The mere suggestion of his mouth on her clitoris was enough to bring her to orgasm. Even before he touched her, she began to shudder and moan. As his fingers stroked the wet, throbbing flesh at the crest of her sex, she flew apart.
Burying himself deep inside her, he found his own release.
They stayed that way for a while, still connected, breathing heavily, hearts pounding. Finally he withdrew, tugging her panties back into place and drawing her into his lap. “I’m going to get you pregnant if I keep doing that,” he murmured, his lips on her temple.
“I hope you do,” she replied, lifting her mouth to his. He kissed her with passion, twining his tongue with hers, making her heart swell with hope.
“Why?” he asked when he raised his head.
Sidney grappled for an explanation. As far back as she could remember, she’d been alone, isolated by her strangeness, stranded by circumstance, emotionally abandoned by those who should have cared the most. Even her own mother couldn’t come to terms with Sidney’s affliction. So many times, she’d cried herself to sleep, aching to give her love to someone who would accept her for who she was.
How she longed to stroke a baby’s cheek! To touch unselfconsciously, to love unconditionally.
“I adore my nieces, but Samantha doesn’t bring them to visit often,” she began, afraid to reveal the depth of her need. “My parents and I don’t get along. If I had a baby of my own, I would cherish it.”
He didn’t ask where he fit into this rosy little picture, although his expression clearly stated that this was another one of her naïve fancies.
“I wouldn’t expect anything from you,” she clarified.
“Of course not,” he muttered, pushing her off his lap. “I’m ‘incapable of constancy.’”
She stared at him for a moment, a puzzle piece of his psyche clicking into place. He would feel obligated to marry her if she got pregnant. Maybe it was old-fashioned, in this day and age, but he wouldn’t let his child be a bastard. Like he was.
“Oh,” she said, her stomach sinking.
He jerked his head toward her. “You know, I really hate it when you do that. Instead of raping my brain, you could just ask me what I’m thinking.”
“Right. You’re such a great communicator.”
“I’ve known you for a week,” he defended, “and we’re already talking about love and babies. This is not in my comfort zone, okay?”
“Then use a condom from now on, and we won’t have to talk about it.”
His dark gaze traveled over her breasts, still flushed from her orgasm, down to the V of her thighs. “Fine,” he said, his face showing both anger and bewilderment, as if he couldn’t fathom why he’d failed to use protection again. Then the dryer fell silent, signaling the end of the cycle, and he went into the hallway to get his clothes.
Sidney pulled on a robe and wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast, feeling shell-shocked. He’d said he loved her. That he wanted her.
And yet, the only promise he’d made was that he wouldn’t stay.
Thanks to a Special Report by Crystal Dunn that aired over the weekend, women all over the city had been calling the homicide division to report uncommon canine behavior. After Detective Lacy narrowed the list down to single blondes with large breeds, she still had a dozen interviews to complete, and she couldn’t do them by herself.
Although Chief Stokes had partnered Lacy with another officer, a rookie from beat, she’d asked Marc to help out on the grunt work for the case.
He wouldn’t be able to stay at the kennel with Sidney.
A uniformed officer was posted on the street in front of Pacific Pet Hotel, but Marc was still reluctant to leave. “Do you have anything you use to control rowdy dogs?” he asked. “A stun gun or something?”
She looked at him like he was crazy.
“Pepper spray?”
Frowning, she rummaged through a drawer in her office and came up with a small yellow spray stick.
“Wear it on you. Clipped to your pants.” She complied in dutiful silence. “I’ll try to get back before closing,” he murmured, taking her into his arms.
She accepted his embrace stiffly, and it occurred to him that not only was he jinxing himself by saying goodbye, but he was doing it in the mushiest, most sentimental way possible, as if he was afraid he’d never see her again. He let her go long before he was ready to, disturbed by the cold wash of fear that struck him at the thought of losing her.
The uneasy feeling nagged him the rest of the day.
By late afternoon, they’d completed all but the last interview. Annemarie Wilsey was a kindergarten teacher who frequently walked her dog, Greta, along an undeveloped section of land bordering Camp Pendleton. Like Candace Hegel, she lived alone in a neighborhood of tile-roofed tract homes with large bedrooms and small backyards.
“Greta was acting strange, you say?” Lacy prompted.
Annemarie gave a nervous smile, patting the Rottweiler mix on the top the head. “Yes. We’d just left the house, and she wasn’t herself. She loves to go for walks, but that morning she was sluggish. Less than a block away, she just…collapsed.”
“Did she have convulsions? Seizures?”
“Not that I could tell. The vet thought she might be epileptic, or even diabetic, of all things. He said if it happened again, he would try medication.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No.”
“And how did you get Greta to the vet? She must weigh as much as you do.”
“A man came by and offered to help.”
Marc’s attention was piqued. “Go on,” he said.
“He wanted to drive us there. Since I was so close to home, I just ran down the block to get my own car. He helped me lift her into the backseat.” She blinked her guileless blue eyes a few times, looking back and forth between them. Then her pretty face went white. “Oh my God,” she said, raising a hand to her trembling mouth. “Do you think that was him?”
