The truck engine died. The crunch of footsteps neared, and then boot heels rang on concrete outside. The sound of a key in the lock scraped along her nerve endings. And then somewhere in the distance a door creaked open.
“Sweet baby Jesus, protect me.” She couldn’t help it, she cringed.
*
Mistake! He’d fucking let his dick take charge.
He paced the entry of the unfinished house, the heels of his boots clacking on the tile entry, despite the booties he wore.
For a few minutes in the bar, when Carly had looked at him with those big eyes while he was talking about fighting fires, he thought, I’m in there. Knew where the night was headed. Women were like moths to a fireman’s flame.
The pocket of his hazmat suit crackled as he reached for his phone to check the time. She’d be coming around soon. Unless he dosed her again.
Lots of women liked men with dangerous jobs. They thought it made a man a better lover because all of the testosterone it took to brave the danger. Screw the women who fought fires.
“Penis envy” was how one older firefighter had explained the phenomenon to him when he first came on the job.
Whatever. Women wanting a penis? That was just sicko.
Something changed Carly’s mind about him. Was it his burn scars? He was proud of his tats. She’d seemed fascinated.
Maybe he’d talked too much. That story about a burned-up body. Yeah. Should have kept his trap shut over that. Darlene hated those stories. But some women liked gore.
The wariness in Carly’s gaze as she tried to disengage hit him like a kick in the gut. Ice pick to his ego, the way she’d tried to leave. Twice.
He hadn’t taken a single deep breath until she returned from the restroom. He’d paced just outside the Ladies door until he got a funny look from the waitress.
The food he’d brought with him and hidden underneath the table was cool by the time she returned. But he was prepared. Just a little bit of sugar to help the medicine go down.
He’d already planned their evening. How he’d do it, and where.
Construction in a new neighborhood off Village Parkway, just north of Alta Mesa, had ceased when the builder came up short on money. A single half-built house was the only structure in the two-block area. New construction tucked into the vee between I-35W and I-20 was vulnerable to thieves who could jump off either highway, loot and jump back on, carrying away copper tubing, wiring, paneling, brick, rebar, whatever could sell quickly.
CowTown had sent him to check on the cleanup following damage from thieves. The isolated house met all his requirements. Always on the lookout for potential sources, he’d made a copy of the key, just in case.
He thought of it when Carly agreed to meet him. He’d set up the cot in the house that afternoon. Brought alcohol to wipe anything they touched down. Careful planning.
He’d brought her here to do the dirty and then he planned to have her back in her car and parked in her apartment parking lot before the glory juice wore off.
She’d wake up not knowing what had happened. His word against hers that he was the man who’d fucked her. She deserved it. Saving and then screwing his nemesis.
And who’d believe she’d been raped? A model? Not like she hadn’t done it hundreds of times. With hundreds of men. He’d be just one more. But, he’d have the secret knowledge that he’d screwed Glover’s bitch and left her without an idea who her assailant was.
But then she’d started talking as he drove her to their destination, rambling on about needing to talk with Glover, how she found the man who’d tried to kill him.
That’s when the plan took a radical turn.
“Fucking bitch!” She’d found him out, somehow. She wouldn’t answer any direct questions but she was getting worked up. So he’d had to tie her up, using the electrical tape from his backseat. Getting her in the house was easy after that.
But then he found he couldn’t get it up.
He didn’t rape her. She was supposed to like it. A comatose woman couldn’t get him off.
The heat was rising in his blood, that boiling pressure that needed release. But he wasn’t going to make any more mistakes.
So he’d left her while he went somewhere to think. Two hours later, he had squat. Now he was back, to make certain she hadn’t been found. But that possibility would disappear with the sunrise.
“Shit!” The universe was against him.
What to do? What to do? He slapped both sides of his head with the palms of his hands as he paced. Got to be a way out.
He took out his lighter and began flicking it, watching the flame with hypnotic fascination. He waved his hand over the flame, feeling the heat curl and sting his palm. Even as he hissed in a breath in reaction, he knew the pain wasn’t going to be enough. He needed a fire.
He looked around. The shell of the house he was standing in, with unfinished wallboard and open insulation in the attic, would make a helluva blaze. Light up the night sky like a Roman candle.
But he wasn’t a killer.