Tricia sighed, a sad look crossing her face. “Indeed. Such a tragedy. He was so young. I just don’t understand what is going on,” she murmured.
Darci lifted a shoulder. “Probably the only person who does understand is the one behind it,” she finally said, idly flipping through the envelopes. No sense…Beth…Carrie…Bryce… Hell, Bryce wasn’t connected to her at all. Hadn’t ever done more than check out her ass when he thought she wasn’t looking.
The only thing they had in common was Dark Destinies.
Kellan had reached the same conclusion, although he would have disagreed with Darci’s thoughts on Bryce.
He was connected to her. Because the man had wanted her. A near obsessive want, judging by how many times he had fucked a woman and told her she’d answer to Darci’s name if that was what he felt like calling her.
Dark Destinies…and Darci… Well, there was one other thing they had in common.
Kim.
Bryce had his own little harem, and Kellan was a bit surprised over some of the faces he had seen. Married women, dumpy women, women he would have pegged as being too smart to want anything to do with Bryce.
But he knew what it was like to have a need for something dark. He had dark, obsessive fantasies of his own, all centered around Darci. These women who had been with Bryce wanted the pain and the humiliation and the sex he doled out with a fair amount of skill.
He liked to spank them, cane them, tie them down.
Often he would gag them, or pull a hood over their heads before applying the whip.
The blonde who was currently chained to the floor and giving Bryce a blowjob was one who took him by surprise.
Another link between the dead people.
She’d been Beth’s fetching girl. Carrie’s whipping girl…
“Say it, Kim, say you’re my fuck slut,” came Bryce’s voice from the TV as he pulled his wet dick from the woman’s mouth.
She stared up at Bryce with rapt hunger, whispering obediently, “I’m your fuck slut.”
And she had been the lover of one of the murder victims. Well, Kellan had to amend that as Bryce backhanded her across the face before jerking her by the hair and forcing his dick halfway down her throat. Maybe lover wasn’t the right term.
Casting a glance at his watch, he vacillated. Did he really want to go and question Kim about this? At seven p.m. on a Saturday?
No. He didn’t.
But that didn’t keep him from climbing into his car and flipping through his notebook to find her address.
As he pulled out of the drive, he tried to turn it over in his head.
Could she have done it?
Damn it, he just didn’t know.
She was so quiet, so timid. Had she just been pushed too far?
Kim screamed, throwing her hands up over her face as the poker came crashing down toward her. With desperation, she kicked out and knocked her attacker’s feet out from under her.
She hit the floor with a crash and Kim scuttled backward on her hands and feet, grabbing hold of the coffee table and shoving herself up. Had to run…had to get out, get away…
The pain in her ribs and in her chest was ungodly. Breathing was torture.
“Damn it, you bitch.” The words were rough, ugly with hatred. And getting closer.
Kim grabbed the door to the balcony and jerked it open, stumbling through and slamming it on the arm that came through behind her. A furious howl lit the air and she could have sobbed with relief as a voice from above called out, “Damn it, what’s going on down there? Kim? Is that you?”
“Going to fucking beat the shit out of you, bitch.”
She flinched away from that voice, backing away as the door slid open. The poker raised and she screamed.
“Damn it, what the fuck? I’m calling the cops, damn it…”
Lights glared in the front of the apartment parking lot. Kim turned her head, time slowing down to a crawl as she saw the familiar car pass under the lights, then the door flew open…the blue of the swimming pool just below her…
Turning, she blinked, waiting for the poker to fall one more time. But her attacker had frozen, eyes locked on the car pulling into the lot. With a whispered prayer, Kim gripped the railing and swung one leg over. As she moved the other, those malevolent eyes swung her way.
Taking a deep breath, she leaped just as the poker started to come swinging down.
The cold water closed over her and then oblivion.
Kellan nodded as Grady finished reading off the witness reports.
Somebody wearing black. A hood.
But nobody had seen the attacker’s face. Nobody could tell if it was a woman, a man, or a seven-foot Martian with green skin. Pressing his fingers to his eyes, he tried to tune out the antiseptic smell of the hospital, tried to forget about the blood on his hands.
Pulling that broken, battered body from the swimming pool had filled him with shame and anger.
He had gone there planning to question Kim, but he had all but laughed at himself halfway there. Too weak. Too timid. Too stupid.
And her plunge off the balcony had probably saved her life. While he’d pulled her still body out of the pool, the assailant had gotten away. Only moments later, deputies had arrived on the scene in response to the calls from several of Kim’s neighbors, but their search hadn’t turned up anything.
“Damn it, what in the hell is going on?” he muttered.
The waiting room doors swung open and the doctor stepped out, her face weary but satisfied. “She’s going to be fine, I think… I was worried about head trauma or possible spinal injury, jumping into six feet of water, but God was smiling on her,” Dr. Winter said. “The MRI looks okay.”
Her blue scrubs had blood smeared on them and her shoulders were slumped with weariness. “She’s got some internal bleeding. Broken ribs. But she’s responding, at the moment, and right now just needs to rest.” She glanced down at herself before flicking Kellan a look. “And so do I. I need a shower, a new change of clothes and a nap. I usually don’t have trauma cases like this show up in my hospital, Sheriff. But I figured you wouldn’t leave until you heard something.”
He nodded, and forced himself to smile slightly. “I’m putting a deputy on her door.”
Dr. Winter said shortly, “Good.”
He left soon after talking to Grady, reassuring himself that Kim was still alive.
Grady was a good cop. He’d do his damnedest to make sure the girl stayed that way.
Which meant allowing nobody in that room. She had been the best suspect, even if she was the most unlikely. And she’d almost died.
So he still had a killer out there. Somebody who was striking out in an irrational manner. No sense. Damn it, it made no sense.
None of it. He stalked outside, jerking open the door to his car and dropping into the seat. He left the door open, leaving the dome light on as he stared at his hands. Blood stained his clothes, and he couldn’t get it out from under his nails. The bastard had caught her across the chest with the business end of the poker. Not all of her injuries were from blunt force trauma. The pointed end had torn open a nasty gash diagonally across her torso.
“Damn it,” he muttered. Closing his hand into a fist, he slammed it against the steering wheel and rasped out, “Who the fuck are you?”
Kim slept through the day.
Everywhere he went, Kellan heard the same damn thing. “Who could have done that? Kim is harmless.” A hundred different variations of the same question.
In the county hospital cafeteria, Kellan poured himself another cup of bitter, overly strong coffee.