Boston Cream Killer: Book 8 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series by Summer Prescott Page B

sunbathe on a brightly colored lounger, with a fruity frozen drink in hand. Eyes closed, basking in the mid-afternoon sun, she felt the shark before she saw it, as it bit down on her left wrist, tugging at it and sending a sharp searing pain all the way up to her shoulder. She was pulled under the water briefly, and came to the surface sputtering and gasping, terrified and entirely disoriented. She tried to scream, but couldn’t make the sound come from her mouth. She panicked, thrashing, and wondered if she was going to die.
    Izzy awoke from the nightmare, her heart pounding, her head aching, and her stomach churning abominably. Her vision was fuzzy, and there was a foul smell in the air, something thick and almost metallic. She blinked several times, all the while trying to calm her breathing. She realized some very disturbing things all at once. She wasn’t in the Caribbean, but she was in water, and her wrist really was throbbing with a searing pain. She felt weak, but as her vision cleared, she raised her head and looked around, finding herself in the tub of her hotel room. She had raised her wrist, which had been viciously slashed, over her head in an attempt to get it away from the shark in her dream, and it had probably saved her life. The metallic smell that assaulted her nostrils was her own blood, a copious amount of which was currently flowing down her arm.
    Weak with blood loss and shock, Izzy knew that she had to get help fast, and shakily braced herself with her other hand, gingerly climbing out of the tub on shaking legs. Her foot slipped slightly on the tile that was slick with pooled water and blood, but she managed to catch herself on the vanity so that she fell slowly and didn’t hit her head. She didn’t have the strength to get back on her feet, and the hopelessness of her situation brought her to tears, but she knew that if she wanted to live, she had to get help. In search of her cell phone, she dragged herself from the bathroom.
    Someone had ransacked her room; there was strewn clothing and upended furniture everywhere. Her purse had been taken from the foyer table and turned upside down on the floor, its contents scattered. Her cellphone was smashed, as though someone had stepped on it, so she crawled, her left arm elevated and bleeding profusely, toward the end table where the room phone sat. Bringing herself slowly to a sitting position, her back against the side of the sofa, she grabbed the receiver with her right hand, her body trembling from shock, and propped her left hand up on the arm of the sofa. Dialing 911, she found that when she tried to speak, her words were garbled and slurred. The room started to spin, and her vision greyed around the edges for the second time that day. The receiver dropped from her hand and she collapsed against the sofa.
    ***
    Hotel management let the police and ambulance team into Izzy Gillmore’s room with a passkey, and stepped back in horror at the sight that greeted him. The man turned ashen and stumbled from the room, scarred by the single glimpse of the scene.
    The patrol officer who entered first sighed and shook his head.
    “Suicide,” he muttered to his partner, who nodded.
    “Somebody’s gonna be heartbroken tonight.”
    ***
    Spencer Bengal knew enough not to open his eyes or alter his breathing pattern when he regained consciousness. He’d been having a wonderful dream about Izzy that had suddenly turned very dark, and left him feeling unsettled when he awoke. His cheek rested on cold, damp stone, and a cloth that smelled of mildew had been used as a gag. His hands and feet were bound, and his body hurt everywhere. Whether anything had been broken or if he had been seriously injured was hard to say, but his captor apparently had taken great delight in battering him while he’d been unconscious.
    He listened hard, trying to hear over the piercing ringing in his ears, and detected no one nearby. The knotted, gnawing feeling in his stomach was