Slayer's Kiss: Shadow Slayer, Book 1 (7 page)

When Abbey hung up, she looked at the man. “Wipe him and turn him loose.”

“Are you kidding me? He was pick-pocketing a rape and torture victim. He’s scum.”

Abbey nodded. “Yes, he’s scum, but he didn’t do this. If they find him with her blood on his hands, he’s going to jail for the rest of his life.”

“Hold on.” Kara turned back to the man. “Have you ever raped a woman?”

“No,” he replied, managing to look slightly horrified even in his stupor. “Never.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“No.”

She narrowed her brown eyes at him. “Shot, stabbed, maimed or injured?”

His shoulders sank. “I broke your nose and knocked you on your ass tonight, right before you picked me up and threw me into the wall. But I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

“Shit,” Kara mumbled. “You never saw us. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“You’re free to go. Give the lady back her money and anything left in your wallet, then get your ass home.”

“Okay.”

“And stay off the drugs. You hear me?”

He picked up the wallet, stuffed the bills inside and put it back in the woman’s purse before turning to leave. “Go home and stay off the drugs,” he mumbled as he disappeared around the corner.

Kara crouched over the woman and pressed a hand to her cold forehead. “Her energy is running low, Abbs. I don’t think she’s gonna make it.”

It cut her heart out to look into the victim’s battered face and know she couldn’t fix the damage that had been done. The best she could do was beat the shit out of the person who did it. No matter how much they wanted to help, even Abbey wasn’t skilled enough to do serious healing magic.

Abbey joined Kara, kneeling on the other side of the woman and placing her hand over Kara’s. “Don’t give up on her, Kare-bear. You of all people know it’s possible to beat the odds. Maybe she’s a survivor, like you.”

Kara nodded slowly. No, she wasn’t giving up. Not on this woman. And not on catching the man who did this.

Kara wasn’t sure how she managed to keep upright that morning on the trek back to Abbey’s house in Golden Hill. The two friends slunk through the streets, at once alert for signs of a sadistic rapist and numb to their cores from the atrocity they’d discovered.

By the time they made it through the front door, Kara was shaking so hard, her knife rattled like a diamondback as she laid it down on the cluttered entry table.

Abbey’s tiny, two-story house wasn’t in a great neighborhood, but it had a certain shabby-chic charm, from its rustic wood floors to its old sofas with floral slipcovers. It was the same aging, pine-green home it had always been, but no one teased Abbey about the red door and trim anymore. She refused to paint it, choosing to leave it just as it had been when her parents were alive.

Abbey glanced at her cell phone when it lit up. “So…I guess we’ve had our world rocked enough for one night, huh?”

Kara’s head shot up. “Don’t you dare answer.” What was Abbey thinking? Couldn’t she take one stinking night off from men?

Abbey regarded the number and let out a tired chuckle, dropping the phone to the couch. “Calm down. I wasn’t going to invite anyone over.”

“Sorry.” Kara sighed and massaged her fingers over eyes. “We need to call Tray.”

“No.
Please
,” Abbey moaned. “The woman’s at the hospital by now. There’s nothing else we can do.”

“Yeah, there is. We can call Tray.”

When Abbey turned toward her and gave her the evil eye, Kara had to smile. A hacked-up woman couldn’t get Abbey down, but mention her ex, Tray Oaks—the San Diego P.D. detective who’d dumped her—and heaven forbid, look what happened.

“I don’t want him here,” she was still saying two hours later at 5:30 a.m. when Tray knocked.

Kara opened the door and regarded her old nemesis—the tanned, blond-haired man who Abbey still loved. At least, he had been her nemesis when he was taking all Abbey’s time and Kara was alone. Now she just felt bad for him because she suspected he still loved Abbey, too.

Tray gave Kara a tired look and ran his hand over his short buzzed hair. He was handsome, but his blue-gray eyes had dark smudges under them as if he hadn’t been sleeping well lately. As the head of the Special Victims Unit, he had his own nightmares to contend with. When he’d met Abbey that first night, questioning her and Kara for hours after seeing them crowding over a rapist’s unconscious body, his eyes had been empty. And now, sadly, Kara could see that same emptiness creeping back in.

“What’s up, Kare-bear?” He stepped toward Kara and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Okay, maybe not her
nemesis
, exactly. “You keepin’ my girl out of trouble—or getting her right back in it?”

