Read Online Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars - Free Book Online

that couldn’t be missed because
he was completely nude.
    Based on his current position, he probably
would have been facing outward through the doorway were it not for
the fact that he was pitched back against the side of the bathtub.
He appeared to have been kneeling at the time of death, and that
was pretty much his position now, albeit canted backward and
slightly to one side where gravity had forced him to slip. He
hadn’t gone far, however, as his shift to the right had been halted
early on by the unaccommodating narrowness of the gap between the
toilet and the tub.
    What remained of his head was lolled to the
side, face slack and jaw hanging open with bright blood dribbling
across his chin, dripping down onto his chest. A wide strip of
silver-grey duct tape was positioned firmly over his eyes. The left
side of his skull, from just above and behind the ear on up to the
crown, was all but completely missing and of course, now formed the
sickening mosaic behind him. It didn’t take much to figure out that
someone had shoved a gun into his mouth and then pulled the
trigger.
    Even though his body had gone limp in death,
his shoulders appeared strained, and upon second glance one noticed
that his arms disappeared behind his back as if bound there.
    In front of him was a multi-hued puddle,
ranging from yellow to an orangish-pink. Amid it all was a stream
of something whitish and viscous looking. The bulk of the liquid
was obviously a mixture of blood and what was probably his own
urine. I wasn’t certain, but I suspected the white substance was
seminal fluid.
    There was no real way to tell for a fact if
the urine had been the product of fear or simply muscles relaxing
once his life had fled. My guess, however, was that it had occurred
after death. I couldn’t prove it, of course, but I felt no fear in
the room, only the buzz of heightened passion. Even now, standing
in this doorway and looking at this macabre scene, sex came to the
forefront. Those physically intangible facts weren’t helping me
deal with this at all. When you added the suspected ejaculate to
the list of oddities, I was even more unnerved.
    Up to this point the scene looked much like I
had voiced earlier—a contract killing. It had all the hallmarks of
an execution style murder. However, as I took in the raw tableau, I
continued to have even more of the “not quite right” sensation
tickling my brain—as had Ben. I knew that what I was feeling didn’t
fit the scene, and I couldn’t yet put my finger on it, but
something I was seeing, other than just the semen, didn’t belong
either.
    “Are you going to be okay?” Felicity asked
me.
    I realized that I was still staring past her
and gave my head a quick shake then focused on her face. “Yeah…
Yeah, I’ll be all right. What about you?”
    “Aye, me?” she asked. “I’m fine.”
    “This doesn’t affect you?”
    “Yes… and no,” she replied almost
apologetically. “I’m afraid perhaps I’m a bit indifferent right
now. I’ve seen this sort of thing quite a bit because of the
classes. And… much more recently than you as well.”
    “Yeah. Probably so.” I gave her a nod then
fell silent again, shifting my gaze to stare back over her shoulder
at Wentworth’s corpse.
    “Do you want to go outside then?” she asked
after a moment. “It’s okay. I can finish up here.”
    I shook my head.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’ve got that look on your face, Row,” she
pressed. “What are you thinking?”
    “What Ben said…” I answered as I returned my
eyes to meet hers. “You know, about something not being right. Do
you get that too?”
    She gave a quick nod in the affirmative. “But
I’m not sure what.”
    “Well, if the white stuff is what I think it
is…” I offered.
    “Aye, I noticed that… And… and…” She allowed
her voice to trail off.
    “And what?”
    “Gods, Row,” she almost whispered, her tone
disturbed. She looked away for a