by Jane Godman
The naked ones.
Great. More reminders of what she wanted but shouldn’t have. She’d already seen every inch of Damien and Marissa’s naked bodies. So had Lucian, but he still moved next to her to take another look. Too bad Damien and Marissa’s personal porn was quickly becoming her own.
Lucian’s, too, judging from his quick intake of breath.
“I never had any desire to do sex shots,” she mumbled. But strangely, the desire was there now.
How would Lucian and she look on the other end of that camera?
In that exact pose?
With his erection sliding in and out of her until she screamed with pleasure?
Olivia shuffled through the rest of the photos in the folder, her attention finally landing on yet something she definitely didn’t want. The picture of Damien and Marissa dead. Since she’d had such a strong physical reaction to the other shots, she automatically flinched, bracing herself to feel the pain from the gunshot and the knife wounds.
But nothing came.
Well, nothing connected to the killer anyway, but Olivia did take a harder look at the photo itself.
Something wasn’t right.
“Where are their clothes and their jewelry?” she asked. “Marissa was wearing a necklace and earrings in the photos from the party.”
“They’re here.” Lucian thumbed through the photos and extracted one. It was their clothes all right, tossed in a heap on the other side of the desk from where they’d been murdered.
“The cops photographed the crime scene as they found it,” he explained. “But obviously it’s too neat of a pile for Damien and Marissa to have made it.”
Olivia couldn’t agree more. “Damien ripped her dress—I heard it—and they clawed at each other. Their clothes would have been strewn everywhere.”
And that meant the killer had piled them up that way.
But why?
It must have been done after the murder, so why would a killer take the time to do that? After all, gunshots had been fired. There’d probably been shouts. Screams, even. The killer should have been in a hurry to get out of there.
“Someone took Marissa’s purse and Damien’s wallet,” Lucian added. “I figured that was maybe to make it look like a robbery.”
“Probably. But that wasn’t a robbery. This was personal.”
He made another sound, of agreement this time. “Whoever killed them could have gone through the clothes, looking for something. DNA was in its infancy then so the killer probably wouldn’t have been worried about that, but he or she wouldn’t have wanted a piece of incriminating evidence left behind.”
“Too bad that didn’t happen. If it had, the killer would have been caught and Damien and Marissa would probably be resting in peace.”
And Lucian and she wouldn’t have met.
Now, that caused a flurry of emotions inside her. Conflicting ones.
“Yes,” he said as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. And he probably did. He’d been right about everything else so far.
Damn him.
But Olivia wasn’t ready to surrender. Perhaps never would be. “When the killer’s caught, I’m out of here. Understand?”
Oh, it sounded good and would have played a whole heck of a lot better if Lucian hadn’t leaned in and kissed her. It was hardly a peck, but it packed a punch even though he was barely touching her.
“That was me,” he assured in that cocky tone that only he and a Greek god could have managed. “And that was you responding to me. You’re sure you really want out of this?”
She huffed, considered arguing, but his phone vibrated. That’s when she realized he was standing so close to her that she could feel the vibration. His body was right against hers again.
Mercy, they weren’t any better at resisting each other than Marissa and Damien.
Without taking his gaze off her, Lucian answered the call, and she heard the man’s voice. What she couldn’t hear was what he said to Lucian that made his mouth tightened.
“Yes, text me the pictures,” Lucian said a moment later, and he pressed the button to end the call.
“More pictures?” Olivia had to groan. “Unless they’re shots of the killer, I’m not sure I want to see them.” She’d already had her fill of blood and death.
“These aren’t photos of Marissa and Damien. The PI found them, and they’re of your apartment.” Lucian paused seemingly trying to let her know he was carefully choosing words again.
Definitely not a good sign.
“What happened?” Olivia demanded. “Why does your PI have photos of my apartment?”
Lucian caught onto her shoulders. Paused again. “Because someone—or something—has been in there.”
Chapter Six
Olivia made a strangled sound and tried to get away from him, but Lucian held on. Those few words, someone—or something—has been in there, hit her pretty hard. Of course, with everything else that’d happened, she must have known that someone probably hadn’t paid her a social visit while she’d been gone.
“Someone broke in,” he explained, and this time when she struggled to get away from him, Lucian let her go.
She didn’t go far. Only to the window. And she frantically shook her head. “Great. Just great. How bad it is?” But she waved him off when she glanced back at him. “That bad, huh?”
Yes, if what the PI had told him was true, it was bad. But Lucian decided to wait for the pictures to see for himself.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Lucian glanced down at the screen when he heard the dinging sound, and the first photo loaded fraction by fraction. “It’s Marissa.”
That got Olivia hurrying back toward him, and he could see her trying to steel herself for what she might see on his phone screen. But it wasn’t a single photo. It was a wall of them, literally.
Dozens of pictures.
All were of the same shot. Marissa naked and sitting on Damien’s desk. Her legs spread. She was touching herself with her right hand while making a playful come-to-me gesture with her left one. A gesture no doubt meant for Damien who was photographing her. Lucian had seen that screw-me-now look often enough in their other personal photos.
