Haunted. Gena Showalter

spark of heat, this one containing fiery strands of rage. Growing … growing … Her friend was mouthy, and this man was vile enough to take her—and just cruel enough to stop her from ever speaking again. Anything to add to the torment he’d already unleashed.

      How dare he abduct her friend! How dare he force such a precious girl to endure the horrors he’d visited upon her! Growing … growing …

      “You sick, disgusting … argh!” she rasped, jerking at her cuffs. No description was foul enough. “I’ll end you. You’ll never be able to hurt her again. Just wait … I’ll … end … you.” Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry. But she was having trouble catching her breath, forming words.

      With his free hand, he stroked along her brow, his touch gentle, almost tender. “You’ve always thought yourself stronger than you really are. It’s your biggest flaw. One I’ll enjoy culling from you.”

      She tried to bite him.

      He laughed. “I can’t wait to show my newest plaything pictures of our time together. Think she’ll be jealous?”

      The rage spread through the rest of her, burning, blistering, causing any hint of tears to evaporate. “You can kill me, but I’m staying here, I promise you.” There was her voice, stronger than before, dripping with determination.

      He quirked an eyebrow in mock fear. “Oh, scary. And just how will you manage that, hmm?”

      “I’ll find a way. There’s always a way, and good always overcomes evil.”

      “So certain,” he said, and tsked under his tongue. “I’ve heard a strong spirit can prove victorious against anything, even death, but, darling, as I’ve tried and tried and tried to tell you, you aren’t very strong.”

      “We’ll find out.” An accepted fact in their world: there was indeed an afterlife. Some people moved on to a better place. Some, to a worse place. But she wasn’t going anywhere until her friend was safe.

      “Well, I hope you’re right. Just think, if you remain here on earth, we can be together again.” He raised the blade, grinned—and plunged the metal deep.

       1

       Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

      SIG-Sauer: eight hundred dollars.

      Case of bullets: thirty dollars.

      Shooting your neighbor in the face for going through your trash after you’d already warned him there would be consequences if he ever dared to do it again: priceless.

      And I’ll do it, too, Detective Levi Reid vowed as he polished the gun in question. My stuff is my stuff. Even my trash!

      He’d moved into the King’s Landing apartment complex three weeks ago, but he still wasn’t sure why. Or how. Fine, he knew how. He didn’t like it, and would never admit the truth to anyone but himself, but every day he experienced some sort of blackout. He would snap out of it missing anywhere from five minutes to five hours. Or, in the case of this apartment, seven days.

      Honestly, here’s what he knew about the events leading up to such a major loss: he’d followed a suspicious-looking guy to the building’s back entrance. The end. He’d next woken up inside this very room, all of his things surrounding him. He had no idea when he’d packed his stuff, given his home of six years to a stranger or rented this spacious though rundown two-bedroom hellhole totally not suitable for a king.

      His coworkers hadn’t come looking for him because he was currently on a forced leave of absence. He didn’t have a girlfriend and had already canceled all of his “mandatory” appointments with the shrink. So, he’d decided to stay put, just in case another blackout struck and he came to someplace worse.

      First he’d fumed about his total lack of control—and there were holes in his walls to prove it. Then he’d sunk into a (manly) depression. Manly: no crying or whining, just staring stoically—if not sexily—into the darkness. Now he pondered. He should have manned up and moved somewhere better, but some part of him had actually grown to like it here, despite everything.

      Situated at the edge of downtown Oklahoma City, his new home gave him an up close and personal view of the homeless who littered the streets, the prostitutes who constantly hunted prey and the dealers who made back-alley sales day and night. He’d come to this area countless times while on the job, and it had always given him the creeps. (Again, in a manly way.) And okay, okay. The building wasn’t as bad as he remembered. Someone had fixed it up, made it habitable.

      His neighbors weren’t so bad, either, he supposed. They had their quirks, but who didn’t?

      The guy in 211 skulked around every corner as if a serial killer had his number—and that number was up. Any time Levi heard a suspicious noise and decided to check the halls, the guy glued himself to Levi’s side, crying and begging Levi to help but refusing to answer any questions or share any details.

      The girl in 123 liked to tiptoe up and down the halls at all hours of the day and night, stopping to attempt to X-ray vision her way past every door she encountered. Any time Levi walked past her, her attention would swing to him and she would say something spine-chilling like, “I miss my baby. Will you be my baby?” Or, his favorite, “What will you do when you’re dead? Dead, dead, dead, you’re so dead.”

      The guy in 409 was Mr. Dumpster Diver.

      As of last week, a redheaded stunner and her pretty blonde roommate had moved in. They might be as weird as the rest of them, but he was thinking about asking the redhead out. He wasn’t a fan of dating, but he sure did like getting laid.

      Right now he sat at his kitchen table, his SIG in pieces and mixed with his cleaning supplies. He greased the gun’s rails, put the slide on, removed the slide and wiped off the rails, each action automatic. He’d done this a thousand times before, and now found the act calming.

      Calm, something he was supposed to maintain. Apparently, if you were on the job and attacked an alleged serial killer who liked to store body parts in his freezer, you’d be told you had “temper issues” and needed to take time to “think and rest.”

      What he really needed was a distraction. So, okay, fine. No more thinking about asking Red out. He’d just do it. Hopefully, she was into rough-looking homicide detectives who were possessive of their stuff but trying to learn to share. Also, Levi wasn’t interested in one-night stands and actually expected commitment. And despite popular opinion, he did know how to smile.

      A hard knock at his door brought his head snapping up. Probably just another neighbor here to ask to hide from Johnny Law or to tell him the end was near. “Go away. No one’s here.”

      Another knock, this one harder, more insistent. “I won’t bite,” she said. “At least, not more than a few times.”

      He liked her voice. Soft and sweet, yet determined. Still, an intelligent person didn’t offer to nibble on strangers.

      Motions swift, he put his gun back together and shoved it in the back of his running shorts. The weight created bigtime sag, never a good thing but especially not when he was shirtless. His uninvited guest would probably get a peek at his goods, but by the time he finished with her that wouldn’t be the worst of her worries. She needed to learn the consequences of this kind of behavior.

      But … then he glanced through the peephole and spied the redhead’s roommate, the pretty blonde. Teaching her a lesson took a backseat to getting rid of her. Last time he’d seen her, she’d made him feel a tide of guilt and shame. Why, he didn’t know. Didn’t care. He just didn’t want to deal with her.

      The moment he opened the door, however, urgency took a backseat to concern. She was highlighted by flickering overhead light, chewing on her nails and shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Crimson specks marred her cheeks and splattered her hands. Blood?

      Frowning, he opened