“They’re looking into it now,” Jeremy told her. But I’ve got a pretty good idea, he added silently.
Eve shuddered again and tightened her grip on his arm tightly as they kept walking at a brisk pace. “It’s so horrible,” she said. “I mean, you read about things, but they happen other places. Or they’re awful, but make some kind of…sense. A wife kills her abusive husband, a drug dealer shoots a rival drug dealer. This…this just gives me chills.”
“Hopefully they’ll catch the killer quickly,” Jeremy said.
“They know it was a man?” Eve asked.
“She was sexually assaulted, which certainly suggests a man,” he said. They had all been working off the assumption that the killer was a man, but there had been no seminal fluid to collect. A condom would have seen to that, but it was possible that she had been sexually assaulted with a foreign object, though there had been no unusual injury to support that theory. Definitely an organized killer, but every killer eventually made a mistake.
This killer would, too.
Except that Jeremy had the sinking feeling that if they didn’t catch him in time, this killer’s next victim could be Mary.
“How is your friend holding up?” Eve asked, as if following his line of thought.
“I haven’t seen him today. I’ll check in with him soon,” Jeremy told her.
A moment later they opened the door to the restaurant. Rowenna and Daniel were at a booth in the back, deep in conversation. She looked beautiful, Jeremy thought. And when she saw him, she looked up with a smile so genuine that he couldn’t help smiling back. He wondered how she had managed to slip into his life, his heart, so easily. Arguing with someone was one thing, attraction was another and sex—even great sex—was still another. She was all three of those things and more. Maybe he’d kept away from her so long because he’d known she was going to have this ability to rock his world with merely a smile.
Daniel turned and looked up, and gestured invitingly. They made a strange duo, Jeremy thought. Dan looked like a stereotypical professor, with his slightly ruffled hair and glasses. He was even wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.
In contrast, Rowenna was an image of vibrance. Her coloring was electric; even sitting still, she seemed to exude energy and life.
Eve added to the diversity of the picture. Rushing up in her flowing cape and dangling pentagram earrings, she was the personification of a Salem “witch.”
“Hope you don’t mind me barging in on lunch,” Eve said now. “I saw Jeremy passing by and accosted him. When I heard where he was going, I forced him to bring me,” she said, sitting and, without compunction, diving right in and snatching a piece of California roll from Rowenna’s plate.
“I’m always happy to see you,” Rowenna said.
Daniel, looking up at Jeremy, rolled his eyes. Jeremy had the feeling that they were friends because they were both friends with Rowenna, not because they really had much in common. Daniel’s love of history and books seemed pretty obviously at odds with Eve’s free-spirited approach to life.
He found himself suddenly anxious for Rowenna’s safety, even though he could see that she was safe, and no doubt would stay that way so long as she stuck with her friends. In fact, there was no reason to assume that she was at any more risk than any other young woman walking the streets of Salem.
That was what a smile could do, he thought. Twist a man’s psyche so he found himself afraid for a woman just because she was a woman. No, if he were honest with himself, he had to admit that it was more. It was because she was edging into being part of his world, part of life as he knew it. What an idiot he was. He’d somehow managed to avoid her in New Orleans despite seeing her on a daily basis, but now…
Just then Daniel stood to shake his hand, interrupting his thoughts. “We did some interesting reading this morning,” he said.
“I got a hint of it on the phone,” Jeremy said, sliding next to Dan in the booth, since Eve had taken the spot next to Rowenna and was busily sharing her sushi.
“Remind me that I need a to-go order,” she said. “I told Adam I’d bring something back for him.”
“What about you?” Daniel asked Jeremy politely. “You hungry?”
Jeremy laughed. “I wasn’t. I just ate, but those rolls look good.” He figured they were going to have to dispense with the meal before they did any real talking. And though he knew that no legendary killer had come back from the dead to murder women, he thought it was definitely possible that someone was playing a modern game of death based on the past.
When their waiter approached, Eve ordered quickly. “Edamame, please, a salad with ginger dressing, a dragon roll and a miso soup. And just double the whole order and pack the second one to go, will you? Thanks.”
Having ordered, Eve looked very happy. The simple things in life, Jeremy thought.
The rolls really did look good, and seafood didn’t seem quite as…dead as his hamburger had.