Last week we announced that Toni Hofman’s Soulless is our Romance of the Week and the sponsor of thousands of great bargains in the Romance category: over 200 free titles, over 600 quality 99-centers, and thousands more that you can read for free through the Kindle Lending Library if you have Amazon Prime!
Now we’re back to offer our weekly free Romance excerpt, and if you aren’t among those who have downloaded Soulless, you’re in for a real treat:
Fairfield Detective Alexis (Alex) Martinez is in pursuit of a killer so brutal, he holds an entire city in the grip of terror. His victims are picked at random; their torture and mutilation, unspeakable. As the body count rises, Alex’s investigation puts her among the hunted—not by the serial, but by a much greater threat: a secret society with members imbedded inside world governments, law enforcement and every walk of life. Their prime objective is to avert discovery, and when her investigation comes too close to revealing their existence, Alex becomes a target. The only one that can save her is the trained assassin they’ve sent to kill her; someone who has already infiltrated her heart and mind, and who may be the monster she’s been chasing all along.
David Jason Sawyer is a predator with the face of an angel, his mind a weapon as equally formidable as his body, prince of a powerful hidden society believed to represent the next step in man’s evolution: Family. Their physiology has evolved to consume bio-energy directly. They’re stronger. They age at an incredibly decelerated rate. With their extraordinary ability to heal, they’re close to invincible. And they feed on humans to survive.
Since childhood, Sawyer has been trained to manipulate and entrap on reflex, to put emotion second and Family first; yet one moment of weakness, sparing the very detective that hunts him, the woman he has grown to love, makes him a dangerous threat his people cannot tolerate.
Now, light must join forces with darkness as Alex and David struggle to stay one step ahead of an invisible army out to silence them both.
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And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free romance excerpt:
PROLOGUE
Alexis knew her cries of pleasure were surely penetrating the hotel room door and echoing down the halls but she didn’t care. The burning passion consuming her felt as relentless and dangerous as the trained killers that had been hunting them for days. The deft, sure strokes of David Sawyer’s fingers were damn near driving her crazy, trailing down her back, brushing her breasts, stroking her quivering stomach only to dip into the slick, aching depths of her, teasing, probing. He smiled down at her like a loving husband but, even now, she could sense the cold, restrained power that marked him as a dangerous man. Under his comforting weight, she bucked and cried out again, losing herself in a world of sensation that, for a few precious moments, eclipsed her fear.
He was an assassin trained to be unstoppable, methodical, ruthless. And at the moment, all of that felt as far away as the moon. Her want, her need of him had taken her over long ago, making all pretenses at sanity, at caring about what he was, as inconsequential as the detective’s shield she still carried. She was his, body and soul, with no other identity. Not until the danger had passed and she could return to her normal life. If that was even possible.
But she wouldn’t think of that now.
Sawyer’s face, with its clear, strong brow, full lips and prominent cheekbones held a sense of hidden strength within its noble structure that never ceased to reassure her. His hair, as dark and lustrous as obsidian, fell down to partially cover his forehead. She grabbed a handful, yanked his head back and kissed him hard, drinking him in as a low chuckle vibrated in his chest.
Roughly, he spread her legs apart, his hard, muscular body pressing her down. She wrapped them around his hips, hugging him with her thighs, welcoming him. Sawyer’s talented fingers reached between them and moved in a slow, lazy circle that robbed her of breath.
“Please—” she cried, barely recognizing her own voice.
She was on fire, her lithe frame twisting under him restlessly. As if to quench the heat, his mouth came down on her throat, trailing open, wet kisses along her sensitive skin.
His breath blew hot on her ear. “You like that. Tell me you like it when I touch you,” he coaxed sadistically. “It’s okay, Alex.”
She groaned. “Shut up.”
Smug son of a bitch.
He chuckled again, and she felt him nip at her earlobe, his teeth causing a brief jolt of pain mixed with pleasure. His tongue laved the spot as if in apology, its circular motions sending electric currents of ecstasy shooting all the way down to her toes. “Say you love me. That you’ll want me like this forever. Promise it, Alex. Come now, I’m losing patience.”
