by D. C. Stone
Kenny G played on the radio, adding intimacy to the moment. He removed the knife from her throat and palmed the back of her head, pushing until her forehead touched the bed. He bent over her frame and laid his lips to her ear.
“Careful, sweetheart. You follow along, and you will be just fine. You scream, and you will learn the exact meaning of fury. Do you understand?”
She gasped, the sweet sound like Viagra to his system. His dick punched against his zipper, and he grimaced as the metal threatened to tattoo the engorged organ. She nodded and he pressed a kiss to her temple, the light fluttering of lips against smooth, warm skin.
“Good girl. Now, let’s begin.”
****
Hours later, Charlie stood in the middle of the ring watching Dwayne. Sweat rolled in rivulets down her back, causing the cotton of her tank to stick to her body like a wet plastic shopping bag to a milk carton. She eyed Dwayne over her taped knuckles and looked for the flinch of a muscle. Her dad taught her when you’re fighting, do not watch the hands. Instead, focus on their shoulders. A slight twitch would give movement away. Study their eyes, dig deep into body language thrown your way and each time you’ll come out ahead.
Much like interviewing a suspect.
At the reminder of her lack of a suspect, irritation snapped along her spine and she lashed out recklessly, sending a fake left jab before slamming out her right in a cross hook. He ducked, but the blow caught under his chin. His head slammed back. Taking advantage, she hunched and dipped, the burn in her thighs protesting, before powering out. Her fist caught his midsection. He doubled over, and cheers ran out from the sides of the boxing ring. She didn’t pay them any mind and instead stepped back and dropped her gloves as he glanced up from beneath lashes, pain marring his scrunched features. Sweat dripped from his creased eyebrows, and his lip curled in a grimace. Green eyes threw an accusatory question her way, and she sighed, feeling like the world’s biggest ass.
“I’m sorry, Dwayne. I wasn’t thinking.”
He coughed and stood straight. “Damn it, Charlie. I don’t mind you punching me at full strength, but next time you want to use me as your chew toy, give me a heads up.”
She sighed and twisted away, her anger not directed at him but more inward. She had been ten kinds of stupid for what happened with Trent earlier. Ten kinds of stupid, but all in for what he offered, apparently. She had not been thinking with her head, but instead, wanted him between her thighs.
Like a fucking dog in heat. Ugh.
She stepped off the mat and hopped down as Dwayne held the ropes. He fell in step on their way to the locker rooms. He groaned and rubbed a gloved hand on his midsection.
“You want to tell me what’s got you so riled?” His rumbling question came out a harsh whisper. The clanking of metal, boasting conversations, and rap music playing in the gym refused to cover her denunciation.
“Nothing,” she snapped, removing the last tape from her hands and tossing the white material in a trash can. God, stop being such a bitch to him, Lopez.
“Bullshit. It’s either this case or something got beneath your skin. I think you owe it to me to talk after the ass-whooping I just took for the team. Come on—” He stopped, stepping in front of her and held out his hands. “Help me out of this tape and talk. At least you can do that, after the shot you gave my ego out there.”
She shook her head and gave half a laugh. Dwayne had a way of bringing her out of her funky moods. Friends since grade school, she still remembered their first meeting, the scared little boy who suddenly moved to Nyack with new parents but with old nightmares haunting him.
“Come here.” She tugged on his hand and moved to a bench outside the locker rooms. Straddling the wood, she sat and he followed. He gave her his hand as they faced each other.
“Look, I don’t really want to get too much into it, but sometimes…” She bit her lip and fought for the right words, half paying attention to unwrapping his hand. “Sometimes, I think I may be more damaged than I thought.”
He shook his head. “Not this again. How many times do I have to tell you there’s nothing wrong with you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think I can get close to anyone. I have thoughts sometimes like I want to, but then later, I end up regretting it.”
As she finished with his first hand, he used it to tip her head up with a finger. “What do you mean regret it later? What happened?”
She scanned the room, searching for the right way to relay what she wanted to say, and rolled her eyes. She told him she didn’t want to get into it, but look where she was. “I sorta made out with Trent.”
He arched a brow, lip quirking. “Trent?”
She tossed him a knowing expression. “Yes, Agent Rossi?”
His eyes widened and he gave a sharp nod. “Ah.” He exchanged his hands, and she went to work. “Did you like it?”
She thought back on their time in the conference room. Her body heated, and her stomach pitched off kilter. She let out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. A lot.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Of course you would think there isn’t one. The problem is, now I’m kicking myself. I can’t get involved with another cop.” She tore off the last of the tape and bundled the sticky material into a ball, crunching it over and over again, refusing to meet his stare.
“Hey.”
She glanced up from beneath her lashes and squeezed the ball, hating the helplessness she felt whenever she thought about that night. Dwayne reached out again and tipped her face up so she was forced to meet his eyes.
“It was a fluke accident. The entire situation sucks, but you can’t let what happened to Tony get in the way of the rest of your life.”
