by Jianne Carlo
“Terri’s mortgage is with United Bank. She’s been making extra payments on the interest and the principal. Not much left to it. Property’s valued at twice what she paid. She faxed me an authorization to deal with everything.” Joe combed her hair and brought a few strands to his nose.
“What we have here is a big heap of doggy doo-doo. Arson. No obvious suspects. No obvious motives.” Tate flipped cheesecake onto a plate with the finesse of a diner short-order waitress. “I say we set this aside for now and concentrate on finding Petey’s killer.”
“Use me if you can. I’m not due to go back home until Sunday.” Gray nodded when Tate pointed at the cheesecake. “Something you said earlier piqued my interest. You mentioned a ravine?”
“Yeah. Susie and I went for a run last night. The ravine creeped her out like the covered bridge did—”
“It was more that slimy thingy that creeped me out,” Susie interjected. “The part of the ravine that gave me the heebie-jeebies was farther into the preserve, and that happened the day before.”
“Slimy thingy?” Tate’s taupe eyebrows pinched.
Briefly Joe explained what they’d seen and then added, “I wanted to check both the ravine and the slime out. Why?”
“Wasn’t Petey found in a ravine?” Gray stretched his arms over his head.
“He was.”
“Was he sexually assaulted?”
Joe glanced at her. “You said you didn’t want to know.”
“It’s okay. Go ahead. I’m sure that between the news and tomorrow, I’ll hear it all anyway.” Susie’s appetite once against fled.
“No abuse. Someone snapped his neck.”
Susie gagged. She raced for the bathroom. By the time she’d emptied her stomach, Joe hovered in the background.
“Here.” He helped her to stand.
“Tell me Barb doesn’t know about…” She couldn’t voice the words.
“No. She doesn’t, and it’s not going to be public knowledge. The authorities aren’t releasing that bit of information. All anyone will know is that he fell and broke his neck.”
She met his gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “I hate this. Hate that anyone has to deal with something this horrible. How does anyone recover from such a tragedy?”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t know. But if anyone can do it, it’s Kieran and Barb. They’re both amazing people. Strong. Kieran’s part panther. He has an invincible streak. The nine lives thing.”
The anguish in his voice stabbed her in the belly. She twisted around and stroked his chin, his cheeks. “And you? How are you going to survive this? You blame yourself for this because you think you could’ve found Petey in time. Why couldn’t Kieran if he’s part panther?”
“He can’t track the way I can. Even Tate can’t. I can pick apart a scent in a heartbeat. It’s why I’m so good at my job.” Joe’s nostrils flared, and his lip curled.
“Do you remember what you told me just moments ago? It’s in the past. No more what-ifs. Move forward.”
“Going to make me choke on my own words, woman?”
“If necessary.” She outlined his brow. “All this is making me sort through my priorities. When I turned thirteen, I sat down and wrote my goals for the year in the new diary I’d been given that Christmas. Ever since then I’ve always had a plan. I bet Barb and Kieran had Petey’s whole life planned. Little League, middle school, high school. What they’re going through makes everything seem so trivial.”
He leaned his forehead on hers. “I know what you mean. It’s a wake-up call, and the reason I decided to come clean with you tonight. What’s between us is too valuable to fritter.”
She searched his features, traced the line of his jaw, grazed the prickly stubble on his cheek, and tears pooled in her eyes. “My timing is anything but impeccable. I start out on my freedom road and run headfirst into the most alpha male I’ve ever encountered. Figures.”
Her temples throbbed. She knuckled them and swallowed, trying to get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth.
The edges of her vision dimmed. She dug her nails into his arm.
A fragility snaked beneath her pores. Her fingers trembled, and the tips iced.
“What’s wrong? You’ve gone all pale again. Susie.” He patted her cheek. “Come back to me.”
The man stood staring down at a thin boy lying in the mud.
Darkness swept through her in delicious relief. She didn’t want to see anymore and knew what to expect now. The images came, one after another, searing her mind. She choked.
