by Chiah Wilder
Animal nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
Hunter: How’s my beautiful Rose doing today? I missed talking with you last night.
“How the fuck does he know what you look like? You didn’t send him your picture, did you?” Anger laced Animal’s voice.
Olivia shook her head. “No. The guy’s just saying stuff to try and reel me in. He’s trying so hard to make me think I’m the most special woman on the whole site, and I bet he’s chatting up a storm with at least five or six other women.”
“This guy could trace your computer’s IP address. You need to be careful with this. What kind of a class are you taking?”
She swept her lips across his. “Your protective side is sweet, but you don’t need to worry about me. First off, I have an IP blocker so it can’t be traced, and second of all, my prof is totally down with what I’m doing. Dr. Davison is real excited about my research up to this point and has even checked out the site himself.”
“He sounds like a fucking nut,” he grumbled.
She laughed. “He isn’t. He’s totally obsessed with his field and a great teacher.” The bell chimed and she focused her attention back to the screen.
Hunter: Are you there? I hope you’re not chatting with another man. I’ve grown very fond of you. Did you get your flowers I sent you?
“Flowers? What the fuck, Olivia?” A scowl buried deep in his face.
“Electronic ones. On this crazy site, a man can send pictures of bouquets with notes, just like the real thing. Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to open his messages, so just chill.” She took a screenshot of the messages thus far then typed her response.
Rose: I’m here. I’m multi-tasking. Sorry. The flowers were beautiful. I love roses.
“Pretty lame, huh?” she asked Animal, clicking the SEND button.
“The whole thing is lame as fuck,” he huffed.
Hunter: I think it’s time for us to take our relationship to the next step, my sweet.
Animal growled and held her tighter.
Rose: I’d love that.
Hunter: I thought you would. We need to exchange photos, then if we like what we see, we should talk on the phone. I want to meet you very soon. I promise our meeting will be romantic and full of tenderness. Nothing is too good for my sweet woman. I have a small confession to make: I think I could fall in love with you and hope you have some feelings for me.
“What a fucking asshole,” Animal said. “And there’s no fucking way you’re giving out you photo, phone number, or meeting this nutcase anywhere.”
“Will you calm down? I don’t plan to meet him privately—only in a public place, if I even meet up with him.” She placed her fingers on his lips. “Don’t start with me. I’d be better to meet him for my paper, but I’ll admit I’m starting to feel sorry for him. I mean, what if he’s sincere and is really falling in love with Rose? I’m basically cat-fishing him and it’s starting to feel wrong.”
“How the fuck can he be in love when he hasn’t even met or seen you? The guy’s bullshitting. He’s got an ulterior motive going here.”
“Maybe … maybe not. Loneliness makes people look for relationships and then try and make them fit. I’m really starting to feel bad about this now.”
“This dude’s not lonely, he just wants to fuck.”
“I’m not so sure,” she said as she began tapping the keyboard.
Rose: Falling in love is pretty serious. I’m not there yet. Sorry. We can talk on the phone, though.
“Why the fuck are you telling him that?” Animal said.
“A burner phone. I’m going to end the conversation now.” Olivia needed time to think about what she was doing. A part of her was drawn to Hunter—she felt his loneliness and his pain, and another part of her felt terrible in stringing him along like this. The other guys she’d communicated with were in it only for the sex, and several of them admitted they were married and just wanted a fling, but Hunter was different, even though Animal would disagree with her. But then, he hadn’t been talking to Hunter for the past several weeks. Hunter truly did seem like he needed her, and that could be a powerful aphrodisiac for a woman. She wondered how many other women he’d met on the site.
Hunter: Being in love is absolutely serious, my sweet, and I don’t expect you to feel it now. I’m just hoping that you feel something for me. I want us to get to know each other, and when we do, I know we will love each other—body and soul. Let’s start first with a phone call.
“No dude talks like this except some pansy-ass trying to get fucked or a damn psycho. I don’t have a good feeling about this, babe.” Animal rubbed his hands up and down her back.
“He’s just lonely, and I think what he’s saying is sort of romantic. I mean, I can see how a woman would fall for him, if he’s sincere.”
Rose: I do like you, but I need to think about everything. I have to go now.
Hunter: Did I offend you? Please tell me you still want to talk to me.
Rose: You didn’t offend me. I do still want to talk with you. It’s just that I have a lot to think about, and a friend of mine is here.
Hunter: A friend? I thought you had no one.
“That’s strange,” Olivia said.
“I told you the guy’s a psycho. Why the fuck does he want a woman who’s all alone? My radar’s going off big time, baby.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have any friends and thought we were kindred spirits.”
“Bullshit.”
Rose: I do have friends—just not any family. I do have to go. Bye.
She clicked out of the site and closed the lid to her laptop. Animal was right: something did seem off with Hunter. Maybe she should just make her own assumptions and wrap up the paper. It seemed like she was getting in over her head, but then just one phone call with Hunter wouldn’t really hurt. Olivia could get a better sense of him after talking on the phone.
