Creep - Jennifer Hillier [120]
He felt his eyes widen in surprise, and he looked down at her.
Sheila’s face had changed.
“Get the fuck off me, motherfucker,” she said. Her eyes were black and cold. “Or I’ll blow as many holes in you as it takes to make you get off me.” Her eyes never wavered from his face, and they were serious. Deadly.
He rolled off her in disbelief, never taking his eyes off the gun. Sheila sat up, pointing the weapon at his face, the light from the muted TV flickering over her naked body. Her cheeks were flushed, and not from the kissing.
He couldn’t help but think she looked magnificent.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, her flush deepening. “Don’t admire me, you sick fuck. You think I can help you? I can’t. I want to shoot you so badly I can’t stand it. You’re a monster, and you’ve always been a monster, and you deserve to rot in hell.” Her free hand pointed toward the door. “Even if I don’t do it for me, I would do it for all those women you killed, you twisted son of a bitch.”
Ethan stared at her. She had played him. She had totally had him believing that she loved him, that she wanted to be with him forever. She had won. Checkmate.
She was going to kill him, and she didn’t care if that meant she’d starve to death in the basement. She wanted him dead.
He found himself strangely aroused.
“But I didn’t kill any of them,” he said calmly. “I’m not a killer, Sheila. Never have been, and don’t plan to be.”
She frowned. Those weren’t the words she’d been expecting him to say, and in her moment of confusion, the gun wavered slightly.
He went for it.
CHAPTER : 40
Jerry was trying not to fall asleep. He was doing the best he could to stay alert by sitting at Mike Torrance’s desk and playing solitaire on the computer, and by drinking cup after cup of putrid coffee.
The East Precinct was quiet, even for 3:00 a.m. A bunch of cops had gone with Torrance to Lake Stevens, and the ultra-perky Kim Kellogg had snatched another bunch to accompany her to Wolfe and Maddox’s apartment in the U-district. Another handful had been called away on a possible gang-related shooting in Volunteer Park. Jerry had worked quite a few of these shifts during his time with PD and didn’t miss them one bit.
The officer on duty looked as bored and tired as he did. Jerry had tried to make small talk with him as the guy worked his way through a stack of papers, but the younger man wasn’t interested in chatting. He was probably thinking Jerry should just go home, but Jerry couldn’t bring himself to leave. While he had no official reason to stick around, this was his case in every way that mattered. He needed to know if Sheila Tao was still alive. He wanted to be here when they brought Wolfe in. He felt a sense of personal responsibility to Morris to see this through. The big guy had had a tough few weeks, and he deserved some finality, whatever the outcome.
Jerry sat back in the springy, ergonomic desk chair at Torrance’s desk and wondered where the hell Morris was. He’d called him several times, unable to fight the feeling that his client had gone back up to the Lake Stevens house. He hoped not—it was ridiculous to think of the investment banker, untrained and unarmed, snooping around the house of a probable killer—but Morris was so stubborn that Jerry couldn’t put it past him. Because, frankly, it’s what Jerry would have done if the situation had been reversed and the love of his life had gone missing.
A husky voice interrupted his thoughts. Jerry glanced up from his mindless computer game to see Abby Maddox standing there. She didn’t look bad at all considering she’d just found out her boyfriend might be a murderer. Her shiny black hair was tucked behind her ears, and without makeup, she could have passed for eighteen.
“How’re you holding up?” Jerry closed his solitaire game and looked up at her. Her pale skin was luminescent under the fluorescent lights. “You must be tired.”
She sat on the edge of the desk. “Too wound up.”
“Maybe you should have gone to the motel.