Joe grabbed her and held her tight as she convulsed into racking sobs. “Susie. Look at me.”
He caught her face.
She blinked, trying to bring his blurred features into focus.
“I’m here. I have you.”
She nodded, her throat swollen to bursting.
Biting her lips she stared at him, but the flashing shots kept filling her head. She buried her face in his chest. “I know him. It’s the boy from the bus station.”
“Tell me what you’re seeing.”
“I can’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made the pictures brighter, more vivid.
“Yes, you can.” He petted her back in a soothing, circular rhythm.
“It’s dark and below ground. A twisty-turny tunnel.”
“You’re shaking so hard. Breathe. In and out. That’s it. Yes. Good girl. Again, breathe.”
“Why is this happening to me?” She fisted her hands in his shirt. “I am a normal human being. I’m not like Melanie or Lizzie. Please tell me I’m not.”
“You’re you. Susan Elizabeth White. And I’m here for you. Every step of the way. I have you. I’ll always have you.”
She so wanted to believe him. So wanted to trust him. So wanted to have never met him. Wanted normal back way too much. He palmed her face with his large hands. “I have you. Trust the moment.”
Okay. She could do that. She had before. She nodded.
He sat on the bed, lifted her onto his lap, and edged her cheek to his ripped pectorals. “When you’re ready, tell me about it.”
For a long while she just accepted the cradle of his embrace. Let his heat warm her chilled fingers and toes. Let his musky smell cocoon her in safety.
“I thought he was a hooligan-in-training. Yesterday when I took the bus home, he was at the bus stop. Dear God, I thought he was a mistake. One of those throwaway kids.” She covered her face and tried not to remember, but the boy’s scruffy features were emblazoned in her brain. “Help me, Joe. Help me find him. No child’s a throwaway, and I should be shot for thinking so. I have to find a way to stop him from taking another child.”
Chapter Nine
Joe let out a long sigh when Susie’s tense shoulder muscles relaxed and her breathing evened. Finally. Sleep seemed to be the only solution for the headache and nausea that accompanied her visions. She’d been confused and uncertain about the boy from the bus stop, but convinced he’d been abducted and was being held underground. She’d been frantic to find the boy, and he’d had to talk her out of setting out for the preserve and the sections that had scared the saliva out of her.
Before she’d passed out, he’d managed to get the gist of what she’d seen. A frightened kid, dirty, unkempt, maybe ten, who wore a baseball cap and an adult sneer. He’d been at the bus stop, and she’d labeled him a hooligan-in-training. Somehow this boy had contacted her. Susie believed he was still alive. Scared crapless, cold, hungry, and imprisoned in some sort of underground room.
Tate and Gray had left earlier.
Joe’d communicated with Tate telepathically and told him to search the woods for any new leads.
Susie murmured in some language he didn’t understand.
He shifted her so her head was on the pillow. She wiggled nearer and rubbed her nose on his neck. Automatically he tightened his arm around her back and sniffed. No hint of the flinty scent that had preceded her headache. He’d noticed the change in he
r aroma the first time she’d seen Petey. Ever since they’d returned from Hallelujah Mountain, her distinctive fragrance hadn’t returned to normal, and he’d anticipated another vision.
But not what she’d seen.
If Petey was in contact with Susie, he’d figured the kid would continue to give her clues. This new development had him on the desperate edge. It seared his soul.
Another boy taken.
It meant a serial killer was on the loose in Hallie.
The fact that she’d seen the boy at the bus stop the day before bothered him to no end. His neck hair rising was at an all-time high. Never had he sensed such danger. Not even in those dark, dismal days when Bob Weber had filed those vile charges against him.
She stirred.
He caressed the nodes of her spine, fingering each one in turn, and massaged her nape. Before she’d collapsed into a deep sleep, he’d managed to change her out of the sweats. She wore his T-shirt and a pair of sexy red and black lace panties. Her taste in underwear ran to racy and wild.
A smile chased his lips. So proper on the outside, so passionate and daring on the inside, his mate. Once things settled down he intended to find the biggest sex superstore in the state and set her loose in it. Take her to every lingerie store in Hallie.