He thrust roughly against her to prove it and shot her a cocky smile that didn’t do enough to downplay the taint of something not quite right in his voice. It caused her arousal to dampen a bit, and she pulled back to look at him. He returned her stare, his gaze only calmly assessing, without any specific motivation or ambition, untouched by the passion she darn sure had physical evidence he’d been feeling.
A man raised under the strictest edicts of discipline, David Sawyer always held his voice, emotions and reactions under strict control. Sometimes his eyes registered no emotion, and that chilled her. But when they looked at her and warmed, it was like the sun emerging to light up every part of her life.
They knew each other as deeply as two people could. Right now, she saw what he was hiding: uncertainty, and love so clear and startling it threatened to break her heart.
“Don’t…” she whispered, desperately trying to hold on to the passion, to block out the troubling confusion he always brought.
He stroked her hair, filling his hands with the long, chocolate-brown tresses and then releasing them to tumble down along the pillows.
“Promise me,” he said.
She knew what he meant. He wanted her acceptance, her commitment, maybe even her forgiveness. Reality came crashing down, stamping out the fire that had threatened to overwhelm her seconds ago.
Damn it, don’t ask me for that now.
“I’m trying.” It was all she could say. There was blood on his hands. Though he never admitted the fact, God help her, she knew it, and she didn’t know how much. Alex forced her mind away from the thought just as Sawyer brushed his lips along her forehead in a gentle caress.
He was as seductive and darkly powerful as Lucifer, yet the good in him was so strong. It’s what had ensnared her, why she couldn’t kill him when she’d had the chance.
They’d met months ago and it was as if they were meant to be together from the first moment. Searching for each other. She knew what he was. He’d told her, because loving him, their being together, put her in danger. The people he belonged to wouldn’t tolerate her. She knew their secret. It was that simple.
So, he’d convinced her to run with him. No plan. No time for that. Only escape, and a chance at life. Together. And even with her reservations, and only the small hope that she’d be able to return home someday, she went. She couldn’t help herself. Or excuse her actions.
“I love you,” he said.
The oath she had taken to uphold the law, the one that ripped at her guts every time she went willingly into his arms, got to tearing her up again.
Please, God, let this get easier.
As she struggled to word a response, a strange sound carried down the narrow hall on the other side of their hotel room door.
Sawyer stiffened and looked in that direction.
Alex’s preoccupied mind worked on the sound for a full three seconds before she realized that high-pitched whine, abruptly cut off, was a woman’s strangled scream.
In one fluid move, Sawyer was standing, naked, a fierce, dangerous warrior poised to strike. His voice came calm but urgent. “Someone’s found us. Get dressed. Fast as you can.”
Impossible.
They’d traveled west in his black Mustang, taking secondary roads instead of the major highways. They’d spent their nights at motels in out-of-the-way small towns before moving on. They’d left their credit and ATM cards back in Fairfield, and used their dwindling supply of cash for everything. Now, apparently, none of that had been enough.
No way we left a trail. However the hell his ability to sense his own kind works, it’s gotta be off.
The motel was in the middle of the Arizona desert.
If they could track us here, and this quickly… Jesus…
Alexis reached for her 9-millimeter on the nightstand. “How do you know they’re here?”
He stared at her intently. “I know.”
She grabbed her discarded jeans, t-shirt and gun holster from the floor and quickly threw them on. “Don’t tell me: A family trait?” She couldn’t keep the hostility out of her voice, or the anxiety that was behind it.
He dressed quicker than she could follow him with her eyes. A katana in a shiny black case had rested on the dresser. Now it was in his hands.
Swords were the weapons of choice in fighting among his kind; no bullet shells or other trace evidence left afterwards that might lead to their discovery, only blood. His people were masters with the weapon, trained since childhood. Sawyer gripped his katana firmly by the hilt, pressing it against his leg to partially conceal it from view, and then looked at the weapon holstered at her hip.
Adrenalin and a sharp, unsettling fear coursed through her.
