Free Bound Through Blood by Alexis Kennedy Page A

of you soon."
     

Chapter 32
    In what felt like days later, Salena finally woke up. Her head was foggy, but her body was quite relaxed. She tried to remember the dream she'd had. Was it a dream ? She couldn't be so certain anymore of what is real or not. She could smell musk in the air though—his musk—and reaching down to her triangle of curls, she was still damp. He had been there, no doubt. But, everything was still locked up, just like always. She needed to learn about her alleged truelove, and what she was really in for.
    Two stops would be necessary today: the first would be to see Heloise, and the second would be to take a vampire tour. She got up to get ready and chose to take a hot shower over a bath, so she could scrub the musk off herself. It wasn't because she didn't find it pleasant; in fact, she liked it too much. As she washed, she remembered—with a heavy heart—a third stop today; Jane's body would be laid out tonight for the viewing. Tomorrow was the funeral. Salena cried in the stream of hot water pouring down on her. She would miss her friend of five years terribly. Jane was the first friend she made when she moved here. She decided to call Detective Wagner this morning for an update. He said he'd call, but she couldn't wait on him any longer. She needed to know who'd killed her friend—really hoping it wasn't the man she is supposedly destined to be with.
    "Hi, Detective, this is Salena Saunders," she said with urgency in her voice. "I'm calling for an update on my friend's, um, murder," she had a hard time saying that aloud.
    "Yes, Miss Saunders, I haven't forgotten you. Believe me when I say I've been busy around here with all the murders taking place recently." She could hear him shuffling through papers on his desk. "You'd think it was Mardi Gras, or something," he tried to lighten the moment. "That's when the crazy stuff usually happens. Okay, here it is, Jane Miller. The autopsy shows she died by strangulation, but she had suffered a broken neck as well. There wasn't any evidence of sexual activity or bites on the body, unlike the other female victims. Lividity shows the only weapon used was a bare hand, which, honestly, we've not seen before; this makes us believe it was definitely personal; someone had it in for her. Now, unfortunately, the prints lifted aren't in any database, and neither is the DNA swabbed from the bite marks on the other victims. So, and I hate to say this, we don't know who we are looking for; they've not had their prints booked before. It could be the same perp or it could be more than one."
    That definitely wasn't good news. "So, what's next then?"
    She heard more shuffling of papers on his end before he gave her an answer. "Wait, hang on, I just got some more reports back. The fingerprints from Miss Miller's case match up to some of the other murders, and, well, Officer Marx handed me the print results from your place. It is also a match."
    He paused, and she knew he was expecting her shocked reaction, but the truth was, she wasn't shocked at all. Except for maybe one thing, "You said some of the other murders? The ones with the bite marks, right?"
    Exhaustion from the unsolved cases was evident in his voice, "Yeah, just a handful of them. We have had a couple of more since the weekend that are from a different doer. His prints and DNA aren't in the system either. The first killer has left a couple of young men dead as well: one was the twenty-year-old man, Jeremy Tompkins, and other was just discovered by hiker yesterday. He's only twenty-two. It was a Chad something. I don't have the file in front of me. I have to admit, Miss Saunders, we are stumped on this one. But don't worry; we'll catch them. They will slip up, or even turn on each other; we think they are connected somehow because of the bite marks."
    "Oh." The simple word was short and said everything she could say about it.
    He interrupted her solemn thoughts, "Ma'am? He's been in your house, and we don't