Bite of Envy (Just One Bite #4) (6 page)

"This is garbage," Lizbeth spit at him, making no
attempt to get up. "And just what am I supposed to learn from this?"

Eamon walked over and, judging her mood a bit calmer than a
minute before, sat next to her on the beach. "You're supposed to learn to
think before you make a move. Attacking in blind fury will get you killed if
your opponent is stronger than you, and that temper is doing nothing but
getting the better of you. I'm not kicking your ass- your attitude is." With
that, Eamon got up and started to walk away.

Lizbeth snaked a leg out and tripped him. Eamon let out a
grunt as he landed face first in the damp sand next to her. Sitting up and
wiping at his face, he surprised her by bursting into laughter. "Now that
was cold- good job!" The look on her face had him laughing harder.
"That's all I wanted was for you to act on instinct instead of acting out
of anger. Anger is a blind spot- I'm trying to teach you to see past it, and
you're learning."

"So kicking my ass is educational?" Lizzie said
sarcastically. She stood up and brushed herself off, glaring at him in a
warning not to throw her down again.

Eamon grinned back at her. "You learned something,
didn't you? And if someone had meant you harm, you'd have been dead when you
hit the ground the first time. If you get past your anger, you might actually
come out on top." Lizbeth looked at him, a thoughtful expression on her
face. "Lizzie, I know you're going after Carson, and you expect it to come
down between you and him. If you charge him in anger, you won't come home
again. He's older, he's stronger, and you don't know a damned thing about the
powers he may possess. I want you to have the best possible chance for survival
before you go after him. That's my job."

Lizbeth walked over to Eamon and he tensed, expecting an
attack. He froze in place as she wrapped her arms around him. "Thank
you," she whispered, and he patted her back awkwardly. "Well, um,
yeah… you're welcome," he said, stepped back as soon as she released him.
He phased into his feline form before she could blink and took off into the
night. His voice caressed the inside of her mind.
That's enough for one day. We'll work more this weekend.

Lizbeth looked down at herself and grimaced in disgust as
she walked into the parlor. "Hey, baby," she said as she kissed the
top of Dia's head, leaving a few grains of sand in her wake, and then moved
over to kiss RaeLynn as well. "I'm grabbing a shower before dinner."

Diandra looked up at her before bursting into gales of
laughter. "Looks like that might be a good idea, hon." Lizbeth looked
a sight, sand covering her nearly head to toe, hair damp and disheveled, and
more than likely carrying remnants of the beach as well.

Lizbeth looked from herself to Diandra and had to laugh as
well. As usual, the love of her life looked more like she was posing for a
magazine cover than relaxing at home on a week night. She was polished and
elegant in a simple scoop-neck tee-shirt and boot-cut jeans. Her feet were bare
and her toes gleamed blood-red where she'd recently polished the nails. Her
hair was in a simple up-do, more for convenience to keep the long locks from
getting in her face throughout the day. No, it wasn't the outfit Dia wore that
made her look like a model- you could dress her in burlap and she'd look ready
for the runway, simply because she carried herself like a lady.

Shaking her head, Lizzie headed upstairs, intent on soaking
in the tub instead of getting the shower she'd originally intended. A glance at
the clock showed it was only 5 p.m. so she had plenty of time to soak and
relax. She adjusted the temperature of the tub to her liking and stripped off
her clothes. Just before she climbed in, however, her phone rang. The caller
I.D. showed a blocked number and she cussed mightily under her breath before
answering. "Snyder," she said, tense and wary, knowing who it was
before the hateful laughter came through the line.

"So you're like me now, huh?" District Attorney
Giles Carson greeted her, and her teeth gritted as she fought not to rant and
rave. Everything that had gone wrong in the last two years had been a result of
some plan or another he had set in motion. "Too bad you're a
weakling."

"Not as weak as you may think," Lizbeth countered,
thinking furiously. What did he want this time?

