LITMIR.BIZ

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swear to you it isn’t just that,” Ellington said. “While I’m very excited about raising and potentially scarring a kid with you, it’s you I want right now.”

      “Yeah, we are going to scar the hell out of this kid, aren’t we?”

      “Not on purpose.” He drew her close and hugged her. He then whispered in her ear and hearing his voice that close to her made her feel comfortable and content all over again. “I mean it. Let’s do it. Let’s elope.”

      She was nodding in agreement before they broke the hug. When they were face to face again, both of them had little glistening hints of tears in their eyes.

      “Okay…” Mackenzie said.

      “Yeah, okay,” he said, a little giddy. He leaned in, kissed her, and then said: “So what do we do now? Shit, I guess there’s still planning no matter which way we go here.”

      “We need to call the courthouse to book a time, I would think” Mackenzie said. “And one of us needs to get in touch with McGrath to ask for the time off for the ceremony. Not it!”

      “Damn you,” he said with a smile. “Fine. I’ll call McGrath.”

      He took out his phone, meaning to do it right there and then, but then pocketed it. “Maybe this is a conversation I should have face-to-face with him.”

      She nodded, her arms trembling a bit as she finished buttoning her shirt. We’re going to do this, she thought. We’re really going to do this…

      She was excited and nervous and elated, all of those emotions stirring within her all at once. She responded in the only way she could—by walking back over to him and taking him in her arms. And when they kissed, it only took about three seconds for her to decide that maybe there was time for what he had tried to start moments before.

***

      The ceremony was two days later, on a Wednesday afternoon. It lasted no more than ten minutes and it ended with them exchanging the rings they had helped one another pick out the day before. It was so easy and carefree that Mackenzie wondered why women put themselves through the hell of all of that planning and scheduling.

      Because at least one witness was needed, Mackenzie had invited Agent Yardley to attend. They had never really been friends, but she was a good agent and, therefore, a woman whom Mackenzie trusted. It was in asking Yardley to fill the role that she was once again reminded that she really didn’t have any friends. Ellington was the closest thing to it and as far as she was concerned, that was more than enough.

      As Mackenzie and Ellington came out of the courtroom and into the main hallway of the building, Yardley gave them her best effort at an encouraging parting speech before heading out quickly.

      Mackenzie watched her go, wondering why she was in such a rush. “I won’t say that was rude or anything like that,” Mackenzie said, “but it looked like she could not wait to get out of here.”

      “That’s because I spoke with her before the ceremony,” Ellington said. “I told her to haul ass when we were done.”

      “That was rude. Why?”

      “Because I convinced McGrath to give us until next Monday. I took all the time and stress I would have put into planning a wedding into planning a honeymoon.”

      “What? Are you kidding me right now?”

      He shook his head. She wrapped him up in a hug, trying to remember a time when she had been this happy. She felt like a little girl who had just gotten everything she wanted for Christmas.

      “When did you manage to do all of that?” she asked.

      “Mostly on company time,” he said with a smile. “Now, we have to hurry. We have bags to pack and sex to have. Our plane leaves in four hours for Iceland.”

      The destination sounded strange at first but then she remembered the “bucket list” conversation they’d had when she discovered she was pregnant. What were some things she wanted to get done before they brought a child into the world. One of Mackenzie’s items had been to camp beneath the northern lights.

      “Yeah, then let’s go,” she said. “Because with the way I’m feeling right now and the things I plan to do to you when we get back home, I don’t know that we’re going to make it to the airport on time.”

      “Yes ma’am,” he said, hurrying her toward the door. “One question, though.”

      “What’s that?”

      He grinned at her and asked: “Can I call you Mrs. Ellington now?”

      Her heart nearly leaped as he asked. “I suppose you can,” she said as they headed out the door, entering the world for the first time as a married couple.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Murder had not been at all what he had expected. He had thought there would be some degree of what have I done? Maybe a moment of life-defining guilt or a sense that he had somehow altered the entire course of a family’s life. But there had been none of that. The only thing he had felt after the murders—after killing both of his victims—was an overwhelming sense of paranoia.

      And, if he was being honest, joy.

      Perhaps he had been stupid to go about it so casually. He had been surprised by just how normal it had felt. He’d been terrified about the idea until he actually put his hands to their necks—until he squeezed down and robbed the life right out of their beautiful bodies. The best part had been watching the light go out in their eyes. It had been unexpectedly erotic—the most vulnerable thing he had ever seen.

      The paranoia, though, was worse than he could have ever imagined. He had not been able to sleep for three days after he’d killed the first one. He had prepared for such an obstacle after the second, though. A few glasses of red wine and an Ambien directly after the murder and he had slept quite well, actually.

      The other thing that was bothering him was how hard it had been to leave the scene of the crime the second time around. The way she had fallen, the way the life had gone out of her eyes in an instant…it had made him want to stay there, to stare into those freshly dead eyes to see what secrets might be in there. He’d never felt such a craving before, though to be fair, he would have never dreamed of killing anyone up until about a year or so ago. So apparently, much like taste buds, a person’s morals were apt to change from time to time.

      He thought about this as he sat in front of his fireplace. His entire house was quiet, so eerily still that he could hear the sound of his fingers moving against the stem of his wine glass. He watched the fire burn and pop as he drank from a glass of dark red wine.

      This is your life now, he told himself. You have killed not one but two people. Sure, they were necessary. You had to do it or your life might very well have been over. While neither of those girls technically deserved to die, it was all out of necessity.

      He told himself this over and over again. It was one of the reasons the guilt he had been expecting had not yet crippled him. It might also be why there was so much room for that paranoia to creep in and take root.

      He was waiting for a knock at his door at any moment, with a police officer standing on the other side. Or maybe a SWAT team, complete with a battering ram. And the hell of it was that he knew he deserved it. He had no illusion about getting away with this. He figured that some day, the truth would be revealed. That’s just the way the world worked now. There was no such thing as privacy, no such thing as living your own life.

      So when the time came, he thought he’d be able to take whatever justice was dealt to him standing up like a man. The only question that remained was how many more would he have to kill? A small part of him begged him to stop, trying to convince him that his work was done now and that no one else had to die.

      But he was pretty certain that was not true.

      And worst of all, the prospect of having to go out and do it again stirred an excitement within him that shimmered and burned just like the fire in front of him.

      CHAPTER

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