Read Online Vile by Debra Webb - Free Book Online Page A

slack.”
    “Maybe,” she suggested, “we need a long soak in our nice garden tub before climbing into that comfy bed we haven’t made love in for the past two nights.”
    He lifted her onto his lap and decided this was a good time to tell her his news. “I had a break today while you and Cook were reviewing video footage and Hayes was off with the chief interviewing that crazy homeless dude.”
    Lori shuddered. “He tried to reenact what Matthew Reed did to that FBI agent.”
    “Sounds like,” Chet agreed.
    Lori had been abducted by Spears’s deceased protégé, Matthew Reed. He’d held her for days, tormented her relentlessly, including making her watch as he tortured two other women, one didn’t survive. Lori almost died as well. The bastard had used her greatest fear against her—the fear of drowning. Spears loved using his victims’ fears to torture them. Chet hoped he got just five minutes alone with the guy before he went to hell.
    “What did you do during this break?” she asked, curious.
    He’d been waiting for the right moment to share this news with her. Might as well be now. “I made the appointment for the surgery. Two weeks from today.”
    Lori’s face lit up. “He thinks it can be done?”
    Chet nodded. “He does. Since it’s only been three years, he says there’s a very high chance of success. I’ll be off work for a few days, but as soon as he gives the go ahead we can start trying to make a baby.”
    Lori stilled. “You want to start right away?”
    Chet held his breath. Hoped this wasn’t going to be a sticking point. “Sometimes scar tissues forms and closes things up again. The surgeon says it’s important that we try right away. The first year is crucial.”
    “Wow.” Lori looked away. “I’m not sure how I feel about that schedule.”
    He didn’t want to rush her, but she needed to understand the hurdles they were facing. Sherry had insisted on the vasectomy after Chester was born, and Chet had done what he hoped would save his marriage. But it hadn’t. He prayed that desperate decision wasn’t going to cost him the woman he loved now.
    “We don’t have to if you’re not ready,” he assured her. “I can put the surgery off. The problem is, the longer I wait before I get it reversed the lower the odds of success.”
    “I didn’t realize we’d be up against a timeline.”
    “I’m sorry,” he offered. The words echoed impotently around them.
    She got up, leaving the warm place she’d made in his lap. “I’m beat. Maybe I’ll just shower and hit the sack.”
    Chet reached for his beer. So much for lightening the mood with what he thought was good news.

8
    10:30 p.m.
    Amanda Brownfield drew in a lungful of smoke and held it for as long as she could before exhaling into the night. “Mmm.” There was just about nothing on God’s green earth tasted as good as a cigarette after sex.
    The ground shifted beneath her with his twisting and squirming around. “Be still,” she screamed! She worked harder at staying put, digging in her heels and pressing her butt harder into the dirt. She thought about using the Taser again but she was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna be necessary.
    He was just about done.
    Weatherman was calling for rain tomorrow. The dirt would pack down all nice and neat then. She stared at the bright glow of cherry at the end of her cigarette. She could toss this thing into all the dry underbrush and burn this whole place down once and for all.
    What did she need with this hellhole now anyway? She had bigger plans.
    The ground beneath her stopped moving.
    She smiled. “Good boy,” she murmured. “You just go right on to hell where you belong.” She dragged in another deep draw from her smoke. Oh yeah, there was just about nothing else that tasted as good as a cigarette after sex.
    Except maybe having one after killing a no good son of a bitch like the one she’d killed tonight.
    Amanda laughed as she wiggled her bottom against the loose dirt.