Free Fatal Desire, Teen Edition by Emma Grace

letting
the water soak into her skin. It was the first time in a long time
she felt this relaxed. Her body still tingled when she thought
about Derek and she smiled.
    She wanted to stay here just for a few days
before she went on to Washington. She wondered how much time Derek
had left on his vacation and if he would stay with her.
    Amber couldn’t believe what she was thinking.
She barely knew the man. She had just met him. Her parents would be
so ashamed of her. But Amber couldn’t bring herself to regret the
way she was feeling.
    After a long soak under the shower head,
Amber scrubbed her body, washed her hair, and climbed out of the
shower. She quickly dried off and dressed so she could find Derek.
They would need to talk. She hoped he would stay a couple of days
and then she would head on to Washington to hide again. Surly he
wouldn’t deny her a little pleasure before going back to his
life.
    Coming out of the bathroom, Amber looked
around the hotel room only to find herself completely alone. Her
heart sank until she heard the hotel key in the door that indicated
Derek was coming into the room.
    “I wanted to give you some privacy,” Derek
said.
    “Thank you,” Amber replied.
    She walked back into the bathroom, grabbed
her hairbrush and began twisting her hair into a wet bun. Pinning
her hair back out of her face gave Amber the time she needed to
broach the subject she wanted to talk about.
    “How long are you on vacation for,” Amber
asked.
    “I’m not on vacation,” Derek answered. “I’m
on the job.”
    Confused, Amber looked at him. “I just
assumed you were on vacation when I met you in Myrtle Beach,” Amber
said.
    “You must not have heard me earlier, Amber. I
have been tracking you for a year now. I followed you to Myrtle
Beach from New Orleans,” explained Derek.
    Amber began to panic. “If you followed me,
then he could have also,” she whispered.
    “No, I made sure no one was watching you or
following you other than me,” said Derek.
    “But, how do you know. You found me. So could
he. I didn’t see you following me. I assumed I was alone,” Amber’s
panic began to climb.
    Derek reached for her hand and pulled her
into his chest. “Listen to me, Honey,” he said soothingly. “You
didn’t see me because I wasn’t tailing you. I had a tracking device
on your car so I could hang back. This guy wouldn’t have anything
that sophisticated.”
    Amber began to relax as Derek talked. The
sound of his voice soothed her raw nerves. Derek led her to a chair
and began to explain.
    “About a year ago I was given the file of a
gas station attendant who had been locked in a store room while a
fire was set to one of the pumps outside the building,” Derek
said.
    Amber jumped out of her chair and began to
pace. “He was locked in,” she asked.
    “Yes, there was no way he would have been
able to escape that fire. It was a wonder the fireman even pulled
him out alive. Of course the smoke and the flames were just too
much and he died a few days later,” Derek explained.
    “While investigating we came across your face
on video surveillance and you were the only customer who had not
come forward to talk with us.”
    “Because I had already left town,” she
mumbled.
    “Yes,” Derek answered. “It took some time to
find out who you were but once I did and learned that you never
came back to the hospital after that night, you became high on the
suspect list. I tracked down the places you had been and found
similar stories all the way back to your hometown.”
    Amber sat on the bed and hugged her knees
close to her chest. “Did you think I had killed those people,” she
asked in a small voice. Amber wouldn’t look at him for fear of
seeing the truth in his eyes. She wondered how many others thought
the same thing. How many of her previous coworkers saw her as a
vicious killer.
    Derek sat next to Amber and put his arm on
her shoulders. “I am not going to lie to you, Amber. We did think
you