AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Blood, warm and tangy, gushed from the gaping wound in her neck as she tried to stem the flow with trembling fingers. In a flash, she saw all that she’d done in the last few months, the lengths she’d gone to, to stay here in this land, the land where she never really got a chance to live. How could it end this way? Alone in this dreary room on a cold, dank floor.
For a brief moment, she thought of what they would find, those who would come to remove her body. How long will it take before she’s missed? She thought of her beautiful home back in Ireland, the place she’d fought so hard not to return to, the place she wished she could see one last time, but she knew it was not meant to be. As she felt the last of her life force ebb and flow, a lone tear fell from her eye.
After lunch, which she ended up having at her desk once Riley returned her to the station and went to grab it from the diner, Celia had turned her attention to getting to the bottom of what was really going on with the Ryan Swamp case. She’d returned to the Bishop home to question Marissa once more.
The girl’s answers and seeming reticence only left her with more questions than answers. And once she got through the fact that Marissa was having second thoughts because of her friends’ response to the arrest, she decided to have a word with some of them. It had been on her list anyway, just not this soon in the investigation. In a town this small, she would’ve expected others to come forward now that the dam had burst, but so far, no one else had come to lodge a complaint. Something that made her even more skeptical of the situation.
It’s not that Marissa couldn’t be the first of his victims, but things just weren’t adding up for her. She was still waiting for the report on his life, and the time he’d spent living away from the town after college. If there was even a hint of anything similar in his past, then she was going to throw the book at him. But if there wasn’t, then she’d have to change tact.
Tech was already leaning towards the idea of someone else being behind the message, and she had to admit to herself that she was too. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the lab seemed stumped by what they found in his blood work and was giving her the runaround or making her wait while they ran more tests, which they’d assured her could take more time since they had to send out for the results.
Ryan was set to go before the judge the next day for a bail hearing, and she’d done pretty much all she could with what she had, so it was time to call it a night. She hadn’t heard from Detective Branson, who’d been busy with his own case by the time she left the station for home.
Her mind turned to Riley as soon as she put the key in the ignition and her face heated with the blush that she’d been fighting all day. He sure does know how to get his point across. After his beastly behavior, he’d driven her back into town, holding her hand the whole way, and when he helped her down from his truck once they arrived, the kiss he planted on her lips left nothing to the imagination for anyone who might be looking.
She was through telling him how to act in public since he’d pretty much shown that he didn’t care what anyone else thought. According to him, since she’s already wearing his ring, people should mind their own damn business and stay out of his. Easy for him to say, he’s the local golden boy who could do no wrong, while she’s still very much an outsider.
The house was lit up inside and out like he’d turned every light on in the house waiting for her. His reasons for not coming to get her she could only surmise, since the last thing he said to her before heading back to the farm after dropping off her lunch is that since he’d made her cum too many times to count and had left his scent in her and on here, he dared the asshole to come sniffing around.
Celia found herself grinning as she left the SUV, thinking about his antics. When she’d been crushing on him from afar, she had no idea that the cool, aloof dreamboat of a man would be such a jealous pain in the ass. She won’t ever tell him for fear of his head getting any bigger than it already is, but she gets a kick out of his reaction to other men being in her breathing space.