It’s not enough to drop one of you. I know.
Still, Alexis rested her hand on her gun, the weapon feeling uncomfortably inadequate against her palm.
“This isn’t a stand-and-fight situation for you,” he said. “And these aren’t Colin’s men. My father couldn’t have tracked us so quickly. If anybody’s out there, it’s Renegades. When I left you last night, I went looking for someone rumored to have joined their ranks: Braxen, heir to the Western House. I thought he might be able to help us. I had to make it known that I was seeking him. It was a mistake.”
“Run. I’ll clear you a path.”
“No.”
“Alex, if they touch you…”
“You won’t let them.”
Sawyer glared at her. For a moment, he looked on the verge of losing his carefully-honed calm. “I can’t promise that.”
She shook her head. “If they get their hands on me, you won’t let them hold me for long—”
“Alex—”
“—not long enough to calm themselves, to focus. If they can’t concentrate on killing me, they can’t kill me, right?”
“Unless they’re armed, which they will be. I can’t fight them and protect you at the same time.”
“You don’t have to. I can hold my own in a fight. I’m the cop, Sawyer, remember? I’m not freaking helpless.”
“Yes you are,” he pressed. “You’re human.”
“Look, maybe this gun can’t kill them, but it sure as hell can slow them down.”
They were out of time.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Stay behind me. If it gets rough and I tell you to run —”
“I’m smart enough to be scared, okay? Let’s just get this done.”
She opened the door.
And all of the lights in the hotel’s hallway went out, plunging them into darkness.
For a moment they hesitated on the threshold, then Alex felt him grab her hand. Together, they walked out into the hall, Sawyer slightly in front of her.
At the end of the corridor, they turned left and headed into the lobby. The area behind the reception desk was empty. Blood spray ran diagonally along the wall near it. A smeared trail of red on the linoleum tiles led from behind the desk and out the hotel entrance.
Shit.
Alex’s heartbeat sped faster.
They kept moving, exiting the building, heading for the parking lot.
She only saw one of them, a tall man, lean and muscular, wearing jeans and a weathered leather jacket, and with that ageless look Alex was beginning to recognize. He looked to be in his twenties, but she knew he could be much older. He stood at the back of the Mustang, waiting for them.
Rain fell in a slow downpour.
They stopped twenty feet away from him.
“One of Colin’s?” she whispered to Sawyer.
He shook his head.
Renegades.
Sawyer’s voice carried through the rain. “I wasn’t hunting him. No order has been given. I came to talk. My father does not know I’m here. If you choose to move against me now, Renegade, that will change. We both don’t want that. Do you understand?”
The tall man shrugged.
Alex felt a prickling at the back of her neck and turned.
She watched four others approach from a parked car at the side of the hotel entrance.
Her breath quickened. Five of them.
She looked at the tall man again and saw that he held a sword now, his katana’s blade glittering in the harsh light from the parking lot’s overhead lamps.
Terrified, she unholstered her weapon. Raised it.
“No,” Sawyer yelled. “Run!”
One of the approaching four came towards her, sword raised.
She fired, the loud boom of the shot echoing in her ears.
The bullet hit the man mid-chest, right where his heart should be.
The man staggered. And kept coming.
Shocked, she fired again.
The man barely flinched.
Fear gripping her, she took a step back. Another.
From the corner of her eye, Alex saw Sawyer fighting off the tall man and two of his companions. He moved with catlike grace and incredible speed, his sword flashing briefly in the moonlight, sweeping upward in a blur followed by a shower of red. One of the men fell as Sawyer’s blade opened his jugular. Blood poured. The other two intensified their attack.
Above the jarring ring of metal against metal, sword blades clashing against each other at the end of powerful strokes, she heard Sawyer scream at her, “Alex, get out of here!”
The man she had shot was almost upon her. In his dark clothes, his face pale in the moonlight, her attacker looked like approaching death.
Her attacker raised his sword.
Suddenly, she felt someone grab her arm. Panicked, she turned.
Sawyer.
“Move!” he screamed.
