The Alexandru Chronicles: The Beginning (32 page)

Instead of reading all the way through the journal, which would have just put her in a foul mood, she ultimately decided to skim through it. For all there was, was just nothing but sentence after sentence of hatefulness.

It was the pages half-way through the journal, that piqued her interest. James had been furious over Monica wanting to press charges. He had felt that since she had taken the beatings, that she would just roll over and do so again.

Who cared if he had murdered her unborn child and almost killed her in the process. To James, it was justified.

Monica, on the other hand, had seen it as being the last straw – she couldn't take it anymore. There was just so much that an abused person, and even an animal, could take before they reached their limit; and Monica had, obviously, reached hers.

As Genevieve flipped to the next page, it was the next entry that had her anger for James quickly being replaced with surprise.

In big capital letters, that took up the whole page, he wrote: THE....flipping the page, she read. BITCH....flipping to the next page. HAS...LEFT...ME...WHERE...IS...SHE

WHERE...IS...SHE

WHERE...IS...SHE

WHERE...IS...SHE!!!

XXX

He could smell her.

Just the scent of her blood had him aching for a taste of her.

Yet, he couldn't go to her; not while that blasted sun was still up.

It would be dark soon, though, and then he would go to her. And he would show her that she belonged to him and not that blind vampire hunter.

Of course, he would have to put her in her place; that was a given.

As he wrapped himself in the thoughts of fucking and drinking his bitch up, that's when he felt him.

The slayer.

The one that stood in his way, of conquering his little whore.

Instantly sitting up, he felt the slayer's strength overwhelm every inch of him; it was that strength, that pushed him back down upon the dirty mattress he laid upon.

“
No!” he hissed. “You can't have her!”

He wanted to bolt upstairs, but he knew that the sunlight would kill him.

It was in that moment, of angry, frustration, that he wished that he could summon her to him; but he wasn't powerful enough and she was too stubborn.

Madeira had told him that stubborn, headstrong, people, were the worse ones for a fledgeling to try and summon. Because of their strong minds, the only thing that might happen; would be nightmares and possibly a terrible headache come morning.

As he sat there seething, his thirst boiling to the point of violence, what eventually had him settling down, was this reassuring thought; that soon he would have his little bitch.

And soon, she would be at his mercy.

XXX

    
It was that faint creak of floor boards under foot, that had her suddenly yanking her gaze away from the journal. As she stood there listening, she was immediately accosted by this overwhelmingly, fearful, desire to just throw down the journal and run.

It was after taking some deep cleansing breathes, that Genevieve was finally able to rein in enough control over herself; that she could think straight.

What had made that sound?

The building's structure, could have been settling.

Then again, it could have been rats.

Great, it was always something. First, it was enormous cockroaches and now it was, disgusting, rodents. Well, at least this was better than the human sized rats.

Groaning, Genevieve looked back down at the journal.

In all the journal entries, James had sounded like he was going nuts or bordering on. Yet, once Monica had disappeared, he totally went over the rainbow and all the way to the land of OZ—the man had definitely gone cuckoo for coco puffs.

After closing the journal, Genevieve stood there just staring off into space.

Was it possible that James hadn't even been responsible for Monica's disappearance...or her death?

It sure seemed like that.

Yet, it was also possible that James had murdered Monica; and then blocked out the whole experience.

In one of her past cases, Genevieve had had to investigate the murder of a young, newly wedded, woman. In the end, the evidence had proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it was the woman's husband who had murdered her – in a cold fit of jealous rage, her husband had brutally stabbed her death.

His defense had been that he hadn't meant to kill her and, because of how traumatic the experience had been, he had blocked out the whole murder.

Yet, considering the evidence and everything else, this whole defense had been riddled with holes; that even the jury had found ridiculous.

In the end, this man had been sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole; which Genevieve had thought was truly absurd. Considering how brutal the murder had been, he should have been sentenced to life without parole. Yet, that was the judicial system of today; there was just a lot of bleeding hearts, who felt someone should be given a second chance to commit murder.

It was possible, that James had murdered Monica in one of his fanatical frenzies, and, then, realizing that it was just a matter of time before they found her body or gathered enough evidence against him, he decided to use the insanity defense.

The only problem with his defense, was that he had openly admitted in his journal, to pushing Monica down the stairs  - all because he had hated the child, that she was carrying.

Granted, because of her dislike for James, Genevieve was more than willing to throw the book at him; the only problem was, was that she had this unsettling feeling that Monica was still alive.

It was again that creaking of floor boards, that had Genevieve surprisingly dropping the journal in her hands. As she stood there just listening and staring down at the discarded journal, she, like the last time, was met with nothing but silence.

As she continued to stand there, with her frightened womanly instincts, gnawing at her to hightail her ass out of there, she tried, again, to get her breathing and heart under control. Finally, her cop instincts were able to dominate her womanly instincts; at least to the point, that she had enough control over herself, not to run like a scared female out of that apartment.

After stooping down to retrieve the journal, she quickly shook off the ugly, creepy, crawlers that had already accumulated on the journal—from it laying there for that short time. And then, just by instinct, she withdrew her side arm from her unclasped holster.