Kara sighed and pushed the door shut behind him. “We were hunting tonight…and we found the woman by the construction site.”

“Oh, hell.” Tray stopped and looked up at the ceiling like he was arguing with God. His navy suit was rumpled. He’d probably fallen asleep in his work clothes again. “Out of all the people who could have found her, how did I know it was gonna be you two? And you left the scene, Kara.” His voice grew in intensity as the news hit him. “You broke the law.”

Abbey rose from the couch, threw down her
People
magazine and stalked toward Tray. “Leave her alone, tough guy. We had a rough night.”

Tray turned his gaze to Abbey, and Kara could see the pain reflected there. “I’m sure you did, sweetheart. Between your vigilante activities and finding a new guy to fuck every night, I don’t see how you even find time to hold down a job at your grandma’s shop.”

Abbey lifted her chin. “Don’t be so bitter, Tray.
You
dumped
me
, remember? If you want to be added into the rotation, all you need to do is ask—no, make that
beg
.” Her wary eyes turned seductive in a heartbeat. “Beg like a good boy and I might still be able to find some time for you later this morning.”

Tray laughed mockingly, shifting on his feet and turning his back slightly so Kara couldn’t see his burgeoning erection. But even if she hadn’t already seen it, the hurt and lust radiating from him permeated the air around her like a decaying bouquet. “That’s not going to happen, sweetheart. Ever. Again. I’d rather go hungry than share my meal with another man.”

Hmmm… So he wasn’t quite over Abbey asking him for a threesome. She’d warned her friend it was a bad idea. “Tray,” Kara began, “I’m sorry I asked you here. I didn’t mean to cause more drama, but I thought we might be able to help you with your investigation, and in turn, you could let us know what you find out.”

Tray finally tore his eyes away from Abbey and turned to Kara. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to use information from you two when I have to keep my source a secret? I’ve already been investigated by internal affairs twice.”

“I get it, but we’re cleaning up the streets, Tray. Serial sexual assaults have been down since Abbey and I started doing this. That has to be worth something.”

Tray blew out a breath. “Of course it is, Kara, but you have to let us do our job. You’re convicting these people without a trial. You’re breaking the law.”

“Not exactly,” Abbey said. “I’ve never read a law that says you can’t cast a spell on someone.”

Tray’s nostrils flared. “It’s
assault
, Abbey. You think I didn’t notice the report of a guy downtown this morning who says he got his ass beat by a brown-haired woman and her tall, red-haired friend. Even the guys in my unit thought it sounded a lot like you and Kara. I had to tell them they were fucking crazy. But you’re the crazy ones.”

Abbey stepped up to Tray, chest out, hands on her hips, and got right in his face. “It’s not illegal to say some words over a guy’s disco stick. If he can’t get it rockin’ after that, it’s not my problem. Want me to show you how it works, stud? I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

“
Abbey
,” Kara warned. Now Abbey was just making things worse, and Kara wanted to go to bed and try to forget for a few hours what she’d seen in that alley.

Tray stepped back. “The words may not be illegal, but I’m pretty sure Kara’s boot in someone’s throat and the fact some of these men
accidently
get sliced could be mistaken as an attack.” His brows rose, daring her to deny it. “Still carrying that syringe?”

Kara shrugged. “It’s just herbs.”

When Abbey took another menacing step forward, Tray didn’t retreat this time but stepped forward to meet her, his chest colliding with hers. “Back off, sweetheart, before you force me to teach you respect for the law.”

A spark lit in Abbey’s eyes at the challenge, and Kara inwardly groaned, envisioning spankings and all sorts of twisted crap. Who knew what Tray and Abbey could come up with behind closed doors as they worked out their issues? Kara didn’t even want to think about it.

“Uh, Officer Oaks?” Kara ventured in her best smart-ass tone. “I have the utmost respect for the law, but you have a real psycho out there roaming the streets. If you want to work together on this, let me know. Otherwise, get the hell out.”

Tray gave Kara a long, hard stare. “I can tell you this—they’re calling our guy the SoCal Rapist.”

“The SoCal Rapist?” echoed Kara.

“Yeah. The ER docs wrote on her chart that the carving looked like a sun, and the name stuck. Our sunny Southern California rapist.”

