Love you to Death

by Shannon K. Butcher

  “No, that’s the thing. He’s not. He keeps trying to get me to call him, go see him.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “What’s there to say? ‘Sorry I fucked up your life, man. Have a nice day.’”

  “You should call him. If he’s forgiven you, it might be time to forgive yourself.”

  Not in this lifetime. “I’ll pass.”

  “Who knows, you might even be able to forgive yourself enough to take that job Bob said you could have anytime you wanted it.”

  Trent shoved away from the table, needing to get away from this conversation. It was too dangerous. “I’m going to put clean sheets on the bed.”

  He’d almost made a clean break, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to get beyond earshot.

  “I never took you for the kind of man to run away.”

  Trent came to a halt, shocked at the anger ricocheting through him at her words. His back was to her and his hands were curled into tight fists. “I’m not running,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  Her tone was flippant, matter-of-fact. “Sure you are. You ran from your career, from your partner, and now you’re running from me.”

  “Leave it alone, Elise,” he warned. “I’m helping you. Don’t repay me by butting in where you’re not wanted.”

  “Someone’s got to talk some sense into you.”

  He spun around, lashing out at her with his voice. “Why? You don’t let anyone change your mind.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “You know how. I’m willing to risk my life to save Ashley.”

  “And I’m willing to risk my happiness to save whatever sorry bastard would get assigned to me as a partner.” He was shouting now, and he never shouted. He preferred calm, cool logic, but Elise drove him past all reason.

  “You made a mistake,” she said. “You can’t fix it, but you can move on.”

  “Is that how you’ll feel if Ashley ends up dead? You made a mistake, but it’s time to move on?”

  She jerked like he’d punched her in the gut. “Of course not.”

  “Then don’t try to tell me how I should feel. You have no idea what you’re talking about. John was like a brother to me.”

  “One you refuse to talk to. I can see how close you are.”

  Before he said something else he’d regret, he turned on his heel and left, feeling like an asshole of the highest order. He never should have brought Ashley into this. He never should have brought it up, period.

  He never should have abandoned John just because he didn’t want to face his own mistakes.

  Hell. This night was getting worse by the second. Might as well call John and make his misery complete. Maybe then this nagging ache in his chest would ease, even if it was only a little.

  Trent’s hand shook when he picked up the phone. He didn’t have to look up his old partner’s number. He still knew it by heart. He dialed and prayed to God no one was home.

  Ashley tried not to panic. She’d never taken care of so much as a goldfish, and now the life of another woman was in her hands.

  At least she still had two, unlike Constance.

  Gary had cut off Constance’s hand. There was nothing wrong with it, but he’d gone at her like a surgeon removing a tumor—calm and silent as he worked. He’d stopped the bleeding, stitching her up like he knew what he was doing—like he cared whether or not she lived.

  Constance had screamed the whole time.

  Ashley sat there in shock, doing nothing to stop it from happening.

  She still wasn’t sure she’d really seen that happen. This had to be some kind of drug-induced nightmare. Maybe whatever he’d spiked her drink with Friday night was making her have some kind of hallucinations, and all of this was just a dream.

  Constance let out a low moan of pain that broke off in a sob. The sound was real—no drug-induced delusion.

  He’d put Constance in Ashley’s room with her, locked them in and left.

  “I’m here,” said Ashley, not knowing what else to say. “He’s gone now. You’re safe.” It was the biggest lie she’d ever told, but she was going to keep on telling it until they got out of here. And they would get out of here. Ashley refused to allow any other possibility to enter her mind.

  She looked at the timer Gary had left. She couldn’t give Constance any more pain medication for another twenty minutes. Gary had given her instructions on how to care for Constance and warned her that if she messed up, he’d kill them both.

  Ashley believed him. She just wasn’t sure that he’d use the gun, making it quick and relatively painless. After seeing the smile on his face while he used that bone saw, Ashley didn’t want to know what kind of death he might be able to devise.

  Constance groaned again, making Ashley’s chest tighten in panic. She didn’t know what to do to help her. She didn’t know how to fix this.

  She smoothed the blond hair away from Constance’s face, hoping to sooth her. “Just lie still. I’ll give you some medicine soon.”

  Constance’s blue eyes opened a slit and tears leaked out both sides. “Give me all the pills. Please. Let me die.”

  “No. We’re going to get out of here.”

  “No, we’re not. There is no way out.”

  “You don’t know that. We’ll find a way. I’ll find a way.” She wasn’t sure how, but she’d think of something.

  “You don’t understand. He’ll come back. It’s what he does.”

  Ashley looked at the clock again. Fifteen minutes left, then maybe Constance could sleep and give her some time to figure things out. “It’ll be okay.”

  Constance let out a sound soggy sound of defeat. “That’s what I told Susan.”

  “Who’s Susan?”

  “She was the one I was assigned to help. The way you’re supposed to help me.”

  “I don’t understand. Where is she now?”

  “He killed her. Just like he’s going to kill me. And you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Constance sucked in a pained breath. “I do. I watched it happen to Susan. That’s why he pairs us up like this, so we’ll know what’s coming. So we can be more afraid. Everything he’s doing to me now, he’ll do to you next.”