“What did he look like?” Lacy asked.
She worried her lower lip. “Young. Dark-haired. Average-size, I guess.”
“How young? Like Lieutenant Cruz?”
Annemarie studied him. “Yes. Or younger.”
“Dark like him, too? His size?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Not quite as big. Darker hair. And his skin was more…pale.”
“He was white?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything else you can remember about him? Anything unusual in his appearance?”
“No. He looked like a regular guy, I guess.”
“What was he driving?”
She scrunched up her face. “Oh, I don’t know. I was so worried about Greta, I’m surprised I can remember the man.”
“A car or truck?” Lacy pressed her for details.
“Not a truck,” she decided. “Just a basic car, I think, nothing flashy.”
“Would you mind going to the station to work with our computer artist? You’d be amazed at what you can remember about a person’s features with a little help.”
“Of course,” she said, patting Greta again with absent affection.
Marc wondered what Annemarie Wilsey had in common with the other victims besides the fact that she was small and blond and pretty. “Where did you get Greta?” he asked, shifting his attention to the dog at her side.
“At the pound. She’s been a treasure.”
Greta looked friendly, but Marc wasn’t about to risk his hand by reaching out to pet her. Unlike a typical Rottweiler, she was pure black, with no tan markings. Her large head, stocky body, and cropped tail gave away her breed.
“Were you looking for a watchdog?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “My garage was broken into last year. There wasn’t much to steal, but it kind of scared me. A few days later, I got a phone call from a volunteer with the ASPCA. Greta needed a home. It seemed like a perfect fit.”
Maybe too perfect, he thought. “Is she trained?”
&nb
sp; “Not really. I think she’s just naturally obedient.”
On a hunch, he ordered the dog to lie down in German. Greta complied instantly, stretching out on her barreled chest. He told her to roll over, and she did that, too.
Annemarie Wilsey was astounded. “How did you get her to do that?”
“It’s a gift,” he lied, standing to leave. “If you can go down to the station right away,” he began, and Greta stopped being obedient. She also stopped being friendly. Hackles raised in warning, she issued a low rumble from the back of her throat.
Marc froze.
“Greta!” Annemarie scolded, grabbing onto her nylon collar. “I’m sorry. She’s never acted this way before.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lacy said, putting her body between the dog and Marc, saving him. “Lieutenant Cruz always has this effect on females.”
In his car, Marc turned on the air conditioning full blast and rested his forehead against the steering wheel, trying to pull himself together. He could still hear growling, followed by the sickening crunch of Houdini’s neck bones in his hands.
“You are such a head case, Marcos,” Lacy complained affectionately. “Where’d you learn German?”
“I did a month there after Saudi.”
“You picked up ‘lay down’ and ‘roll over’ in a month?”
He smiled weakly. “Oh, yes. They were essential phrases.”
Instead of admonishing him, she regarded him with undisguised curiosity. “What were the women like?”
“They were…nice,” he said after some hesitation, and they both laughed at his understatement. At nineteen, he hadn’t been able to erase the disturbing images of war by scoring with sexy foreign girls, but he’d given the endeavor his absolute best.
Of course, all of them put together, and everyone since, couldn’t compare to Sidney.
Chapter 18
Sidney spent a miserable day torn between worrying about Samantha and worrying about Marc. He called two minutes before closing time to tell her he’d be working late.
“Is there somewhere you can go tonight?” he asked. “I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I guess I can stay with my parents.”
“Then drive straight there, and don’t stop. The patrol car can’t follow you.”
“Whatever,” she muttered.
“Do you promise?”
“Yes,” she said in an exasperated voice. This time, it was she who hung up without saying goodbye.
Trudging outside, she took Blue out of his kennel to let him roam around while she performed the closing tasks. She was just about to leave when the phone rang again.
“Siddie?”
“Samantha,” she gasped, both relieved and anxious, for her sister sounded scared. “Where are you?”
“At the Downs. Can you come get me? I’ve been thinking…” As she trailed off, Sidney could hear the clink of glass bottles and a bark of male laughter in the background.
“I’ll be right there,” she promised.
The San Luis Rey Downs Country Club was one of Samantha’s old haunts. It was in Bonsall, close to the home where they grew up. On her way out the door, she considered calling Marc, but she was afraid he’d tell her not to go, and Samantha needed her.
Sidney didn’t even pause to put Blue away, she just whistled for him to hop in the bed of the pickup and stepped on the gas. She was parked outside the bar next to Samantha’s SUV a short time later.
At early evening, the place wasn’t exactly hopping, but it was full of regulars, mostly good old boys from the golf course.
She didn’t see Samantha.
Sidney checked the rest room, which was empty, before approaching the bartender. “Was there a woman here a few minutes ago? A pretty blonde?”
He steadied a tray of drinks on his shoulder, glancing at an unoccupied bar stool. “Yeah. She was right there.”
“Did she leave with someone?”
He looked around the bar, perhaps wondering who was missing.
“I didn’t really notice,” he admitted. When a man on the other side of the room let out a short whistle, indicating he was impatient for his drink, Sidney waved the bartender away.
