Read Online Something Wicked by Lisa Jackson - Free Book Online Page B

one intimating that she believed in the women of the Colony’s gifts, and Catherine was the skeptic. The two women stared each other down.
    Finally, Catherine declared, “Cassandra has a flair for the dramatic. No one’s coming for us. And certainly not for you, Detective.”
    â€œThat’s good to hear.” Deciding it was time to stop talking in circles and get on with the Donatella investigation, Savannah got to her feet and said, “I’d better get going.”
    â€œYou’ll test the knife?”
    â€œI . . . yes. I’ll bill you.” She walked around the table, out of the kitchen, and toward the rough-hewn front door, sensing Catherine behind her. Turning, she saw that Catherine’s eyes were following the bag in her hand, as if she was afraid to let it out of her sight. “I’ll talk to Detective Stone about it, too.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œAs I said, he may ask to exhume Mary’s body if he thinks a crime’s been committed.”
    â€œThere’s no reason for that,” Catherine stated quickly. “If Detective Stone wants to take things that far, have him get in contact with me.”
    She opened the door and accompanied Savannah down the flagstone path to the gate, unlocked it, waited for Savvy to pass through, then relocked the gate before turning back to the lodge. Savannah climbed into her vehicle and looked back at Catherine’s stiffly held spine as the older woman reentered the lodge.
    Who is he? she wondered again, her gaze sliding toward the knife inside the plastic bag, as she sensed in her bones that there was some real threat out there and tried like hell to shake the eerie feeling that had been with her since she first stepped through the gate of Siren Song.

CHAPTER 4
    T he bar was crowded with would-be cowboys and girls in skintight dresses, along with a few after-work businessmen, who had ripped off their ties and were knocking back shots, as if trying to prove they were twice as macho as any of the men wearing jeans, boots, hats, and oversize belt buckles. It was a rockin’ Thursday night at the Rib-I, a Portland steak and baked potato restaurant and bar, whose logo was spelled out in ropelike orange neon and encircled by a lasso.
    Yes, the Rib-I was class all the way, and Charlie—no, that wasn’t his real name, but it was the only one he gave out—was pretty sure every fucker in sight would be worth more to the world if he were six feet under. With that thought in mind, Charlie wondered how many he could kill. How long it would take. How much forethought. He didn’t plan to ever get caught, and so mass murder or even serial murders were problematic, something to avoid. But recently he’d gotten the killing urge and gotten it bad. It was powerful, almost sexual. Well, actually, it was sexual. He had to beat off almost immediately after every last choking sound. He didn’t care how they expired. He just liked staring into their eyes, their damned souls, and watching them suck in those last tortured breaths, and then, man, the hard-on was so huge and uncomfortable that with a few quick strokes he was spewing like a volcano.
    Now . . . there was danger in that. DNA danger. He’d learned to carry around ziplock bags, just in case he wasn’t somewhere safe.
    It was a strange phenomenon, he thought as he sipped his beer. He’d never really understood his own power, but it was always there, always with him, an old friend. In his youth he’d worked his power on animals that he wanted to befriend. It ran through him with the heat of blood in his veins, and the zing of energy down his nerves. It was a power he couldn’t explain, though he’d tried to several times, the last time to his adoptive mother, who had looked pained and a little frightened while he struggled to name his power, and then had simply changed the subject. But by then he was sixteen and as horny as he could