  Ashley’s stomach gave a lurch and she had to grit her teeth against the urge to puke. “No.”

  “I was there when Susan died. Susan was there when Marcy died. Before Marcy, there was Joann, Corey, Stephanie . . .”

  Blood rushed to Ashley’s ears, cutting off the rest of the names. The list kept going. Ashley saw Constance’s mouth move like in a dream.

  She pushed away from the bed and stumbled across the room. She needed fresh air, but there was none to be had. She couldn’t lift her face to the sun and feel warm and free. All she could do was sit here in this room with a woman she didn’t know and wait to see if what Constance said was true.

  Unless they got out.

  Surely, someone was looking for so many women, looking for her. Elise would look for her, she was sure. But how long would it take to find them, and would it be too late?

  Ashley had to get them out. She raced to the door and pulled on it, knowing the act was futile even as she tried. There was nothing in the room to pry it open with. The hinges were on the outside.

  Maybe she could break a hole in the wall.

  She picked up a chair and slammed it into the wall. The legs bounced off, stinging her arms and merely scratching the ugly beige paint. Beneath that paint was concrete. The walls were concrete, like a prison cell.

  “Shit,” she spat, furious at herself for getting into this mess, devastated that she couldn’t find a way to get Constance out.

  “Stop!” shouted Constance. “If he sees you doing that, you’ll only make him angry.”

  “Maybe I want to piss him off.”

  Constance’s voice was pinched with pain. “If you’re going to do that, at least give me those pills first.”

  Ashley checked th
e clock as she went to the injured woman’s side. Eight more minutes. “I’m not going to kill you.”

  “I’m already dead. You’d be saving me more torture. Maybe yourself, too. He might get so angry that he kills you outright.”

  “He’s not going to kill either of us.”

  Constance clenched her jaw in pain. A fine layer of sweat stood out along her pale skin. “I told Susan the same thing. God, I wished I’d listened to her. She was right, about all of it.”

  “We’re going to get out of here.”

  It was still a few minutes early, but Ashley gave Constance two pain pills anyway. She swallowed them and grabbed the front of Ashley’s shirt. “He’ll paint your fingernails first. He likes your hands to be pretty before he takes them. First the left one. Then the right. After that, he’ll pick some part of you to keep as a memento. He’ll cut that part out of you, then cut off your head. You’ll still be alive when he picks up that bone saw. I’ve seen it. I know.”

  “You’re making this up to scare me.” And it was working.

  Constance shook her head and closed her eyes. Her voice came out as a defeated whisper. “When you’re the one strapped to that chair, you’re going to wish you’d listened to me. At least by then he won’t be able to hurt me anymore. I’ll be dead.”

  Elise sat at the table for a long time, clinging to that little spark of hope inside her that told her Ashley was still alive.

  Maybe Trent hadn’t tossed his careless remark at her to hurt her, but it had anyway.

  She knew she’d hit a nerve, talking about his partner, but did she back down? Of course not. She never knew when to back down, which made her a good reporter, but not such a good friend.

  After all the help Trent had given her, he didn’t deserve that.

  She pushed herself up from the table, stowed the remainder of the pizza in the fridge, and went looking for him. The house was small enough he wasn’t hard to find. He was in what she guessed was his bedroom, sitting on the bed. The door was cracked open, allowing her to hear what he was saying.

  “Hey, John. It’s Trent. Sam said you called. Call me back when you can. No rush.”

  He’d called his old partner.

  She’d bullied him into it, which made her feel like a bitch. It wasn’t her business. She should have stayed out of it. Too bad she didn’t know how.

  He probably didn’t want to deal with her right now, so she took her laptop to the second smaller bedroom to work. She cleaned away some space on his cluttered desk and started searching the Web for other missing women.

  Hours later, she had a list of area women who’d gone missing in the past five years. It was huge—too many to manage—so she cut it down to the women who were near Ashley’s age. She broke that list into two: those who had been found, and those who hadn’t.

  She had just finished looking up contact information for the one case that didn’t fit either list when Trent came in and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “It’s late. You should try to get some sleep. I made up my bed with clean sheets for you.”

  He was touching her. That was a good sign he wasn’t still mad at her for butting her nose into his business.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she told him, covering his hands with her own. His skin was so warm, and her fingers were chilled from hours of typing and the things she’d read.

  So many women were missing and never found. Ashley could not be one more. Elise wouldn’t let that happen.

  “Forget about it. We’re both a little wound up.”

  “Understatement of the year.”

  “What have you found?” he asked, looking at her scribbled notes.

  “Plenty. None of it good. I’m going to start talking to some of these people tomorrow. Maybe they can shed some light on Ashley’s abduction.”

  He pointed to the article on the screen and the picture of the smiling young blond woman next to it. “What’s this?”

  “She’s the one who lives closest to Ashley. The police found her amputated hand, but that was all. They don’t know if she’s alive or dead, but prints confirmed the hand was hers.”