And then she was airborne. He threw her across the parking lot like a rag doll. She felt the whoosh of wind around her, the sharp agony of her head and back slamming into something solid, metal.
Time went by, and then Sawyer was there, leaning over her.
“I…”
“Don’t try to talk,” he said, stroking her hair.
He looked into her eyes. She felt herself falling into them. Him surrounding her. His life force, his essence invading her mind.
Forget, he whispered to her. Not with spoken words. Still, she heard him, the sound like a voice carried on the wind.
Stay safe and forget me, love.
And then the world went black.
________________
When Alex came to, the building next to her was burning. She felt the heat on her face, heard the crackling timbers, and realized she was on a stretcher. An ambulance waited nearby. Cops in uniforms she didn’t recognize and fire crews swarmed around.
Someone was standing over her, a patrolman.
“Ma’am, can you hear me? Can you talk?”
Alex gave a short nod and tears came to her eyes, the pain was so great.
“I’m a cop,” she managed to say. “Fairfield PD. ID’s in my left pocket.”
He fished it out and examined it. “Can you tell me what happened here, Detective Martinez, and what you’re doing out of your jurisdiction?”
Confused, she said, “I don’t… Where exactly am I?”
He looked at her strangely. “Arizona. Pima County. Near the border. Hotel blew up. We think it was a gas leak. We found you unconscious on top of a car, looking like you got the shit kicked out of you, and your weapon on the ground a couple feet away.”
Disoriented, Alex gazed up at him, a feeling of panic rising. “But … how did I get here?”
_______________
Down the street, from the shelter of a pay phone stand, David Sawyer watched Alex being loaded into an ambulance.
He made a phone call.
“Hello?” The voice of the man who answered was brisk, commanding, with a refined Southern accent.
“I made her forget. All of it. Leave her alone. I’m coming back.”
“Oh, I won’t touch her, son, as long as you pay my price.”
“What’s that?”
Colin Geoffrey’s voice grew harder still. “Meet your obligations, boy. Or I will suck the life from your pretty detective as a loving sacrifice to your people. You’re my heir, and you will learn to do me—to do us—proud, so help me God you will.”
David’s hand gripping the phone tightened. “Two days. I’ll be there.”
“And David?”
“Yes?”
“Arizona,” Colin said pointedly.
David hung up the phone.
BOOK ONE: THE FATHER
“For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light…” John 3:20
CHAPTER ONE
Two weeks later
Alex’s cell phone rang as she sped down Harbor Avenue, maneuvering her Honda Civic through traffic. She picked up.
“Martinez.”
“You finished with your personal life yet?” Farrell’s gravelly voice barked.
Her face reddened. She’d come in late for her shift three times this week, today made four. Apparently, it had been noticed. “I’m almost in. You got something?”
The watch sergeant at Fairfield Police Department’s Area Three Division snorted. “Yeah, I got something. There was a call-out right before the eight-to-four shift. You do know that’s your shift, right?” Chuck Farrell had known her since her rookie days. She’d worked under him for a while, and he’d supported her move up. He had a right to grind on her and he was taking it.
“Yeah, I know.”
He grunted, then left it alone. “Body found at the City Center Park Condominiums on Gibraltar, eighteenth floor. I didn’t want to go on the radio with it because I didn’t feel like fielding more damn calls from reporters. They’re crawling up my ass squawking about the Cantrell case, and this one sounds almost as bad as that one. Body’s been there for days. Stinking up the whole place. Patrol on site says it’s mutilated some kinda way, so a happy good morning to ya.”
Alex swung onto an entrance ramp and maneuvered her car onto the freeway. “What’s the address?”
Farrell gave it to her. “Your partner’s already there. I’ll note that you’re on shift and en route.”
Five minutes later, Alex pulled up in front of the building. After hardly getting any sleep last night, her cramped, exhausted body protested as she eased herself out of the car. Though her wounds from what had happened two weeks ago had healed, her back still felt stiff sometimes.
