Skin Deep

by Daniels, A. J.

  “‘Ashleigh Berg. Twenty-five. Cause of death multiple lacerations to her stomach and chest. Traces of Attracurium besilate still present,’” Parker reads.

  “So he tortures them by making them feel every cut, every burn, but they’re unable to move the whole time?” Matt asks from the other side of the room.

  “Do we have any DNA tying Adam to these murders?” Parker looks up.

  “Not yet. He’s good at covering his tracks but he’s bound to screw up and leave us something,” Matt replies.

  Parker drops the file on the table, “Keep looking. When we bring that fucker in for questioning I want to be able to charge him with something.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  OH HOW HE MISSED this. The game of predator and prey. The pure rush of adrenaline every time they fought for their lives. Every time they ran and he had to drag them back.

  Those were the ones he enjoyed best, when they were so determined to fight they actually got a couple hits in. When they managed to leave their mark on him as he did on them. Claw marks down his forearms, a bruise or two. It was a trophy of sorts, and he wore them with pride.

  He didn’t care much for the ones who just accepted their fate. Those were the ones he killed quickly. But the other ones. The ones who fought. Those were the ones he drew out. The ones he tortured. They begged for their lives every damn time, but he never gave them what they wanted. After all, it was never about them. It was about chasing the rush. It made him feel alive.

  He didn’t feel much, but when he chased his kill, when he put knife to soft flesh, when the blood flowed, that was when he felt. Those were the only times he felt truly alive.

  His latest victim was no exception. She fought beautifully. But in the end her attempts were no match for his pure strength. And when he finally managed to get her strapped down and the IV in her sweet, delicate arm, the pure horror reflected in her eyes at the realization she was quickly losing control of her body was exhilarating.

  Cold, emerald eyes stare up at him from the once feisty female lying on the cold, metal surface. His impressive bindings still around her wrists and ankles, the collar still tied around her neck. Her long, dark hair felt like silk sliding through his rough fingers. Her skin was so smooth and soft and untouched. Until the first slide of his blade.

  His work of beauty.

  He should’ve been a surgeon. His lines were so clean. So precise. He’d reached perfection. He was finally ready to claim his prize. Ashley, or Danielle, or whatever she called herself now.

  He takes a deep breath, inhaling the fresh scent of death still lingering in the air around him.

  He was ready to drag her back here. To claim her. She thought she could run and hide from him. That her RCMP friends would keep her safe.

  Little did she know there was nowhere in this country, no city too big or too small, where he wouldn’t or couldn’t find her. He’d always find her. For something that magnificent, that beautiful would not go concealed from him.

  A slow smirk pulls at his mouth; he would just have to kill the boyfriend first. Men were not his hunt of choice, but he had to get rid of the hindrance. He would just have to make it quick.

  A bullet wound or two should do it. If not, then his trusty knife would do the job.

  Adam grins. On second thought; knife first, then bullet would be much more rewarding.

  …

  Parker and his team tried everything they could to track down Adam’s whereabouts, but he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. There’d been no hits on any of his cards or his passport at any airport or border crossing.

  Despite knowing Adam is still out there, Ashley’s in a surprisingly good mood. Although, she could’ve done without waking up alone in bed this morning. His hours at the department suck since he made Staff Sergeant, but they’ve been making it work somehow.

  He’d run down the street to Starbucks and brought her back her favourite drink. Kissing her forehead, he’d made sure her alarm was set before leaving for the station.

  When her alarm goes off she has just enough time to reheat her salted caramel mocha in the microwave before jumping in her car and getting on the road if she’s going to beat the traffic.

  On her typical morning commute to the office she always ends up stuck in traffic, without fail. Except for today. It was a smooth drive downtown and she was parked and in the elevator within twenty-five minutes. Which was a huge difference from the typical forty-minute commute.

  “Yo, Dani! Sunday night football this week?” Jay calls from the coffee maker behind the reception desk.

  Ever since he and the team set up a twenty-four-hour protection detail for her one of the members of the team is always supposed to be with her. Even on the commute into the office but everyone else was called away when another body was found. By the time Jay had called her she was already on her own and just decided to meet him at the office.

  She rolls her eyes, stopping at the door to her office. “And hear you brag, for the hundredth time, about your boys being first in their division and the league? No, thanks.”

  “You just don’t want to see us kick your team’s ass.”

  “That too,” she throws back before shutting her office door and walking around her desk to wake up the computer and go through the countless emails and requests she knows are waiting for her.

  While she’s sipping her coffee and waiting for her computer to boot up her eyes land on a single, long-stemmed, red rose sitting on her desk, and her blood runs cold.

  There’s only one person she knows who would leave a single, red rose for her to find.

  Under the rose is a small typed note.

  I told you I would kill him.

  “Jay!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Why can’t he ever find his keys when he’s in a hurry?

  He decided to come home before the next briefing but forgot Danielle was in the office today. Usually he just throws his keys down anywhere, then she finds them, and gets frustrated at him for never putting them on the entry table.

  Eventually, she ends up putting them there herself. But she’s not here, which means he has no fucking clue where his keys are.

