Hot and Haunted by Megan Hart & Lauren Hawkeye & Saranna DeWylde

Author:Megan Hart & Lauren Hawkeye & Saranna DeWylde
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2012-10-22T13:00:00+00:00

LITTLE RED’S BIG BAD

Saranna DeWylde

Chapter One

“HERE’S LITTLE RED straying from the path, just like the Big Bad Wolf said she would,” convicted serial rapist Jimmy Bancroft, said with a smirk as three officers led him into the interview room. His chains rattled with every shuffling movement, and U.S. Marshal Miranda Garrick waited patiently for the officers to secure his leg shackles to the heavy bolts in the floor. They removed one wrist from behind his back and secured it to the left side of the table, then his other to the right. Only then was he permitted to sit. “I’m flattered you think all this necessary.”

Already he was trying to control the power structure, attempting to keep her off-balance, first by saying he had information about her, then by trying to make her comfortable with him so she’d drop her guard. She knew the routine; it was standard predator behavior.

“Mr. Bancroft,” she began.

“Call me Jimmy, darlin’.” His mouth snapped into a grin.

Miranda was surprised by how straight, white, and sharp his teeth were. They were an incongruity flashing out from his pockmarked face. He didn’t look like the kind of man to care for his dental health. It wasn’t both arms, sleeved with tattoos, that marked him as part of the Aryan Nation, his cratered face, the slicked-back fifties greaser hair, or even the strange scar on his neck that looked like an animal bite. It was the black rings of filth under his jagged yellow fingernails, the swollen, red bulbous tip of his nose that betrayed him as a lifetime drunk, and the stench coming off his body that was more than unwashed flesh.

He reeked of death—rot.

“Mr. Bancroft,” she started again, keeping it professional and maintaining distance. “That wouldn’t be quite fair since I only answer to Marshal Garrick.”

Another grin spread across his face like an infection. “No, you’re Little Red to his Big Bad Wolf. He said you’d be comin’, and you’d have fire hair. That’s why you here, ain’t it? Huntin’ Dean Harvey Webster?” He licked his too-full lips languorously, as if savoring the taste of something, his eyes roving over her body.

Hannibal, Missouri, was famous for three things: Mark Twain, the brand-new, state-of-the-art, supermax penitentiary, and serial killer Dean Harvey Webster. The last two were about to get a lot more famous.

Hannibal Penitentiary was supposed to be impenetrable, escape-proof. But the cell where Dean Harvey Webster resided had been recently and unlawfully vacated twenty-four hours ago—leaving her with the singular task of hunting his ass down and forcing him back into his cage.

“Sir, I’ll thank you to keep your tongue inside your head while we’re speaking.”

“But Marshal, you can’t come in a prison smelling so good, looking so hot, and not expect a man to have a reaction.” He leered at her.

“Actually, I can do what I want because I’m the U.S. Marshal, and you’re the inmate. See how that works?”

He laughed. “Fair enough. But you should be nicer to me, Red. Or I won’t give you want you want.

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