Ripper (Tortured Heroes Book 5) Read online

  “Thank you. You’re a good eater. I like that in a woman.” I leaned over and kissed him.

  “Are you full?” He leaned back, with a worried look on his face.

  “I’m rested, nourished, and only missing one thing.” He didn’t ask what I was missing. Kyle kissed me again, harder, and all of a sudden, the languid feeling of the last hour was gone. I needed him now. He pulled open the shirt I was wearing, his shirt, and the buttons went flying. My little present was obviously zero bra. Kyle palmed my breasts, and I twisted on his lap. I felt him pull the panties I was wearing aside and his thick fingers stroking me. I cried out a little, feeling like his hand would be all I needed to completely lose it.

  He swept his free arm across the table top and plates fell to the floor. He perched me on the table and I busied myself freeing him from the black denim jeans he seemed to always wear.

  I slid myself into the perfect place and his hands held firmly to my hips. Kyle’s hands and lips were ravaging my breast as I lay totally exposed on his kitchen table. This was wild and sweet and so needed. I was practically in a frenzy to have him inside me. He pressed just at the right place and I felt an ache to have him fill me up. I had to have him take me and wipe away the other thoughts of this day.

  Kyle thrust in and I let out a gasp. This was what I’d needed, wanted, and thank God Kyle knew it and needed it too. He growled in my ear as I held on to him, his sounds unleashing my own animal side. He was so powerful the table moved across the floor with every push of his hips to mine.

  I opened my thighs and felt his hands on my hip bones, pushing me closer to him. We were sealed together, deeper than before, harder than before, and more desperate. Every time we’d made love it had gotten more intense. I felt something new with each kiss, each touch. I found myself repeating his name over and over as my climax began to hit with a force that had me seeing white bursts of light in front of my eyes.

  “I’m going,” I whispered between heavy breaths.

  “God. Jesus,” he said and I felt the same prayer at my lips.

  “Yes,” I said and he let loose one more powerful pulse. I shuddered with the force that set every nerve in my body to liquid heat.

  “That was so fucking amazing. You are so fucking amazing.” He said it in my ear as he slid us up and off the table and took me easily into his trunk-sized arms. There was probably glass from the plates all over the place, but he didn’t seem to care or dodged it without me even feeling it.

  He carried me to his bed and gently placed me inside the covers.

  “I promised to tuck you in,” he said and I laughed as he pulled the blankets up to my chin.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I just hurled lasagna and china all over the kitchen. I’ll be back in a second. I don’t want you waking up to that.”

  “Okay.” But before I had the second syllable out, my eyes were closing and I was drifting into a pre-sleep. I wasn’t fully gone, but damn was I relaxed. Something I hadn’t thought possible.

  I could hear him in the kitchen. He was sweeping, washing dishes, opening cabinets and generally padding around. The gentle and normal sounds of a home, Kyle’s home, soothed me.

  I was safe here. I was safe with him. My mind would start to travel to a dark place, to what I’d seen, but then I’d hear him in that kitchen so very close, so very normal and I would focus on that. I don’t know if he did it on purpose. My mother was a neat freak, and oddly, I’d spent many nights as a child, falling asleep to the sounds of her cleaning up. Those sounds were comforting to me now and whether he knew it or not, Kyle was soothing me to sleep.

  I finally dozed off completely when I felt his arms around me and his body spoon mine in his king-sized bed. We slept, knowing that the kitchen was spic and span for when we awoke to face whatever lay ahead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kyle

  I’d spend time and thought on making sure I had a sanctuary here in this apartment. It was where I decamped after years with the Devil’s Hawk MC. It was the first time in decades that I could be me in my own home, or even have anything that approximated a home. And yet it wasn’t quite that.

  Then there was Sam. She was a bit messy, she moved fast, she laughed loud, and she, in the space of twenty-four hours, had made this apartment feel like the home I’d been painstakingly trying to make. It wasn’t the touches of color and personality that I’d let happen here, it was the life that didn’t exist until she was in it.

  Today though, I’d need to tell her the latest in the case and it wasn’t going to be easy.

  I felt there had been more than enough yesterday for Sam to deal with, but it couldn’t wait.

  We had coffee, she’d returned some emails, made some calls to fighters, and I couldn’t put it off any longer. We may be safe together in my place, but as long as The Ripper was out there, no one else was.

  “So, I need you to give me your take on some things.”

  “Okay.”

  “Some of it’s upsetting, some of it’s tedious, and my field agents are out there doing all the leg work, but we need pretty much everything else from you. Every second of your day over the last year. As much as you can. I don’t want to put you through this, but it could mean life or death. And you saw. I’m not exaggerating.”

  “Kyle, I can take it. I know I was a mess yesterday, but I’ve got to channel my fighters. I can. I’ll rack my brain, look at my email to figure out if I’ve forgotten anything, whatever you think. I’m tougher than I look.”

  “I know you are, babe.” Calling her babe was so natural, which was shocking to me. I had been alone so long. I kissed her and then stood up and got out my computer.

  “I don’t want to tell you this, but there’s another missing woman.”

  “Shit.”