But not this specific photo.
“This wasn’t in the ones you already showed me,” Olivia said.
“No.” And that didn’t help with the already too tight knot in his gut. “Obviously, Damien and Marissa left another stash of photos somewhere.”
Photos that someone had used to wallpaper Olivia’s living room.
It left him with several questions—who’d done this, why and where had the person gotten the pictures?
His phone made the dinging sound again, and Lucian wished he could shield Olivia from whatever was about to pop up on that screen. But he couldn’t. This was her place. A violation meant for her. And she had a right to see it. Besides, it might eliminate any doubts she had about staying with him.
“My kitchen,” she said, watching the second photo load.
More pictures. These of a naked Damien. Lucian doubted that it was a coincidence that Damien’s dick had been placed right next to a wooden block of knives. They were clearly dealing with a sick son of a bitch, but Lucian hadn’t needed the photos to convince him of that.
Olivia pressed her lips together a moment and checked the time. “I left my apartment only about eight hours ago. Someone’s been busy. Someone who knew how to get past the security code so the alarm wouldn’t be triggered.”
“It’s computerized. It can be hacked just like your laptop,” he reminded her.
That robbed her of what little color was in her cheeks. And Lucian knew why. She hadn’t been there for this particular break-in, but that’s only because she’d come to his house. Plus, there was the other possibility.
That this wasn’t the first and only break-in.
If his PI and this sick picture plasterer had gotten past the security so easily, then it could have happened before. Mul
tiple times. If the killer had been watching Lucian—and he was positive that he or she had been—then it stood to reason that Olivia had been in the killer’s sights, too.
His phone buzzed, and when Lucian saw the PI’s name, William Salvetti, on the screen, he immediately answered it. He also put his arm around Olivia, hoping that would help. Not likely, though.
“There are more pictures,” the PI said, skipping the greeting. “Thought you’d better see these as I’m scanning my phone around the room.”
Shit. If this was worse that the living room and kitchen, then Lucian figured Olivia was going to need a lot more than his arms when this was done.
The room that the PI showed them was Olivia’s bedroom. And there were photos on the walls here, too. It took Lucian a moment to zoom in, and the moment he did, Olivia gasped.
Not Marissa or Damien this time.
“That’s me,” she said on a rise of breath.
Yes, it was. Photos that the newspapers had run after her attack.
And then the worst of them all.
A very recent photo of Olivia asleep in her bed.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
Yes, but Lucian didn’t think God had anything to do with this.
“The intruder watched me sleep,” she said, sounding pretty hysterical.
Lucian’s feelings went in a different direction. He wanted to beat this moron to a bloody pulp. And it didn’t help that it might have been a woman doing the spying. Because if it was indeed Estelle, it still meant a killer had been watching Olivia. Close enough to touch her.
And plenty close enough to kill.
“I didn’t hear the camera,” Olivia said, shaking her head. “I didn’t hear anything, but I take sleeping pills sometimes when the nightmares get bad.”
Lucian decided not to mention that the killer could have slipped her some extra pills to put her into a deeper sleep. It was obvious that this incident wasn’t going to help with those nightmares.
“There’s more,” the PI said. “And it’s not good.”
Lucian choked back a groan. He’d been sure they’d seen the worst of it. Apparently not.
The PI panned to the photos on the opposite wall from her bed. This wasn’t a single copied photo like the others in the kitchen and living room but rather a series of burst shots that appeared to have been taken with a fast shutter lens. Or maybe a video camera where the frames had been culled out one by one.
And the shots weren’t of Olivia sleeping, either.
These were of Damien and Marissa again and they were naked on the office floor in these, too. But these weren’t the personal porn shots that Olivia and he had already seen. The room was dark and the shots taken from a different angle than the sex ones.
In these, Damien and Marissa were being murdered.
The first showed their startled expressions in the milky light. The surprise, morphing to shock. Then, fear.
Fear that Lucian could feel pulsing through him right now.
The next shot had Damien moving protectively in front of Marissa. Frame by frame. Fraction by fraction. Her, lifting her hand in a defensive posture. Him, scrambling to keep her alive.
Yes, Lucian felt that, too.
The photos of the action were taken so close together that it looked like a movie film strung out for them to watch. And Lucian knew this particular movie was going to have a really bad ending.
Still, he could only stand there and watch as the PI panned over more shots. Damien and Marissa, trying to get away from their attacker. Their mouths, opened. Shouting words—maybe even their killer’s name—that were nothing now but eerie silence in the photographs.
Then, the photos changed.
The next ones seemed to have been taken several minutes later. Damien and Marissa were no longer shouting or trying to escape the butchering they’d just gotten. They were dying. Each still moving, barely, each bleeding out from knife wounds. Both shot. Lucian could see the life draining from their already hooded eyes.
