Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
“It was just a fucking scene,” he bit off.
Rus was losing it, and the reason why wasn’t because he’d had zero sleep.
“You killed a woman, Ezra,” he clipped. “She had friends. People who loved her. She was kind.”
“She was an Iverson, for fuck’s sake.”
Rus went solid.
“And I had no idea Carrie was going to take it that far. Listen, Zachariah—”
“Do not call me that. I didn’t give you permission to call me that. I’m Special Agent Lazarus,” he growled.
“We’re both just men.”
“No, I’m a man. You’re a criminal wanted for the rape and murder of a twenty-five-year-old woman.”
“It was just a scene,” Ezra snapped.
“Did Brittanie consent to being raped and murdered?”
“I didn’t know she was going to kill her!” he screeched.
Rus was done.
“We have the fake email sent from Jason Bohannan. We know Carrie Molnar checked into room number seven, unlocked and lubricated the back window. We have a statement from the witness who Molnar bought the crystal from. We have your fingerprints inside and outside that back window. We have you and Molnar on security camera footage from the business next to the motel. You have no alibi. We have Molnar’s computer and will soon have evidence she researched the Crystal Killer and purchased plastic tarp. We have a hair left behind, in other words DNA, and we have a sample of your DNA to compare it to. We know you lured Brittanie Iverson to that motel room. You left her body there, so we know you overwhelmed her, you sedated her, you raped her, and we know you at least stood there and watched while Carrie Molnar caved her head in. Now, someone out there is getting revenge for this, and you’re next. You can take your chances, and they found Carrie, Ezra, so I wouldn’t say those chances were good. Or you turn yourself in and face what you did.”
A long silence and then, “Okay, okay, what’s the difference in time served between rape and murder?”
Rus took the phone from his ear, pressed it to his chest and looked to the sky.
It was gray, lots of clouds.
It was going to rain.
He put the phone back to his ear.
“You’re an accomplice, Ezra. You’re worrying about the wrong fucking thing. We’re talking you live, you do your time, you maybe get out while still breathing, or you’re dead when someone hunts you down. And let me just say, they weren’t nice to Carrie. Carrie had a good fucking idea how Brittanie felt when you two did what you did to her. But she was not sedated, and she was beaten, badly. If it takes a while to find you, this guy has time to stew and think of all sorts of things he’s going to do to you. Come. In. To. The. Station. When you do, I’m gonna book you and I’m gonna go balls to the wall to make sure you don’t breathe free for as long as I can manage it. But you’ll be alive, not tied to a bed, bleeding from the ass, mouth raped, carved up, and left with a knife in your heart.”
“I need time to think.”
Jesus.
This fucking guy.
“You don’t have time to think.”
“Give me time to think!”
And then Ezra decided he was going to take time to think.
Because he hung up.
So yeah, he didn’t have to act.
If CK was watching him, he’d see Rus very fucking frustrated.
On that thought, Rus got in his vehicle to drive into the mountains to tramp through the woods.
THIRTY-SEVEN
There
Rus was goddamned fucking pissed when he knocked on Lucinda’s door that evening, used his keycard, and let himself in.
No GI Joes. No leads to Ezra or CK. He couldn’t go into the station without reporters rushing him and asking questions. They’d also shouted questions from where they were cordoned off when he entered the hotel fifteen minutes before, wet from being out in the rain, exhausted…
And angry.
“It’s Rus,” he called into the suite.
The lights were out in the small living room area, but he turned the corner and saw the fire going in the TV space, candles lit all around, including on the dining room table where there were flowers and a bunch of plates with silver room service covers on them.
Lucinda was coming out from behind the bar with what looked like a bourbon in her hand.
She was wearing one of those feminine lounge outfits in a shimmery satin pearl color—camisole, drawstring pants, and a long robe that floated out behind her.
Her feet were bare.
Her toes were painted red.
He’d seen it before when she’d taken off her boots the other night. It still was so wildly erotic, he nearly got a hard-on at witnessing the racy color on her toes that she hid in her shoes, like it was a secret she kept and exposed only to him.
She handed him his drink.