Page 49 of Black Heart

A loud gasp of outrage was followed by the sounds of another bitch-slap. Tristan didn’t bother looking away from his computer as he reached into his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Advil. He popped three pills into his mouth and chased them down with the now-cold hot chocolate.

He returned his attention to the database that he’d made over the weekend for the missing girls from the past twenty-two years. Based on the files, he’d been able to dismiss thirty of the missing cases. That left over fifty cases that fell into a pattern that, at first, looked like nothing more than coincidences, but after putting them into a database and mapping them, he could see a clear pattern.

All the women on his list were grabbed within two miles of a restaurant or a restaurant supply company. It wasn’t until a month ago that these cases caught his eye. At first, he didn’t think there was anything that he could work with since they all occurred in downtown areas.

The fact that not all of the kidnap victims were associated with any of the restaurants either as employees or customers was another problem for his theory as well as the fact that none of the women fit any pattern. They were all different ages, body shapes, ethnic backgrounds, and came from different financial backgrounds. Any other investigator would have just looked at the cases and said that they had nothing in common. He would have dismissed the cases if it hadn’t been for one small detail.

The restaurants and supply stores were all high-class establishments. The kidnappings occurred well away from fast food joints or Mom and Pop establishments.

He knew that it was a long shot and he could very well be wrong, but he had a nagging feeling about these cases that he couldn’t let go. Until he had some kind of physical evidence like a video, prints, witnesses, or even a body, he couldn’t push for a task force or even issue a warning. All he had right now was a database and a hunch. Hell, there wasn’t even a pattern to help him figure out where the kidnapper would strike next.

What he wouldn’t give for a spirit to harass him at two in the morning over this case…

For the past month, he’d been waiting for just that, but so far, nothing. It wasn’t surprising, but it definitely wasn’t good news. Since he doubted that all these women ran away like some of the investigators suggested, he was left with only one conclusion.

They’d all suffered greatly before they’d died and welcomed the peaceful release from their bodies. On one hand, he was happy that their spirits didn’t suffer further torment by wandering the earth. On the other hand, if even one of them had contacted him, he would have been able to end this a long time ago. Then again, for all he knew, they could be stuck where they’d died, unable to let go.

“Bitch!”

“No, you’re the bitch!” the airhead twins argued as his head started pounding. “Ask him. He’ll tell you!” she said, gesturing to him.

Tristan just barely bit back a groan. They’d been too busy bitch slapping each other to even notice him and he’d hoped it stayed that way.

“You know that if he could see us that he’d totally want me, right?” the brunette said as she pushed her blood-caked hair back out of her face while they stood behind Marty, watching him.

The blonde snorted. “He can see us and he was totally checking out my girls,” she said as she made a show of adjusting her breasts and winked at him, making him cringe.

“Nah-ah!” the brunette said.

“Yeah, because when we were arguing over whether my text messaging and fixing my makeup while I was driving or all those cars going the wrong way on the highway was the reason we crashed, he muttered that we should win the Darwin Award.”

“Oh, my God! We’re going to win an award?” the brunette asked, practically jumping up and down.

“Totally!”

As the dead women suddenly rushed him, he promised all kinds of revenge on Shayne, starting with canceling the porn channel.

CHAPTER18

“I’m going home,” Marty announced as she grabbed her bag and stood up.

“Don’t care,” Tristan muttered, and she just barely stopped herself from throwing her stapler at his head.

All day, she’d been forced to put up with his bitchiness. Now, she was more than ready to call it a night. If she’d thought he’d been an asshole before, she’d been dead wrong. Today, he’d redefined the term asshole. Today, she couldn’t wait to get the hell away from him. Today...

Today, he broke her heart.

All day, she’d waited to see a glimmer of the Tristan that she loved, but he never showed up. Instead, she had to deal with this jerk that either ignored her or snapped at her. A few times, she was forced to leave the office and hide in the bathroom to calm down before she did something stupid like cry.

She loved him so much and she hated him for it. She didn’t want to feel this way about him, never had, but she couldn’t help it. Being in love with Tristan felt natural and the other day when she was in his arms, she’d felt whole for the first time in her life. She wanted to be with him,neededto be with him, but that was never going to happen.

At least one thing was clear.

She couldn’t keep doing this. As much as she wanted to work with her father before he retired, she just couldn’t. She couldn’t come in day after day and pretend that seeing him wasn’t killing her. She just couldn’t keep doing this and as soon as she had her degree, she would start sending out her resumé and hopefully, find something far away so that she could move on with her life and forget about him.

Only…

She’d never be able to forget about him. At least she’d be able to put some distance between them and give her broken heart a chance to mend so that she could finally move on. She-

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