Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
She shakes her head slightly. “Safety is an illusion. And I don’t think you want me. You just want to own me.”
I shrug. “It’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not. You’ve fixated on me. You enjoy dangerous games, but everything in your life has come easy. I was something you couldn’t have for far too long. Now I’m just a challenge to overcome, a prize to be won.”
I smirk. “Such a lovely prize.” It’s the wrong thing to say.
She pushes to her feet. “I’m leaving, Rex. I have a job to do, and it needs me more than ever.”
I rise also, kicking myself. I forgot myself and fell into the fun of fighting with her and went too far. “No,” I blurt, rage and panic pumping through my heart until I’m made of emotion. I need to stop her, but I can’t lose control. “Inara, think about this. It’s not safe for you—”
She whirls to argue, but we’re interrupted when Hamish glides through the door.
“Sir, there’s something you should see.”
“Not now, Hamish.” He wouldn’t interrupt unless it was important. I don’t care if every stock I own is tanking or every business I own burns to the ground. Nothing is as important as keeping Inara here.
“You’ll want to see this news briefing. There’s been another murder.”
Inara blanches, and I reach to comfort her. She’s just been through her worst nightmare, and I want to give her what she needs.
But she pushes past me and barks a demand at Hamish. “Show me.”
In the short walk from the breakfast room to the study, Inara fully transforms into the hardened version of herself she becomes as a detective. She’s wan and withdrawn, the flickering light of the television emphasizing the bruised hollows under her eyes.
“I’m on location at the scene of a second murder,” the TV reporter says, standing on a sidewalk corner with the wind tugging at her blonde hair. “An inside source says this new murder might be related to the horrific Green Street killings we reported on yesterday. NRPD has yet to comment.”
Green Street is the crime scene where I met Inara yesterday. Where she almost collapsed after seeing a scene that matched her family’s murder.
“In both cases, the killer entered the home at midnight while the victims slept. This time, his target was twenty-five-year-old Emily Rodriguez—”
A picture of the victim flashes on the screen. It shows the young woman at a happier time, when she was alive and well, instead of as a now mangled corpse. Horror hits me. The shape of the victim’s face, her long dark hair—she looks like Inara.
The reporting continues, showing B-roll of the neighborhood, charming brownstones and old oak trees now marred by yellow crime scene tape. I don’t hear a word over the high-pitched whine in my ear.
The killer wanted Inara. He targeted her first with the letters and then with a series of murders. First, a family was killed in the exact way her family died years ago. Now, a woman who looks like Inara. It can’t be a coincidence.
I need to focus, to think. But all I can see is Inara lying dead on the ground. It could’ve been her.
Maybe it’s because I just studied their portraits, but for a moment, I’m transported to that horrible night in the alleyway outside the theater, the smoke of gunfire hanging over my mother and father’s prone bodies. One minute we were laughing and talking, the next, they were dead. Leaving me with nothing but the echo of gunshots and the loss I would carry for the rest of my life.
Inara is in danger. She could die, just like my parents. She would’ve died last night if the killer had found her.
Only I can keep her safe. And I will do anything. There’s no law I won’t break, no boundary I won’t obliterate.
Nothing matters but protecting her.
Inara
* * *
The Bondage Killer has struck again. This time, instead of a family, it’s a single woman. She was alone in her apartment when he broke in. I feel a flash of terror and anguish, and I don’t know if it’s mine or a psychic response to the victim.
They show a picture of her when she was alive, smiling, with her arms around her dog. The mention of a dog tugs at my memory. The detail matches my dream last night, where I was a grown woman lying in bed, hoping the sounds outside my room were made by the dog and not an intruder.
Dear gods. It wasn’t a dream.
“Pardon, ma’am?” Hamish mutes the TV and cranes his head as if to hear me better.
“Nothing.” I didn’t mean to say that aloud. No one knows the truth about the visions I see of victims before they die, and no one ever will. It’s a secret I’ll take to the grave.