She hadn’t regained her memory. Short-term amnesia from her head injury, the doctors said. Apparently, she went AWOL from work for a couple of days. She’d no idea what had happened during that time, or some pieces of the last few months. Only her lieutenant and her partner knew about that, and she wanted to keep it that way. Be damned if she wanted anybody coddling her.
For the past few days, the winter weather had been mild. Only a light, chill breeze ruffled the manicured tree branches around her, and the day was clear and sunny.
Alex left her coat in the back seat, popped the trunk, grabbed her Polaroid camera and fished out her Mini Maglite, the only supplies she had in her car. Her kit was back at the station, but she knew Mike would have a crime scene equipment box already up there.
The Jones New York pants suit she wore flattered her athletic, 5’9” frame; the doorman watched her as she moved.
Cop girl. Frank Talbert, her ex, used to call her that. She found herself thinking about it every time she geared up to work a case.
Alex stuffed the small flashlight into her jacket pocket, slung the camera around her neck, went into the building and took the elevator to the eighteenth floor.
The odor hit her as soon as the doors opened: the unmistakable stench of death and decay. Down the hall, a uniformed police officer stood sentry outside an open door. He wore a mask over his nose and mouth. He looked her way as she advanced, recognized her and nodded. Alex stepped through the doorway. The smell hammered her full force. She held her arm up to her nose.
In the living room, two criminalists dusted for prints. Another CSI tech worked in the kitchen. The smell came from a closet not far from her. Mike, masked and wearing latex gloves, stood just inside the closet looking up, a kit open at his feet. He took off his mask as soon as he saw her and held it out. “No more left. Take mine.”
Thick and bald, with skin the color of dark chocolate, Mike Sloan had a husky, lineman’s body and a smooth-rolling, easy grace to the way he moved that mirrored his easy-going personality—like a bear with a mild cannabis habit. The guys at the department had nicknamed him Sleep.
Alex scoffed at him. “Gimme a break.”
“I swear I ain’t being chivalrous to a lady.”
“Gee, thanks—”
“I just don’t want it anymore.” He put it over her head, stretching the elastic band and positioning the mask over her nose and mouth. “Damn thing chafes my head.”
“Yeah, right. Chafing.” Must you in public? At least get us a room, dear. She scowled at him behind the mask.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it against his nose. “Anybody ever tell you you’re overly suspicious of people?”
The bloated, disfigured body was naked, its legs straight, flat against the wood shelf near the ceiling. It was bent and pressed abnormally flat at the waist, the chest flush against the tops of the thighs, arms folded between them like a dancer stretching after a routine. The dead man’s eyes gazed out at Alex, and at an angle—with the back of the head resting against the side of the left knee, cheek flush against the shelf—that would have been impossible if not for the crushed vertebrae in his back. Alex stepped closer and studied his face, its expression frozen in a look of frightened awe.
“The victim’s name is Brian Finley,” Mike said. “Real estate broker from Marshalltown, Iowa. Fifty-two years old. Friend of the guy who owned this place, Morris Berman, a corporate attorney downtown, bigwig, apparently, now deceased. Brian here came down for the guy’s funeral, so the dead attorney’s wife said after the building office got ahold of her. Story goes that she didn’t feel comfortable in the apartment after the death, so she went to stay with her sister and let Finley stay here. The sister corroborates her story. She lives over in Hamilton County. Said Mrs. Berman left the service with her and her family, and she’s been with them ever since. The funeral was Sunday.”
Alex frowned. “She stays away for almost a week without trying to contact the guy staying at her place?”
“She said they returned to the condo that night to check on Finley and retrieve a set of car keys she left in the bedroom. Nothing looked strange in the apartment, and the car was where she left it in the garage. Said she called a few times, but when he didn’t answer, she thought he’d flown back home without telling her.”
“After coming down for her husband’s funeral and staying at her place? Him needing to return the key and everything?”
Mike shrugged. “You gotta give the lady a break for not thinking clearly. She just buried the guy she’d been married to for twenty-odd years, then she gets the cops calling in the wee hours asking about the stiff in her closet. She ain’t exactly having a good week.”
