Free When Night Falls by Cait London Page A

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    Mitchell sipped his coffee and moved out into the dawn and the blooming, unkept roses. He inhaled the fragrant, damp air and watched the rising sun catch on the dew. His homecoming and the discovery of the body, the interrogation, had raised his edges, riffling through the past, bringing the storms to life that had long been held in check.
    Madrid’s hot sultry nights and old memories could arouse any man, torment him into unfamiliar emotions. Uma’s unexpected fire and passion when she faced his dark mood had fascinated him. The tag of “bully” still rankled. Yet she’d faced him with a steel he hadn’t expected. It was disconcerting that someone so gentle could get to him—
    He watched a bright red male cardinal light on a leaf-filled bird bath. He didn’t like Uma prowling through his life.“‘Intimacy,’” he muttered, disliking the taste of the word, the intrusion.
    He’d streamlined his life for money and control and not emotions—definitely not for tenderness…or the raw edge of sexual need, driven by emotions, the primitive need to drag her into his arms and feast—
    The cardinal flitted to a high limb, watching him with beady eyes. Uma was an instinctive woman, an intuitive one, gauging his mood, spearing right into his darkness without fear.
    He really did not like that, or the bruising he now felt after the encounter. She’d called him “emotional and growling.” Maybe he was.
    But he didn’t want anyone else noting that—especially the woman sailing by his house in the dawn, her legs long and gleaming in a free stride of a runner. It appeared that he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.
    Uma seemed to float over the pavement, her pony tail floating behind her, her profile intent. Mitchell’s gaze skimmed down her long throat to the soft cloth against her surging breasts.
    He breathed raggedly; he didn’t want to think about that soft bounce, the way she’d looked in his underwear.
    He didn’t want to think about those smooth muscles, or just exactly how Uma worked off her tension. He had enough of his own, humming quietly, unexpectedly in taut frustration.
     
    He’d named himself “Clyde” after Clyde Barrow, a flamboyant 1930s holdup outlaw . With his gang and his girlfriend, Bonnie Parker, at his side, the real Barrow had led lawmen a chase across Oklahoma and other states. His legendary shootouts and robberies had sparked the interest of the press, and years later Clyde’s bloody fatal battle still commanded attention.
    Barrow, a man who took action to change his life, fascinated the person who now called himself “Clyde.”
    Life had been dull in the new Clyde’s life, until he’d decided to take control. He wanted excitement, dangerous edges, and the power to take and give. His life had always been so commonplace, and now running on the edge was an addiction and a rebirth.
    He wanted power, to feel fear churn in Madrid, to pay them back for their treatment of him. After all, it was only right that he make them pay…and he’d promised that by the end of summer, when the last rose petal fell in Madrid, he’d finish the job, killing all the women .
    He hated roses; he hated the women who loved them. He hated the thorns and the beauty .
    Clyde laughed silently. The four women had been childhood friends, their relationships too perfect, loving one another, sharing their lives now. They needed to be torn apart, to realize that life wasn’t perfect. “Call it revenge,” he whispered.
    He shouldn’t have trusted Pete Jones, that incapable clown, to manage a drive-by shooting. From now on, Clyde would do his own killing and Pete was just the first.
    Studying his dapper reflection in the mirror in his hideaway, Clyde smoothed his three-piece checkered suit and straightened his tie. “It’s true. Good clothes make the man.”
    He’d had quite the time convincing the tailor in Topeka to get just the right fabric and style. Clyde had explained that it was for a