Tony, a patrol officer she went through the academy with, had been her first love. He lost his life only two years after being on the force when he stepped out to help what he thought to be a broken down vehicle on I-287. The driver had been waiting for the first person to stop and he unloaded a 9mm clip into Tony’s chest. A gang initiation, they later explained. Tony liked to help people, and in the end, he died because of some stupid gang thing. It made no sense.
“I’m not. It’s just cops. I feel like bad luck surrounds me when it comes to them. Look what happened to my Dad.”
“Jesus, Charlie. It’s the way of our field of work. It’s dangerous. Your dad lived a long life as a cop before he was shot. As much as it’s similar, what happened with Tony could happen to anyone. You cannot close yourself off from the chance at a relationship just because of your fears. Hell, if that was the case, my brothers and I would be living in a hole.”
She scrunched her face, and tossed him a skeptical look. “Since when do you have a right to give relationship advice, Mr. I-change-beds-faster-than-I-change-underwear?”
He flashed a smile, brilliant white against his mocha skin. “I never said I didn’t understand how they worked. I just said they don’t work for me.”
She tossed the wadded ball of tape into a trashcan about ten feet away. It rolled along the lip before dropping inside.
“It’s good!” She lifted her hands and grinned, then stood. Dwayne followed and stopped her before they parted for the locker rooms.
“Listen to what I said, Charlie. It’d be a real shame if you passed up something good.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I’ll think about it. Hey…” She wiggled her brows and started walking backward. “Who knows, I may just take your advice and give cops a chance. Who better to break me in than your brothers? A Gonzalez sandwich sounds tasty.”
He snorted and shook his head, laughing. “Trust me, the last group you want to get involved with are my brothers.”
She winked, turned away and headed into the room. A shrill ring came from her locker and she rushed over, quickly tapping in her combination before yanking the door open. She flipped open her phone. “Yeah.”
“Charlie.” Woolsey’s voice and following sigh spoke a thousand words.
S
he closed her eyes and leaned against the metal door. The coolness did nothing to rouse the exhaustion plaguing her soul. “How bad?”
“Bad. Head over to Hudson Avenue, right off Broadway. You can’t miss it.”
“Christ, Chief. We gotta get this guy before he gets worse.”
“Too late. I’m heading over now, so I’ll meet you there. How long will it take you?”
She eyed the showers, but dismissed it when he spoke again.
“She was raped. I need you on this.” His voice quiet, sounding as tired as she felt. It contained a vulnerability she hadn’t heard in years. Not since her dad died.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Okay, see you then.” The line went dead, and her gut clenched into a hard knot.
“Damn it.”
She changed quickly, swiped deodorant under her arms, wiped her face, and redid her ponytail before heading out of the gym and to the address Woolsey texted her.
Pulling up to the scene, she parked and got out of her car before flashing her badge at the scene entry control officer.
Trent was walking across the yard from the other direction, changed his direction to match her diagonally as he met her halfway across the grass. He turned and looked over his shoulder, his brows drawn down in a frown before he faced with her again.
“Something isn’t right,” he said as way of introduction.
“You’re barely getting that now?” she replied, her voice somewhat snotty. She couldn’t help it. All those weird fluttering butterflies were back and just like that, whoosh, her mind went on vacation. All of it simply because he was in her presence.
Trent didn’t say anything though and turned to where he had been looking before, the frown still on his face, his notebook held between his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a light green Henley, dark distressed jeans, and black boots.
He looked good enough to eat.
Ugh.
Staring at him for a few minutes, she realized he wasn’t speaking and he was still frowning. She tried to follow his gaze, but gave up when nothing stood out.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He tilted his head, narrowed his eyes again at something in the distance, and then spoke, still not turning his gaze toward her. “Remember how we’ve talked about him scoping out his victims?”
She remembered him doing that profile, but she didn’t have to say that. “Yeah, also that he knows the area. What’s up?”
He turned toward her then and his beautiful blue gaze roamed over her face like a caress. He took in a deep breath, narrowed his eyes, then let the air out of his lungs. “Where have you been?”
Her eyebrows jumped. “Excuse me? What is this, reverse questioning? Didn’t I ask you a question?”
He leaned toward her. “And I’m going to answer it, just after you do mine.”
“Why do you want to know?”
This time his eyebrows went up. “Are you seriously evading my question? Where were you?”
She crossed her arms, not understanding why she didn’t want to answer him, but damn, after he’d played the disappearing act for so long on so many scenes, she felt justified in not answering.
“Charlie,” he warned, “Don’t make me ask again. You won’t like the consequences.”
Her face heated, and she was really getting sick of it doing that. “Or what?” she snapped.
He leaned even closer, his face inches from hers. “Or I’m going to go with my basic instinct and toss you on the ground here and fuck the shit out of you. Your smell is driving me abso-fucking-lutely insane. Your face is flushed, and your hair is wet. Where in the hell were you?”
Her eyes widened at his words and she felt another little quiver in her neither regions. Before her mouth could catch up with her brain, she blurted, “At the gym with Dwayne. I sucker-punched him.”
He stared into her eyes for a few moments and then a slow smile spread across his face. Breath stuttered from her mouth. He straightened and kept his gaze locked on her.
