasn't sure that she wanted an F.B.I. agent involved in her life, and she sure as hell wasn't sure she wanted to cozy up to a guy who lived two thousand miles away, in a completely different life.
He said they were both cops, and they were. But that was where the similarities ended. She worked the local scene. There were usual suspects. She had a long string of partners that went by in a blur, where he didn't seem to have one. Not one of her partners had put in the work to keep up with her. She might as well have been alone. But that wasn't a choice, so they just kept moving her over as people kept drumming out.
She took a breath and another bite of steak. Another mouthful of water. By the time she slipped into the passenger seat of the government car that Roy was driving around, she almost felt human again.
"You want to tell me what's got you so upset?"
She looked at Roy for a minute, considering whether or not she wanted to have this conversation. Ever. She didn't, but she wasn't in her right mind. Maybe she would feel better after. Anything that would get rid of the quiet inside her head.
"I don't know what I'm doing any more."
"What's that supposed to mean? Babe?"
"I just don't know. What if I'm just doing what they want me to? And what if I don't hear it coming next time? What if they sneak right into wherever I'm at, a pillow over my face, and bang—dead?
"What if I do hear it again? Every time they send another goon in to get me, I wake up in time, I get ready, and there's another body on my floor? What if it stops hurting when I have to shoot someone?"
They sat in silence for a long time. Roy's hands twisted on the steering wheel, the leather making a soft straining noise as he squeezed it.
"Then you'll keep doing what you have to do."
"I don't know if that's good enough."
"I do. I've seen how tough you are. You've made your best effort to make sure that I know every bit of it, and I'm not an idiot. But you're kind, too. Soft inside. What you're telling me now is, you took it personal. It's not your failure, is what I'm telling you, okay? It's nothing you did wrong."
Erin didn't believe him, and the realization made her eyes sting. Before she knew what was happening, Roy had drawn her up in his arms and she was crying again. She'd promised herself she wasn't going to, not after Dad left.
So much for that.
Twenty-Five
Erin knew she shouldn't be doing this, but when she closed the hotel room door with Roy still inside she already knew she was too far gone. She wanted it, but she wanted it to mean more than it was going to. She wanted it to mean he'd stay. He'd stay, or take her with him, or something. Anything. But she wasn't going to ask him to, and she didn't expect him to follow through if he offered it.
She wanted her fun, and she would have her fun, and it would mean something in the morning if it meant anything at all. Right now it meant not having to feel wrong, and that was enough.
He was tentative in taking her lips. She couldn't have that, no sir. She pushed him back onto the bed and was on him an instant later, her teeth biting and her hands working the buttons on the shirt he was still wearing from work earlier that day. Erin wanted more. Always more. More than she could possibly dream of.
After a moment he decided that whether she was doing the right thing or not, she certainly wasn't going to stop, and he let himself kiss her back. That was good enough for her. She reached between them, searching for the hardness between his legs and finding it.
They'd had one long, exceptionally pleasurable day together before, but this wasn't going to be anything like that. It had been a day of enjoying their desire for each other. But now Erin needed him, needed the attention, needed him inside her. She growled and started stripping her clothes off, not moving from her place straddling his hips.
He shifted his weight and before she could regain her balance she was on her back, her hands pinned behind her where she'd been trying to work a zipper. His hands took a rough hold of her breasts, and Erin pressed them into his hands, wanting more. More roughness, more touching, more pleasure that she couldn't begin to describe or understand except that she needed it.
She could feel him pressing into her, in spite of himself. That he wasn't moving himself at all told her that it wasn't intentional. His body knew what he wanted more than even he did himself, and it was going to take it regardless of what either of them wanted. What she wanted, though, was him. That cock between his legs.
Erin tried to untangle her arms from her sweater, finally getting them free and throwing it across the room, where it landed draped over the television. She pushed herself off the bed enough to get her shirt off and tossed it as well, making it as far as the front door, before sliding off and to the ground.
Roy shoved her bra up, revealing breasts with nipples already hard from the arousal that was surging through her. He pinched one roughly.
"Bite," she breathed out, unable to give her whole voice to the words. Roy didn't question her, instead just dipping his head to take them between his teeth. He started soft and she pressed her breasts into him harder. Roy got the message and bit down harder, shooting an addicting mix of pain and pleasure through her that pooled in her abdomen.
"Oh fuck." Her body was moving on its own, now, trying to press up into Roy's hardness, to get some sort of movement going there, to tease out an orgasm she could already feel approaching. He let her nipple go, still showing his teeth like an animal's snarl.
"Please fuck me."
"You just had to say so." He pulled away only long enough to free his cock before rubbing the tip up and down her folds. The anticipation drove her to the edge, and as he pushed in, another mix of pain and pleasure as he stretched her pussy further than it wanted to be stretched sent her over the edge.
