Free A Wedding and a Killing by Lauren Carr Page B

she nodded her head. “The assistant manager at the bookstore said Chip and one of his clerks was supposed to open this morning. Neither of them showed.”
    “Chip ended it by taking out Frankie,” Mac said. “We need Frankie’s address.”

In Friendsville, Sheriff Christopher Turow found telling evidence that Chip Van Dorn was on the scene. His van with the bookstore logo on the side was parked out front.
    “He’s here.” Sheriff Turow told David and Mac before trotting up the steps into the apartment house.
    The apartment manager was both annoyed and pleased to see them. She had been receiving complaints all day about the music blaring in the ground floor apartment and was about to go check on her strange tenant when the sheriff demanded that she let them inside.
    Upon following David through the door, Mac felt as if ice water had been poured down his back. It was late afternoon but the apartment was dark with the blinds drawn. A musty smell hung in the air.
    Even though there was no physical person coming after him, Mac felt an intense, heavy presence lurking in the shadows.
    After turning off the computer that was blaring offensive curse-filled lyrics from the Internet radio, David eased open the bedroom door and, with his gun drawn, went inside.
    An eerie silence fell over the apartment that was cluttered with sex toys catering to sadomasochism, including chains, leather, handcuffs, and whips.
    “Feel that?” the sheriff asked with a shudder. “I felt it overseas, usually in places that had been taken over by terrorists. It’s the presence of evil.”
    “That’s what it is.” Mac nodded his head. “I’ve felt it before, too. More times than I like to remember.”
    David came out of the bedroom. “Wait until you see this.”
    Bracing themselves, Mac and the sheriff stepped into the apartment’s only bedroom. Reeking of sex and violence, the room looked like a den of depravity with magazines, pictures, and toys focused on male on male sex scattered about the room.
    They found two naked men in the bed. A slightly built man was handcuffed spread-eagle to the bed, face down and blind-folded. The back of his head was blown off.
    The naked man on top of him still clutched the gun that he had stuck into his mouth before pulling the trigger and blowing the top of his head off to propel him backwards. The bloody pulp that was left of his head and upper torso hung over the foot of the bed.
    Mac bent over to study the gun that Chip Van Dorn clutched in a death grip. “Nine-millimeter Colt-semi-automatic.”
    David read the driver’s license he found in the wallet on the floor next to a pair of trousers. “Chip Van Dorn. He certainly fell a long way since walking away from the church last year.”
    “Unfortunately, that’s how it happens,” Mac said.

Chapter Six
    With a sigh of pleasure, Archie dropped her head onto Mac’s shoulder. Slipping her arms around his moist shoulders, she took in the scent of citrus left over from the steam shower where she had ambushed him. “That’ll teach you to try to take a shower without me.”
    She had launched the attack by sneaking uninvited into the master bath’s steam shower. Engrossed in washing off the discovery of three violent deaths in one afternoon, Mac didn’t realize he had company until she wrapped her arms around him and planted a kiss on his naked back.
    He finished what she started by carrying her into the bedroom, placing her in the bed, and making love to her the way he had planned after taking their wedding vows … the vows that had been so rudely interrupted by murder.
    Hugging her tight, Mac pulled the comforter up around her shoulders. “I’m going to need a lot of showers to wash the smut from Van Dorn’s lover’s apartment off me.” He sighed. “Yep, what we have, compared to what I saw there, brings the difference between love and depravity all home.”
    “Oh, the way I feel about you can only be called love, my darling.” She