While their killer continued to photograph them. There were at least a dozen more pictures. It appeared that Damien died first. His lifeless head, sagging onto the bloody floor. Marissa didn’t last much longer, though. But there was still enough life left in her eyes for Lucian to see the sheer venom that she aimed at their killer.
Was she making her pact with the devil in that moment?
All that hatred and energy tossed out there, like some kind of vile cosmic ripple. Well, it’d rippled all right.
Right into Olivia and him.
Olivia made a shivery sound, cleared her throat. She was trembling and no doubt feeling everything that Marissa had felt in that moment. However, there was one huge distinction. Marissa had looked her killer in the eyes and Olivia hadn’t.
Not yet anyway.
She cleared her throat again when she looked up at him. “Did the cops have those photos?”
“No.” Lucian had seen everything the cops had, and there was nothing like this in their files or the storage boxes that he’d found in the office building.
“Did you see enough?” Salvetti asked.
“Yes,” didn’t seem nearly a strong enough answer, but Lucian mumbled it anyway. “Go through the entire place. Check for prints, fibers, anything that’ll tell us who did this.”
“Will do. I’ll call if I find anything.”
Lucian pushed the end call button but didn’t move. Even though he could no longer see the pictures, they were there, branded in his head along with all the other thoughts he kept having.
“The killer could have murdered me in my sleep.” Her words hung in the air. Heavy and thick.
Lucian tried that hug again but didn’t dare risk kissing her. Not with this much emotion smothering them.
“But he didn’t,” Lucian reminder her.
That was the good news. However, Lucian figured the bad news was that the killer was just saving her death for another day.
Like tomorrow.
The anniversary of Marissa and Damien’s murders.
“They saw their killer,” Olivia said, her voice barely a whisper. “The sadistic bastard photographed most of the murder.”
Most.
Judging from the sequence of the shots, the camera had maybe been put down long enough to deliver the gunshots and the stab wounds. The killer could have been acting alone.
So, a gun, knife and a camera. Definitely premeditated which meant that both Estelle and Harvey could have manufactured alibis before they even showed up at Damien’s office that morning.
Not that Lucian had ever excluded them as suspects anyway.
But which one of them had been cold-blooded enough to take those photos only moments before taking two lives? And then continue those photos afterward?
“This was another warning,” Olivia said. “For me to back off.” A helpless little sound quivered in her throat. “As if Marissa would let me do that. Even now, I can feel her shoving her way in.”
Yes. Lucian could feel the same with Damien. The thoughts and images seemed to get stronger when he was around photos of them or Marissa’s journal. And when he dreamed. Or was anywhere near Olivia or even thinking about her.
Okay, that was pretty much all the time.
“If I thought keeping my distance from you was the answer,” Lucian told her, “then I’d do it. But I’m afraid the killer would use that to divide and conquer.”
“Divide and kill,” she corrected.
She groaned, put her hands on each side of her head and started to pace. “Marissa wants sex now.”
While that sounded tempting–very tempting—Lucian figured they needed to push Marissa’s sexual appetite to the back burner. Or at least try. If that didn’t work, he figured sex would happen. Damien was certainly pushing for it, too, and Lucian’s own body wasn’t putting up much of a protest.
“Why don’t we let Marissa and Damien take over?” Lucian figured that would get a reaction from Olivia, and it absolutely did.
“That’s still up for debate, remember?” He took her by the shoulders again, forcing eye contact. “One way or another, we have to see the killer so we can stop him or her from attacking again, and right now Damien and Marissa are the only ones who know who the killer is.”
Olivia looked at him as if she was certain that he had indeed lost his mind. “Marissa doesn’t want to show us the killer. She wants sex. If she’d planned on showing us anything about the killer, wouldn’t she have already done that?”
“You’d think. But this is Marissa we’re talking about.”
The look continued, and Olivia threw up her hands. “So, what are you saying? That we just lie down on the floor and let them completely possess us? If we let them take over, it’ll be about the sex,” she insisted.
Lucian couldn’t argue with that. And while that would be satisfying, it wouldn’t last. He’d already experienced that. The intimate contact with Olivia only seemed to make Damien and Marissa’s need grow stronger.
Of course, some of that might be only him. And this attraction for Olivia. Still, Marissa and Damien had the loudest say in this right now.
“Let’s try an experiment,” Lucian suggested. “Just relax and open your mind while pushing away the heat.”
“Right,” she said with a whole boatload of skepticism.
Skepticism that he sure felt. “We have to try. The killer broke into your apartment, watched you sleep and left those mementos to torment us.” He took her hands. “Now, let’s try to turn the tables on him or her.”
Even though there was plenty of cynicism still left in Olivia’s eyes, she dragged in a long breath, nodded, and then her eyelids drifted down. Lucian wasn’t sure what the first image she saw was, but his was a doozy.
He was getting a blow job from Marissa.
And he could feel her warm mouth on him. Or rather her warm mouth on Damien.
Lucian pushed back, trying not to give into the sensations. Hard to do, though, with that clever mouth working him hard, and being able to feel everything that Damien had felt.