Carson merely laughed at her again, setting her teeth on
edge once more. "I saw that poor display on the beach," he taunted,
and she paled at the thought that he had gotten so close and neither she nor
Eamon had known it. "It was entertaining watching Eamon toss you around
that way, almost as much fun as being the one to do the tossing. And he's
right, you know. Had it been me, you'd be missing a limb each time you hit the
sand. I bet your blood would make an intriguing pattern," he mused, almost
as though he was talking to himself.

"I will squash you like a bug beneath my heel,"
Lizbeth threatened, her anger getting the better of her, just as Eamon warned
her about.

Carson just blew it off, talking as though he hadn't heard
her. "I just called to tell you to expect a present tonight.
Something special- a gift from me to you.
And you won't have
to travel so far to reach it, either." With that, he disconnected the
call. Irate, Lizbeth brought back her arm, intent on chunking it across the
room before remembering her new strength. She couldn't afford to be without her
phone, so she threw it on the bed instead, relieved when she didn't break it in
the process.

She went to the bathroom and turned off the water, sticking
her arm in to drain a bit out before it slopped out onto the floor. Finally
getting it to a decent level, she climbed in, laid back, and attempted to
unwind, but Carson's taunting took care of any chances of that. With a sigh she
drained the tub completely and took a quick shower so she could hurry down to
fill them all in about the phone call. She didn't relish the conversation, but
knew it was necessary. She knew more than likely that this would mean another
body, and he was trying to lay the blame for the helpless woman's death at
Lizbeth's feet. She knew better- whoever died, it wouldn't be her fault, but a
part of her would ache, regardless. The bastard would win this round, she
acknowledged to herself as she slid her robe on and tightened the sash, but he
would not win the war. She would make him suffer for every single death, and he
would beg for his own. She vowed this to herself, and then headed down to
dinner, and to the argument that was sure to ensue with this latest bit of
news.

A few hours later had Lizbeth strengthening that vow as she
gazed down at the body of yet another victim. In the same fashion as all the
other victims, the woman was tied to a tree, and her blood had been used to
write LESBIAN upon the tree's trunk. Her wrists had been slit and her throat as
well. Lizbeth knew the throat wound had come after the wrists, one final insult
before she bled out from the wounds on her arms.

Stepping back, she took the picture in, a bit puzzled by his
choice of victims. Most of the women were gorgeous, looking like they'd just
stepped out of a men's magazine. This woman looked nothing like that. Her long
brown hair was dry and brittle-looking, the ends split and in desperate need of
a trim. She was overweight by a good eighty pounds if not more, and her breasts
were strangely small for a woman her size. Her ass carried some of the weight
that should have been in her bra, Lizbeth thought, not without pity. She was
bottom-heavy, definitely pear-shaped and one of the most unattractive women
she'd ever seen. If not for the scene being identical to other scenes, with
details not released to the press, she would have assumed it was a farce, a
copycat playing games with them.

"Her name's Heather Segman," a uniformed officer
announced to her, coming to stand beside her and gazed down at the body.
"Boy, a plain name to go with a plain Jane, huh?" he said, then
stepped back, wincing and looking at the shiny tops of his regulation shoes at
the anger on her face.

"Plain or not, it doesn't fucking matter, Jensen,"
Lizbeth snapped at him after reading his nametag. "She's a victim, and she
deserves justice, not some rookie asshole hoping for a sexy piece of ass to
ogle as she's bagged and tagged. Get the fuck off my scene. Your commander will
be hearing from me," she said, turning her back on him, ignoring the
hasty, "Yes, ma'am" as he scurried away. "Asshole," she
muttered before going back to the scene.

Sadly, Jensen was right. She was a plain Jane, and very
unlike similar crime scenes in Dewey Beach and Rehoboth. Why did Carson choose
her? She looked nothing like Lizbeth, so it couldn't be a way to show he
planned her to die this way, as if she could die this way anymore. She didn't
look like anyone Lizzie knew, either. So why did this woman have to die?

