"Please. I want you-"
I cut her off before she had a chance to change my mind. I tucked myself in, still hard, willing and desperate to release my desire. Somehow, I was able to speak without any of the madness inside noticeable in my voice.
"I have to be in Court tomorrow. I'll need to drive back into the city very early."
My words didn't register for a few moments. I focused on her eyes afraid that if my gaze strayed to her naked body I'd lose my resolve. It hurt to see her coming back to her senses, taking in the situation. She looked down from my face to the unseemly bulge at the front of my pants and she recoiled. She crossed her arms over her breasts and ran out of my room without saying anything. I sat down on the edge of my bed, running trembling fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes in a desperate attempt to center myself. Maybe I was the fuck-up most people thought I was. All it took was the right trigger, and I stepped on the very rules I had chosen to live by. Sex with that girl went against Department policy and against the unwritten guidelines of police work. Even if age difference and lack of emotional attachment didn't matter, although they mattered to me, by the rules of my job this could not happen. She was my partner and we were on an active mission. People could get hurt if we messed up. We could lose a conviction if we had to admit under cross examination that we had sex while waiting for the murderer to strike again.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw were Skye's panties on the floor. Whatever I had told myself didn't matter. Maybe it wasn't going to happen that night, but I was going to break my rules and have her. I picked them off the floor and took them to her bathroom. When I passed her bedroom, the door was closed, no light or sound came from behind it.
Chapter 16 Danger
Skye
Woods had to leave for his Court appointment early that morning. It helped me avoid him for a little longer. I hadn't slept well that night, tormented by shame. My body still tingled from our encounter, the sexual frustration sometimes equaled the humiliation. We had both crossed the line last night, but he was the one able to take a step back. I was the hormonally driven, sex crazed woman who took off her clothes and climbed on top of him.
After a whole night of tossing and turning, I got up at the sound of the alarm. I put on my running clothes, laced up my trainers and crawled back into bed.
How could I have been so stupid? So weak? I curled into a ball on my huge bed, and tried to gathered the will to look out the window to see if Dvorak was leaving the house.
I punched my phone to mute the alarm that told me it was time to leave the house and I stuffed it under my pillow. After he told me that he would leave early this morning, I should have cancelled the alarm, but I had other things on my mind at the time. I didn't need Woods to spell it out for me that I should skip my morning jog with Dvorak while I was alone in the complex. We had worked out a warning system and I had him on speed dial with localization enabled so he could find me in a matter of minutes if anything went wrong. It would serve him right if I went running and Dvorak attacked me. I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. Getting murdered to make Woods feel guilty was just about as stupid as I could get.
The door squeaked and I jumped to see why.
"All dressed up but not out running," Leo Dvorak said.
He looked like he walked out of a men's fitness magazine. He was a stunning specimen, a paragon of virility I would have found attractive in another context. In that particular situation, I felt only nausea and fear.
"What are you doing in my room?" I asked dumbly, but perfectly in character.
My service revolver was in the wardrobe, inside the underwear drawer. It was far out of my reach.
"I wanted to see you. I was worried when you didn't show up."
"I'm fine," I said, stumbling over my own words. "I just didn't feel like running today."
"That's ok. I don't feel much like running either."
"You shouldn't be here. My dad is going to be back soon."
He stalked closer to my bed with the grace of an enormous tiger. There was something feral peaking from behind his eyes. His whole body seemed built to hunt.
"No, he's not," he said without justifying why he thought so. "But I'm here. And I want to take care of you."
Could I fight him off? Maybe my police training and my martial arts background would be enough to take him down, but the only way I could do this was to blow my cover, or at least alienate him from us which would ruin the mission just the same. If I responded like a cop, I would jeopardize the chances of securing a conviction against him.
He laid down in bed and pulled me to his chest, spooning me. I was too terrified to consider the gesture anything other than creepy and disturbing. His erection poked into my flesh. He slung an arm around my waist, anchoring me to him. He snuck his hand under my t-shirt and grabbed my breast. He pinched my nipple and I gasped in pain. I was sure that if it was someone else doing it, I wouldn't mind.
He reached between my legs and found me bone dry. He starting rubbing my flesh, heading straight from the bundle of nerves that was the ticket to paradise. I was torn between keeping calm and dry and the worry that he might flip if he realized that I would never like what he was doing to me. A flash of insight told me how to lie to him. I closed my eyes and imagined that the man behind me was Nicholas Woods. I pushed my mind into believing that it was Nick's hard cock pressing against the small of my back. I imagined that Nick's long fingers were playing with my clit and my lips. The better I created the fantasy that Nicholas Woods desired me enough to come to my bed in the sharp morning light, the more my body reacted.
A noise like the rumbling of a torrent came from behind me when the waves of arousal drenched his fingers. He mixed long delicate caresses along the length of my labia with short intense circles around my clit. His unshaven chin scratched my shoulder.