She could hear the words coming out of her mouth before she thought them now.
"Choke me," she could hear herself begging. Once she heard the words she realized how good an idea it was, as she felt his hands wrap around her throat, squeezing until she could only pull in a tiny bit of breath. The absence of oxygen sent her into overdrive, only able to feel the pleasure of his cock scraping her insides clean, every muscle in her body tense with orgasm.
Her hands weakly tapped his wrists that she needed a second to breathe. He let her up, let her try to catch her breath. It wasn't going to help, not the way she needed it to. The oxygen rushing into her brain, though—that was what she needed. She could already feel a second orgasm approaching as he thrust into her, the rush in her head combining with the pleasure to send her hurtling off into oblivion once more.
It came as a total surprise when his hand came down hard across her face, but the pain jolted her hard, sending an electric shock through her that she felt all the way down to her pussy. Erin's eyes shot open wide, giving her everything she knew she wanted. Everything she knew that she needed.
She opened her eyes, but she wasn't seeing, not really. She could sense him there, above her, preparing for another firm slap. She tensed as it came down, and then tried to relax again in right in time for the slap to come down. The shock, as he plunged into her, sent her off on another orgasm that rocked through her body as Roy fucked her.
"Oh, fuck," she could hear him saying. He was close, and she knew it. Wanted him to cum deep inside her, to spill his seed. To mark her as his. Erin bucked against him, trying to prolong her own high as much as possible while driving him over the edge into his own oblivion.
He took a hold of her hips and pulled her against him as he thrust, hitting deep inside her with every thrust until he held her deep on his cock and wouldn't let go.
It took a minute before he withdrew, both of them starting to co
me down from the pleasure that had overtaken them.
"Are you alright? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
The question seemed confusing. Hurt her? When? Then she remembered and shook her head. "No, I'm okay."
She could see in his expression that he'd liked it more than he was ready to admit to her. They both laid down on the bed, neither speaking for a moment.
"Are you going to be alright, babe? I can stay tonight, if you need me to."
Erin considered the idea for a minute. A repeat performance might be nice, and if they worked at it she knew they could top it.
"I'll be fine. But—"
"But you'd like it if I stayed?"
She nodded absently. She could feel his eyes on her naked body, watching the way that her breasts pooled as she laid. Maybe her tits were alright, after all. Roy seemed to like them just fine, after all.
"Then I'll stay."
He stripped off his shirt and pants, but not before pulling his phone out and setting it on the bedside table, almost mirroring her own on the other side.
They laid like that a while, neither quite ready to go to sleep, but neither ready for a second round—not yet.
After a few minutes, a buzz came from Roy's side. He reached for the phone slowly, and then checked it with increasing attention as he clicked to get more of the message.
"We gotta go."
"We?"
"You can stay if you like."
"What's wrong?"
Roy was already up and dressing, his pants already up and buttoned by the time he answered.
"They found another body."
Twenty-Six
If there was ever any reason to believe that they might have stopped once she was dead, Erin was losing her faith in it now. She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to straighten up. It wasn't time for her to panic, not after everything. There was no time for panicking now.
She could still feel the sting in her face from where Roy had slapped her when they got into his car and started driving to the scene. She focused on that pain. It would lead her back into the real world, to the world where she was supposed to have something going for her.
By the time they got there, she'd figured out what was supposed to come next. It was all there in front of her. Easy. She would manage, no problem. She took a deep breath and let it out slow and easy. She was steady now. Clear and easy.
She forced herself to look forward as they pulled up into the tangle that had already formed of local uniforms, medical personnel, and F.B.I. suits. She stepped out of the car and met Roy by the hood.
"You okay? You don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"You can't keep me away forever."
"That's what I like to hear. Come on."
She followed him past a uniform, past a suit who gave her a weird look. She ignored it.
Erin had thought, in spite of herself, that she had something to do with the murders. That her sister hadn't been an accident, hadn't just been a random body in a pile of bodies. That she had snagged Craig so easily had sold her on the idea that there was something specific to the profile.
Instead, the woman on the ground couldn't look less like her and Becca. Large breasts, red hair, her face stuck twisted in pained anguish. She'd look like that forever, now. Nothing to be done about it but to stop the guy from leaving another woman looking like this.
Still, she was wearing nice clothing. The sort of clothes someone might wear on a date. Nothing like the club clothes that women wore to go pick up a guy, she looked like she was on a date. It fit the guesses they'd been making.
Craig had time to do it, and she wouldn't have known if there was someone else on the dating sites. A feeling in her gut told her that he hadn't done this. The more time that passed, the less that any of it felt like him. Seven stab wounds, each one delivered with enough force to bruise in the final moments of the woman's life.
He was capable of violence, but she wondered if he would muster up that kind of anger for anything. Especially for a woman. Every impression she had gotten of him had been that he never lost his cool.
