Page 8 of Nowhere to Hide

Only it had been darker.

Heart blood.

Pumping out of his chest and squelching around my fingers.

“Do you need a minute?”

I gritted my teeth and pushed out of the fog of memory.

Facts.

Only facts.

Not my fucked-up mind.

My voice was glass over gravel. “Her underwear was intact, but then I felt the blood pooling around her. She’d been stabbed in the thigh. I didn’t worry about anything else but getting her free. The rope dug into her neck.” The angry red and pink abrasions shimmered in my mind to match up to Milligan’s unseeing eyes.

My fingers shook and I tightened them into fists at my sides.

“Were her legs tied as well?”

I nodded. “More of those knots around her ankles, tied around the piles to—” Now it was anger. The purest, hottest kind. No woman should be treated like that. The way he pinned her to the dock—immobilized as much as she was tortured trying to save herself. I swallowed hard. “To widen them,” I finished on a near growl.

“Any other details on the man who did this?”

“Tall, lean, athletic body. Wore all black including shoes. Hoodie, I guess or zip jacket—not sure. Either way he’d pulled the hood up when I flashed my light. He wasn’t wearing a mask from what I could tell. Sharp nose and chin. Not sure on a beard. It happened fast. Sorry it wasn’t a better look.”

“No, that’s great. Okay, that’s all.” He turned his phone off and handed me his card.

Beat cops did not have card as far as I was aware.

I glanced down at it. “Detective Edward Stone.” I met his gaze. “Didn’t know detectives had to wear a uniform.”

His lips flattened. “Temporary situation.”

“This isn’t the first for this guy.” It wasn’t a question. The ritual flavor of this was messed up. It couldn’t be the first time.

“No comment.”

I shrugged. “Not my business.”

The cop looked around. “No purse.”

I followed his gaze, mine zeroing in on the smear of rusty darkness on my slip. So much blood. How the hell was she going to make it? But I scanned over the rest of the area and no purse. “Maybe left it behind when he took her.”

Stone narrowed his eyes at me. “Oh really?”

I held up my hands. “Not my business.”

“Seem to have a lot of details Mr. Jordan.”

“I am not like that fucker.”

Worse.

I simply murdered my best friend.

My gut churned and sweat slicked my back. “Look, I work personal security for The Kendrick Group. Well, I used to.”