The Last Victim by Karen Robards

Author:Karen Robards [Karen Robards]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345535443
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-06T14:00:00+00:00

Charlie was surprised to find that she had a lump in her throat as she finished reading. She was even more surprised to realize that her sorrow wasn’t for the victim, but instead for the abused eleven-year-old boy whose mother described him as “a mean little shit” and deliberately gave up her rights to him. Probably, given what Charlie knew of the juvenile corrections system, just when he needed her the most.

Suddenly her own mother, difficult as her alcoholism had been to deal with, seemed worthy of mother-of-the-year honors. At least Charlie had never doubted she was loved.

Charlie was just clicking through to the next page in Garland’s file when there was an urgent knock on the door.

“Dr. Stone.” It was Kaminsky.

“I’m coming.” Kaminsky’s tone set off alarm bells in Charlie. Shoving the laptop onto the nearest table, she jumped up and hurried to answer the summons. Before she could reach the door, Charlie heard a key in the lock. Kaminsky had sounded like something was wrong, and now she was coming in without waiting for Charlie to admit her.

Whatever it is can’t be good.…

Charlie discovered that her heart was pounding even as Kaminsky, still fully dressed, down to her shoes, burst through the doorway. Their eyes met for a pregnant instant. Trouble, was what Charlie read in that look, and then Kaminsky glanced around wildly.

“What?” Charlie registered Kaminsky’s drawn gun and surrendered to a full-blown case of the nervous jitters.

“Did someone come in here?” The agent’s voice was sharp. Shutting the door, she looked around with more care. Then, shaking her head at Charlie in a gesture that warned her to stay where she was, she started moving carefully through the living room, two-handing her gun, glancing behind the furniture and into corners before eyeing the kitchen suspiciously.

“No one’s here but me,” Charlie assured her.

“I saw a man in the hall right outside your door. I had just come up from the kitchen and stepped inside my room, and I caught a glimpse of him behind me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t see where he went, but there wasn’t time for him to go anywhere else. I—I’m almost sure he came in here.” There was the tiniest degree of hesitation in that last sentence, which told Charlie that Kaminsky was growing less sure by the second.

“You saw a man?” Charlie’s eyes narrowed as a possibility occurred to her, but it wasn’t anything she could share. “What did he look like?”

Having checked out the kitchen, Kaminsky was doubling back to search the bedroom. “Tall. Blond. Built. Way hot.” Kaminsky cast a suspicious look at Charlie before she stuck her head inside the bathroom and glanced around. “Naked.”

Charlie blinked. “Naked?”

“Starkers.”

Charlie saw a shimmer moving through the air near the bathroom. Keeping a wary eye on it, she called to Kaminsky, “Believe me, there’s no naked man in here.”

Just as soon as she said it, the shimmer turned solid and, sure enough, there was a naked man in there.

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