The Dark Places by R. Whitfield (novel24 TXT) 📕

Lucy smiled and nodded, wiping her eyes quickly with the back of her palm. She sighed loudly, glad to have said what she wanted, and then noticed that the table had not yet been set for dinner.

“What are you cooking this fine evening?” she asked with a grin.

“Oh, Lucy,” he replied, leaning in closer, “I thought we might skip dinner and go straight for dessert.”

She noticed his pupils were dilated, and she could feel his excitement pressing into her leg.

“Oh, OK, then.” She smiled shyly and let him pin her hands behind her back slowly. He moved forward, laying his entire body weight on top of her, and finally kissed her. She closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the warmth of his touch. His tongue explored her mouth seductively, and she moaned aloud. His hand travelled up her body, and she stilled as it whispered over her breasts and then carefully around her neck.

He watched, calmly, as she started to writhe and moan under his touch, then he increased pressure. Her eyes immediately burst open with alarm.

“What—” she croaked, trying in vain to wriggle her hands free from behind her, but his weight was too much. He was able to continue to hold them tight with just one of his large hands while his other maintained its lethal pressure on her windpipe.

Realisation dawned, and he saw her eyes register what was happening. Panic ensued. She started kicking and bucking, trying to shift his weight from on top of her, but it was no use.

“Lucy, don’t struggle,” he whispered. Tears were teeming down her cheeks. “I know you love me, I really do.”

Her eyes were moving back and forward rapidly, looking for any escape. He continued the pressure, ignoring her last desperate attempts to liberate herself from his hold. She managed to wrench one hand free and bought it quickly around to her neck, scratching and tearing at his hand, trying to alleviate the pressure on her windpipe. He grinned at her futile attempt and continued.

“In the last few minutes of your fairly petty existence, I feel I owe you a small explanation.”

He shifted his weight slightly, pressing his erection sharply between her legs and her entire demeanour altered. He smiled. It had always intrigued him that someone who was already afraid for their life could still register fear at an even higher level at the threat of violation.

Lucy’s eyes started darting wildly as she tried unsuccessfully to clamp her knees together. He realised, in that moment, that he was enjoying this more than he had expected, so he eased off ever so slightly on her throat, allowing a small gasp of air to pass. This gave her renewed vigour, and she began rearing and thrashing. Her feverish movements were causing the friction between their legs to increase, and he slammed into her roughly as he started to come closer and closer to climax.

“Oh, Lucy,” he groaned as he leant in and licked the side of her face. “This is what we were missing!” he said breathlessly. “I have never wanted you more than I do right now,” he gasped. “I’m more aroused outside of you than in.” And with that final insult, he came loudly, never letting go of her neck. After collecting himself, he realised that Lucy had stopped moving. Looking down at her tear-stained face, he saw the very familiar look of someone about to take their last few breaths.

“I know you love me,” he repeated, whispering into her ear as he increased the pressure on her throat to finally finish her off, “but I don’t even exist.”

27

Madison hung up and smiled. We are making progress, she thought. Surin had just revealed the details of the engraved pendants, a little fact that she hadn’t even told her other colleagues at the station yet. This means we are building trust, baby steps, she reminded herself and shifted forward in her chair to type the new leads into her ongoing database about the case.

“Silver ball chain, engraved pendant, capital letter E,” she orated. Surin had suggested she reach out to her various contacts and try to find out how one would go about ordering such an item and how it could be tracked. She decided to have a go herself first. She fired up Google and started pretty basically.

Ball chain with pendant, she typed and hit enter. A few seconds later, she received her response. One million three hundred and seventy thousand possible matches. “That’s a big fucking haystack,” she muttered. “Let’s narrow that down.” She placed her cursor back in the search field and added the words engraved and bulk purchase, figuring whoever this guy was, he wasn’t going to make multiple orders of the same item and draw unnecessary attention to himself. She hit enter and had a result back in 0.51 seconds. Eleven million possibilities. “Well, shit,” she muttered as she scrolled down the page — eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Amazon and a hundred other companies that did big business by the billions. She sighed, knowing that it was never going to be that easy but hoping maybe it could have been. Focusing back on her screen, she jotted down in her notebook a few of the more common sites and then picked up her phone and made a call.

“Yeah?” A grumbling male voice answered on the third ring.

“Hello to you, too,” she replied, a smile tugging at her lips. “How’s life? Where you are?” she asked casually, twirling her hair between her fingers.

“Madison,” he replied, a warning in his tone. “A. You’re not even supposed to know where I am. B. You better not tell anyone where you even think I am and C. What is it you want?” He waited for her response.

She chuckled into the phone. “Nothing’s changed, hey?” she said with a smirk, and finally heard him