Free Serial: Volume Two by Lily White, Jaden Wilkes Page A

hurried yet weak because she’d been taken off guard.
    Just like CK, in that moment I was God. I could snuff her out so easily, make her cease to exist. But it wasn’t death that turned me on, it was the power. Finding my release quickly, I shot my orgasm into the latex condom, finally loosening my grip enough that she could lift her head and take a deep breath. Her body shuddered over me, her own orgasm exploding when oxygen once again filled her bloodstream.
    Pulling out, I didn’t stop for a cuddle before getting up and moving into the bathroom to wash up. By the time I returned to the bed, she was sipping from a glass of wine, the imprint of the pillowcase still red across her face.
    She smiled at me and handed me a glass when I approached.
    “Do you think that’s true, Donovan? Do I flirt with death?”
    I chuckled in response to her question. “Are you asking me to profile you, Chase?”
    “You’re the one who brought it up.” She shrugged. “But you’re the only man who can get me off like you do and I wonder if it’s not the threat of violence I see in you every day.”
    Opening my mouth to respond, I was interrupted by the vibration of my phone on the surface of the bedside table. Snatching it up, I flicked the side button to see a text from Agent Cartwright.
    “Fuck.”
    “What? What is it?” Emily straightened her posture and reached over to place her glass on the table where my phone had been.
    “I guess the conference worked like a charm. Another body showed up…and this one included a message.”
    ***
     
    The cold wet air stung my face as I walked across the dimly lit parking lot on the south side of Washington Park. Dumped with no more concern than a pile of garbage, Noreen Hamilton’s body was found by a vagrant who was sneaking into the woods surrounding the park to sleep off the alcohol in his stomach.
    Left naked and displayed in a way that made CK’s message abundantly clear, it appeared that she’d been dead for some time before being dumped in the very public location.
    With a flashlight, I looked over the body, wishing like hell that the local PD would hurry the fuck up and get some floodlights set up around the perimeter of the scene before all the evidence was washed away by the impending rain.
    In Noreen’s abdomen, the letters CK were carved, however the lack of blood told me that the cuts had either been performed post-mortem or she’d been cleaned like all the other victims we’d found. Unlike those victims, however, Noreen’s body wasn’t positioned to appear sleeping. It was just one more indication to me that the message I’d given CK had shaken him enough to break with his usual routine. I could only pray that he’d been pissed off enough to accidentally leave something behind that we could use to identify him.
    “Well, I hope you’re satisfied, Blake. You pissed him off, alright.”
    Emily bent down to take a closer look at the letters carved into the body. “These cuts are quite deep and there are no hesitation marks to speak of. He was obviously agitated while making them.”
    “At least now, he’s communicating with us. It’s a step closer to finding this bastard.”
    “I wonder what he’s done with Veronica Lapierre’s body,” Emily mused.
    “What makes you so sure that she’s dead? From everything we know about her life, she’s an easily manipulated woman. She probably does as instructed without complaint. It might be the only reason she hasn’t turned up dead like all the others. Giving power to a sadist is always a way to keep them interested.”
    Not having intended to make that a public thought, I spoke the words before thinking about what Emily would hear in them. In a way, I’d just described our sexual relationship and I was concerned she would pick up on the reference. She did and looked up at me with a question behind her eyes, but decided to keep her mouth shut.
    Turning back to the body, she commented, “Noreen doesn’t fit his type.