Chapter 12
––––––––
Riley came to slowly. Her head pounded, and her vision was blurry as she blinked in an attempt to clear it.
Though she tried like hell to figure out where she was or what had happened, her memories were stuck in a sea of tar, taking maximum effort to pull them forward.
She remembered looking for Eric. She couldn’t see him now, but his delicious, spicy male scent was all around her.
They were going to shower together. Wait, that wasn’t right. She was going tosurprisehim in the shower.
But then she’d walked into the bedroom and...oh, God! He was lying on the floor. A pool of blood growing on the carpet next to his head.
“Eric!”
Riley’s eyes flew wide open with sudden clarity. She was on her stomach, her cheek resting on a soft pillow. Panic consumed her as she tried to push herself up but realized she couldn’t move.
“Welcome back, Riley. May I call you Riley?” The nauseating voice spoke from somewhere out of her line of sight. “I think by now we should be on a first-name basis, don’t you agree?”
Dread twisted in her gut. “Who are you?”
She jerked at the cuffs holding her to the headboard’s wooden slats.
A very familiar-looking headboard.
With her eyesight clear, she focused on her surroundings.
The tan walls and dark brown furniture...the pictures on top of the dresser that was facing her. The open door to the master bath...
I’ve been here before.
In this room. In thisbed.
Riley hadn’t just imagined Eric’s scent when she’d first regained consciousness. It hadn’t been wishful thinking or a result of her drug-induced state.
It was real, and it was everywhere because...
I’m in Eric’s bedroom.
The man who’d kidnapped her had brought her to Eric’s apartment.
A memory flashed. One of a young woman who’d been murdered, and then left in Riley’s bed.
That’s going to be me.
The sick son of a bitch was going to do to her what he’d done to his other victims, and then he was going to leave her here for Eric to find.
