Famished, Meghan O'Flynn [free ebooks romance novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Meghan O'Flynn
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Ralph cleared his throat. “My brother always liked to play baseball. Do you have any siblings?”
“No.” She wondered what her brother Steve was up to these days. She hadn’t spoken to his self-righteous ass since he’d called to tell her their father had died. She had hung up on him before he could tell her about the arrangements.
Ralph cocked his head. “You okay?”
Noelle plastered a smile on her face. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Ralph followed her to the lobby again that night. She let him kiss her softly on the cheek. “Good night, Ralph.”
“Good night.”
Later that week, he took her out to dinner at an Indian restaurant downtown. The coconut curry was delicious.
“Where did your parents meet?” Ralph asked.
“A real estate conference.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
She tried not to look bored. “Yes,” she said.
When dinner was over, he took her back to her apartment and walked her through the lobby to the elevator again. She saw the affection in his eyes, the ache, the longing, the adoration. He was in deep enough to suffer.
“Well, I guess this is good ni—”
She put a finger on his lips. “Would you like to come up?”
Desire brightened his eyes. “Yes,” he said, breath already ragged with anticipation.
She awoke at three the next morning with the weight of his arm pinning her to the bed. Her skin crawled where his arm made contact with her flesh. She shimmied from underneath him, padded into the kitchen, and sucked down a glass of water at the sink, considering whether she should wake him and throw him out, or just wait until morning when he would leave on his own.
Her mind wandered to the night before, and how he’d been so willing and eager to put his tongue between her legs. She smiled.
I’ll wait until morning.
Monday morning, Ralph approached her as she entered the office.
“Hey, Noelle!” He moved closer to put his arm around her.
“Hello.” She sidestepped his hand and walked past him to her desk. The blank computer screen reflected her perfectly curled hair and smooth features. Not a hint of exhaustion as in previous weeks.
He followed her. “Is everything okay?”
She turned on the computer. “Yep.” She watched her reflection morph into the Harwick Technical logo and stared at the sign-in window until Ralph finally walked away.
Hannah poked her head over the partition. “So…how’d it go this weekend?”
Noelle shrugged. “You know, same old same old.”
The next day, there were flowers on her desk when she arrived at the office. Ralph stood by the water cooler, waiting for her reaction. She dumped the flowers into the trash and watched his face fall.
Thursday morning, Ralph was waiting for her at her cubicle. His face was drawn, and there were bags under his eyes, but his mouth was set in a furious line.
“Hey,” he spat.
“Hey.” She turned on the computer and stared at the screen as it booted up.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Two priors: She could see his fists in her peripheral vision, clenched at his sides near her desktop.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
His breath whistled through his nostrils on a long, deep inhale. He sighed it out. “I just… I really like you. I thought we had something good going. I mean, I know it was only a few dates, but—”
“Yeah, sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“This is tearing me the fuck up,” he said.
She shrugged, refusing to look at him.
“Can’t we just try again?” His voice rose. “Maybe dinner? A movie? I feel like I’m going insane. I can’t think about anything else. I’m on Xanax for Christ’s sake.” He was practically yelling, loud enough for everyone in the office to hear him. Not that Hannah would be all judgy about it. And Tony never said shit.
“No thanks, Ralph. I don’t think you can make me happy.”
But as she heard him stomp away, she did feel a glimmer of satisfaction. Not happiness exactly, but close enough. Good old Ralph…that boring fucker.
Maybe the next one would be more interesting. Find the right guy, and you could get him to do anything.
Anything at all.
Hannah peeked into her cubicle. “Xanax, huh? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Sometimes, they just like you a little more than you like them, right? Maybe one of these days we can go out, take my mind off all this.”
Hannah nodded uncertainly and disappeared behind the partition.
Noelle turned back to her computer and tried to hide her smile.
Petrosky stared across the cherry desk at Dr. Stephen McCallum. The department psychiatrist was Santa Claus in the off-season, at least two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, with ruddy cheeks and a head full of curly white hair that matched his beard. No red coat, though; McCallum’s green button-down shirt and brown tweed jacket strained against his bulk.
“Do your victims have any common acquaintances?” McCallum asked.
“Nope.”
“Any promising physical evidence?”
Fuck no, there wasn’t. No fingerprints on any of the restraints, but tons of random prints all over the crime scenes, probably from kids smoking dope or squatters. “At the Trazowski scene, we found fingerprints all over that basement from some guy who had a previous arrest. Crack addict, says he slept in the basement once, shit in a corner. The restraints are expensive, and the dissection meticulous enough that I don’t think corner-shitter is our guy.”
McCallum nodded. “Agreed. What else?”
“No sexual assault, no murder weapons found, and no witnesses. Trazowski and her kids were pretty much ghosts; I’ve got nothing on her movements until she arrived at the shelter, and less than a day after she left, she was filleted in the basement of a house she has no connection to. The father of Trazowski’s kids is currently doing four years in New York on a series of B and Es, and he didn’t know Lawrence.” So not a pissed-off father situation. That would have made his life too fucking easy. “As for Lawrence, she had an abusive boyfriend with eight previous arrests for domestic violence, but he’s got an alibi the night of the murder. She had two priors: one for domestic violence and another for prostitution. Then there’s her abandoned kid.”
Petrosky blinked hard against the headache that was taking root in his temples. “The kid died of hypothermia, no signs of violence, but I turned it over to the prosecutor’s office in case they feel like going after Keil. I don’t think much will come of it.”
McCallum leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands on the desktop. “That bothers you.”
“Of course it fucking bothers me.”
“Because you’d give anything to have your kid back, and here people are throwing them away?”
“Because it’s fucked up, that’s why.” Petrosky had seen McCallum himself after Julie died. Mandatory leave, they’d said. Fucking bureaucratic bullshit.
“Has the anger abated any?”
“Goddammit, McCa—”
“I’ll take that as a no. Remember, anger can be a symptom of both depression and complicated grief, but it’s not something to ignore. Drinking still under control?”
“Everything’s under control,” Petrosky said tightly. He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his cheek. “Let’s get back on track here.”
“Fine, have it your way. Lawrence, then.”
“Lawrence. No family and no friends that the boyfriend mentioned.” A lack of acquaintances wasn’t uncommon in these situations, but it made Petrosky’s job far more difficult. Fewer friends around, fewer ways to trace a person’s movements. Fewer leads. He sighed.
“Okay, so not much to go on there. Anyone else who might provide you with some leads?”
“Maybe,” Petrosky said. “What’s your take on LaPorte?”
“Her file is very interesting. The early arrests for protesting and civil disobedience aren’t especially concerning given the time period. However, when paired with other symptoms, trouble with the law can be a sign of antisocial personality disorder, the clinical diagnosis related to psychopathic tendencies. The later arrest for the murder of her husband certainly fits that bill.”
“It was dismissed as self-defense. When a man stabs you with a kitchen knife, you’re allowed to bludgeon him to death with a tire
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