Alex looked back up at the body. “That’s gotta be a good six feet off the floor.” She looked at the doorway. “Little room to maneuver. How the hell…?”
“Tell me about it. Mrs. Berman and the sister are on their way down.”
She swept her gaze across the rest of the house. The living room was neat and orderly. Sooty fingerprint dust streaked the cabinets and white kitchen counters.
“No sign of forced entry,” Mike continued. “The leasing office is rounding up the rest of the building staff, all shifts. They’re kinda bummed that somebody got killed in their secure community, so they’re being more than helpful in getting us the information we want and speeding us on our way.” He grinned. “Salesmen. Gotta love their concern.”
He pulled out a small spiral notebook from a jacket pocket and scanned his notes. “Let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah, the scaffolding… The building is an ongoing rehab job. Some things still aren’t finished being revamped, one being the security cameras. We’ve got none on the floors and outdated pieces of crap in the elevators. The building manager said they’re scheduled to go in next week.”
“Gee, great.”
“The tapes from the elevators are on their way to the lab.”
“Anything else?”
He handed her a pair of latex gloves. “Yeah. This is the third time you’ve been late for work this week, but who’s counting.”
She didn’t need to be reminded. “Lieutenant say anything?”
“I signed in for you. Told him you were in the ladies’ when he assigned the call. I left you a message on your cell phone.”
“I didn’t get it. I called in.”
Mike stilled. “You called in.”
“Yeah. Farrell said he’d sign in for me, make a note in the log.”
“So you’re saying I just screwed myself.”
Alex shook her head. “I’ll say I asked you to do it.”
“No, I’ll call Farrell. We’ll fix it.”
She glared at him. “I’m not a fix-it case.”
Mike met her stare. “Wasn’t saying that.”
“Good.”
“But it might help if you stop acting like one. I mean, if there’s nothing to fix, who could get the wrong impression?”
She averted her eyes and looked at the body again. After a moment, Mike followed her gaze.
“Not much of anything to go on,” he said. “The guy not being a native doesn’t help, either. Can’t map him to a local, except the attorney and his wife. I already ran them. No priors.”
Alex frowned. There had been two other murders involving mutilation and torture within the past six months, the bodies found naked and both scenes damn near sterilized by the perp.
The victims differed in every way—age, race, financial status, everything. Still, looking into the second murder, Alex had gotten a sense of déjà vu. Mike hadn’t, but he’d backed her. She’d run it by Frank who, besides being the only man she’d ever come close to marrying, was an agent at the Bureau. He hadn’t felt the same way. The differing MOs, lack of evidence and any type of victim commonality made confirming a blossoming serial-killer threat or a connection between the murders impossible.
Now, Finley.
Déjà vu again.
Alex leaned out, scanning the apartment again. Her eyes caught on a pattern of lines rubbed into the carpet. “Vacuum tracks?”
“Yeah, guy knows how to clean. Even took care of the dishes. There were two mugs in the dish drainer, both wiped clean. Vacuum tracks on the couch, too. I found a Hoover in the bedroom with the hose, brush, and vacuum bag all missing. The vacuum was wiped, too, and the closet doorknob, everything. These guys did get prints on the front door hardware, but considering how much the guy cleaned the rest of this place, they probably belong to Mrs. Berman or her sister. We’re getting dink on hair and fibers. Might be more evidence on the body, but if the guy’s careful enough to take the clothes … ” Mike shrugged.
Alex examined the closet floor. A faint smudge was barely visible at the base of the right wall.
She leaned down. “Did you see this?”
Mike looked over her shoulder. “Could be a shoe scuff.”
“There’s something here at the bottom of it, in the crack where the carpet meets the wall. It looks like soil.”
Mike called to the techs in the kitchen. “Hey, get Park over here with the camera when he’s done in the other room. I need to grab a sample and a photo.”
One of the techs nodded and headed deeper into the apartment.
Wearily, Alex straightened and looked at Finley’s back again, the bumps his broken, jutting bones made as they pushed up under his skin.
