Free A Righteous Kill by Kerrigan Byrne Page A

breaths through her nose and hissed them out her throat before answering. “I’m okay.” Her voice echoed in the toilet bowl.
    “We’re clear,” Vince’s Boston accent, tinged with some east coast Italian descent sounded more like ‘ Weah cleah .’ “I’m calling forensics and securing the scene.”
    “Copy that,” Luca called over his shoulder, unable to take his eyes off of Hero. He moved deeper into the bathroom to stand beside Hero on the shaggy, lime-green bath mat.
    Bent over like she was, her short, flowing green sundress shared a hemline with her jacket, barely covering her round ass. That sure meant a lot of leg showing, and anything below the knee was covered with sexy brown leather boots. Hmm, the Mexican sun had dusted her skin with gold.
    Goddammit . He averted his eyes.
    “Let me help you up.”
    She lifted her head and regarded him for a second before accepting his outstretched hand. Luca had braced himself for the inevitable electric contact of her skin. He’d experienced chemistry with women before, but nothing like this. It was like he could feel every swirl in the pad of her fingers, every line in her palm, because they were all alive with kinetic energy. That same energy flowing from her fingertips jolted through him like a taser burst, not leaving any muscle, sinew, or piece of connective tissue unfazed. He’d been fighting this feeling for almost two months now, and he was damn tired of it.
    Luca helped her stand, catching a flash of teal lace panty in the process. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of the dead animal head in her fridge.
    Boner killer.
    “Agent Ramirez?”
    He opened his eyes and cleared his throat. She looked pale beneath her tan. Her eyes had sunken back into her skull a little too much for his taste and her cheek bones stood out more prominently than they should. She was still the most temptingly beautiful woman he’d ever seen up close, but damn, she needed a cheeseburger and some sleep.
    “Tell me what happened,” he demanded more tersely than he’d meant to.
    Her eyes didn’t tear up. In fact, they narrowed on his face. “He found me.”
    “There’s a note in here,” Vince called from the kitchen.
    “Did you read it?” Luca asked Hero.
    She nodded and stepped around him, heading for her living room. “It was some kind of bible verse,” she said as Luca followed her. “He still wants me dead.”
    “Maybe you should sit in your bedroom,” Luca suggested, trying to prevent her from seeing the gruesome scene again.
    “I want to look out the window,” Hero insisted, plopping onto the ridiculous, overstuffed sage green couch and refusing to look in the direction of the kitchen.
    Jesus, how many funky pillows did one couch need?
    “He was in my house. ” She began to itch at the raised scars on the back of her hands. They were still pink, but had healed very well, considering.
    “We can’t say that for sure.” Luca tried to sound reasonable. “It could be a copy-cat, or any sick fu—, er, weirdo who’d seen you on T.V. We need to verify it was him. That’s why we’re getting the Crime Scene Unit down here.”
    She nodded, looking hopeful and frightened at the same time.
    Luca couldn’t stand it, so he turned and stalked to the kitchen to examine the typed note Vince was studying.
     
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body,
that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
But yield yourselves unto God.
For he that is dead is freed from sin.
 
I will set you free.
     
    “So free equals dead. Easy enough,” Vince whispered.
    Luca cursed. “This is from the bible?” No wonder he didn’t read the thing.
    “Been too long since I cracked open one of those,” Vince snorted. “We’ll have the nerd herd back at headquarters look it over.”
    The shrill wail of sirens sounded in the distance and quickly drew closer.
    “Sure.” Luca glanced up at Hero. She was staring out at the beautiful river, stubbornly avoiding her kitchen.