Love at First Kill

Jack had it all worked out. He’d found her easily: traced a trail of Dove chocolate wrappers, asked a bus driver if he’d seen an anxious redhead, and gotten off in the hostel district, where he’d worn an easy smile and asked whether anyone had seen his sister, said that he was supposed to pick her up here and she’d maybe mixed up the numbers in the street address, and had they seen her?

People had pointed him in the right direction—and even if they hadn’t, a little more digging and she would’ve turned up. As it was, the hostel manager had only shrugged when he asked whether she was staying here.

So he’d gone around back, pried open a window when he’d seen his notebook sticking out of a jacket pocket, and been waiting for her ever since.

And now here she was, naked and dripping wet, her scream still echoing in the small room.