Free A Righteous Kill by Kerrigan Byrne

voice when she’d called him from the airport to tell him she was boarding the plane.
    “ Like hell you are ,” he’d growled.
    “ Oops, can’t hear you, air traffic radio interference !” She’d hung up on a string of curses that would have impressed a prison inmate.
    She couldn’t depend on his incredible strength for everything. She needed to face her own fears. John the Baptist had been quiet since her attack. He’d never threatened her or acknowledged his failure. Even after the media furor. And he hadn’t killed anyone else.
    That they knew of.
    The FBI pulled their official protection from her a month after her attack. No more drive-bys, no more check-ins. The Bureau’s Senior Special Agent could no longer excuse the allocation of resources anymore.
    Agent Ramirez had been angry about that, too.
    Stalling, Hero leaned her hip against the sink and looked around her kitchen. It looked like a coffee commercial had frag-bombed in here.
    Luca would look good in this room. It matched the mocha color of his smooth, perfect skin.
    Hero shook her head to scrub away unruly thoughts. She had to be careful about this line of thinking. The many times they’d been together since her attack had been so perfunctory. They focused on the statements she needed to sign. They went over her story. And over. And over. Studied pictures to see if anything jogged more memories. Visited the crime scene once she’d been well enough to leave the house and drew diagrams. The whole time, she should have been focused on the despicable reality of what had recently happened to her.
    Instead, her mind seemed to wander to the veins in Luca’s muscled forearms that rolled and flexed when he took hand-written notes on his yellow legal pad. She’d never seen him without that memo pad, actualizing his thoughts in strong, decisive scrawls. The greatest distraction was the way he smelled invariably of coffee and fresh linen. It was like a damn aphrodisiac.
    Okay, this smell wasn’t going to dissipate without some help, and mentally conjuring any other scent with the cloud of rank organic death floating about was impossible. She hoped her landlord wouldn’t be stopping by to welcome her home and offer well-wishes. That would be so embarra—
    Hero opened the stainless steel door and gagged. So much blood. Another death. Strange, yellow, lifeless eyes fixed in the stare of the dead.
    Her lungs emptied and refused to inflate again. Purges of cold and hot alternated over her skin and her extremities lost all feeling as they began to shake uncontrollably as she stared at the gore. Her throat clogged on a scream and a sob.
    Dear God. She’d thought she was safe. That the nightmare was over.
    But it was just beginning.

Chapter Six
    “In the affliction of these terrible dreams
    That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead.”
    ~William Shakespeare, Macbeth
     
     
    “Hero!” Luca called as he burst into her apartment. His semi-automatic did a quick sweep of the space. He gave an involuntary flinch at the scene. More from the odor than the sight of the dead goat head in the open fridge. He’d known what to expect, more or less, from Hero’s borderline incoherent phone call.
    “Ms. Conner?” Vincent Di Petro called from behind him. She was no longer in the kitchen and the living room and bedroom were also empty.
    Luca’s heart rate spiked. Were they too late? He’d raced over here as though demons from the seventh-level of hell gave him chase. He’d never forgive himself if she—
    A flush from the adjoining room and a beleaguered feminine groan gave away her position. Luca sprang for the door.
    She knelt with her forehead resting on the pristine porcelain of the bowl. The faint bitter smell in the room suggested she’d just tossed her breakfast. Her hair was secured in a loose bun skewered by a thin paintbrush. A few long tendrils tangled with her extravagant earrings.
    “Are you all right?” he asked lamely.
    She took a few deep