I arched my back instinctively, wanting to feel more of Nick. His touch became lighter, almost fading away, making me hungry for more.
'Please, daddy, touch me.'
I moaned and bit my lips to keep inside my secret. That was no way for Detective Walker to behave, but she was gone. I was Sophia, a spoiled brat with daddy issues. I clutched the sheet fighting the coming orgasm. My hand slid under the pillow and I sent the preset emergency message. My thighs started to shake, my breathing came out in rapid shallow pants.
He kept fondling me, exploring me, improving the way he touched me to the point where the orgasm hit me like a hurricane. The words that I worked so hard not to say spilled out of me at the apex of my release.
"Oh, daddy, yes!"
"Daddy?" he whispered in a husky voice. "I'm going to love playing with you."
He put his hand over my throat. The fingers were wet and I could smell myself on his skin.
"What- what do you mean?"
He squeezed and my neck tightened, but the pain never came. He used the hold to keep me perfectly still. He lowered his head and his breath tickled my skin when he spoke.
"You'll see."
His face was inches from mine, his cold smile showed too many teeth. Instead of the kiss I expected, he ignored my mouth in favor of my right shoulder. His teeth sunk into my flesh. The pain was sharp and while his jaws closed around my flesh he squeezed my neck a little tighter. The tension in his body warned me that he was still holding back. I waited for the feel of torn flesh, or for the blackout that was going to come if he kept squeezing my neck. Suddenly, he moved away from me.
I coughed taking a few desperately grateful breaths. When I looked up, he was there, watching me. The male model appearance was still there, but the beast was closer to the surface. He licked his lips when I shivered. I mirrored the gesture praying I was a good enough liar with my eyes open.
"This is our little secret," he said.
There wasn't even a shadow of a question in his tone. I nodded enthusiastically.
He left without another word. I held my breath while I followed the sound of his steps down the s
tairs. I snuck out of my room and crawled on the floor to peer at the room below. He didn't head for the front door, instead he went right into the kitchen. I strained my hearing but no sounds reached me. I dared to get up from the floor and tiptoed into the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place and there was no trace of him.
I went back upstairs, got the gun from the drawer and shoved it in the back of my jeans then I went to the mirror. The trace of his fingers on my neck were already disappearing. I took some pictures with my phone, but I knew that none of them would be admissible as evidence. It would be just my word against his.
I checked my phone, but there was no message from Woods. He was probably already in Court and he had his phone off.
I took a few deep breaths, and I ordered a taxi.
Chapter 17 Too late
Nicholas
The thought of leaving Skye alone in that house ate at me. Even if what had happened between us the night before hadn't happened, I would have been worried. She had Dvorak's attention. I had left her a note in the kitchen asking her not to go out jogging. One corner of the paper was under her sports bottle and another under the coffee jar. I trusted she was smart enough not to approach him while I was away, but I needed to make sure. She could call me names if she wanted to, and accuse me of treating her like a child. I didn't care what she thought of me as long as she was safe.
I went into the station, where Katherine was already waiting for me with a coffee and the Manetti file.
"His lawyer challenged the chain of evidence for the gun," she said.
I nodded and looked over the file, to refresh my memory. I tried not to think about my current case and I was grateful to my partner that she didn't ask. She knew me well enough after so many years to know that I needed to immerse myself back in the old case. There is nothing more frustrating to a cop than losing a conviction because of your own testimony on the stand. Juries were made up of normal people, with their own preconceptions about cops. I had to make sure they see a real police officer in me, not the half crazy profiler that came out with insane theories which just happened to prove correct.
Everything other than the Manetti case disappeared until the judge gave me permission to leave. As I walked out of the courtroom, thoughts of Skye hit me in the gut. I checked my phone and I saw the SOS message. I started to run toward my car. Was I too late? The message had been sent three hours earlier. Should I send backup or was it the sort of help she'd need from me to help her keep cover? Last time she was in a life or death situation, she had chosen to keep her cover and she got shot. My head was spinning as I ran.
"Woods," Katherine called after me.
"Walker is in trouble," I shouted over my shoulder.
Katherine caught up with me and she grabbed my arm, trying to stop me.
"She's ok. She's with Doctor Bachman."
I skidded to a halt.
"With Bachman?" I asked, confused and frightened.
Why was she with the Medical Examiner if she was ok?
"Let's go there. They're waiting for us."
I let her drive, and tried to get my voice under control before speaking again.
"What happened?"
"Dvorak came in the house after you left. I don't know all the details."
We only went into the Medical Examiner's office for autopsies. An irrational part of my mind told me that I was going to find Skye on the slab, with an Y incision in her chest, just like the other girls.
Even after I saw her sitting in a chair with a cup in her hand, I couldn't calm down. I scanned her body from head to toe and I noticed the bump of a bandage on her right shoulder. I caught a micro expression of pain as she took a sip of coffee. Something was wrong with her throat.
"Are you ok?" Katherine asked, filling in the silence with just the right thing to say.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Skye said.
