My weight on top of her and the life seeping out of her has made her tired, and she has stopped moving beneath me. Her eyes blink heavily, so I slap her with a gloved hand. “Oh, no, no. Don’t go to sleep. You won’t want to miss this. This is the best part. This is the reason you must die.”
I reach for the button on my jeans and pull it open hastily. The sound of the snap releasing echoes through the alley and hardens my erection. She has not made this easy. The bitch is wearing pants, so I am forced to my knees to slice them away from her body. She summons all her strength, and her fist flies and connects with the corner of my face. I punch her in response. My eye is pounding from the blow. “Do you know at all why I chose you?”
She shakes her head again. The fear is gone from her eyes. She has resigned herself to her fate. I rub her stomach, and I can see the hatred well in her eyes now. The life that she was given, her miracle and I have the gall to touch her. I reach in and pull my erection out and poise it outside her body. “You fucked up. Your baby, she is not a gift from God. You think that you can turn your back on God and get pregnant without a man? You are wrong, and you must give your life as retribution.”
I can see realization dawn on her. I drive my cock deep inside her with a low growl and pound inside her angrily. This is her sacrifice, her means to forgiveness. God is using me to exact punishment for her sins and with every furious stroke, her last precious breaths ebb away, and as I pull out, her eyes roll back in her head, and she pays her debt.
I stare down at her lifeless body, and for the first time today, the voice is quiet. I cannot afford to linger any longer. I know the danger of getting caught. I slice across her belly and reach into her still warm body. I can barely watch this part. It doesn’t get better. Blindly, I fill a plastic bag and bury it in my coat. I wipe the knife against her leg, her blood smearing on what is left of her cashmere pants. I cast one more glance over my shoulder and leave the alley, an angry sneer curling my lip.
Her scent still lingers, and I wave my hand in front of my face before realizing it’s on me. I try to breathe through my mouth, but the cold hurts my teeth, and I shut it just as quickly. The street isn’t clear anymore. The cold is making my eyes water, and everything is blurry. I brush my hand over my eyes and wince at the tenderness around my eye. I touch it gingerly, feeling the first sign of swelling beneath my finger.
“Shit.” A black eye will be hard to explain, and suddenly, I’m angry again. But my fury is not directed at her. It is directed at my wife. My ex-wife.
“No, you don’t understand. I want to have children.”
I regard her helplessly. We have this same argument daily. “I can give you a baby.”
She laughs mockingly. “Can you? We’ve tried, and I’m still not pregnant. I can’t wait any longer.”
I follow her out the door. “So, now what happens? You’re just going to leave? And go where?”
She flees to the waiting car and throws the door open. She gets in without so much as a second glance in my direction. I see the driver lean forward. It’s not her mother, whom I assume she would be running away to. It’s a man, and immediately I know what she is up to. I couldn’t get her pregnant no matter how many times we tried, so she has picked a man she feels is more virile.
“Hey, buddy, watch out!”
I wake up and realize I have walked to the Loop. I see a man shove his way around me, as I have stopped in the middle of the stairs and am standing like a statue, watching his car drive away again.
Chapter 8
Jordan checked the display on her phone and grimaced. Detective Foxx was obviously still pissed about her little display at the bar, and she was about to get an earful. She sighed and pushed the Receive button. “Special Agent Gray.”
“We have another murder.” Rebecca’s voice trembled, and Jordan could tell how angry she was. Not at her as she had suspected, but at the killer she hadn’t managed to make any headway on.
“Where are you?” Jordan heard the concern in her voice, and she realized that somewhere between trying to flirt with Detective Foxx for information and almost kissing her, she had started caring about her feelings. “Shit.”
Rebecca answered without hesitation, and Jordan breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously, her cursing was for her feelings surrounding the case and not Jordan's behavior. Jordan scribbled the address down. “I’ll be there in ten.”
She hung up and called Matty. He answered drowsily, and Jordan gave him a quick recap. She could hear him moving around and knew he was trying to find something to wear. “See you in ten.”
It was a given now, Jordan and Matt would be called to the crime scene. Rebecca no longer worried about their presence there. To the casual observer, they looked like a couple of detectives. It would only be if someone started digging and put two and two together that anyone would catch on to the fact that the FBI was showing up at cases that weren’t their jurisdiction.
When Jordan skidded to a stop in front of the crime scene, the place was already crawling with Chicago’s finest. This part of the city was eerily familiar to her. Her gym was right around the corner, and she shuddered involuntarily. She didn’t wait for Matty, instead locating Detectives Foxx and Jones just inside the yellow crime tape.
She had walked past this alley many times and wasn’t prepared for the site that awaited her. The victim, a woman in her early thirties, was lying on her back, her lifeless eyes staring out vacantly. Her body was covered with a thin sheet, but Jordan could see the blood on the ground near her face and around her midriff. She covered her mouth and swallowed bile.
Detective Foxx materialized beside her. “We covered her in case reporters showed up. I can have them remove the sheet.”
Jordan nodded weakly. She watched them pull the sheet back, and the first glance made her look away. She took several shallow breaths and turned around. The woman’s stomach had been sliced open, and the blood covered her body. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot you had only seen crime scene photos of the other victims, and Ms. Keppler got lucky. I should have prepared you.”
“Shit.” Matt slid to a stop behind them and pulled back quickly.
“Special Agent Riley.” Rebecca watched him over her shoulder. She felt sorry for him. She wasn’t sure how long he had been with the FBI, but something told her, he wasn’t used to the kind of cases she saw. She gestured to the M.E. “Cover her back up.”
“Pregnant?” The question was almost a whisper and Jordan cleared her throat. “Was she pregnant?”
Rebecca nodded. “We can’t be sure until the autopsy, but it’s a pretty good guess she was.”
“And he…he took the baby?” God bless him, Matt was trying. Seeing crime scene photos was one thing. Seeing it firsthand was a perspective he wasn’t exactly comfortable with. He saw the response in Rebecca’s face and stumbled backwards.
Rick put a protective hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Listen, Riley. Why don’t we check the area outside the alley? See if he got careless and dropped something. Maybe you can find someone that saw something.” Rick knew they would find nothing, but he could tell Matt needed a distraction.
Jordan watched him walk away, thankful for a reason to get out of the alley. “Take the sheet off.”
She knelt over the body. The smell of blood repelled her. She saw the remains of her torn pants and knew without being told that this woman had been violated sexually as well. She shook her head. “Do we have an ID?”
“Yeah.” Rebecca pulled a pad out of her pocket. “Purse was on the sidewalk outside the alley. That’s how they found her. Name’s Elizabeth Hudson.”
“Does Ms. Hudson have a husband?”