The cell phone on the bedside table vibrated. He reached for it and glanced at the display. Tate.
Couldn’t sleep, so we went to Hallelujah. Cave inside the rock. Entrance hidden by camo. Filled with bones. All human. All young.
His scalp tingled. Joe tucked the blankets around Susie and eased off the bed. He padded to the kitchen, turned on the lamp above the table, and dialed Tate.
“How bad’s this looking?”
“We called the cops, Joe. This is out of our league. We’re talking at least a dozen kills. Not fresh.”
“Shit. Can you guess how far back?” He snagged a glass from the shelf next to the fridge and set the rim to the water spout.
“Years. Seven, maybe longer. The bones are dry and clean. We picked up the scent of two males, one older, one younger. Here maybe a few days ago. The young one matches that elephant of Petey’s you gave me.”
Petey’s lovey, Ripley, the nubby, worn stuffed animal Barb had given him three days ago. Joe swallowed and told Tate what he’d gleamed from Susie’s confused vision.
“FUBAR.”
Tate was so right. This situation was fucked up beyond all repair.
“How do you plan on explaining your find to the cops?” Joe sipped his water.
“I dug up the entrance to the cave in wolf form. Gray found two hunters near the middle of the hill. Swamp natives with two pairs of black-and-tan coonhounds between them. All Gray had to do was surreptitiously give the dogs a whiff of the scent of one of the small bones, and the dogs headed straight for the cave. I happened by after the discovery.”
No one could best Tate’s ability to manufacture alibis or stage crime scenes, and as for his wolf luck, half of Vegas’s casinos had him on watch. Ten to one, the two swamp men were the same ones he and Kieran had spotted earlier. What were the odds of two men and four coonhounds being a different hunting pair? Slim.
“We’ll have to wait to see if this kid’s reported missing.”
“If Susie’s right and he’s a street kid, he may never be. Where’s this bus stop? Gray and I can check it out first thing in the morning and then head your way.”
“It’ll be one of the ones around the university.” Joe scrubbed his jaw. “The last thing Barb and Kieran need is to hear this crap before the funeral. I’ll text Sam and have him call in a favor.” If anyone had the contacts to contain the situation, it was Dean Samuel O’Reilly.
“I’ll speak with whoever’s the lead on the investigation when they get here. When we get done with this, I’ll phone in a SITREP. I hear them coming. Later.” Tate signed off with his usual abruptness.
Tate’s situation report after the cops were finished with the scene of the crime wouldn’t add lizard shit to what they knew right now. A serial killer had been operating in or near Hallie seven years ago. He’d gone dormant, and now he was back on the prowl. They’d have to wait for forensics before reliable time frames could be determined.
Odds were the man had been incarcerated. Serial killers rarely stopped murdering of their own volition. But there was also the chance that he’d changed territory to avoid arousing suspicion. Aware he probably wouldn’t learn much that would help but unable to resist, Joe headed to his study, turned on his laptop, and spent a couple of hours searching Hallie crime record statistics.
When the first rays of dawn streamed through the windows, he massaged the back of his neck. Until they caught this vile bastard, there was no way he’d let Susie out of his sight, not for a second. Even though he had not a shred of proof, not a scrap of evidence, Joe knew in his gut if a word of Susie’s visions leaked, the sicko would train his sights on her.
The need to hold her, make love to her, and reaffirm life overwhelmed him. He wanted nothing more than to put a cub in her but knew she had to make that decision, not he. Walking slowly back to the bedroom, he decided not to tell her about Tate and Gray’s discovery or their planned reconnoiter of the bus stop. Until the news broke in the media, he intended to distract her big-time.
A huge grin captured his mouth at the sight of Susie sprawled on his bed. She slept with complete abandon on her back, arms thrown wide, and one leg bent to the side. Inky hair tousled on the pillow, her breasts rose and fell in sweet rhythm, and those fat nipples he loved peaked, the round buds unfurling until they tented the T-shirt.