  He’s bent over the couch lifting seat cushions when a sharp pain penetrates his side. He looks down in time to see a knife, covered in his blood, being pulled from his body.

  “Parker, I presume.”

  His eyes follow the knife, past the hand holding it, and all the way up the arm and shoulder to his face until they land on eyes as black as midnight.

  Adam.

  His hands immediately fly to the open wound that’s dripping with fresh blood. As far as wounds go it’s a clean cut but it still hurts like a bitch.

  “You know you’re taller than what I expected,” Adam continues.

  Parker’s training takes over and he lands a solid right hook to Adam’s jaw.

  Adam stumbles back, dropping the knife, and Parker takes the opportunity to land another right hook to Adam’s face then an uppercut to his stomach. But Adam starts laughing hysterically when he straightens back up, pulling a 9mm from the waistband of his jeans.

  The shooting pain from his side is a killer, but he’s trying to rely on his training and ignore the pain until he’s taken out Adam. This guy has been a ghost for six months and then suddenly shows up at their house with a knife and a gun.

  “Well, don’t you play dirty?” Adam sneers.

  “You’re the one who brought a knife to a fist fight. What? Didn’t think you were man enough to fight me without the weapons?” Parker knows he’s getting him riled up but he can’t help it. It’s been months since he’s wanted to get this guy in his line of sight, and show him what a real man looks like, for beating Ashley all those years ago. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re not a man at all. You’re a coward who hits women and then stalks them for years.”

  Adam snickers. “She liked it when I hit her. She got off on it. And when I would throw her down and bind
her hands she’d resist and say no at first, but I could tell, secretly, she wanted it.”

  “You’re a sick son of a bitch.”

  Adam sneers. “Maybe, but I’ll be the one walking away alive and after I’ve killed you I’m going after her. She’ll be mine again. And you . . . well, you’ll be dead.”

  Adam levels his gun at Parker and pulls the trigger, the bullet connecting with his shoulder with enough force to cause him to fall back.

  Adam lands a kick to his ribs forcing him to roll onto his back. Blackness starts clouding his vision and shivers rake his body. He can’t ignore the pain any longer. Adam was right, he wasn’t able to keep his promise to her.

  Adam leans in to whisper in his ear, “You lose, Parker. She’s mine.”

  As if she heard his last thought she appears like an angel in his vision. Long, dark hair flowing over her shoulder. She’s calling his name but he can’t respond to her. Then his whole world goes black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SHE FEELS LIKE SHE got run over by a semitruck. Her body aches in places she never knew could hurt this much. Her head is pounding and she feels like she’s going to get sick at any minute.

  The memory of what happened earlier starts to play behind her eyelids like a scene in a horror movie. The note under the rose. Yelling for Jay. Frantically calling Parker’s cell phone with no answer. Jay told her to wait and that he was getting his team together, but she couldn’t wait. So while he had his back turned she snuck out of the office and raced home.

  Running through the front door to see him lying in a puddle of blood. His blood. She’s frantically looking around for her cell phone but she couldn’t dial 9-1-1 because the room spun and went black.

  Parker.

  He wasn’t breathing and there was so much blood.

  A sob leaves her throat at the thought of him lying dead in their house. Oh, God. She refuses to believe that he’s actually dead. He can’t be dead.

  The sound of a floorboard creaking makes her eyes snap open and scan the room. She has no idea where she is and it’s too dark to see anything. Every time she tries to move her arms and legs they get snapped back to the position they were previously in.

  Both her wrists and ankles are bound. Tightly. She tries yanking on the bindings, but they don’t budge. Instead, she can feel the rope cutting into her skin every time she moves. The knots tighten with every pull.

  Her heart races, and her breathing picks up as she tries, unsuccessfully, to pull again and again at the bindings holding her down. Her wrists and ankles are throbbing with pain, but she doesn’t care. She needs to get at least one wrist free. Her body visibly shakes with adrenaline when try after try fails.

  Where the fuck is she?

  “You can struggle to your heart’s content but you’re not going to loosen my bindings, Danielle.”

  That voice.

  Adam.

  Her head snaps to the side. It’s too dark to see into the corner, but she knows he’s there. She can feel his eyes on her now. The bastard is smiling too; he always did enjoy watching people struggle. Financially, emotionally, physically. He enjoyed it all.

  “Where am I, Adam?”

  “You can scream all you want. There’s no one around for miles.”

  “Why are you doing this?” She trembles.

  “Because I can, Ashley. Because nobody will stop me.”

  “So you kidnapped me because you can?”

  “I told you I’d have you again, Ashley.”

  “You’re delusional and a sick fuck.” She’s still trying to twist and turn her wrists in hopes that at least one of the knots will relax. She just needs it to loosen about an inch and then maybe she can wiggle her hand out.

  “Possibly, but I was right. I do have you again.”

  “You killed him.”

  “It was . . .” Adam inhales deeply before continuing his recount, “exhilarating watching his life slip away, knowing I caused it to happen.”