A voice caressed her mind, and she relaxed when she
recognized Eamon's tones.
Perhaps she's
merely a distraction. You'll keep worrying at it like a dog with a bone, trying
to figure out why it had to be her. Maybe that was the whole point of this
senseless death.
His point made sense, and she acknowledged it silently.
Maybe more was coming, deaths more meaningful to her. She'd know more when she
got back to the station and ran the woman's information herself. As a baggie of
black-market pills was found in her possession, this was considered a narcotics
case until cause of death had been decided. She'd finish the work here, then
she'd go find out more about this woman. Who was Heather Segman, and why did
she have to die?

Two hours later and the only progress was her headache- it
was now head-splitting instead of merely throbbing. Nothing made sense. The
woman had no friends, no family, nothing. She was no one, and from all
appearances, no one would even miss her. What Carson would gain from this was
beyond her. Did this woman die just to prove a point? Maybe Eamon was right,
and it was simply to mess with her mind and have her feeling guilty over a
death that was not her fault. If that was his aim, Carson had sadly misstepped.
All that this poor, plain woman's death did was motivate her to stop him.

Lizbeth added the woman's photo to her murder board- on it
were pictures of every victim and a print-out detailing the women's lives.
Every single previous body looked posed, like they were models designed to look
like murder victims. Segman didn't fit the pattern, and Lizbeth sat down to run
a search on her again.

When she found the link, her blood ran cold. This
unattractive, unnoticeable woman was the former roommate of Sandra Willis,
local reporter. Sinking down into her office chair, Lizbeth put her head into
her hands. Now she knew what Carson's message was- it was kind of like that old
game, Six Degrees of Separation, only it was a lot closer than six degrees.

She didn't stop to think- she simply picked up the phone and
dialed a very familiar number, wondering if it was even still in service after
all this time. When the phone was picked up on the other end, she couldn't
speak for a moment. Taking a deep breath to calm her suddenly shaky nerves, she
said, "Sandra, hi. It's Lizbeth."

An hour later, a slightly
harried-looking reporter showed herself into Lizbeth's office. She stopped dead
when she saw the murder board, and glimpsed the face she'd once known so well
staring back at her, pale and terrified in her death pose. Sandra rushed the
last few steps to where Lizbeth stood, just to the side of her desk. Without
any ceremony Sandra flung herself into Lizzie's arms and sobbed. "Oh, Liz,
it can't be Heather- who would want to kill her?" The question seemed
rhetorical, but Lizbeth had come to a decision as she waited for her old flame
to show- she was going to come clean about Carson. Not only would it be helpful
to have another set of eyes and ears working the case that she couldn't
officially put together, but Sandra needed to be warned as well. This seemed
like a clear threat that the eager reporter would be the next one if something
wasn't done.

Finally Sandra composed herself
enough to sit down on the couch that had so often been a bed to Lizbeth lately.
She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue she'd pulled out of her fashionable
little purse before dropping it into a waiting trash can. "I just can't
believe someone would want to kill her. Hell, half the time I wasn't even aware
she was around. It doesn't make sense," she said, steel worming itself
into her tone as she recovered her inner strength. Turning red-rimmed emerald
eyes to Lizbeth, the reporter's instincts suddenly flew to the surface.
"She wasn't a lesbian," Sandra began.

"Wait, what?" Lizbeth
said, surprised. She'd been certain when she found out that they'd lived
together for nearly a year that the plain-looking dead woman had been a live-in
lover. Certainly not Sandy's usual type, but to each their own, she had thought
cynically when she first saw the address on the dead woman's background check.
Now it made even less sense, unless Carson had simply assumed they'd been
lovers, as Lizzie herself had done. Unfortunately, Sandra came to the same
conclusion.

"We were never lovers. She
rented a room from me when she first came to town. We went to the same high
school and later to the same college, but she was hetero." Her eyes were
sharp now, all traces of grief buried under the story she sense brewing.
"But I'm guessing someone didn't realize that. The killer might have
thought that because I'm a lesbian, and I don't hide it, that she must be one,
too. You agree with me- I can tell by the way you're shifting your eyes from
me. Liz, you know something," Sandra cajoled. "I need to know. This
is personal now. That little wallflower never hurt anyone. She shouldn't be dead.
Heather… well, she shouldn't be dead."