Cynthia Eden - After The Dark

Her profile for the Sorority Slasher ran through her mind.

Highly intelligent... Cameron was a freaking genius, and he had the paperwork to prove it.

Strong. Fit. Cameron worked out every single day. Not just some light gym work. He was into martial arts, boxing. Hell, he’d even taken up Krav Maga in the last year.

Attractive. His features were absolutely perfect. Sharp cheekbones, deep, dark eyes, sensual lips.

In his late twenties or early thirties... Cameron was twenty-eight.

“I left in a rush before,” Cameron mused. “I shut down the computer, but I didn’t stop to think that you’d possibly get up in the middle of the damn night and come snooping on me.” He gave a low hum. “Figured out my password, did you?”

Her lips felt numb as she said, “I’ve always known your password.”

“The Lord of the Underworld.”

Her hands inched toward his desk drawer. It was open, just an inch, and she’d caught the gleam of a letter opener in there.

“How will this end, Sam?” Cameron asked her. “Am I really supposed to kill you now?”

It’s him. It’s him. It’s him. Inside, she was screaming.

Cameron took a step toward her. “What do you see on the screen?” Now he sounded curious, not angry. “Is it her? The last one? And she was going to be my last one, by the way. My experiment was over.”

“Experiment?” Her left hand had slid into the drawer and curled around the letter opener.

“Um. Yes.” He took another step toward her. He hadn’t turned on the lights in the room, so he was just a big, dark shadow. “I wanted to see if I could do it, you see. If I could kill. If I could get away with the crimes. And I wanted to see...what are people like...in that last terrible moment? What is it like when they know that hope is gone and they’re dying?”

Nausea rolled in her stomach. “Cameron?” She said his name as if he were a stranger, and right then, he was. Not the man she knew. Not her ex-lover. Not her friend. Cameron was a respected professional. He was on the fast track to become the head of his department at Georgetown—after only two years there. He charmed his way past everyone’s guard.

He was...a killer.

He took yet another step toward her. She couldn’t see his hands. She wished that she could just see his hands.

“There were some surprising results. Would you like to hear them?”

Cameron always enjoyed bouncing ideas off her.

“I felt alive when I killed those women. Interesting, don’t you think? That death finally made me feel alive? Until that point, I’d only felt that way, well...when I was fucking you. But that ended when you met Blake Gamble.”

She flinched. “Blake and I are just...partners. Nothing more. We haven’t been together.”

His smile was cold. “Not yet. But I know you, Sam. I know what you want.”

This couldn’t be happening.

“It was easy to kill.” Now his voice was almost musing. “I never hesitated. I mean, I always suspected I was a bit of a psychopath, but as we all know...psychopaths aren’t necessarily monsters. They’re just...unemotional. Detached. Able to become such great surgeons, CEOs, lawyers...even profilers for the FBI...”

Her phone was in the guest bedroom, and Cameron didn’t have a landline. She needed to call Blake. Call Bass. Call the cops.

“Covering up the crimes—well, that was easy, too. All so easy. The hardest part? That was staying two steps ahead of you. Because that profile you made up? The one that your boss called shit?” He was in front of the desk now. “It was dead-on.”

She could hear the frantic drumbeat of her heart. Every. Single. Beat. “Show me your hands.”

He laughed. “You think I’ll hurt you?”

“Show me your hands.”

“You were right about Allan.” He watched her with a predatory stare. “Allan did need the money and...the guy was sick, too. Dying. I was really just speeding up the process for him. It was all going to work so perfectly.” For a moment, he almost sounded sad. Almost. “But even when you were drunk...you were figuring shit out.”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“Yeah, you were.” Another sigh. “I think you might have been better at profiling than you realized. But then, I always said you had that killer instinct.”

“Show me your hands.” It sounded as if she were begging, and Samantha hated that. “Cameron...”

His left hand came up—

And she surged to her feet because she knew he was going to kill her. She swung out with her letter opener, and it caught his hand, sending a wet spray of blood flying.

Cameron bellowed, and then he launched across the desk, coming right at her. They fell back together, slamming into the floor, and that impact was hard enough to knock the breath from her. But she didn’t let go of the letter opener. She kept it locked tight with her fingers, and Samantha shoved it right against his throat.

* * *

“DROP THE WEAPON! Drop the fucking weapon and put your hands up!”

Samantha blinked at that shout, and she realized that she was still holding the letter opener in her left hand. She opened her hand and let it fall—the blood-soaked letter opener fell from her bloodstained fingers.

Blood. Blood everywhere. On the floor. On the desk. On me.

“Samantha?”

That wasn’t the voice of an angry cop. That was a voice she knew. She squinted, and she saw Blake pushing his way past the first responders as he hurried to her. Her body started to shake.

His gaze raked over her, taking in her bare legs, her shirt—the blood.

“Samantha? What happened?”

Slowly, she shook her head. She hurt. Because a lot of that blood...it was hers.

“Samantha!” Blake’s hand closed over her shoulder. “What in the hell happened here?”

She licked her lips. “He...he got away...”

CHAPTER TWO

Four Months Later...

ONCE YOU KNEW that monsters lived in plain sight, it was pretty hard to trust anyone.

Samantha Dark’s feet pounded along the wooden pier. Her breath heaved in and out of her lungs as she ran. The sun was just rising—starting to slide across the morning sky. This was her routine. This was her sanity. Every day was started with a three-mile run that took her along the Fairhope Pier.

Fairhope, Alabama. Her small-town sanctuary. Her haven.

Her hiding spot.

She reached the end of the pier and stopped, her heartbeat drumming in her chest, as she stared out at the bay. The water appeared so dark today—dark and flat. Across the bay, far in the distance, she could see the skyline of Mobile. That city would be coming alive soon enough.

But she wouldn’t be a part of it. She wasn’t in for crowds these days. She avoided contact with others like the plague.

Footsteps beat on the wooden pier behind her. Samantha tensed even as she looked over her shoulder. It was just another runner. A woman with a bobbing blond ponytail. She gave Samantha a friendly wave, then turned and headed back down the pier.

Samantha’s gaze slid toward the water once more. A yacht was out there, anchored in the bay. Had to be about a forty-footer. It had arrived yesterday. Stayed the night. The owner would probably clear out soon. Head on to a new adventure.

Samantha didn’t have adventures any longer. She didn’t want them. She wanted the anonymity of small-town life, and that was exactly what Fairhope gave to her. Sure, some tourists flocked to the area in the summer. But in late winter, it was just the locals. Exactly the way she liked it.

She turned on her sneakered heel and began running back down the pier. She passed Mosley, the guy who was always out with his crab trap. He was throwing it into the water. Two fishermen were organizing their bait. They gave her friendly nods. When she reached the parking lot, Samantha turned right and took the path that would lead her toward the little beach that waited. She loved that beach and the trees that twisted near it. Spanish moss hung in the oak and cypress trees, swaying overhead as she ran. Ducks were up ahead, squawking. This scene was as far away from the hustle and bustle of DC as it was possible to get.