Deadly Beginnings by Jaycee Clark

lamp had been broken and blood had been on the floor, on the sofa, on the locks. He wondered what the police had done—if anything.
    “You might need to defend her if he’s stupid enough to try and press some sort of assault charges on her,” Jock told him. “Or your firm, if you can’t, but I don’t want a damned flunky.”
    “Like I’d stick you with the newest member with our firm?”
    Jock decided to just be quiet.
    He’d looked the doctor up in the phone book and knew where he lived.
    “Dad said the guy wasn’t at home, and he wasn’t at his parents’, or the hospital.” Dan turned onto the doctor’s street. The house was dark, but that hardly mattered.
    Jock was out of the car on the quiet street and around back before Dan had time to follow him.
    “You know breaking and entering is frowned upon, right? Rather illegal?” Dan muttered as he made his own way behind the house.
    Jock broke a back window and turned the lock, glad he was wearing gloves. The house was dark, quiet, and too damned perfect. Nothing was out of place in the kitchen area. The kitchen gave way to a dining room. His flashlight glinted off of crystal and silver. White carpet. White walls. More of the same in the living room.
    “He’s not here. Let’s go, Jock.”
    He turned off the light and hurried upstairs.
    “I’m not leaving until I know that bastard isn’t anywhere here.”
    “If a neighbor calls about a burglar . . .”
    “I haven’t stolen anything.”
    Dan sighed.
    The upstairs was as empty as the lower level.
    “Let’s go,” Dan said again.
    He looked around the master bedroom. A photo of Kaitlyn stood on a nightstand.
    Jock reached over, picked it up and took the photo out. She was in the park, a smile on her face as she looked at the camera.
    Bastard was not having this.
    Jock rolled the photo up and put it inside his leather jacket.
    “I want to know where he is,” Jock told his old friend.
    Dan didn’t say another word, then finally, when they were back on the highway heading toward downtown, he ventured, “You have plenty of contacts.”
    “I do and I’ll be hiring my own people from D.C. tomorrow—today. Or later today when we get back. I want someone here though. Someone who can contact me, or report to you, someone you trust.”
    At least they’d gotten her things.
    He wished like hell the bastard had been there. He wanted him there. He wanted to pound the man’s face in, have him beg for someone to stop.
    Jock wasn’t stopping. Not until he’d crushed the bastard.
     
    • • •
     
    He listened to the sound of the surf.
    He’d bought this place years ago with cash. Right on the beach, a little cottage that no one really paid attention to. He’d claimed to the locals he’d been the previous owner’s son.
    No one questioned him.
    He rather wished he could have brought his lovelies here, but that defeated the purpose.
    He’d always taken them to his house.
    To his home.
    What better way for him to train them in the way he liked things, the way he wanted things to go, the way he preferred his life to be, than for them to be there.
    But it hadn’t worked yet.
    Oh, he’d brought one or two here over the years, but it had been after he’d learned they wouldn’t work.
    Katherine . . .
    He bit down and felt the bandage on his face. That woman had a lot to learn.
    But he’d have to wait. He’d gone back later to see if the lights were on in her apartment. If she’d come back after . . . Where else could she go, after all?
    But she hadn’t been there.
    The police had, though.
    And if the police were, that meant she’d reported their fight.
    Stupid bitch.
    He could crush her.
    He might still.
    He’d have to go back to work. He’d need an alibi. Claim she was crazy, playing him and another man off each other. But to do that, he’d need to know who the bastard was.
    He knew her well enough to know there was someone else. He’d seen the lie in her green eyes when she’d tried to deny