“Please stay,” I said, tilting the phone away from my mouth as I spoke.
She looked at me with reluctance.
“I want you here when I get back,” I rasped.
She blinked and then nodded once before settling back down in the bed.
I got up then and headed for my closet. “Text me where it is, Chief. I’ll get there when I can.”
When I got dressed and came out of the closet, it was to find Fran fast asleep using my discarded pillow.
I felt a pang inside of my chest at seeing her where I wanted her—for the rest of our lives—and then went to the lights and shut them off before leaving the room.
The text came, and I went frozen solid as I saw the address.
My heart beat hard in my chest for a few long, crazy seconds before I snatched up my keys and hurried out of the house and closed the front door behind me.
When I arrived, my eyes went to the familiar minivan that was in the driveway next to the one I was to be meeting at.
I stared at it for so long that I didn’t realize the chief had come up to my car until I heard the knocking on my window.
I got out and my eyes went to him.
“What is it?” he asked.
I placed my hand on my chest and rubbed, as if that would help the throbbing.
“That’s my girl’s place,” I said, gesturing toward the neighboring house that didn’t have the police tape surrounding it.
The chief followed my gaze.
“We possibly have a witness then,” he mused.
I felt my stomach sour. “Possibly.”
She might not have seen anything. Or, it was possible she had seen something, and might not have realized that she had.
Whoever had done this was good. Came and did his dirty deeds at odd hours, then escaped without anyone the wiser.
Obviously, this particular murder he’d done in a populated neighborhood. Meaning he’d been even more careful and quiet than he had at previous murders.
“What took us so long to get this one?” I wondered.
The chief gestured toward the front door, and I fell into step beside him, jerking my head at Schultz when he stood up from his observation of a piece of evidence right inside the door.
“Woman paid for the month to rent this place on one of those vacation rental sites. Owners had a cleaning company come out today because she was supposed to check out yesterday. They found this,” the chief answered.
I stopped inside the door, the familiar disgusting taste of decaying flesh washing over me.
Steeling myself, I did my job. Then promised myself, after cataloging how yet another single, young woman was murdered, that I would find this bastard and make him pay.
He deserved to go down in a vat of flames.
• • •
I arrived back at my place with my eyes drooping, my head aching, and a need to shower that bordered on irrational.
After showering, I came out of the shower to find my bed empty.
Once I slipped on my sweatpants, I made my way out of my room to find my woman at my stove, cooking.
“I am making toast and eggs,” she said. “I hope that’s okay.”
Actually, it sounded pretty good, but I felt a little weird thinking about food after spending the last few hours among a rotting corpse. But I’d be damned if I told her that.
“Thanks,” I croaked.
She whipped around at the sound of my voice, and her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
She read the worry on my face like someone that’d been doing it for a long time.
I was glad that she was mine… at least, mostly. I hadn’t actually had the full ‘you’re mine’ talk with her, seeing as she still held herself partially back from me. But I would. I just needed to give her more time.
“That murder.” I paused.
“Was it a serial killer?” she asked.
I nodded. “FBI is on the case and should be here momentarily. It should be figured out faster with the experts here to deal with it. But yes, there was another murder by the serial killer. This one, we think, was one of the first ones that he did in our area.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“That’s sad,” she whispered.
It was sad.
Really fucking sad.
“Fran…” I paused, wondering how to say it.
She set my favorite wooden spoon down against the side of the pan, then gave me her full attention.
My gaze went to her outfit.
She was wearing one of my t-shirts that’d seen better days.
There were holes all over it.
One such hole right over the chest area.
I couldn’t make out a nipple, but I knew that it wasn’t far off.
It made me sigh because what I was about to tell her would upset her. And my mind wandering to sex wasn’t a good thing at this moment.
I cleared my throat and rubbed the back of my neck.
“The woman that died today. It was someone that you might have known. She was your neighbor. The house to the left of yours,” I explained.
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
I nodded. “It’s the house that the couple rents out for vacation renters. The woman had rented this particular one out for a longer amount of time, and yesterday the chick was supposed to be gone. The cleaning people found her.”
Her shoulders drooped, and she went back to the food she was cooking on the stove.
It was only eggs, but it made my stomach rumble anyway.
I’d eaten a lot today. So much, in fact, I shouldn’t be hungry. Especially after what I’d just left at that crime scene.
But police officers were a different breed. We could compartmentalize things better than most, meaning that I could eat, still think about the case, and not feel guilty about it.
She flipped my egg over, pulled a plate down after opening at least three other cabinets, and then used the spatula to spoon the egg onto the plate.
She broke the yolk as she did, sighing in frustration.
“There’s something you should know about me,” she said as she walked to the toaster and pulled two pieces of toast out of it. Slathering on butter, she turned with the plate in hand and held it out to me. “I don’t know how to fry an egg without breaking the yolk. No matter how careful I am, I just never seem to be able to accomplish it.”
I grinned as I took the plate from her.
“Oh, and you need bacon or something. Because you have, like, zero meat in your house. Other than ground bison that was frozen,” she mused as she pulled a plate out of the microwave that looked like it’d been done a while. “So just eggs and toast.”
I walked up behind her and pulled her into my arms, pressing my mouth to the back of her neck and causing her to shiver.
“Bacon is nice, but eggs and toast work just as well. And, just sayin’, but I don’t care if the yolks are busted. I’m going to bust them anyway when I eat them,” I teased.
She snickered and moved until she could press her lips to the only part of my body she could reach—the top of my head.
“I’ll remember that,” she whispered.
I allowed her to eat before I started questioning some more. And, like I assumed, she didn’t know much. She hadn’t seen much, either.
Which, in turn, left me frustrated.
This guy that was doing these killings was good.
Even worse, he’d never screwed up.