Bitten by Cupid (25 page)

Immediately her body stiffened. The bed was mussed. Now, she wasn’t a make-the-bed-so-a-quarter-can-bounce-on-it kind of person. But her small room was neat, all her clothes hung up and organized by color, shoes in racks beneath them. She’d made her bed that morning, pulling the vibrant blue comforter covered with pink flowers over her pillows and tossing the shams over them.

Both shams were askew, and there was a big wrinkle at the foot of her bed. Fortifying herself with a sip of wine, she walked over to the second bedroom door and knocked. She could hear laughter and a comedienne, Margaret Cho, she thought, talking about a disastrous date.

Berta yanked open the door. “Yeah?”

“I was just wondering if you’d had some reason to go into my room today. Not that I’m accusing, mind you. In fact, I hope you did go in there.”

“I don’t have no business in your bedroom. I told you that from the outset, you don’t go in my room, I don’t go in yours. For no reason.”

“Okay, just checking. Good—”

The door had already closed.

I really need to find a new place.
She went back to her room, looking around. Nothing was missing as far as she could tell. Most of her jewelry was costume, only valuable to her. Her clothes weren’t valuable to anyone but a clotheshorse who wore a size seven. That definitely excluded Berta.

She closed the curtain on her one window and got undressed. She wore frilly panties and a matching bra. Not for anyone but her. Until that day, she hadn’t thought anyone else would ever see her underthings.

She tossed her panties in a special basket for her lingerie and slid into silky pajamas. Dinner at her parents was nice, as always. She’d given them an extralong hug before she’d left. Not that she was worried.

Okay, she was a little worried. But with Adrian promising to watch over her, she could breathe a little sigh of relief. The hard part, though, was still to come.

He laid the pink, lacy thong underwear on his dresser, like a gift to the god of death. Next to that was Kristy’s picture, smiling, so beautiful. After her death, he would burn it and anything else he’d taken from her apartment. He knew the errors other serial killers had made. He wouldn’t make those dumb mistakes.

It had started when he was twelve, this desire to create a sensation by murder. He’d been walking home from school and seen a group of people gathered in front of an empty lot. Sirens wailed in the distance. He’d run over, nudging his way to the front of the crowd.

One woman had tried to stop him. “Oh, honey, you’re too young to see such a terrible thing.”

Of course, that had made him more determined. When he finally pushed through, he’d seen the most amazing sight: a woman’s body, sprawled naked on the weed-grown lot, her skin gray, her legs spread apart. Someone had done that to her, and he’d left her in a grotesque position to garner the most reaction.

He’d followed the news. It was all everyone talked about, every tidbit, every clue, who the woman was, her last day alive, even her last meal. Then, two months later, another woman turned up dead in the same way. People were whispering about a serial killer. He didn’t even know what that was, but he looked it up: someone who got off by killing people. He’d become fascinated by serial killers. Kill a couple of people, especially decent, beautiful women, and you were a freaking star. People were scared of you. They talked about you. The news reported on you, gave you a cool nickname. Sometimes they showed sketches. He devoured books and articles on Son of Sam, the Zodiac killer, and Danny Rollins.

When a third woman showed up dead, the town went crazy. Women walked in groups, never alone. The sales of alarms and dead bolts skyrocketed. Fear escalated. All because of this one man. The thought of it was intoxicating. From that moment on, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up: a serial killer.

The killer who inspired him got caught eventually. He made a stupid mistake, got too eager, let his passion overcome his good sense. Escalated. That was what the police called it.

He stroked the edge of Kristy’s picture. That wasn’t going to happen to him. One kill a year was enough, would have to be. He wasn’t driven by madness, wasn’t after the control or even the sexual aspect. Controlling one woman, big deal. Controlling an entire city, now
that
was cool. He wanted the fame, the glory, the fear. He didn’t rape the women because of the possibility of leaving DNA. No, what he loved was the game. The anticipation. Finding his next victim. Getting to know her. Seeing the horror on her lovely face, watching her fear as he stripped her naked, bound her arms and legs, and toyed with her. The power of taking her life, his gloved hands circling her throat, pressing hard, hearing her last gasps. All heavenly.

