Filed to story: The Mindf*ck Series Read Online Free
“I have a business partner. He handles all the tech work, and developed a program to flag potential fake accounts. It cuts out a lot of hands-on work, even though we still sift through the accounts personally.”
“And this male partner is just a friend?” I ask, prying farther.
She hesitates, but then she sounds amused. “If you’re asking if I’m single, the answer is yes. Have been for a while. I wouldn’t have called you and flirted if I was with someone else.”
“Well, it sucks that I can’t take you out tonight before you get tired of waiting on me to have a free second. I’ll be working overtime in search of new leads. But if you’re up for coffee, I can meet you in the same place we met on my way back into the office in a few hours. Say five or so?”
“I prefer coffee in the mornings, but you can buy me a muffin. They have excellent muffins.”
“Coffee in the mornings,” I echo, my grin growing. “Duly noted.”
“Are you flirting with me, Agent Bennett?”
“Maybe a little. Are you ever going to tell me your name?”
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know my name. It’s dangerous to talk to strangers, you know.”
“I’m aware. I profile serials for a living.”
She’s a somewhat tiny thing with haunted eyes, yet joking I should be wary of her. I’m sure the fact she knows I have a badge puts her at ease; she assumes all law officials are good souls with clean intentions. That tells me she’s never been in trouble with the law or had any issues with them at all.
“Serials?” she asks, her voice hitching a little, reminding me what I’ve said.
“Serial offenders. I graduated from serial panty robbers to serial killers. Hope that’s not an issue. I’ve had problems in the past keeping a relationship because of that.”
She clears her throat. “Um, no problem. But shouldn’t you keep things like that quiet from strangers?”
“It’s not classified. I’ve been on the news a time or two speaking. And besides, I’d rather we weren’t strangers. So what’s your name?”
She pauses for longer than I’d like. I’ve gotten her wrong and right, but I’m not sure to what degrees on either front. So I don’t even bother guessing why she’s quiet.
“It’s Lana. Lana Myers. Feel free to investigate me, Mr. Profiler.”
The light tone is back, and I cut down the final road to lead me home.
“I’d rather you surprise me, Lana Myers. I only run a non-invasive background check to make sure you’re not a felon or fugitive. That could be an issue, given my job,” I say, laughing lightly.
She laughs as well, then sighs. “Coffee later?” I ask her.
“Muffin, remember?”
“Right. Sorry. Sleep deprived.”
“I’ll see you later, Agent Bennett.”
“Definitely,” I tell her around a yawn as I pull into my house.
She hangs up, and I immediately type in her name in a text to Hadley.
HADLEY: What am I looking for?
ME: A criminal record only.
HADLEY: Done and done. She’s clean.
ME: That was fast.
HADLEY: That’s what she said.
Chuckling, I put my phone away, and I walk inside. My mind is tired, but I’m still running facts of the case over in my head, thinking of anything we might be missing.
The unsub tortures his victims for days, but not for the same amount of days. Three days this last time. Two days apiece on the first two victims. Four days on the third and fourth victims. The lack of consistency doesn’t make sense, neither does the targeted skin that is removed. It’s always different, except for the damn dick removal. Sometimes all the fingers are cut off. Sometimes they’re not.
My house is empty, quiet, and somewhat eerie, considering the case I’m working on. All the victims are a reflection of myself. Single. Alone. Physically fit. Living in a secluded area. Workaholics.
My closest neighbor is a mile down the road.
No one notices the victims missing for days on end. They all call into work. It’s a taped recording of a man’s voice, from what we can surmise, considering the words are exactly the same. None of the businesses record those calls, obviously, so we’re having to trust the person who received the call.
The last body was only found because one of his work colleagues came to find out why he didn’t come to work on the fourth day and never called in for that day.
It’s depressing to know that no one outside of work notices them missing. The same would hold true for myself.
My eyes scan my house out of habit, looking for anything out of place. Once I feel confident nothing has been disturbed, I take off my gun, set my alarm, and then I drop to the bed.
My eyes close, and I expect to see the images of dead bodies like I always do.
Instead, I’m lost in a set of haunted green eyes I’ll be seeing later.
Chapter 3
When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.
-Albert Einstein
LANA
It’s after five when I start looking at my watch, wondering if I really am being stood up this time. I’m not sure what compelled me to call him, flirt with him, then agree to a date. Maybe it’s because I need to feel less like a cold monster and more like a woman.
I lived. Others died.
I lived, yet I feel dead.
Maybe I want to feel alive, considering my time may be limited. I should treasure every moment…when I’m not collecting on an overdue debt. It’s not exactly romantic to think of a guy while you’re slicing another one to pieces, but Logan was definitely on my mind during the three days I spent reaping the debt from Ben.
Not in the dark recesses of my mind that are reserved for revenge either. No. Logan was in the good parts that I thought no longer existed. He awakened a long-gone light as though not all the good inside me had been destroyed.
Just as I’m about to text him and find out if he’s okay, there’s suddenly a body sliding into the seat in front of me, and my eyes pop up to meet a set of soft blues. I could stare at those eyes all day. The rest of him measures up to those perfect eyes too.
He’s sin and pleasure wrapped in a package I’m tempted to peek at.
“So sorry,” he groans, motioning a waitress over. “There was a traffic jam. I actually had to abuse my power and hit the lights just to get through.”
My smile surprises me every time he makes me use it. “It’s fine. I was just worried,” I lie, well, sort of. I was worried about him, and I was worried I’d been stood up.
His grin is genuine and instant when he sees I’m not pissed, and the waitress shows up, ending the moment of two idiots grinning at each other.
I honestly can’t remember a time when my stomach was fluttering around. I was just a teenager when my life was shattered and the illusion of normality forever stayed out of my grasp.
This is the most human I’ve felt in so long. And it’s just a coffee drive-by on his way to work.
We both order, and the waitress walks away after giving him a quick once over and winking at me as though she approves. Not that I need her approval.
“So, what made you agree to meet me?” he asks, apparently skipping small talk. I guess that’s wise, since our time will be limited. Not to mention he interrogates for a living, so it’s only natural to start a date out that way with him.
I decide against telling him that he makes me feel like a woman instead of the monster I’ve had to become, since he’d sort of lock me up and throw away the key.
“What made you want to ask me out?” I ask him instead.
His grin spreads wider. “You’re deflecting, but I’ll bite. You’ve been in my head. Your turn,” he says, leaning up on the table with his elbows.
“You’ve been in my head too.”
“Ah, see, that’s cheating. You can’t just parrot my words to keep from disclosing too much. That’s a commonly used tool in a detached personality.”
“Stop profiling me,” I say with a teasing smile, but secretly hoping he really does stop.
What if he sees too much? What the hell am I thinking? This is the stupidest date I could possibly go on.