AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gigi's heart was pounding in her chest as she sprinted across the open lot. The sound of the dogs chasing her was thunderous, and she was sure they would catch up to her at any second. She didn't know how she had gotten here or what she had supposedly done to deserve this, but she knew she had to get away or the dogs would tear her apart.
She spotted a tall chain-link fence at the edge of the lot. She didn't know if she would be able to climb it, but it was her best chance. She pushed herself forward, her legs pumping as fast as they could go.
The dogs were getting closer, their breath hot on the back of her neck. She could hear their snarls and growls, and she could feel their teeth just inches away from her. A terrible macabre urge to look back gripped her, but she didn’t succumb to it. She didn't want to see them.
She reached the fence and grabbed onto it, using all her strength to pull herself up. The dogs were almost on her, but she could make it. If she could just make it a few more feet, she could—
Pain shot through her calf, scintillating, pure, exquisite. She shrieked, and her resolve disappeared. She looked down and saw a massive Pit Bull, its teeth buried to the bone in her calf. She screamed and tried to pull away, but the dog was too strong. She clung to the fence with all of her might, but it ripped her down almost casually, as though her weight meant nothing to it.
She screamed and tried to regain her feet, but it was too late. The dogs were upon her, snarling, biting, ripping, tearing. She had just enough time to twist her head around and see the man’s silhouette in the distance before the dogs were upon her. She tried to scream, but a gurgling wheeze was the final sound she heard before the world went black.
CHAPTER ONE
She wouldn’t scream. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. He could kill her if he wanted to, but she would be damned if he would hear her scream.
Trammell approached, turning the rusty blade over in his hand almost lovingly. He grinned at her, revealing yellow, rotted teeth beneath crazed, bloodshot eyes. He lowered the blade and rested its point above Faith’s knee, just above the Quadriceps tendon.
She stiffened in spite of herself, and a cold sweat broke out on her forehead. Jethro saw this, and his grin widened. He leaned close to her. Her nostrils flared at the scent of her sour breath.
“Let’s see how you bleed, little girl.”
He pressed down with the knife and drew it across her thigh. Faith’s resolve vanished, blown out as effortlessly as a child’s birthday candle, and she screamed.
***
“Miss Bold?”
Faith blinked and looked up from the chair. The police detective returned her gaze with the coldly professional stare of a trained officer. She waited until she had Faith’s attention, then asked, “Can you describe to me what you saw when you entered the apartment?”
Faith took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I saw what you saw,” she said, “signs of a struggle, and my friend’s body on the floor with his throat cut.”
“You said the door was locked, correct?” the detective asked.
“Yes,” Faith replied.
“May I ask how you managed to enter the apartment?”
Faith felt a touch of irritation. “I’m a trained investigator for the FBI.”
“That’s not an answer, Miss Bold.”
Faith met the officer’s eyes and tried to quell her rising anger. The detective stared back impassively, but Faith’s trained eye could tell she was watching Faith’s reaction carefully, trying to gauge her honesty and determine if there was any guilt.
The problem was that there was guilt. A whole hell of a lot of guilt. Gordon Clark was dead, and while Faith might not have been the one holding the knife, she was just as responsible for his death as if she had cut her throat herself.
She knew that wasn’t true. She knew that her guilt was misplaced and that her reaction was very common among people who lost loved ones to serial killers.
Knowing that didn’t lessen her guilt at all.
“Miss Bold? How did you—”
“I used a bobby pin and a jeweler’s screwdriver,” Faith answered. “I carry them on me in case I need access to a locked location while investigating a crime.”
“And this is standard-issue Bureau equipment?” the detective asked, knowing full well that it wasn’t.”
Faith sighed, no longer possessed of the patience to deal with the detective. The office was just doing her job, but the reality was that it would only be her job for another fifteen minutes, and when those fifteen minutes were up, Faith would no longer be even remotely a suspect.
“Look, detective, I know I’m not under arrest, and I also know that in a few minutes, this is going to be a Bureau case, and you won’t be allowed within a half-mile of anything having to do with it. I’m sure you’re a great detective, but I don’t have the goddamned patience to be interrogated right now, so go fill out some fucking paperwork. Better yet, go have a damned cigarette and wait for the cavalry to arrive and put you out of a job.”
