Sean shut the front door and then ambled down the hallway to the master bedroom.Rico was sitting outside the closed door meowing, so Sean let the cat into the room and lowered his voice.“Fine.You can join us now.Just stay away from my balls, you little homo-cat.If you want a boyfriend, I’ll get you one that’s feline.”
George pounded the steering wheel of his mother’s car as he drove past the address he had for Special Agent Sean Malone.He’d switched vehicles and planned to hide his for a few weeks until he could get the damage fixed without raising any flags.
It’d been three days since he’d hit the bastard, and Malone still wasn’t at the beach house.Finding out his address had been as easy as hitting a few computer keys.However, the night of the incident and the next morning, there was another guy and a pregnant woman at the house.No one had been there since, as far as George could tell.The fucking bastard was probably staying with the blonde slut.
Doing a U-turn, he rethought his strategy.Maybe the sheriff’s department would be the best place to find the fed again, then follow him.Yeah, that would work.But right now, George was itching to acquire a new whore to be turned into art.Something to tide him over until he could get his hands on the fed’s girlfriend.But where to leave his new masterpiece?He pondered a few places as he drove past the beach house once again.
“That’s it!That’s how to lure that prick back into the open!”Formulating a plan, he steered toward home.Tomorrow he was off from work, so he’d have plenty of time to ensure everything was perfect.There were things to do and sluts to kill.The karma gods were shining brightly today!
“How does that feel?”
“Hmmm,” Sean moaned.“Like heaven.But I think it needs to be lower, please.”
Grace adjusted her hands on his back and shoulder.“There?”
“Uh-uh.Between my legs.”
Chuckling, she continued to knead his injured muscles.“I know for a fact that area is working just fine.Besides, my first patients are due any moment, and I don’t want anyone thinking a ‘happy ending’ is part of the therapy we offer here.”
“Ha!No, definitely not.”He reached back with his good arm and squeezed her ass.“That’s a specialty for your lover boy only.”
The front door of Pro-Care opened, and Sean released his grip as Tim walked in with two patients on his heels.It was a few minutes before 8:00 a.m., and after Grace finished the therapy on Sean’s shoulder, he was heading back to work.Brian and the others had kept him up-to-date with the case, but he’d had to wait to get clearance from an orthopedist, which he’d gotten late yesterday afternoon, to be officially back on the clock.Agency rules.
Tim helped an elderly male patient climb onto a therapy table.“How’re you feeling, Sean?”
“Good.Got the best physical therapist there is working on me.”
Finishing his massage, Grace retrieved a moist heating pad from a steamer and placed it on his shoulder.“Not that he’s biased at all.”
“No, not at all,” Tim said with a chuckle.
Sean had filled the other therapist in on what had happened, so the guy knew to keep an eye on things at the clinic.With Tim here, Uncle Dan across the street, and a steady stream of patients throughout the day, Grace was as safe as she could be without being in a plastic, bulletproof bubble.
As she went to set up the other patient, Sean’s cell phone rang.Glancing at the number, he saw it was Brian and answered it.“Hey, bro.”
“Where the fuck are you?”
Startled at the anger in his brother’s voice, Sean responded, “I’m at Grace’s PT clinic and almost done.Heading to the sheriff’s department in a few.What’s wrong?”
“Don’t bother going to HQ.Meet me at the beach house as soon as you can.”
He pulled the heating pad from his shoulder and stood.“The beach house?Why?”
“This sadistic bastard left you a fucking present.Victim number six—or nine if you count the ones in Pennsylvania—is on the patio.”
Fuck!
Within minutes, Sean parked his Mustang behind a state BCI truck that had just pulled up to the curb in front of Uncle Dan’s beach house.He rushed past the two techs gathering their equipment and ran up the driveway to the patio.His gut clenched when he saw the naked and mutilated victim perched on one of the outdoor loveseats surrounding a stone fire pit.
Shit!
He and Grace had been sitting on that exact piece of furniture after Easter Sunday dinner.KC had started a fire, and they’d all enjoyed sitting around it, waiting for their bellies to digest the huge meal Bonnie had served.
Behind him, one of the crime scene techs pulled out a camera and began taking pictures for evidence.Sean looked at Brian, Matt, Brad, and Rafe, searching for answers that, obviously, none of them had.
His brother pointed at the house next door.“Mrs.Zielinski’s nephew, Andre, is using her cottage for the week and spotted our vic when he came out to have his coffee on the porch.He went to bed around ten last night and didn’t hear a thing.”He lifted his chin toward the dead woman.“The killer left you a note.”
What?Sean’s gaze returned to the victim, and he pushed aside his anger that a place he loved and had lived in during his teenage years had been pulled into this mess.That was the least of their problems right now.The worst was the poor, unidentified, blonde woman who didn’t deserve to die and be posed like a macabre Halloween display.