Kara shuddered, thinking about finding the unconscious woman drenched in her own blood. “Great. If this gets out in the news, he’ll get off on his own celebrity.”

“That’s it?” Abbey asked, incredulous. “That’s all you can tell us?” She turned to Kara. “I told you we shouldn’t have invited him over. You expect too much from a man who can’t handle our gifts and runs at the first sign of trouble.”

Kara glanced away, barely containing a get-me-out-of-here groan. Abbey wasn’t talking about Tray as a professional, but as her first steady boyfriend, and Kara didn’t want to be caught in the middle. It was bad enough being able to sense so many of Tray’s emotions.

Tray smiled and leaned down, wrapping one hand behind Abbey’s head while he found her lips with his. She opened for him immediately, clutching his shirt in her small fists, until he whispered into her mouth, “Hey, baby, think of me tonight when you’re fucking some stranger. I’ll be thinking of you…and how I’m better off with my hand.”

He released Abbey and turned toward the door, saying over his shoulder to Kara, “Give me some time to think about the case. I’ll call you.”

After the door closed, Abbey sank to the weathered wood floor, right where Tray had been standing. “I don’t think I can live without that man. I’m going to totally give up all other men, for like…
a week
. If it goes well, maybe he’ll take me back.”

Kara tried not to snort.
A week?
She doubted Abbey’s good intentions would hold out that long. Still, a few days of sexual sanity was better than nothing. “If that’s what you want, I know you can do it. And with the SoCal Rapist out there, we don’t have time for men, anyway.”

Chapter Five

No time for men. No time for men.
Kara repeated it to herself like a mantra as she walked into her building. Two of the five offices on the lower level already sported their
Closed for Lunch
signs on the glass.

The clock in the lobby told Kara she’d been able to squeeze in almost four hours of sleep on Abbey’s worn sofa. It still wasn’t enough. She ached down to her bones from hanging off the small couch all morning. At least she hadn’t woken up in a lusty sweat in the throes of another orgasm. Wait…was that a good thing? Screw the stairs and working on her thighs. She deserved the elevator today.

Kara pressed the button, noticing she needed to touch up the chipping paint along the decorative frame of the elevator. On her to-do list for the day, that would fall somewhere below fixing the slow leak in machine number three in the basement laundry, and somewhere far above the mandatory check she needed to do on the condition of Cat Lady’s carpet on the third floor. Kara had promised Cat Lady that if she could clean it up and find a home for half the cats, she wouldn’t report her to the landlord.
Here’s to hoping.
She really hated being the bad guy.

When the elevator doors opened, a mother and her college-age daughter from the sixth floor walked out. Kara smiled and said hello, hoping they didn’t think of something that had suddenly broken, as many of the tenants seemed to do when they had the fortune of cornering Kara in the elevator. Not making eye contact never helped.

Her smile grew when they simply greeted her and kept walking. She stepped into the elevator, and someone called from the lobby, “Can you hold the doors, please?”

Crap. She sighed impatiently and put her hand out to stop the doors from closing. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. “No problem.”

She only looked up when a set of large feet in expensive black leather shoes fill her vision.
Gavin?
Her eyes followed the path up his long legs, taking in the oversized box in his arms, until they got to his face. She frowned. Not Gavin.

But as she looked closer, she realized he was the man she’d seen Gavin talking to last night in front of the bar. He had a swarthy complexion with dark, almond-shaped eyes and glossy black hair.
Glossy like a feather
, she mused, and something low in her belly clenched in delight.

“Hi,” he said simply, but his eyes radiated heat, as if he knew somehow what she was thinking.

“Hi.” Kara looked away and pressed number ten. “What floor?”

The man glanced at the elevator buttons and smiled. “Looks like we’re heading the same direction.”

How was it possible for him to make the simple statement sound like a come-on? And how pathetic was she that her panties were growing damp just being in the small enclosed space with him?

It was his scent. It had to be. He and Gavin must use those stupid body wash products “infused with pheromones” a person could buy on any store shelf now. She’d had no idea that stuff actually worked.

When the elevator opened, Kara got out and held the doors for him again as he shifted the box higher and stepped into the hallway. “Thanks.” He moved the box to his hip and extended his hand. “Julian Mercés.”