Last year he’d forgone that to throw the police a curve by changing his victim type. But always, he left his signature and the kiss, so the police would know exactly who was responsible. He put lipstick on wax lips and pressed them to her stomach, taking no chance that a flake of his skin would be left behind in the lipstick.

Mostly, though, he hungered for the first news report: television footage of the victim’s body being carted out of her apartment; the crime-scene tape; the flashing lights and the crowd pushing as close as they could get to catch a glimpse of something gruesome to tell their friends about. That’s what got him off.

He smiled. Kristy was only a bit player. He would be the star. He kissed Kristy’s picture. “Soon, my dear, the show will be on.”

Chapter Five

The next day Kristy strode into the offices of
Get Out!
, anticipation buzzing through her. Her gaze went right to the skydiving picture, though, with the classical music playing, she imagined Adrian playing a cello. She couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face. She aimed that smile at Kyle, the receptionist with long, curly hair.

“Kristy Morgan, here to see Adrian.”

“I’ll ring him.”

Kristy was a jumble of nerves. Excited about the job prospect. More excited about the prospect of Adrian being someone in her life. Scared about Kiss and Kill Cupid.

It figured…find the man of her dreams and become the target of a killer at the same time.

She hung up her coat on the rack. Kyle’s thoughts ran to the mundane, as most people’s did. Where to go to lunch, her upcoming date with someone named Jack.

Someone else’s thought, though, jarred her.

Mm
,
I can see her tied spread-eagled to the bedposts while I torture her.

She spun around, catching Owen walking into the lobby. The blood fled her face. He was the only man in the vicinity. It had to be his thought. More disturbingly, his expression remained passive, giving away not a hint of his dark musing.

She pushed away her fear. She had to engage him, see what other thoughts came out. “Owen, good to see you again.” She forced herself to reach her hand out to him.

He reluctantly took her hand, and she cringed at the dampness of his palm. He wasn’t meeting her gaze now, though, shifting his light gray eyes away to Kyle. “I’ve got to run out for a few minutes.” He glanced her way. “Uh, see you later.”

He sprinted out the door.

“That’s odd,” Kyle said with a shrug. “I’ve never seen him move so fast.”

He was acting odd.

Couldn’t meet her gaze.

Nervous.

Check, check, check! She had definitely found the Kiss and Kill Cupid—and he was Adrian’s best friend and business partner.

“Hello, there.” Adrian’s voice, even low and soothing as it was, couldn’t calm her jangled nerves.

Kristy managed a smile anyway. Just the feel of his hand enveloping hers injected a sense of protection, like a warm, pulsing energy flowing through her.

His dark blue knit shirt set off his eyes, and the warmth of his smile, which reached those eyes, tempered the cold inside her. He gestured down the hall. “Come on back to my office.” To Kyle, he said, “Hold my calls.”

Your friend…your business partner…
the words wanted to burst out.
Stay calm. You can’t throw something like that out there. You have to ease into it.

He allowed her to precede him into the first office on the left, then closed the door behind him. He leaned against the front edge of his desk, and that angle put them more face-to-face. She realized he was doing it for that reason.

“The staff loved your writing.”

And he didn’t even make her ask or wait through small talk. Lord, she could love this man. She wanted to hug him, but that seemed inappropriate here and now.

She clasped her hands together. “That’s great. Awesome. Amazing.”

“I’m going to have my secretary book you a flight to Texas first thing tomorrow. You’ll come back on Monday, the fifteenth.”

Her smile faded. “You’re trying to send me away over Valentine’s Day.”

“You bet. He can’t try to kill you if you’re not in town.”

She rubbed her hand down her arms. “He’ll find someone else, then.”

His determined expression faltered. “I didn’t think about that. All I was thinking was getting you out of harm’s way.”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I came back and saw the woman who was supposed to be me, her face in the paper, those memorials people do…she’ll be this wonderful, nice, sweet woman who volunteered at the children’s hospital.” She pushed forward, stopping only a few inches from him. And a few inches below him, of course. “We have a chance to actually catch this guy. We know I’m his target. We can stop him.”