  Her eyes burn with unshed tears, and a piercing scream leaves her throat. She shuts her eyes as tears stream down her cheeks. Adam killed him, and for what? Because she was selfish. She didn’t want to let him go. She didn’t want to lose him but she ended up losing him anyway. Adam was true to his word.

  “No, don’t shut your eyes. Look at me!” Adam moves away from where he was seated in the darkened corner. The bed dips when he sits and grabs a hold of her face with one of his hands, squishing her cheeks together. “Look at me, Ashley! I want to see those pretty, green eyes when I tell you how much he fought for his life. How much he fought for you. He put up quite a good fight too. Bastard even got in a good hit or two, but I was stronger. Oh, Ashley! You should’ve seen it,” Adam recounts enthusiastically.

  “No!” she shrieks, turning her head, yanking her face out of his grasp.

  “That rush of adrenaline after the first shot, the first stab, the first spill of blood. There’s nothing else like it.” Adam’s fingers move to her stomach and run up her torso under her shirt. “And the blood . . . it was so warm leaving his body. It’s amazing how as the blood was leaving his body I was watching the life leave his eyes.” Adam’s hand finds her breast as his finger starts circling her nipple over her bra.

  Nausea threatens its way up from her stomach. Adam just murdered the man she loves with all her heart, and now those same hands are touching her while he recounts everything he did to Parker. Adam doesn’t even show an ounce of remorse for what he did.

  “You feel so good, Ashley. I can’t wait to taste you again. It’s been too fucking long.”

  She pulls frantically at the bindings holding her in place and thrashes from side to side in a wasted effort to get away from him. “No!”

  He leans in close to her ear, she can feel his breath on her cheek. “Remember what happened the last time you said no to me, Ashley. Nobody says no to me. Nobody.”

  Adam is in a frenzy now, ripping her shirt from her body and yanking her jeans down to her ankles. Somewhere in the distance she hears the button from her Levi’s hit the wood floor.

  “Adam, please! Please don’t!” she begs, but he doesn’t hear her.

  His eyes darken and a smirk pulls at his mouth.

  She’s trying to kick out and thrust her knees up from under him in hopes that something connects, but it doesn’t. Adam has given her bindings very little give, making any movement useless and extremely painful.

  From somewhere in the rest of the house comes the first five seconds of Click Click Boom from Saliva. His ringtone. She remembers that it used to be his favourite song years ago. So much so that when he got his new phone Adam just had to have it as his ringtone.

  “Fuck!” Adam yells getting off the bed and slamming the door behind him.

  Tears are still streaming down her face, coming so fast that they’re clouding her vision. She’s grateful to whomever is on the other side of that phone call and she’s hoping that they keep Adam on the phone long enough for her to figure out a way to get of here. Better yet, she hopes that he gets called away from wherever this is

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “How is he?”

  Voices float in from somewhere in the darkness. A constant beep of a machine sounds from next to him. He tries to pry his eyes open, but they feel so heavy.

  “Multiple wounds . . . barely beating . . . lucky to be alive . . . missed . . . his artery . . . able to stop internal bleed . . .”

  She’s mine.

  He’s not sure how long he’s been out, but every inch of his body fucking hurts, and he has a bad case of dry mouth. He tries opening his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a low groan.

  “Parker?” Kat is sitting next to his hospital bed with a magazine laying open on her legs. Jay, Alice, and Mike are walking back into the room when his eyes finally focus.

  “Need. Water.” He struggles to get the words out, past his dry throat. His voice sounds rough and not at all like his.

  “I’ll call Dr. Reynolds,
” Alice says before leaving.

  “How are you feeling?” Jay asks, now standing behind Kat’s chair.

  Before he can think of a reply Mike chimes in, “Dude, what the fuck?”

  Kat looks at Mike, annoyed, before turning back to Parker. “I believe what Mike meant was what happened? Where’s Dani?”

  Danielle!

  She’s mine.

  He tries reaching over to the bed side table where he hopes his phone is located, but the damn IV they have him connected to keeps pulling, preventing him from getting hold of his cell.

  “Phone.”

  Kat gives him a skeptical look before reaching over to grab his phone, handing it to him. Not even five seconds later he’s holding the ringing phone to his ear, praying that she decided to go straight to Anne’s after work instead of stopping by the house first.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Danielle. Sorry I couldn’t come to the phone but if you leave a message—”

  Voicemail

  Fuck! He hits redial and tries again, but her voicemail comes on every time. Son of a bitch! He hits redial again but he knows in his gut that Adam already has her. He told Parker himself he was going to take her, right before Parker passed out from the pain.

  His head is no longer foggy, he’s wide awake and alert now. He promised he would always protect her and right now he’s failing. But if he’s going to do this and live to tell about it then he’s going to need some major help.

  “She’s not going to answer,” Jay eventually says, defeated.

  “What do you mean she’s not going to answer? You were supposed to be watching her, Jay,” Parker accuses.

  “I was at the office with her when she got Adam’s note. I told her to wait till I got a hold of the team before we met them at the house but when I turned around she was gone.” Jay hangs his head.

  “Parker, if Adam has Dani— ”

  “If he hurts her, Nicole, he won’t live to see another day,” Parker reassures her.