Page 5 of Patrick’s Seduction

“You need me.”

“I don’t need you. And I don’t want you. It’s over. It’s been over since the moment you hurt Hank.”

Cameron scoffed, though he didn’t go as far as admitting that he’d hurt one of her lab assistants in a jealous rage. “Oh, please, Fallon, you’re blowing things out of proportion. I’m just protecting what’s mine.”

She gritted her teeth. “Nobody owns me. Least of all you!”

“You will be mine, soon! Because you’ll need me. You’ll see. You’re not leaving me a choice, you know that?” He grunted to himself, his face distorting into a mask of anger and rage. And ugliness. She’d never thought that a handsome face like Cameron’s could turn into such an ugly mask.

“Soon, you’ll beg me to let you come back. You’ll need me because I’m the only one who can help you. Mark my words.”

The threat hung there in the empty lab, and for a few seconds, only the sounds of their breaths filled the silence.

“Never,” she vowed.

A bitter laugh was his answer. “Soon, my dear Fallon, soon, you’ll be mine.”

He turned on his heel and stalked out of the lab, the door slamming shut behind him. She was frozen in place, paralyzed by his words. This wasn’t just an ex-boyfriend who was pissed off that she’d ended it. No, he’d turned into a stalker. For two months now, he’d bombarded her with gifts, text messages, and voicemails. He’d now graduated to coming to her place of work, all in an effort to make her change her mind about him. But her mind was made up. Cameron was neither good for her, nor treated her the way a man in love ought to treat a woman. He wanted her as his property. And she would never be any man’s property. It was time to make him understand—once and for all—that it was over between them.

It was time to ask the police for help. Maybe Cameron would accept her decision when it came wrapped in a restraining order.

3

“Patrick, you need to come down to the med center and see this,” Buffy said on the phone.

“Are you done with the autopsy already?”

Patrick rose to his feet and headed out the door from his office, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

“No, just the prelim stuff, but you need to see this.”

“Alright, I’ll be down in a minute.”

Outside the office, he almost collided with Nicholas.

“Got a minute?” Nicholas asked.

“Walk with me. Buffy needs to see me.”

Nicholas joined him walking to the elevator, which opened a moment later.

As they stepped inside, Patrick asked, “Did you find anything?”

“Yes. I found footprints and drag marks on the ground near the crime scene. It looks like whoever attacked that guy dragged him off the path so that he wouldn’t immediately be found by other joggers. Guess the perp didn’t count on anyone letting their dog run off leash.”

“Makes sense,” Patrick agreed. “Did you speak to the dog owner who found the body?”

“Yeah, older woman who lives in the neighborhood. Nothing suspicious about her. Her dog found the body. There were paw prints too, but I’m not sure they were from her dog. She’s got one of those little yapping dogs, and the paw prints I found belong to a bigger animal. It’s possible that there were other dogs in the vicinity, but their owners never investigated what their dog was sniffing.”

“So, you think other dogs could have contaminated the crime scene?”

“Yeah, totally possible. Plus, there could have been strays too. Or coyotes.” Nicholas shrugged.

“Did you take impressions of the prints that were salvageable?”

“Yeah, pawprints and footprints. Just in case.”

“Good work,” Patrick praised.