The Love Killings Read Online Free

the darkness, the wildfire burning behind his back like a curtain on the devil’s stage.
    “Now you see it,” he said. “And now you don’t.”
    Matt grimaced. “Now I see what?”
    “Don’t you get it, Jones? Doyle is using you. He knows Baylor saved your life when you were shot. He’s knows Baylor removed the bullet and sewed you back up. He’s not sure why. How could he be? But you’re the only human being whom we know the doctor spared. He’s using that knowledge because he thinks there’s a reason. For Doyle, prosecuting Baylor would make his career, so he’s all in. He’ll do anything and everything it takes to win. Using you, even if it doesn’t work out, even if it means losing you, is just the price of doing business on his way to an office on the top floor.”
    Matt couldn’t help thinking how much McKensie sounded like Baylor right now. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He was doing everything he could to overlook his gunshot wounds and the aches and pains his doctor said would take another five or six months to subside. It required effort, and he didn’t understand why McKensie was trying to chop him down at the knees. Why McKensie was working so hard at it. He unzipped a pocket in his shaving kit. As he swung the mirror open, he could see McKensie lunging into the small room.
    “Look at the fucking meds you’re on, Jones.”
    “I’m good,” he said.
    “Really?”
    Matt gave McKensie a hard look up and down before tossing his prescriptions into the shaving kit and zipping up the pocket. Then he walked out, grabbed his duffel bag off the bed, and lugged it through the living room to the front door. He slipped his shaving kit and meds into his briefcase beside his laptop. When McKensie finally gave up and followed him outside, Matt took a last look at his place, switched off the lights, and locked the door.
    He was tired of hearing McKensie list all the reasons why he should stay in Los Angeles. All the reasons why he should park himself on the sidelines and stay out of the chase. Matt didn’t hold it against him, and wished that he could have told McKensie why he needed this case so much. All those other reasons he couldn’t explain or talk about to anyone.
    Dr. Baylor was the one who got away. The shadow who had turned his dreams into nightmares ever since his escape. The face he couldn’t help seeing when he closed his eyes.
    It was 7:30 a.m. The sky was black with smoke, the sun unable to break through the darkness. McKensie’s car was parked on the street and covered with ash. The entire atmosphere felt odd and haunting. Matt tossed his bags onto the backseat, climbed into the passenger seat, and checked the envelope for the special agent’s business card. As McKensie pulled away from the curb, Matt peered down the hill. Another two homes on the south side of the canyon were engulfed in flames, the fire enormous, even breathtaking. When he glanced up the block, he noticed a handful of cops knocking on doors.
    The evacuation had begun on the north slope.
    He looked back at his house, his home. It seemed so small and out in the open. It was made of wood and needed a fresh coat of paint. It looked so vulnerable.
    He tried to shake it off. He tried to get a grip on himself because he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
    McKensie had called it right; the monsters were still swimming inside his head—still alive and kicking. But all of that was okay. Riding on the backs of monsters would give him everything he needed to see this through. Even better, the trip to Philadelphia would put him within a couple hour’s reach of his father, the King of Wall Street. Matt needed the monsters in order to settle a debt that had turned grim. He needed the monsters to slay the dragon and find his way back home.

CHAPTER 4
    The story of the Stratton family murders broke on national news just as the plane reached airspeed and made the slow, torturous climb over the Pacific. That’s when