A voice called out. "We got a witness over here."
Roy and Erin looked up at the same instant. She followed him to the edge of the ring, where a young Hispanic woman was standing, eyes wide. She was fidgeting with her fingers, twisting where a ring should have been but wasn't.
"Schafer, this is Juanita Alvares, she says she lives across the street. Says she saw something."
"Thanks, Jackson. I'll take it from here."
Erin watched and listened, not ready to try to see how far she could push her authority just yet.
"I'm Special Agent Roy Schafer, this is my partner, Detective Erin Russo. What did you see, miss?"
The woman looked spooked from the suggestion of a body under the cover, but couldn't tear her eyes away from it.
"I live across the street, and—is that a body?"
"What did you see?"
"Well, I hear someone driving by. Real slow. I look outside. People come by, you need to look. Make sure they're not trying to rob you, right?"
"And you saw… what?"
"The woman, she was there. Waiting. Very pretty."
"Have you seen her before?"
"Before? No. Not before."
"What else?"
"A truck. Blue and white. Drives up, and he talks to the woman, and then she gets in."
"Is that all?"
"They turn into the alley, and I stop watching. I'm not interested in—that kind of thing."
"No, I wouldn't imagine that you are. Is that all?"
"Yes, that's all."
"Thank you very much," Roy said, writing for another moment in his notebook. "Is there some way we can reach you if we have any more questions?"
"I already told you everything, though."
"Just in case, miss, if we have any questions. It can be good to be able to get in touch with witnesses."
"I don't have a phone."
"But you live right there?"
"Yes."
"Can you give me the address?"
The woman's face twisted up. "Uhhh… what street is this?"
Roy gave her a tired look. The idea occurred to Erin a moment before he asked her what was going on here. She might have told the story accurate or not, but she sure enough didn't live in that house. Might not live anywhere near here.
Juanita had seen him come by, and she'd seen him turn in, because it was the most normal thing in the world for her. Erin took a breath and tried to steady herself. She wasn't here to bust a woman for working, crime or not. She was here to catch a killer.
"What were you really doing, Miss Rodrigues?"
Erin put a hand on Roy's arm, reached up to whisper. "She was working, Roy, don't push it."
The woman squirmed a minute. Roy frowned, then folded up the notebook and slipped it back into his pocket. "Thank you for your time, Miss Rodrigues. We'll be in touch."
She kept staring at the body, though she couldn't see a whole lot of anything. Erin felt weird about her. As if the young street-walker represented something that Erin didn't want to think about.
They turned back. A truck, huh? She hadn't seen Craig driving one, but that didn't mean he didn't have one. She hadn't seen a truck like that before, frankly. She was aware that they existed, no problem.
But whether she had the whole story or not, she knew she'd met at least some of the killers. Why she'd never seen that truck, in spite of knowing their spots—she must not have known them. The answer was unavoidable.
Craig was planning on getting her in with all of them. Getting her interested enough to press them, and then their stories would all collapse around them. She'd be able to bring the boys in, and she'd be a big damn hero.
That was his plan. She would come out smelling like roses, no matter how she came into the information, and he would be able to get back to… whatever they did.
She didn't know what Craig was involved in that he thought
it was worth handing her a bunch of killers. Worth handing her his brothers. But she knew the sort of things that motorcycle gangs got themselves up to.
Erin took a breath and tried to still her thoughts. She had to force herself to calm down and think rationally. The next step. She had to find whoever was doing this. There was more than one, she knew that. But if she could just stop the guy doing it this once—would that be who killed her sister?
What did it mean?
She looked down at her hands.
Nothing to think about now. Nothing to worry about. She had to work, and that didn't mean imagining scenarios that might come in the future. This was police work, and that meant looking at the evidence. She followed Roy back over to the body.
Like the others, she still had everything. Purse still had a wallet inside, still full of money. She had near fifty dollars in bills, and two credit cards. A nice bracelet that might have cost her four hundred dollars and might have pawned for a hundred if the guy selling it was persuasive.
Two questions bubbled to the surface.
First, why was this woman here before the guy who killed her? And second, was that how they'd done it with Becca? If it was—how?
Twenty-Seven
Erin woke to her phone buzzing. She turned over from the warmth of being beside Roy and grabbed it. She didn't recognize the number yet. Hadn't put it into her contacts. But she knew it was Craig, instinctively, and when she opened the message he had sent she knew that she was right.
Where you at? You're not at the apartment.
She debated how much of a lie she should be telling. It all depended, after all, on what he already knew and what she could get away with. If she could get away with saying that she was out of town at her mother's, that would be great, but that wasn't going to happen. After all, her mother was dead.
On the other hand, the more that she bit off more than she could chew, the more he'd be on to her. If she was hiding one thing, what else was she hiding? She took a plunge and went with a half-truth.
