Dance With Me (With Me in Seattle #12)(29)

“And, yes, I feel guilty that I enjoy you so much. That not just the sex but everything feels amazingly easy with you. Rick would not want that. But, damn it, I’m here, and I’m not going to just exist anymore. I’m going to live my life.”

“Good girl,” I whisper, watching her from the other side of the island. I want to hurry to her and sweep her into my arms, kiss her silly.

“You can run away if you want to. I wouldn’t blame you. I’m a mess.”

I stand, but I don’t run away. I walk around to her and pull her against me, smiling against her hair when she clings to me in relief.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay. Good.” She kisses my bare chest. “You should have put a shirt on because telling you that story when you’re half-naked was really distracting.”

“You did great.”



My phone rings beside the bed in the early morning light, and I answer before the first ring is finished.

“Crawford,” I whisper as I pad to the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

“Hey, it’s Matt Montgomery. Sorry to call so early, but I’m at the Lubbock residence. Jeremy and Karen. You were here a couple of days ago?”

“Yeah, he’s being stalked by Francesca Smith.”

“You might want to get over here,” Matt says grimly. “Now.”

“On my way.”

I don’t question him further. I end the call and splash cold water on my face and over my hair. I quickly brush my teeth, push my fingers through my hair, and walk into the bedroom to pull on some clothes.

“What is it?” Starla asks from the bed, her voice heavy with sleep. She actually slept the entire night.

“I need to go follow up on a case I had a few days ago. There’s an emergency, it seems. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’m fine,” she insists and rubs her eyes. “Honestly, I am. Go do your job. I’m safe here.”

I prop my hands on my hips and watch her. The threat yesterday was real, and not something to take lightly.

“I’ll assign a uniform to sit on the street in an unmarked car.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“Humor me.” I kiss her lips and hurry out. “I’ll call when I can.”

“Bye!”

It’s before six, so the drive through the city to the other side of town doesn’t take long. The Lubbock house has been taped off, and the street is blocked off with cruisers.

“Crawford,” I say immediately to the uniform at the door.

“Yes, sir. Montgomery is inside.” He passes me a pair of sterile booties to go over my shoes.

I nod and step in, then stop in my tracks.

There is blood everywhere. On the walls, the floor, up the stairs to the second floor.

Red and fresh.

“Jesus,” I mutter, pulling latex gloves out of my pocket and immediately pulling them on, then slip the booties over my shoes. This crime scene is intense and won’t be tainted with any of my prints or DNA.

I’m too fucking smart for that.

“Up here,” Montgomery calls out, and I do my best to avoid most of the blood on the stairs as I climb them. “In the bedroom.”

I stop at the doorway. “What do we have?”

Matt squats beside the body of Francesca. “This is one of two vics.”

“Where’s the other?”

His eyes turn up to mine. “In the bathroom. Before you go in there, know that it’s maybe the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen in my twenty years on the force.”

I cock a brow. “I take it that’s where all the blood came from? Because she’s not stabbed.” I indicate Francesca’s prone form.

“Affirmative,” Matt says with a nod. “Francesca was shot. Once.”

And from the looks of it, in the head.

I walk into the bathroom and have to close my eyes against the immediate onslaught of nausea. I’ve seen everything on this job.

Or I thought I had, until this.

“Fuck me,” I mutter and feel Montgomery walk up behind me, taking in the scene with me.

“Yeah.”

Karen Lubbock, or what’s left of her, is in the bathtub. She’s cut from her throat to her pubic bone, and all of her internal organs are no longer internal. More blood practically paints the walls and pools on the floor. Her head is scalped. Her eyes are gouged out.

I glance into the sink and have to cover my mouth. “Are those her teeth?”

“Looks like it.”

“Fuck, Matt, she literally dismantled her.”

“We think Karen answered the door to Fran, and Fran immediately stabbed her, pushing her inside. Kept stabbing her, and dragged her up the stairs, through the bedroom, and in here. Karen was long dead when she was disemboweled.”

“She was more than disemboweled,” I reply. “I don’t even know what this is.”

“Jeremy Lubbock was at work, working an extra night shift. Whether Fran knew that or not, we don’t know.”

“She probably did.” I bend over and look in the tub, then immediately regret my decision. “Was she pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus Christ, Matt.”