She saw a mix of disbelief and awe on his expression. “You’re serious?”

“You bet,” she said, using his earlier words.

“And you have a plan, I suppose?”

“Well…no. Not yet. It’s not something you can just look up on the Internet. We’ll come up with something.”

“I know one thing: I’m not leaving your side on Valentine’s Day.”

She shook her head. “As appealing as that idea is, that’ll scare the guy away. He’ll find some other gal who’s not lucky enough to have a big, bad dude watching over her.”

“I’ll stay out of sight, but not far away. Not for a second.”

“That could work.” His protectiveness warmed her down to her toes. “I’ve been reading up on Kiss and Kill Cupid. Typically he’s broken into a single woman’s apartment while she slept or sometime that evening. Last year he deviated from his M.O. and broke into a couple’s apartment.”

“And strangled her right next to her boyfriend whom he chloroformed.” His expression was sour. “I’ve been reading, too.”

“He’s getting more daring. Which means we have to be more careful.”

He touched her chin, tilting her face up to his. “I don’t like this.”

“I agree. But I can’t live with hiding out and letting this monster get someone else. And I don’t think you could, either. We just have to play this smart.”

“When you heard his thoughts at the coffee shop, did you get a good look around?” His eyes widened. “That’s why you looked so distracted.”

“I’m only a klutz when I’ve heard someone plotting my demise. I did check for men who were looking at me in menacing ways but didn’t see anyone obvious. But there were people I couldn’t see on the other side of the line. I’m not sure I’d recognize anyone there if I saw him again.” She decided to broach the subject. “Except for you and Owen, and I know it’s not you.”

“If this guy’s been watching you, and he probably has, then he knows that you and I have had lunch. He doesn’t have to know it’s business. We’re in the beginning phase of dating. So we go out on Valentine’s Day. But we kiss good-bye at the door—a really good kiss—and I leave. Or so it appears.”

“And sneak around the back of the building, where I let you in. He’s outside…watching me.” She scrubbed her hands down her arms at the thought. “He thinks I’m alone. I’ve got a roommate, but I overheard her making Valentine’s Day plans with her boyfriend. I’ll make sure to walk in front of the windows a few times, so he knows I’m alone. Then I’ll close the curtains and tuck in for the night.”

“Is there a fire escape or any exterior way for him to get in?”

“I’m on the second floor. The stairs to the fire escape don’t look as though they would work. It can be climbed, I suppose, if someone was good at that kind of thing.” She gave him a mock-suspicious look. “Like you are.”

“As soon as he’s in, I flatten him.” He flexed a fist big enough to flatten about anybody.

She ran her fingers over his hand, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “My, sir, what a big fist you have.”

“All the better to save your pretty little ass, my dear.”

She giggled despite the circumstances. “Kiss me. Now that we have a plan, let’s see if your vision changes.”

He rolled his eyes. “The things I have to do for you.” He kissed her.

One of the songs on her iPod was “Electric Feel,” by MGMT, and they sang about being shocked by an electric eel. That was how she felt, an electric shock buzzing through her, from where their tongues danced right down to her toes.

No ugly-death vision yet. This was good. She slid her hands around his neck. Oh, yes, this was very good. His hair was silky soft, and she loved the way it felt sliding through her fingers. His hands were splayed across her back, holding her close against his hard body and one hard part in particular.

Just as she was revving up, the gruesome image of her dead body flashed into her brain, knocking her back.

“I guess she accepted the assignment,” a voice said from the door—the open door where Owen had been watching them for who knows how long. He didn’t look pleased, or embarrassed, or much of anything. The guy creeped her out, especially after what she’d heard him thinking about her. Which made her realize that the man Adrian would have to flatten might be his best friend.

Adrian gave him a smile without a hint of chagrin at being caught necking in his office. “It’s our lucky day.”

It’s his lucky day,
Owen thought, walking in. “I did knock, but obviously you were too preoccupied to hear it.” He handed Adrian a blue folder. “Here is the advertising summary for the March issue.” He gave her a dark look before turning. “I’ll leave you two alone.” He pulled the door shut with a loud click.