“I don’t like you talking to this guy, but if you’re ever gonna get together with him, you need to tell me and I’ll come along with you. There’s no way you’re meeting him alone—public place or not.”
She rested her head against his shoulder and he held her tight. “Agreed. I’ve got to admit, he’s creeping me out a little. I just want to forget about all that now.” Olivia tipped her head back, and his lips captured hers possessively. The kiss sent the pit of her stomach into a wild swirl.
Standing up with her in his arms, Animal made his way to her bedroom, his lips still fused to hers.
Chapter Eighteen
DUCT TAPE COVERED the victim’s body as she lay naked on her back with her arms and legs tied in a spread eagle position to the posts of the bed. She was covered in blood and it looked as though multiple stab wounds had been the cause of death. Detective Ed McCue noticed bruising around the woman’s neck and noted it in his report.
“Her name is Samantha Paulson,” Officer Levi White said.
The detective cocked his head in the young officer’s direction. “You know her?”
White nodded. “Her son, Daniel, was one of my mom’s students at Slavens a few years ago. My mom teaches second grade at the school, and I volunteer to coach softball in the summers. Daniel’s a great player. I can’t believe she’s dead. This is going to be tough on him.”
“Was she married?” McCue jotted down everything White had told him in a small spiral notebook. He was old school and refused to use the handheld notebooks the department had given all law enforcement two years before.
“Divorced, but my mom suspected she was having an affair with one of the teachers at the school—a married teacher.”
“You got a name?”
The officer shook his head. “No. My mom wasn’t 100 percent sure about the affair, so she didn’t tell me that name.”
“Sounds like that’s where I’m going to have to start. Let me know if you hear anything about the murder through the school’s grapevine.” He turned away and stared again at the young woman. “White?”
The p
oliceman stopped at the door of the hotel room and looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“Do you know how old she was?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Gotcha.” McCue scribbled the number on the piece of paper.
“Older than the other one in our county and the other five in the neighboring counties,” Detective Ibuado said as he approached the bed.
“Yeah, but it’s the same sonofabitch doing the killing. This murder is similar to the last one and the others in Chester and Valley Pine counties.” He looked around the room. “An out-of-the-way bed and breakfast or boutique hotel, the woman registers alone, duct tape across the mouth, tied up, stab wounds and the bruising around the neck. I’ll bet she was raped too.”
“And the sheets are gone.” Ibuado blew out a long breath. “Seems like we got a serial killer in Pinewood Springs.”
McCue ran his hands over his face. “Fuck! We gotta find this madman fast.”
“We need to alert the papers so women can be careful.”
“Yeah, but let’s not jump to conclusions until we get the reports back from the coroner. We’ve got to find a connection between these murders. Something is tying them all together, but what?” McCue tapped the cap of his pen against his mouth.
“I’ll order copies of the case files on the women in the other counties. Maybe we can see something in them that they don’t.” Ibuado slipped his electronic notebook into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“That’ll be a start. Let’s hold off with the press for a bit—I don’t want this killer going underground or moving on.”
“Agreed,” Ibuado said as he walked away from the crime scene.
The squeaky wheels of the gurney drew McCue’s attention away from the body and to the corner’s crew as they entered. He nodded to the men then trudged out of the room and down the stairs to the lobby. A growing number of hotel guests stood in the lobby, speaking in hushed voices, their gaze fixing on him as he walked over to the manager.
“I’m going to need the guest list for the past two days. Do you have security cameras? I didn’t see any when I walked around the property.”
A flush crept across the cheeks of the thirty-something woman. “No.” She pulled at the collar of her lavender blouse. “The owner of the hotel hasn’t installed them yet, but I’ll have one of the desk clerks print out that list you wanted. Can you tell me anything about the”—she glanced around and lowered her voice—“murder?”
“At this time I’m not at liberty to say anything. I’ll be in touch.”
The detective walked away and paused at the large glass front door and watched as the gurney rolled by. The black body bag wiggled from side to side as the crew navigated it across the terra cotta tiles.
The detective sucked in a breath through his teeth and followed the techs out into the bright sunlight. His next stop was the one that he hated the most: death notification. Even though he’d been in law enforcement for twenty-five years, there was never a right way of telling a family that their loved one had been murdered.
Putting on his sunglasses, McCue plodded over to his car.
Chapter Nineteen
FILES, RECEIPT BOOKS, orders, and manuals littered the large wooden desk. A framed photograph of Lucy’s school picture sat on the left corner of the work surface; her face was glum and red ribbons intertwined with her dark hair. Jada had come up with the idea to braid the fabric with Lucy’s strands, and the young girl loved it so much that she refused to wear her hair any other way.
Glancing at the picture, Animal muttered, “Thanks a fucking lot, Jada.” He’d had a particularly shitty morning trying to remember what the hell Jada had told him about the damn ribbons and braiding Lucy’s hair. After three failed attempts—even though Animal thought he did a pretty damn good job—he had called Olivia to rescue him.
Animal shook his head and narrowed his eyes. “You’re gonna take me down, kiddo,” he said under his breath. And if his daughter didn’t, Olivia most certainly would.
