Shades of Temptation

Shades of Temptation Read Free

Book: Shades of Temptation Read Free
Author: Virna Depaul
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Romance
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resting
place, but not before he pulled several teeth, and hair fibers from her and set
them aside. Later, he’d send the ashes along with the photos, teeth and hair to
the police. As he cleaned up his workroom, he actually giggled as he imagined
the police scrambling to find her.
    Ever since he was a kid, he’d loved planning scavenger hunts,
giving the participants just enough challenging clues to make their task
possible but by no means easy. With the cops, he’d virtually draw them a map so
they could identify her, but that was because finding the victims wasn’t the
game. Finding him was. Of course, no one had ever
been smart enough to do that. No one ever would.
    After looking around and making sure things had been tidied up
to the best of his ability, Bowers climbed the stairs that would take him from
his basement to his elegant living quarters just blocks from the Golden Gate
Bridge. He loved the juxtaposition of his different lives. How the upper floors
of his home depicted his wealth and success, while the lower part evidenced his
darker, private side. It never ceased to amaze him how the first so easily
disguised the second. As if people truly didn’t think they could coexist.
Humming, he gathered his things, then double-checked his calendar on his
smartphone.
    His next appointment was at eleven. His patients rarely
expressed appropriate gratitude for what Bowers did for them, but they certainly
paid him well. Nonetheless, while he enjoyed the money he made, the perfection
of Bowers’s work was reward enough. Bowers took ugly things and made them
beautiful again, just as he did with his girls.
    Others might fail to acknowledge his mastery at first, but not
for long. Bowers always opened their eyes to it eventually. All it took was
strategy, time and discipline.
    That, and a steady hand with a scalpel, of course.

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE SMALL ONES ALMOST always ran.
    They figured they had the advantage when
it came to speed, but few of them knew cops were trained to go the distance.
It might take them a while to catch up, but they almost always
did.
    In this case, it also helped that Carrie
was even smaller than the perp she was chasing, and, because she wore plain
clothes, she wasn’t hindered by a fourteen-pound belt loaded with a patrol
officer’s accoutrements. Instead, all she carried was her gun, which was
securely holstered.
    After all, despite what they showed on
television, it wouldn’t be smart to wave around a gun while chasing down a
suspect. Especially not on a Friday night when the empty street might
suddenly fill with people who’d just finished a movie, a late dinner or
drinks at the local bar. A bar like McGill’s. The bar where she’d left Jase
and his date, Regina, despite the fact he’d wanted to kiss Carrie again.
She’d turned him down and what had she gotten instead? A run-in with a petty
thief. A fast one.
    She pushed forward in a burst of
adrenaline, wondering what the guy she’d caught burglarizing a local
hardware store had on his rap sheet that was worth evading the police. The
speed with which he’d bolted, when she’d only stopped to ask him a few
investigatory questions, told her he probably wasn’t a stranger to the
justice system.
    She was starting to gain on him when he
veered toward a run-down-looking house off of Post Street and barreled
inside the front door. Staying outside, Carrie immediately established
cover, drew her weapon and called out, “Don’t make things worse. Come out
with your hands up.”
    “Fuck off, bitch!”
    But the guy’s words were slightly drowned
out by the sound of approaching sirens.
    “You hear that?” she shouted. “San
Francisco P.D.’s on the way. Come out now.”
    He didn’t immediately respond. To her
surprise, less than a minute later, he walked out of the house, a gun held
out in front of him.
    He’d been in shadows when he’d started
running, and for the first time she got a clear view of his face. He was
just a kid.

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