CHOSEN TO DIE

215

“Oh, yeah, cowboy. If you haven’t noticed, I’m on top.”

“Maybe that’s the way I like it. Maybe I let you get the drop on me.”

“Sure,” she’d laughed, tossing her red curls over one shoulder, perspiration visible on her flushed face in the dimmed lights. “You let me—”

In that second, he’d pushed up, flipped her over, and while she, surprised, lay beneath him, he’d trapped her hands over her head, holding them with one hand, then kissed her with all the pent-up emotion that had been building for six months. To his surprise she didn’t resist, but closed her eyes and let out a long, sensual moan of pleasure.

“You’re . . . relentless,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She’d laughed then, a deep throaty chuckle, and he started tugging on the hem of her sweater. She, once he released her wrists, returned the favor. Her body was long and lean, athletic and strong, her breasts full and tipped with pinkish nipples, her sinewy legs capped by a nest of curls that confirmed she was a natural redhead.

He reveled in the feel and taste of her, trying like hell to draw out every moment, to savor the experience, but it had been so long and he’d wanted her so much that he’d been a wild man, touching and tasting and kissing. Lips running over bodies, the smells of perfume and sweat ever present, arms tangling, his knees urging hers apart. He was hard as hell and when she hadn’t resisted, he’d made love to her in a fury that had left them both gasping and wanting more.

He’d complied.

216

Lisa Jackson

All night long.

So now, to think that she might be . . . no . . . she couldn’t be. He looked a hundred yards ahead where the fence sagged a bit and he saw it. Tire tracks, now filling with snow, but definite lines of tread on the far side of the barbed wire, and on the Long estate, a trail of footsteps one leading toward the main house, a

second returning. They were already covered by several inches of snow. The same with the tread, but there was still a chance that the police could find something.

He was about to put a call into Alvarez’s cell phone when he heard the dogs. Looking through the curtain of snow he saw a dog handler and two bloodhounds following the unbroken trail.

“Hey!” the officer called. “Who the hell . . . Oh, God, Santana? I should have known.”

He recognized the voice before he could make out the features of Jordan Eagle, the local veterinarian who also worked with rescue and tracking dogs. Behind her, looking as grim as ever, was Deputy Spitzer.

“I thought we told you to cease and desist,” she called, her glasses fogging under the brim of her insulated cap. She was breathing hard, trying to keep up with the dogs straining on their leashes. Santana shook his head. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Then hear it now. Cease and desist.”

“You need to get your techs onto the logging road.”

He pointed a gloved finger at the tire marks still visible in the snow on the other side of the fence. “Looks like the killer drove through here, walked in, killed Long, then turned around and left the way he came in.”

“Are you deaf? You need to back off of this inves-

CHOSEN TO DIE

217

tigation,” she snapped but was already reaching for her cell phone.

As the dogs, two bloodhounds, sniffed at the ground, trotting near the fence line, Jordan observed, “Still getting into trouble, I see.” She was a petite woman with coppery skin that hinted at her Native American heritage, a straight nose and nearblack eyes that showed her emotions. She just happened to be one of the few people in Grizzly Falls whom Santana trusted.

“A habit I can’t seem to break.”

She looked over the fence and eyed the tracks as Spitzer talked on the phone, explaining the situation. “So what’s your take on this?” she asked him.

Tags: Lisa Jackson Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net