Since their date, they’d gone out one more time, but having a young daughter at home with him made it somewhat difficult to get together more often with Olivia. Hands down, Lucy came first, and Animal wasn’t sure how she’d feel if he brought Olivia into the mix. Lucy seemed to have taken to the cute teacher’s assistant, and her reading was improving greatly, but he didn’t know if Lucy would freak out if she knew he was going out with her tutor.
Animal swiveled around in his chair and gazed out the window at the snowcapped mountains in the distance that glittered in the sun. Forests of pine, aspen, and evergreen dotted the mountainside, their leaves and branches swaying gently in the breeze. A few birds flew across a crystal blue sky; there wasn’t a cloud in sight. It was a perfect day to ride around the mountain roads, feel the rush of wind, the smells of wet earth, fresh pine, and sweet hay.
Animal looked back at his desk and groaned. He had too much work to justify taking off on his Harley. He tilted back in his chair and closed his eyes and imagined Olivia, in tight as sin jeans and a clingy top that barely touched the top of her jeans, on the back of his bike with her tits pressed against him and her arms wrapped snugly around his waist as they sped around the countryside.
His dick stirred and his lids snapped open. Fuck! Animal sat up straight and swiveled around to face his desk. I gotta stop thinking about her. What the hell? Plain and simple: Olivia had gotten under his skin in a way no woman ever had. Normally, he’d have some fun with a chick, then he’d move on when the desire started to wane, but with Olivia, he couldn’t imagine moving on and that was what surprised him.
“I just have to think rationally about this,” he said aloud as he picked up a book of receipts on the desk.
But how could Animal think anything? His senses were too clouded by her. He’d fallen under her spell, but in fairness, her laughter and sassiness along with her wit and her generous heart had blindsided him. Olivia was so much more than just a good time. Everything about her enticed him and he couldn’t walk away even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. How could he? He already knew so much about her: how the skin around her waist was taut and satin smooth, that he made her tremble when he licked her sweet pussy, and when they kissed, her lips were soft and so fucking demanding.
Whenever he was at the clubhouse, Rosie, Wendy, Charlotte, and the other girls would rub up against him and shove their tits in his face, and he could control his libido just fine, but he couldn’t be near Olivia for ten seconds without getting steamed up. It’d been like that from the first day when he’d seen her trying to take apart her cupboard. She’d hooked him with her dark hair, her stunning green eyes, and her feisty attitude.
Animal flipped open the receipt book and stared at the numbers. Olivia was still wary of him because he was a biker. She didn’t tell him that, but he could sense it in the way she’d study him when she thought he wasn’t looking, or the way she’d wince when Animal told her something was club business. Her fucking dad had done a number on her when Olivia was growing up, and now Animal had to figure out how to put the pieces back together and make them all fit.
“Fuck!” He threw the book at the door just as it opened.
“Whoa, dude,” Smokey said as he bent down to pick it up. “Having a bad day?” His lips twitched and Animal was pretty sure Smokey was fighting a smile.
“What gave you that idea?” He motioned for his friend to take a seat. “I gotta get a damn bookkeeper. I’m sick and tired of dealing with the numbers, the payroll, and all that other shit.”
“Put an ad in the paper and online—I’m sure you’ll get some applicants.” Smokey thumbed through the receipts.
“I’d rather hire someone who comes recommended. Maybe I’ll ask Throttle or Rags. They finally had to get someone to help out with the books.”
“That’s the price you pay for running your own business. I got my niece doing my stuff. I could ask her if she knows anyone.” Smokey shut the book and pushed it toward Animal.
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br /> “That’ll work. Let me know what she says. What’re you doing around here?” He leaned back in the chair.
“Doing a basement remodel. The fuckin’ place is covered in black mold which I didn’t see because it was painted over. I got a crew over there taking care of it, but we can’t get back in until tomorrow. I haven’t seen you at the clubhouse in a while.”
“Been busy with work and Lucy.”
“Is that all?” One corner of his mouth hitched up in a cocky smirk.
Animal glared. “Just tell me what the fuck you mean. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Bones, Rock, Puck, and Shadow saw you out with a hot chick a few nights ago. They were at … damn …” Smokey snapped his fingers, tilting his head as if trying to remember the restaurant.
There was no way Animal was going to help him out, so he just sat there with his hands folded on his stomach, watching Smokey struggle to remember.
“You know, dude. Fuck, it’s right on the tip of my tongue.” Smokey tapped the left temple of his head.
“I’m kind of busy, bro. When you think of it, text me.” Animal turned toward his desktop and opened the inventory screen.
“El Tecolote!” Smokey yelled. “How the fuck couldn’t I have remembered that? We go there all the damn time. Shit … I’m getting old.”
“Yeah, you just hit thirty, and it’s downhill from there. I oughta know—I’m thirty-two, and I can’t remember shit, bro.”
Smokey’s eyes widened. “Fuck … that’s not good.”
“You’re telling me—it fuckin’ sucks.” He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, and failed at it. Loud guffaws filled the room, and Smokey’s anxiety morphed into anger.