Taking matters into her own hands, she ran her fingertips along the bar stool Samantha had been sitting on. The impression she got was vague and blurry, a wavering image of a dark-haired man. Frowning, because his face looked familiar, she moved on to the next chair. Touching it was like sticking her hand into decomposing flesh, and something clicked inside her head, like puzzle pieces falling into place.
The man who’d been sitting next to Samantha was none other than her childhood nemesis, schoolyard bully Kurtis Stalb.
At the public rest room near Guajome Lake, she’d been reminded of Kurtis, but because Sidney hadn’t seen him in so long, she hadn’t recognized his adult persona. The man in the mirror wasn’t like Kurtis Stalb. He was Kurtis Stalb.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t figured it out until now.
As an adolescent, Kurtis had lowered Lisa Pettigrew into an abandoned well and left her there for dead. He was the vandal who had eviscerated a helpless cat on top of Sidney’s bed. He was responsible for the rape, torture and murder of Anika Groene and Candace Hegel.
And now, he would do to her sister what he’d done to the others.
Marc dropped off Lacy at the station and drove on in tense silence, cataloging details in his mind, searching for a break.
He thought about dogs. Greta was a German breed of questionable heritage, a watchdog Annemarie had picked up at the pound. Candace Hegel had adopted Blue, a similar mongrel, and Anika Groene’s weird-looking mutt had also been a guest of the county at some point.
Could the killer have a connection to the dogs, if not the women?
A man who was familiar with the animals would have found them easier to handle. Easier to drug. Easier to manipulate.
Marc ventured a guess that all three dogs had been instructed to obey orders in German. Perhaps they’d all been to the same trainer, at some point, or even raised by the same breeder. Annemarie had said her garage had been broken into, an ordinary occurrence. He didn’t know if the other victims had been burglarized, but if they had…
How difficult would it be for the killer to stage a break-in then turn one of his ugly hounds into the pound? Had he called Annemarie Wilsey, and all of the others, posing as an employee of the humane society?
As nefarious plans went, this one had a low probability for success, and it was premeditated to the extreme. Contrary to popular belief, most serial killers weren’t masterminds. They attacked on impulse when an opportunity presented itself. Even so, Marc’s heart was pumping double-time, telling him he was on the right track.
He called Lacy. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for the composite sketch artist to come in.”
“Can you run a search on dog trainers?”
“Been there, done that.”
“What have you got?”
“Too many names to mention. I called Bill Vincent to see if he knew any of them.”
“And what did the good doctor say?”
“He mentioned a breeder in Bonsall who does Schutzhund training. Some guy named Kurtis Stalb. He supposedly turns out mixed-pedigree watchdogs of ‘dubitable nature.’ And get this-he lives less than a mile from Derek DeWinter.”
A chill raced down his spine. “What’s the address?”
“It’s 1431 Lilac. Do you want me to meet you there?”
“Yes,” he said, and the instant he ended the call, his cell phone rang again.
It was Sidney.
“The killer,” she said in a rush, “it’s Kurtis Stalb.”
All of his senses went on red alert. “Where is he?”
“With Samantha,” she panted. “She just called me from the bar at San Luis Rey Downs. I think she left with him. No, I know she did. I know she did!”
He accepted her words without question. “Where did he take
her?”
“I don’t know. His house, maybe. He lives by Derek.”
The anxiety that had been riding him all day skyrocketed. “Don’t go there,” he warned. When she didn’t answer, he felt his blood pressure go through the roof. Stepping on the gas, he calculated the number of minutes it would take him to get to Bonsall. “Sidney, you will not go there,” he stressed, tightening his fingers around the cell phone.
The only sound was static as the call was dropped.
Sidney didn’t listen to Marc.
Just minutes after his voice cut out, she was standing at the edge of Kurtis’s property, pepper spray in hand, looking down into the shadowed valley below. She’d never been there before, but she knew it was the right place.
So did Blue.
Recognizing the scent, he lifted his head and let out a tortured howl.
The house was set away from the road, down an endless gravel driveway that wound along the banks of a tributary of the San Luis Rey River. Behind the house, a large concrete enclosure was visible in the deepening gloom. A kennel, with at least twenty dog runs.
No wonder Blue had been pacing outside her fence line when she first saw him. He was looking for Candace, and after being drugged, escaping from Kurtis’s property and traveling more than ten miles, he was understandably confused.
Sidney knew she should wait for Marc, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t have a moment to lose. Samantha’s life depended on her immediate arrival. An unbearable sense of urgency propelled her forward.
“You want to get him, boy?” she asked in a low voice, meeting the dog’s fierce gray eyes.
Blue looked ready to rip out throats.
Sidney figured it was as good a plan as any. She’d go down there, surprise Kurtis during whatever torture he was inflicting upon Samantha and sic Blue on him. Then she’d pepper spray his sorry ass, for good measure. Picturing the scene, she felt a strange, cold sense of calm, almost as if she could bare her own teeth and sink them into the killer’s flesh.
“By whatever means necessary,” she whispered, heading down the dark hillside.
Dangerous to Touch Page 20