"We're waiting for the results before calling the DA," Captain Jackson said.
I hadn't even registered his presence.
"What results?" I asked not taking my eyes off Skye.
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat avoiding my gaze after a quick glance.
"The bitemark."
"Tell me what happened," I asked her in the gentlest way I could.
She clenched her jaw in that set expression of defiance she got when she was doing something unpleasant. It was a funny face when she did it in our kitchen, focused on flipping a pancake in the air. It was not funny in a room full of corpses.
"He came in after you left. He showed up in my room. I was still in bed."
My fists clenched and I wanted to kick myself. I should have taken her with me into the city. What was I thinking leaving her there, at the mercy of that monster?
"He came next to me. He took me in his arms and he started touching me."
The room began to spin and my blood roared. I wanted to see Dvorak dead. I wanted to rip his heart out of his chest.
"At the end, he bit my shoulder hard, then he left."
I wanted to be satisfied with that account, but I had been a cop for too long. I had to know even though I didn't know if I could handle it. Fortunately my partner was there. She had dealt with many victims of violence, and more than once she had been targeted herself. She had the strength of spirit and the compassion to continue an interrogatory I was emotionally unable to sustain.
"How did he touch you? What did he do?"
Skye closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Her voice was level when she told us about being held in the monster's arms, about the intimate way in which he had touched her. When she mentioned that he choked her, I looked again at her alabaster skin. Nothing showed on her skin. In my many years as a cop I had seen enough victims of strangulation or partial strangulation to know about the damage done on the inside and the lack of signs on the outside. Choking was a powerful form of control, that left deep marks on a person's psyche. Rapists used it as a form of control. That bastard was lucky I hadn't seen her text in time or he'd be dead now.
Chapter 18 Everybody knows
Skye
Everything I told them was the truth. I even told them that I pretended to enjoy what he was doing to me. They all knew enough about biology and human sexuality to know that the only way to lie convincingly was to show physical signs of arousal. I wasn't the first victim to get away like that. For the first time since I got shot I was grateful for the time spent in archives. Reading serial killer files was a disgusting way to pass the time, but I was a glutton for knowledge. I thought I had prepared myself to deal with the aftermath of such monsters. The interviews with surviving victims had been the worst parts of the files, reading about what they had to do to stay alive. I had always wondered how they could let themselves be used and tortured and yet managed to convince their captors that they were enjoying it. Part of me thought that there was something wrong with them and that they had really enjoyed the treatment. My colleagues probably thought the same about me. I couldn't look any of them in the eye. I didn't want to see disgust or pity. Most of all, I didn't want to look into Woods's eyes. He of all people would have reason to think that I had enjoyed it. Our encounter from the previous night… The way I abandoned myself to him after he treated me like a slut.
I was in my own world when the results came back. The bite mark on my shoulder matched the ones on the victims. We had probable cause to get his DNA. Robinson and Woods went to Gracenote to arrest him. I went to the gym and hit and kicked punching bags until I couldn't move my arms or feet. I shuffled to the shower and let the water fall over me. My skin was beginning to hurt from the pressure but the noise of the torrent blanked away other thoughts. I had no idea how long I'd been away.
Out of habit, I crawled toward my desk in Evidence.
"Hey, Walker," Sergeant Long. "The Captain waits for you in the dark room by interrogation one."
I smiled and nodded at him.
"Thanks, Sarge."
Being in the squad room changed something inside me. It wa
s like the switch had been flipped and I reverted to my former self. The smile on my face wasn't insincere. It was my usual response. It was part of the real me, the California girl whose biggest challenge when joining the Force was that she had to give up flip flops and actually wear grown up shoes.
I was still smiling when I opened the door of the dark room. Captain Jackson, Paul St-James, the Assistant District Attorney, and Nicholas Woods were looking at Leonard Dvorak's interrogation from behind the two-way mirror. They acknowledged my presence with a nod and I joined them as Katherine Robinson questioned Dvorak while his lawyer interjected, breaking the flow or advising his client not to answer.
"They're not getting anything from him," the Captain said.
Woods seemed frustrated. I had seen enough recordings to know when he was not getting his way. As if Katherine sensed her partner's distress, she left the room. Captain Jackson turned off the sound coming from the other room, to give the legal privacy required for client-lawyer conversations. The door opened and the detectives came in. They didn't seem surprised to see me.
"There's something about this guy that doesn't fit," Woods said.
"After all the resources we put into this investigation, I hope you're not saying he's innocent, detective," St-James said.
Woods shook his head and looked at Dvorak through the mirror.
"He's not innocent," he said. "But we're missing something. He's too sure of himself."
"It's just a bluff. He knows that all we have to do is wait for the DNA results," Captain Jackson said.
Woods shook his head again. "The DNA only ties him to two of the victims."
"Do you have a plan to get a confession?" St-James asked.
Katherine shrugged and Woods kept looking through the mirror. I broke the silence.
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