  “Did they get her prints from a criminal record?”

  “No. Her mom had one of those kits done when she was a kid. That’s what they used to compare the prints from the hand.”

  He squinted at the screen. “This case isn’t that old, just a few weeks. I wonder if that hand matches the body we saw.”

  Elise shivered at the memory. Trent must have felt it, because his hands slid over her arms as if to warm her. “I don’t know. I plan on going to see this woman’s mother tomorrow. If she doesn’t know about the body, I’ll tell her.” She wasn’t sure how she was going to find the courage to talk about it, but she knew she had to find a way. If this woman’s mother was anything like Elise’s, she was going to need all the emotional support she could get.

  Not that Elise was all that strong herself right now.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. I don’t want you to miss any more work because of me. I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?”

  No. “Yeah.”

  “You should get some sleep, then.”

  He was right. She was exhausted, and her eyes burned from staring at the screen too long without a break.

  She stood, and Trent let his hands fall away. She missed his touch immediately, and without thinking about it, she stepped up and pressed herself against his lean body in a hug. Her arms slid around his waist, and her cheek lay over his heart, hearing the deep, steady beat that seemed to soothe her like magic.

  Trent hugged her back, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head. His muscles contracted, hardening against her stomach and breasts. The warm strength of his body surrounded her. The scent of his skin filled her head.

  For the first time in days, Elise truly believed everything was going to be okay. Maybe it was some kind of illusion he created with his presence, but whatever it was, she was thankful for it. She felt like herself again. Strong. Confident. Hopeful.

  She lifted her head to tell him that, but the words froze in her throat. He was staring down at her with a look so hot and full of need, it shocked her. It wasn’t compassion or sympathy, it was lust, pure and simple. The golden chips in his blue eyes glowed as his gaze moved to her mouth. His cheeks were dark with lust and he pulled in a deep breath.

  He was going to kiss her. She could see his intent clear in his face, feel it in the way his arms had tightened around her.

  Instantly, she felt herself soften, felt all the cold parts deep inside her start to heat.

  “You should walk away,” he told her in a voice ragged with arousal.

  Elise was beyond words. She simply shook her head. She wanted this basic human contact. She needed it.

  Trent leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against her mouth. It felt so good, so warm, but it wasn’t nearly enough. She slid her fingers through his hair and kissed him back, holding him in place while his kiss expanded until it became her whole world.

  A sigh escaped her lips, parting them. His tongue feathered inside to taste her, and all her pent-up fear and frustration liquefied into meaninglessness, leaving her reeling, almost giddy with relief.

  He tried to pull away, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. She knew what was waiting for her outside the consuming pleasure of his kiss, and she wasn’t ready to face it. Not yet.

  She pushed him back until he hit the wall and pinned him there. Sure, he was strong enough to get away if he wanted, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to go anywhere. She had him right where she wanted him.

  Elise went up on tiptoe and kissed him harder.

  Wow. The word kept going through Trent’s mind over and over.

  Elise was a wild woman. She clung to him, kissing him like she was dying of thirst and he was the last drink of water on the planet.

  A man could get used to being needed like that. Fast.

  Her slender fingers curled aroun
d his neck, pulling him down so her lips could eat at his, kissing him with the kind of frenetic abandon Trent hadn’t witnessed since his youth. She tasted so good, satisfying some part of him he hadn’t realized was hungry. And her body… Lord, have mercy. Every sweet curve was rubbing against him, burning him up. He could feel the soft press of her breasts against his ribs, the hard little peaks of her nipples through their clothing.

  He wanted to get her naked so he could feel her breasts without any barriers.

  Her lips trailed down to his neck, and he felt the sharp sting of her teeth for an instant before she stroked the sting away with her tongue. The first playful nip had his dick standing at attention. The second nearly made him lose it right there in his shorts.

  She pulled the hem of his shirt up and kissed a meandering trail across his chest and down his stomach. Trent ripped the shirt off the rest of the way, deciding it was time to do the same to her. He’d been dying to see her breasts, to feel them in his palms, against his tongue.

  There were ten million buttons down the front of her dress and Trent cursed every one of them. The last few were more than his patience could stand, and as he ripped the dress open the last few inches, they went flying to the far corners of the room. A pretty pink bra offered her breasts up to him, and he didn’t bother trying to resist.

  He drew his fingers over the naked top curves, followed the straps up to her shoulders and slid them down. Undoing a clasp was beyond him, but with a couple of tugs, she was bare, with her bra hanging useless over her ribs.

  Wow. He’d never seen anything so pretty in his life, and he was going to take his time and enjoy the view.

  Elise tried to obscure his view by continuing her trail of kisses south, but Trent stopped her, pulling her face up so he could stare at her.

  “So beautiful,” he managed to tell her, though the words were garbled and thick.

  She gave him a smile that was somehow both demure and sexy all at the same time. She stepped back, unfastened her bra, slid her panties down and left the strappy heels on.

  Wow.

  About a million fantasies were on the verge of coming true right here and now.

  She pressed her naked body against his, making him shudder. Hot. Soft. Perfect.