  “Her name is, uh, Gwen Stock.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah, she’s from Vegas, so it has us stumped a little, we had a string of Vegas victims and then the incidents here, so how did this guy go back and forth? But the guys say it’s possible.”

  “No, no.” Sam stood up and started pacing around my place.

  “I know it’s upsetting, but they’ve got all the manpower in the world working this.”

  “No body though right? She’s just missing?” Sam had seemed agitated as soon as I’d told her there was another missing woman. Even though she said she’d be tough.

  “Just missing. There’s hope. And we don’t know for sure if this is connected, but someone called this Gwen in missing, I think the file said it was at her work? She didn’t show up and her dark hair and all that. She fits the pattern.” Not one woman had escaped, so we had no one who could tell us even the first thing about the perpetrator.

  “Kyle, I know Gwen. She’s the secretary that Jerry, uh, you know that story, the office romance.”

  “I thought her name sounded familiar!” I pulled up the files on Gwen Stock. I cross checked it and sure enough, she had been an Arm Up employee, but no one had spotted it because her time working there was so brief.

  “She was only at Arm Up for a hot second before it went to shit thanks to Jerry.”

  “Okay, well let me let the office know.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “It could be nothing, but the odds of it being a coincidence, that you work there, and that she’s now missing and used to work there? The Ripper is connected to Arm Up in some way.”

  “A janitor or something?”

  “Or a client? There are a lot of possible connections.”

  I called Scully and told him. He, in turn, had news for me.

  “We’ve got another body.”

  “Here or in Vegas.”

  “Here. No i.d. on her, but we do think we got it faster than the others. The Ripper isn’t quite as good at hiding it here in Grand City as he was in Vegas.”

  “Shit. Okay.” Things were heating up in this case. The Ripper was agitated, maybe because Sam was out of sight, or maybe
for some other reason.

  “What?”

  “There’s another dead body. Fits The Ripper’s m.o. They’re processing it right. We might know more this time.”

  I watched as Sam put her head in her hands. This was a lot, but at least she was hearing it second hand instead of having to watch as the carnage played out in front of her like she did yesterday. I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  “Look, we still have to stay the course, Sam. We have some painstaking work to do. We need to reconstruct your days, your connections. Can you focus on that?” I asked her.

  She looked up and then walked over to her laptop.

  “You’re damn straight I can. We’re going to figure this out. Gwen Stock was, is, a good woman, and I’m not going to stop. You’re not going to stop. We can help her right?” There was a look of steel in Sam’s eyes. She wasn’t traumatized; she was galvanized by the news that she might be able to help.

  “Okay, that’s the spirit. You’re safe here and you can do this.”

  “Kyle, fuck being safe. I want to fry this evil fucker’s ass.” Sam Bosque was no victim. I watched as she showed the toughness her fighters recognized from their first meeting to their title matches. She was in their corner because she deserved to be. She was just as bad ass. And I was proud as hell of her.

  We went through her contact lists, her appointments, basically her entire life.

  We spent several hours on it. Then her phone rang and she checked the screen.

  “I have to take this.”

  “Hi, Jerry. Yeah, I texted you. Did you hear about Gwen? You know what Gwen. Don’t be that way.” I could hear only her side, but I wasn’t a fan of Jerry. He hit on her, he hit on Gwen, and the new receptionist, Debbie. He was lining up in my book to be a first-class asshole. I felt Sam had to put up with him because he was her boss, sort of, as she explained it.

  “That’s really nice, but no. I’m fine. I’m safe at Kyle’s.” I leaped up and shook my head no.

  She mouthed “What?”

  I whispered, “Do NOT tell people where you are.” I should have already told her that. That was my fault. Maybe a product of sex on the table? I had to be careful and that was not careful.

  “Look, I’m safe. I’ll be in the office late in the afternoon, tell Debbie to be there okay?”

  “Great. Just great. Did you ever think you shouldn’t have banged her this soon into the process?” Sam’s irritation with Jerry apparently didn’t stop him from banging anything.

  “Don’t. I’m fine. See you later. And thanks for being worried. It’s fine.”

  She hung up the phone.

  “I’m sorry I told him I was at your place. I didn’t tell him where your place is?” She raised her eyebrows looking for my okay.

  “No one else is to know. Now, what did he say?” My radar was up. Her boss seemed to hit on her at every turn and it needed to stop.

  “He offered his place, has a Queen size bed we could both fit in. He thinks it’s really funny. But I know he’s worried in his own smarmy way.”

  “I’m going to kick his ass if he suggests that again.”

  “We talked about this. People do hit on me.”

  “Not your boss.”

  “I’ve only really had him as a boss, so I’ve nothing to compare it too.”

  “It’s fucking harassment.”

  “Okay, well, whatever. Let’s get back to work.”

  “Where’s that new receptionist? What was that about?”

  “Yeah, she’s AWOL. Either Jerry did a shitty job of hiring without my input, likely. Or she realized sleeping with the boss on what, day two, is a bad career move, also likely.”

  Something about all of this was off. It was sitting wrong in my head, but I put it aside, and we continued to work through her calendar. Something small now could be the key to everything. I thought about the field agents out there and hoped they could find Gwen or could match the prints they found.

