Page 48 of Tainted Love

Fuck. I can’t even focus.

“Lucy!”

I reach out to knock on her door but it’s already open. Several inches ajar, as a matter of fact. I wrap my fingers around my pistol and nudge the door open a little more.

“Lucy?”

It’s trashed. The furniture is torn up. Her throw pillows are shredded apart for no reason. The television is smashed. Flowers on the windowsill have been destroyed.

This was no robbery.

Small droplets stain the white carpet from here all the way down the hall toward her room. My nose twitches. The scent is obvious.

Blood.

“Lucy!”

I follow the trail. Please, let there be someone here I can beat on. Or better yet, kill. Someone, anyone who can answer for this before I make them suffer…

Her bedroom is in worse shape than the living room. There’s more blood here as well, sprinkled along her floor and bed. Red handprints sit on her dresser with mushed fingerprints staining her panties.

This doesn’t make any sense. Not one goddamn bit. If Lucy were wounded, her first instinct wouldn’t be to grab a fresh pair of underwear.

I focus my senses, pushing them to see what I haven’t seen yet.

That smell…

Fucking hell.

I grab her bloody pillow and bring it to my nose, recognizing that cheap scent. There’s only one man I know who uses that toxic aftershave.

Marty Zappia.

I rush back out into the living room, heading straight for the door. I stop in the frame and check the chain hanging next to the lock. Lucy always uses her chain. She’s not stupid enough to leave it off. If she were here when he came, he would have had to bust through it to get in.

It hangs undisturbed. She wasn’t here when this happened.

There’s only one other place she would be.

Christ, let me get there in time.

Chapter 16

Lucy

Marty Zappia smirks at me.

His mouth only moves on the left side. The other side just hangs there, completely numb.

“That’s right,” he growls. He holds out his hand and beckons me with his fingers. “Come on out…”

I stay glued to the corner of the stall, shaking my head. “What do you want?”

He lunges at me and latches onto my head. I shriek and scratch at him, but it does nothing against his strength. He pulls me from the stall and tosses me hard against the opposite wall. My head strikes it, blinding me with white lights and pain radiates through my eyeballs.

Marty wraps a fist about my hair and drags me out into the hallway, easily shoving me back down to the auditorium.

We step onto the stage and my heart plunges toward my toes.

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