Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

His fingers tightened around her throat, beginning to cut off her air passage.

Fia was definitely not in the mood for this tonight.

She drew one hand around, balling it into a fist. She struck him squarely in the temple and he stumbled back.

“Motherf—” His foul language was lost in a grunt of pain as he lunged at her again, and she made a quick sidestep, causing him to hit the Dumpster full force.

“You offer a lady a drink,”—Fia told him, slamming him face-first against the Dumpster again as she twisted his hands behind his back—“you offer to walk her safely to her car.” She raised her knee to pin him against the metal wall so she could reach into the cute little black purse she carried and pull out one of the plastic zipper ties law enforcement used as emergency handcuffs. “You do not lead her into a dark alley and then try to have your way with her. You understand what I’m trying to tell you here, buster?”

He made one last feeble attempt to wrestle himself free, but a well-placed cuff to his left ear calmed him down, and the stale air in the alleyway was filled with the satisfying sound of the handcuff tie tightening over his wrists.

“What the hell? You crazy, lady?”

She grabbed his arm and whipped him around, using another tie to secure him to the Dumpster as she debated what to do next with him. She obviously couldn’t just let him go, but he’d gotten a pretty good look at her. She doubted he could ever identify her looking the way she did now, compared to her FBI file photo, but it would be foolish to take the chance.

She knew what she should do, but the idea turned her stomach a little. She just wasn’t up for sport tonight any longer. And then there was the pudgy neck. The red bandana.

She leaned over him, grabbing his thin ponytail to pull his head back and expose his neck.

“Getting kinky, are we?” he said as she pressed her lips to his throat. “Why the hell didn’t ya just say—”

Fia sank her teeth into his flesh and he made a little yelp of a sound as his knees buckled.

She stepped back and let him fall, his hands flying over his head, his wrists still tied to the Dumpster. She spat out the blood. Then, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she leaned over him and fished in the front pocket of his jeans. She made the call to 911 and then dropped the phone at his feet. He’d be the police’s problem now. She knew they wouldn’t arrest him, not without a witness, and him with no memory of what had transpired after he left the bar with her. But the police would at least keep him in a holding cell overnight, until he sobered up. After a night in jail, maybe he’d be a little nicer to the next chick he picked up in a bar.

As she walked down the dark alley, the sound of a police siren in the distance, she wondered what Glen Duncan was doing right now. Sleeping, if he had any sense. Dreaming, maybe.

It was funny, but she wondered what kind of dream he was having and hoped it was pleasant.

Stacy made a little mewing sound beneath Glen and he thrust into her again.

He wondered if he should give the lab a call tomorrow. Even if they couldn’t put a rush on the few samples of blood, fiber, and soil he sent them, he could at least check to be sure the whole envelope hadn’t been set aside because someone else had called about a more pressing case.

“Baby,” Stacy whimpered, holding him tightly around the neck.

He picked up the pace.

But what if Fia already called the lab? You made too many calls, pissed them off, and you ended up getting your results back the end of next week instead of the end of this.

Maybe he should call her.

“Oh, baby, baby…”

Wouldn’t be any harm in that, would there? Just a quick call to touch base? Let her know what he’d found interesting on past decapitations. Make sure she’d gotten the fax concerning the mail from the post office that had been examined and sent.

“Now…now!” Stacy squealed.

Glen lowered his head, balancing his weight on his hands and feet. She would complain if he didn’t. She said he was too big, too heavy. Of course she didn’t like to be on top, which had been his suggestion as a compromise.

He drove hard into her and released, more out of habit than urgent need. As he lowered his head to kiss her cheek, Stacy tapped his shoulder.

“Get up, you’re all sweaty.”

He rolled off her, onto his back and the clean sheets and she bounced up, pushing down her cotton nightie. “You want to take a shower before you go?”

In the bathroom, he heard her turn on the water. She always showered after they made love. She liked to be clean, she told him.

He lifted his head, settling it on a white lace pillowcase, and wondered if Special Agent Fia Kahill jumped out of bed after orgasm and washed the smell of her lover off her skin.

He somehow doubted it.

Fia was surprised that Dr. Caldwell got his autopsy report to her so quickly. It was properly filled out, sent by e-mail to be followed by hard copy. For a fifteen-hundred-year-old country doc, he was still pretty sharp.

The report provided the victim’s name and other typical government information, then a description of the state the body was found in. She skimmed all that quickly, moving to the line where a medical examiner must give his or her best guess as to the cause of death.

There had been no wounds on Bobby’s torso, but Fia and Glen had guessed there must have been blunt trauma to the head. With all the blood spray, he had probably been hit with something hard; baseball bats and two-by-fours were both popular