“Just so you know we’re going to talk about what happened this morning soon, and this time, you aren’t going to run off. You’ll stay there and we’ll face this, because if you try to run again, I’m going to handcuff you to my bed.”
She bristled. “Excuse me?”
He totally ignored her question. “Our guy is staking out his victims before he attacks.”
The abrupt shift in topic had her blinking at him for a few seconds. “How do you know?”
“He’s a smoker,” Trent answered, which really wasn’t a proper response for her question.
“I’m not following, Trent. Can you slow down and give me a proper answer?”
He tossed his head toward where he’d been looking earlier. “Cigarettes, four of them, in a location that neighbors report had been a car they’d never seen before parked just last night.”
Hope sweltered in her chest. “Forensic on it?”
He nodded. She whipped out her notebook from her back pocket. “What kind of car?” she asked.
“Dunno.”
She frowned, glanced back up at him, her pen hovering over the paper. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Streetlight was out. Car was under that tree,” he said and tossed his chin over to a big willow oak hanging under a streetlamp. “All witnesses remember seeing is the car was a dark, four-door car. If I had my guess, even if we had tags, it’d come back to a rental.”
Ugh.
Charlie wanted to scream. One step forward, two steps back. She turned toward the victim’s house. The rancher stood out from the others in the neighborhood with its fresh paint and well-maintained yard. Almost like a sore eye—a very pretty one—but when compared to the browning grass of surrounding properties, and the meticulous upkeep, the entire scene looked like it’d been brought in from an entirely different place.
“How’s the victim,” she asked, her voice sounding as lost as she felt.
Trent didn’t speak for a few seconds and his hesitation told her more than he said. “Not too good. She’s at the hospital now. Name is Sheila Grady. He caught her just after she came home. Came in through the backdoor. There are signs of forced entry, but it wasn’t violent. Almost like he’s had training on how to get inside without making much noise. No prints on the door or lock.”
Charlie sighed and rubbed at her head. Why was this guy so hard to catch?
“You want to hear the rest?” Trent asked.
She nodded even though, no, she didn’t want to hear the rest. But she had to.
“He caught up with her in her bathroom, just as she was getting in the shower. Blade to her neck. She said he wasn’t wearing a mask, but she didn’t get a good look at him. He kept her face down for most of the entire time and when she wasn’t face down, he kept a hand over her eyes. Ms. Grady is single, about five feet, nine inches. Successful CEO of an accounting firm.”
Charlie closed her eyes and turned back to Trent. He was right there, watching her, assessing. “More?” he asked.
She bit her lip and nodded.
“He controlled her. Big power play. His instructions to Ms. Grady were very detailed, specific, and if she followed through, he rewarded her.”
She scrunched up her face. “With what? Reward? With what?” she said again, her voice rising. This guy had raped this woman!
Trent sighed and shook his head. “Charlie, this guy is the master manipulator. His rewards to the victims can be anything from praise to a choice on what happens. They don’t scream and he’ll offer them a choice between two things. While it may not seem like it’s much of a choice, it’s still a reward to someone who has had every bit of safety taken from them.”
“God, more of your profiling?” she groaned. “What the hell are we going to do?”
Trent stared at her for a few silent moments before he answered with just two words. “Catch him.”
Chapter Ten
Trent was dragging ass. He couldn’t focus, was out
of it, and the world operated around him in a blurry, hazy dream he couldn’t escape, no matter how much caffeine he ingested.
Caffeine.
Had it only been twelve hours since he stood outside of the victim’s house with Charlie, hating every second he had to recount the crime to her? It felt like a lifetime. He glanced down at the cup of joe, his fourth and it wasn’t even noon. Sleep was the answer, and he’d love to do nothing other than go back to the hotel, draw the blackout shades, turn the air conditioner on, and bury his way under the covers for the next twenty-four hours. He understood why he couldn’t. Too much work needed completing, and a thousand questions required answers.
He took another sip of the hot liquid, prayed like hell this cup would give him the jolt he needed, and thought back on the cute little barista at Starbucks. She was nothing but smiles and flirty winks. Every look a silent invitation for unspoken erotic secrets, but for the first time in his pathetic existence, he couldn’t seem to step over that invisible line. Instead of his body reacting to a perky, petite blonde with double-D tits, flashes of a tall brunette with curves and muscles in all the right places refused to leave his thoughts.
He cursed beneath his breath and pushed open the front door of the station house. Noise engulfed him at once. The sounds were so out of the norm, he stopped and took in the room. People filled the small space, women and men scattered throughout, all shouting at the haggard looking desk sergeant sitting behind bulletproof glass. The young officer’s eyes snapped to his, and he shot a look that screamed help.
Trent winced and shook his head, turned on his heels and started for the Detective’s Unit.
“Someone needs to do something. You can’t just leave this man to prey on women.”
He stopped, but kept his back to the crowd, pretending to fiddle with the keyless entry at the detective’s room.
“There have been attacks nearly every other night. What is the chief doing?”
“How much longer did you expect to keep this a secret? Why isn’t the police department doing anything more? Giving us any warning?”