“Something with leverage or maybe he was squeezed somehow.” She fought to keep her voice louder than a whisper. The world felt still, as if an air of mourning had floated down to envelop them. “A hundred and eighty pounds he has to be at least, maybe a deuce. Tough muscle and bone. To bend like this until the strain broke—” Her fingers traced the ravaged spine’s outline in the air. “And then to lift him up here—” This time, Alexis couldn’t help whispering. “Pack him out of the way.” The indignity of it drew her to search out that unending stare.
Mike pulled her back out into the hall. “I canvassed the floor. Talked to the doorman. He doesn’t remember anything. Building office gave me the two other guys who rotate shifts with him. The one who works the night shift on weekends, he remembers seeing Finley come in with somebody on Sunday, but he didn’t get a good look at who it was. Couldn’t tell me age, sex, nothing.
“Talked to the doormen of the buildings on either side, the folks in the apartment next door, over there with the window that faces this one here in the living room. Nice people, by the way,” Mike said. “Woke them up and the wife offered me coffee. Not bad coffee either. Anyway, spent most of my time writing down a whole bunch of nothing ’cause, of course, nobody saw anything, heard anything or did anything until the smell started to get in the way of breakfast this morning.”
He stopped for a moment and looked at her. “You look like shit, by the way.”
She knew that. She was twenty-eight, young for a detective. Without makeup, she looked like a college coed, her Brazilian ancestry evident in her olive skin and alluring features. Today, her long, normally shiny dark hair hung dull and lifeless, and her deep brown eyes were bloodshot. “Long night. Couldn’t sleep.”
Nightmares had plagued her until sunrise, as they had for most of her life. The scenes changed over the years, but the theme of someone hurting her, controlling her, was always the same. That and the paralyzing fear.
Mike poked her with an elbow. “Hurts dragging yourself in early morning, huh?”
“Nothing compared to what this guy went through.”
Brian Finley’s sightless eyes stared down at her in a frozen parody of life.
CHAPTER TWO
David Jason Sawyer stood outside his apartment door searching his pockets for his keys. Memories, first of his real father and then of Brian Finley, came out of nowhere, capturing him before he could put up a sufficient guard. He saw Tommy Sawyer’s sightless eyes staring up into nothing. Then came Finley, the older man’s face flushed red from the cold and flooded with concern.
The hunger had come to claim David’s life for good and all five days ago, due to his unwillingness to do anything to stop it. He’d fled to the park, in the middle of the blizzard, and knew the game had changed when he realized he’d been listening to the sound of someone’s heavy tread through the snow for quite some time, the wail of the wind muted, the freezing cold forgotten.
David slumped over on the park bench, wanting to run, unable to. Moisture seeped through his thin jeans and T-shirt as the harsh wind attacked his face and arms. Snow covered his head like a sodden, dripping cap.
He heard the approaching footsteps in the snow cease, and felt that pause in the air, like the momentary caution of game.
David raised his head. Through vision momentarily blurred by the agony ripping through his insides, he registered a tall middle-aged man, salt-and-pepper hair, a kind, craggy face.
“God almighty!” the man whispered, and hurried over so quickly he slipped on the frozen path and nearly fell twice. “Hey, you okay?”
God, just kill me now, David thought, before he remembered: God didn’t take prayers from devils like him.
“My name’s Finley, Brian Finley. What’s your name?”
With his pitifully inadequate clothes and hanging head, David guessed he looked like a wayward son to the older man, the soon-to-be victim of a senseless tragedy.
“Saul,” David finally heard himself say. “Uh … Saul Perlman.” And at that moment, he knew he was lost. Instinct had taken over before he’d even been aware. Finley stood in front of him like an offering…
As the memories bombarded him, the world began to spin. David closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool wood of the doorframe. In a moment, it was over.
Feeling desolate and grimy in the clothes he’d worn for five days, he thought of Alex, and a hollow ache settled in his heart. He needed to hold her like he needed breath, and he couldn’t. Ever.
He clamped down on the swell of self-pity. Just have to get used to it.