  Both could be big breaks in this case. Both would help me calm down about the maniac who was after Sam.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sam

  In the movies, it seemed like being in the FBI was all about chases and shooting things. They were also always catching terrorists. What I saw with Kyle today was painstaking. We looked at lists, we reconstructed my days, we talked about where I parked my car, got my dry cleaning and so many other mundane details I could barely see straight.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t provide another detail, Kyle would ask a question, and I would remember something new. It was all little stuff, but he said that was what he wanted. We plodded through every second of my life.

  It took hours. And Kyle said it was critical, though it felt like we weren’t getting any closer to finding Gwen or discovering who was doing all this.

  He was built for action if you looked at him, and I had no doubt he’d done his share of physical intimidation undercover with the Devil’s Hawks MC, but it was his brain at work now. And a patience I wouldn’t have guessed at when he was about to put the beat down on Bas Jergensen.

  We were missing something. He was convinced of that. I was missing something, that was what was haunting me. My inability to say for sure who could be capable of this meant they could keep doing it. I was getting a headache rehashing every detail of my life over the last few years.

  Eventually, I dozed off on the couch. Kyle pressed on, doing what he’d been trained to do, working to find that one thing that would lead to something else. Long after my eyes glazed over he was still at it.

  I didn’t know what time it was when Kyle patted me on the shoulder.

  “Babe, we’ve got a break in the case.”

  “What?” I was napping on his cozy couch. He lightly tapped my arm again. Had he found something? Was it my dry cleaner? My dentist? I was having a tough time shaking the nap off.

  “A break. It’s big. I have to go into the office and you can either stay here or come with me.”

  “I’ll come.” Since I couldn’t go anywhere on my own anyway, going with Kyle to work was the next best thing to freedom.

  “This could be difficult, just so you know.”

  “It’s all been difficult. I’m getting used to it.” I got up and we were back in the FBI offices in less than ten minutes.

  “So, what do you have?” I walked behind Kyle as Scully let him and a few agents I’d met into a conference room.

  “Dr. Carson has just filed a preliminary report and we have an i.d. on the body we found yesterday.” Scully put a devastating picture up on a monitor. It was the first time I’d seen this photo. It was like the ones plastered in my hallway, which was still a crime scene, I’d been told. But this one was an official medical photo. And I straight up knew the woman in the picture. Blood rushed to my face and I felt something turn over in my stomach.

  “Oh my God,” I said. It was also the first time Kyle had seen this photo as well and he reacted similarly.

  “That’s the new receptionist in Sam’s office.” He recognized her too, despite the maiming that had been done to her face.

  “Debbie Sanders,” I said.

  Scully outlined the discovery.

  “She was found last night very soon after the time of death and there are usable prints on her. She didn’t have time to decompose. She wasn’t hidden, unlike the other victims.” I felt nauseated. If she hadn’t been hired at Arm Up Grand City, she’d still be alive. It was the terrible truth.

  “Does she have a family?” I had a million questions in my head. How had Jerry found her for the job? Was it an agency? Had he placed an ad in a paper? My mind didn’t know what to focus on. How to process this.

  “Her family has been notified. Her body will be released to the funeral home tomorrow.” Scully went on with additional details about a women I’d only briefly known. She was a sister, a daughter, and a friend. I just hadn’t had the chance to learn any of it about her.

  I felt tears roll down my cheeks and I trie
d like hell to hold it together. But she was an innocent victim who’d had the bad luck to get near me, even though I’d only met her twice. This monster was terrorizing me for sure, but it was nothing compared to how her family must feel right now.

  “And there’s more,” Scully told Kyle. Most of what they said felt like it was a million miles away. There were terms I couldn’t put in context and autopsy results. I didn’t have any idea what they could mean for the finding this killer. I could only think about her, my God, Debbie.

  “The prints we have on Debbie Sanders match the ones found in Miss Bosque’s hallway. This is the first definitive connection we have.” Scully was telling this to Kyle and I was trying to follow along.

  “Are you cross checking all the other victims now, seeing if that print shows up?”

  “As you know, we just don’t have a damn thing from the original Vegas victims. And the prints we culled aren’t in any criminal database, so that’s the break we’re going to need. We’re going to need to find who’s prints we have.”

  I didn’t understand some of what they were saying, but it was clear the body of Debbie Sanders and the pictures in my hallway were a big step. I only hoped that they found the next step fast enough.

  Kyle went over the information the agents had gathered. The pressure to scrutinize my life and all the people in it intensified. I racked my brain on who could be sick enough, evil enough, and who could track every move I made this way. Was I missing something so close to me that I couldn’t see it?

  Kyle peered at reports and numbers and toxicology information. I didn’t know what any of it meant so I stayed quiet and let them all work.

  They’d spread out maps and pictures and it started to seem like what they were looking at was a grotesque copy of my life. It was my job, my gym, my places, and someone else had followed all those tracks to leave death behind.

  Had I pissed someone off? Could I possibly know this person doing these terrible things? I didn’t want to believe that I could.