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“This is getting boring,” I muttered, after I was done searching for fifteen of the male names.
I was down to five names, then, “Bingo. A winner.”
Three of the last five had been suspected of multiple murders back in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but had disappeared before being prosecuted. One was discussed in a recent article. The others were in excerpts from books about uncaught killers. One might have been called a serial killer if they’d had more facts nailed down. Interesting.
I frowned. This did not tell me anything about the doctor. There were seventy-five names here, in total. Three killers did not make a theory.
I’d found no ‘dirt’ but also nothing wonderful.
I put everything away then locked up and went to find this rooftop area.
The stairway inside the old hotel went to the third floor—I knew this—but it stopped there. I walked along the corridor and past the doctor’s bedroom. Midway, I found an alcove that turned out to conceal a spiral metal stairway. I climbed up and came out in a small, covered room, with windows on all sides. An overhead light had turned on as I exited the stairs. Through the stippled glass of the door, I spotted Cassius leaning on the stone parapet. The screen of his phone lit his face.
I padded across, knowing this might be a moment that would destroy what we had here. Or what I had? Conflicted was not a dramatic enough word.
The parapet had taller carved pieces inset at intervals—stonework decorations I recalled seeing from below. Dry leaves and a few pine needles from the taller trees carpeted the concrete roof underfoot. The view in daytime would be spectacular, and I’d make a bet the doctor had placed a camera here.
He looked up and tucked away the phone as I drew near.
“Come here.” Cassius pulled me into his body, one hand sliding up beneath my dress to cup my ass while the other arm wrapped about my back. “I missed you.”
Wow.The words punched in and gave me that gooey feeling.I can’t be falling for this man.
My mouth turned wistful, I guess, for he kissed me softly, saying, “Don’t be sad. I spend my days away worrying about you. I know you’re up to no good.” It was his turn to look sad. “Because I told you to dig. We are so fucked up.”
I leaned in and hugged him, sighed with my face in his shoulder. This felt far too nice.
“What did you find out? What’s this danger?”
“Jacob told me the doctor is involved in Satanic rites. He thinks people are being sacrificed. Those lost girls…you know?”
Crap. I thought through this, and all the while I was ready to sink into this man and stay like this forever. He was warm and cuddly, even if he was also a budding sadist.
“I want to take you away, and I fucking can’t. Like hijack the chopper, hire a boat to sneak in, zoom off.”
“There are surveillance cameras. Probably one up here too.”
“Figures,” he whispered back. “I checked but there are ways to conceal those things.”
I finger-walked across his back, loving the shift of muscles, the hardness there. The stiffening hardness below was even better, and I may have squirmed into him for his hands tightened on me.
“I don’t believe it,” I finally said. “I don’t think the doctor would do that. He’s too…”
“Too what? Did the phone show anything? Did you find it?”
I shook my head. “I found the phone. No, nothing incriminating was on the pics I took.”
“You sent them to Jacob?”
“Ummm.No. Not yet.” It would feel wrong to send those. “What if I send nothing to him?”
“Nothing?” He exhaled then stared at me. “You made a deal, remember? He could help protect you, if something goes wrong.”
Thecouldstood out. Could. “Is he a good man, this Jacob? I can trust him? He said give him evidence, either way, and he’d free me. Did that bone reveal anything?”
The small silence was telling.
“You’re not sure?”