Slightly uncoordinated, she swiftly stepped over the bed-frame.

Once she had made that short distance over to the right wall, adjacent to the bedroom door frame, she propped herself up against the wall, and rolling up the journal, she hastily stuffed it, in her back pocket.

Before stepping out to confront her faint sound, she tried, unsuccessfully, to calm her nerves.

As Genevieve stood there, just listening, she could only feel this overwhelming silence closing in around her – suffocating her to the point that she couldn't even breathe.

Yet, while she couldn't hear anything more, not even the faint sounds of creaking floor boards, her gut, and the hairs on the back of her neck, were telling her that someone was outside this bedroom.

So, with that in mind, she needed to stay on guard.

She couldn't afford to become trigger happy, though.  Shooting an innocence – such as a homeless man or child – would definitely not look good nor feel good for her conscience.

After taking her finger off the trigger of her gun, she, letting her finger linger over the trigger, swiftly stepped out of the bedroom.

Genevieve couldn't say what was more surprising. The fact, that what she was expecting wasn't what she was getting or that she...

Ah, hell, she didn't know what to think.

After the shock had worn off, it was quickly replaced with anger.

“
What are you doing here?!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

As her gaze wandered over the towering man in front of her, she was blown away by how good he looked. His platinum blonde hair glistened and his six foot two self was garbed all in black.

If she wasn't puzzled by his black clothing, then it was his long black trench coat that did. In Tucson, during the triple digit summer, a person had to be truly insane to leave their home garbed all in black. Of course their were people out there –
Exhibit A:
the gorgeous man standing in front of her.

When finally her gaze finished, pleasurably, scrutinizing his appearance, and she returned to his face, Genevieve couldn't help becoming very aroused at the dark stoic frown that was upon his handsome, chiseled, face.

“What are you doing here?”  her voice slightly shook.

He didn't reply right away. His unseeing eyes just wandered around the apartment's living room.

Once Cirpian had sniffed the air and listened to the unsettling silence, that had settled around the apartment's building, he finally said, “Genevieve..., what are you doing here?”

“
I asked you first...”

It was the adamant stubbornness in Genevieve's voice, that had a small smile creeping to his handsome mouth; a mouth, that just the other night, had brought unbelievable pleasure to every inch of her.

“Gen...” he began.

When that smile of his broadened and he raked his fingers through that beautiful, silky, hair of his, Genevieve wanted nothing more than to go to him and feel his strong arms around her; and the feel of his hair, as it gently caressed her face.

She was angry.

Angry at herself, for not trying harder to keep her arousal under wraps. The guy was definitely trouble. Yet, oddly enough, her libido desperately wanted trouble. Besides, he was a change from the total rejects that she had dated in the past.

“Cirpian, give me one good reason why I shouldn't haul your ass down to the precinct; for trespassing?”

For that brief moment, he didn't say anything. His dark grayish blue gaze stared right through her; flusteredly arousing her even more than she was.       

“Because...” he said smoothy, “you are also trespassing..., Gen.”

XXX

It had taken Kyle, practically all day, to find out who that missing file, that had been on Genevieve's desk, had been pertaining to. During that time, he had paid close attention to his cell phone – hoping against hope that Genevieve would call him.

As he now sat there, looking down at his pad, with only one name scrawled on it—
James Sandman Fording
—he found himself unbelievably curious on what had been in that file on their missing stiff from the morgue, that had Genevieve not just taking the file, but, for the rest of the day, not even bothering to check or call in.

She had done a total Houdini.

No one had seen her.

A surprising turn of events, was how concerned their Captain was for her. He had called Kyle into his office and asked him, very politely, if he had seen Genevieve. If Kyle hadn't been shocked by the concern expression on his Captain's face, he was when his Captain used Genevieve's first name.

Since Kyle had been working there, he had never heard the Captain call Genevieve anything other than Detective Freemen. Or he had angrily addressed her by calling her a pain in the ass or something far worse than that.

For some, unsurprising, reason, Genevieve was always being chewed out by their Captain. She was like a little kid, that knew just the right buttons to push to piss him off – some times she remind Kyle of
Dennis the Menace.
She didn't all the time, intentionally do something wrong to get herself in trouble; all she had to do was sarcastically snicker at their Captain, and she ended up with her ass being handed to her.

Yet, it was at that moment, of seeing that concern in their Captain's eyes, that had Kyle wondering if the Captain, actually, missed Genevieve and her sarcasm. Since that stiff had disappeared from the morgue, Genevieve's sarcastic smiles and comments had been put on hold; and she was treating the Captain as if he had the plague – avoiding him at every turn.

As Kyle stared down at his pad, he whispered the name that he had written down upon it.

“
James Fording.”

When he had requested more information on this guy, he had been instructed to look in the folder, that the North Carolina precinct had already faxed over to them; which just so happened, to have been put on Genevieve's desk.

Knowing that his partner had taken that information with her, he found himself up against a hard place. He didn't want to say anything, because he was afraid that he would get Genevieve in trouble. Yet, he was impatient, for the information, that was in that file.