Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Hello, sweetheart.” He kissed the spot on her neck where he’d marked her just seconds ago as he eased his thick long cock out of her. Celia laid where she was her body still twitching with aftershocks as she wondered how long they could keep this up. She knew enough to know that it was the newness of their relationship that was responsible for their hunger for each other that it would eventually wear off.
But as she turned her head and sought his lips with hers, she wished that that day would be a long way off. Every woman should feel this desired; this wanted by her man. A slight pang of fear hit her, and she pushed it back. Every once in a while, the fear that he’d find someone more suitable would sneak up on her, but she refused to let it take root. She’d made up her mind to just enjoy what they had while it lasted.
CHAPTER 24
Celia sat bolt upright in bed. Beside her, Riley was still fast asleep, having tired himself out with the night’s activities. After jumping her at the door, he’d dragged her upstairs to their bed, and they hadn’t come down for hours. After dinner, when they had the house to themselves, she’d found herself spread out on the dinner table among the dishes and uneaten food.
She could still feel the imprint of the fork that had dug into her ass while Riley had been pounding into her before he’d seen her discomfort and removed it. She gave him one last look before easing out of bed to grab the nightshirt he’d thrown across the room after her bedtime shower.
Silly her, she’d erroneously thought he was done with her. There’s no way he could have anything left, she thought, but she was wrong. He’d taken umbrage to the old worn tee shirt she’d pulled on to sleep in and forbade her to wear anything to his bed before fucking her into the mattress hard and fast.
She shook her head in amazement at his antics as she headed to her new home office. She’d had the presence of mind before going to bed last night to run a search through VICAP, looking for similar crimes. Though she wasn’t of the same school of thought as Officer Bailey that their victim had been some random kill, his words had struck a chord, and she was pissed at herself for not thinking of it sooner.
The more she thought of the scene and the fact that there was nothing left for them to go on, the more she realized that it might not have been the killer’s first hit. Everything was too clean, too calculated from running into the car to get Melissa Sherry to stop to the kill and the way she’d been staked out on the ground with the offensive word carved into her chest.
Since Gil and Bobby were pretty much off her list of suspects, who else would see her victim in that light? And what are the reasons for anyone to call her such a thing? Her thinking had been that it had to do with her line of work, that maybe she’d ran into someone who like Officer Bailey said, took offense to her profession.
Still, she didn’t think it was random, but rather someone the victim had dealt with. Now her mind was going in another direction. Could it be that Melissa had been having an affair with someone else? She’d thought it before, but since there were no clues leading them in that direction had pushed it aside. Now she’s back on that particular track.
She sat in front of the computer that had stopped running but had left her some nibbles to follow on the screen. She’d input every little detail from the scene, but as a seasoned detective, she knew which ones should stand out. She knew most people never committed the same crime exactly, but there was always something that didn’t differ, no matter how many times the perpetrator struck.
She was looking for those similarities now. Maybe there wasn’t a car involved, but the way the body had been displayed might be the same. Or the word that was carved into her victim’s chest. She combed through the twenty or so cases that popped up, comparing notes until she was able to separate the few that stood out.
Of the twenty cases, five had been solved. Four had suspects, and eleven were still pending. Out of the eleven six matched closely to hers, the only problem is that they were scattered around, and some, especially the first two, had been more than twenty years ago.
But the MO was too similar to ignore. There were no real clues to point to a person of interest except for the last one, which had been three years ago. Then the detective had noticed the disappearance soon after of a lawyer who had befriended the victim not long before she was killed. He’d explained their association as business-related, but from notes left behind and things the victim had shared with her best friend, the detective had been more inclined to believe their relationship had been more personal.