Shedding the jeans he hadn’t bothered to take off earlier, he crawled onto the mattress, rolled on his side, and propped his head with one hand. She looked achingly beautiful, delicious, and more alluring than Satan’s choicest temptation. He sniffed. Sure enough her juices were flowing. He had been hard and aching while he’d held her last night, and his cock needed no further encouragement. His balls had tightened already. He licked his lips and squeezed the head of his erection. No way was this going to be a quickie.
Her eyelids fluttered.
Time to get into action.
He dusted the sheets from her shins and settled between her thighs. The scarlet strip of cloth covered little. Plush, plump folds peeked out of the fabric. The black lace framing the edges fluttered and skimmed the slick labia when he blew softly.
She wriggled.
His tongue coarsened, and he curled an arm under each thigh.
“Joe?” Her morning voice held a hint of huskiness.
“Susie.” He rested his nose on the damp thong and breathed in her musk. “You creamed for me while I was watching you sleep.”
“What’re you doing?” She struggled onto her elbows, opened first one eye and then the other.
He grinned at her sleep-fuddled, slow-blinking squint. “I think that should be painfully obvious.”
The heady perfume of her increasing arousal proved more intoxicating than a fifth of vodka. His dick throbbed.
Color rioted over every inch of her flesh.
“Back on the pillow. Close your eyes.”
Emotions chased her features. A shy embarrassment had her worrying her lower lip. Her gaze skipped away from his, and all the while her juices flowed. He salivated.
“Counting to three and if you’re not exactly how I want you, then it’s blindfolds and handcuffs.”
Those expressive eyes of hers went impossibly wide.
“One, two—” He smiled when her head hit the pillow with a thump.
“Raise your arms above your head and hold on to the slats.”
No hesitation this time.
He nuzzled her pussy through the silk and licked the soft curls. “How does that feel?”
She stiffened.
He squeezed one leg. “Here’re the rules. I expect a running commentary. An explicit, running commentary. No euphemisms. No politeness. I want it raw and from the gut. Or in this case, from the pussy.”
She made a choking sound.
He licked her again, a long up and down and a slow side to side.
“Not going to warn you again, gypsy. And the penalty will be a good spanking.” Damn but she liked that; the folds of her sex had slickened with each word. “Up, babe. Let’s get you nekkid.”
She lifted her hips, and he eased the thong off.
He set his mouth to her clit and suckled hard.
She arched and blurted, “It feels great.”
Closing his teeth around her bud, he gave her a sharp nip.
“Oh my God.”
The high-pitched yelp pleased him inordinately. He dragged his tongue along an outer fold, and she drummed her legs. “And this?”
“Go back.”
“Where?” He did a flutter twirl along the thinner, shorter lips closer to her core and tickled the rim. “Explicit.”
“My clit.”
“Purr-fect. What do you want me to do to your clit?”
“Lick it. Bite it.”
The commands ran into each other.
He complied. Cleaned the shiny, reddened nub and nibbled lightly.
Changing his hold because her hips were thrashing about, he settled his hands heavily on her belly.
“More.”
“Not good enough.” He blew on her clit.
“Fine. Put your mouth on my clit.”
He obeyed at once.
“Lick it again. Yes. Again. Faster. Oh God, Joe. Your tongue’s so rough and so heavenly. Harder. Drag it. Like that. Now bite me.”
Keeping up a steady rhythm, he continued the tongue action but didn’t use his teeth.
“Bite. My. Clit.”
The second he did, she climaxed.
He slid one finger and then another inside and fucked her and suckled her and nipped.
“Joe,” she shrieked and came again, slicking his fingers and coating his palm. Her walls contracted fast and furious, short, sharp bursts. He drank her juices, wallowed in her honey, and slurped her clean.
He could wait no longer. Gave her one last, heavy lick and slid up her body, looping her legs over his shoulders. He thrust to her womb.
She spasmed around him.
Wanting to relish the exquisite ecstasy of that first moment of entrance, he clenched his jaw and froze. Perspiration rolled off his brow.
