Chapter 13

Detective Sparks left her house at about the same time and headed for her old beat up truck that she'd bought off of old man Stevens. She didn't need much more than that to get around since most places were within walking distance.

She could've taken the police issue vehicle but since it was late and she knew from this morning that her old beater could handle the terrain much better she decided to forego it.

Riley O'Rourke had been the one to call in to the station when he saw the strange light in the trees in the woods behind his place. The call came just in time to save her from herself since she'd just been sitting there making herself crazy with her thoughts.

She knew that time was running out for them, that the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours made all the difference in the world when it came to a murder case, but she just wasn't getting it. And the fact that her mind kept coming back to Mr. O'Rourke wasn't helping matters.

She hated to admit it, but he was looking more and more like the guilty party; something she knew was dangerous because there was no outward sign that he was. Maybe it was because she wanted so much for him not to be part of it that was making her even more suspicious.

She drove through the night and parked where she had this morning, right next to officer Bailey's car. He'd beaten her there by five minutes and was waiting for her with his flashlight at the ready.

"Well, whoever was here has been long gone." He greeted her with that statement as she walked over to him. They both stood at the bottom of the hill looking up at the entrance to the woods, with their flashlights pointed that way.

"Well, let's go see shall we?" She headed up in the direction of the crime scene. The techs had already taken everything they needed but there was no harm in coming back here in case they'd missed something.

The place had a different feel to it at night, eerie, lonely. As she looked around the area she saw once again in her mind's eye, the clown nailed to the tree. Her mind kept coming back to that too. The clown and the acid; two very deliberate additions.

There was a picture forming in her head but all of the pieces didn't fit. If Riley O'Rourke had been Sonya Davis' lover, why did he decide to kill her? And if he had, why had he done it in this way?

There were so many other ways, ways that wouldn't have ended up with the victim practically at his backdoor. She'd heard the stories of women being doused with acid in other parts of the world because they'd rejected the advances of some suitor or other.

But this went much further than that; someone had died. And what about the clown? If as her husband said she was afraid of clowns then someone had purposely set out to scare her. She looked from the direction of the tree where the obscene thing had been found and back to the marked area where the puddle and the body had been.

Between these two places was the place where she'd found the wire that she was sure had been placed there to do exactly what it had done. But would a lover go to such lengths? It didn't add up. There was something missing.

She just couldn't see Riley O'Rourke doing the things that had been done here, and the question still remained, why? "I need to get a look at her room at home." She started back down the hill with the light from officer Bailey's flashlight leading the way.

She heard an engine approaching and stopped on her way to the truck. From the way her skin prickled as if from an electrical charge, she knew who it was before he exited the Land Rover.

"Mr. O'Rourke? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see who was up here. Did you find those kids?" He seemed more annoyed than was warranted when he slammed the door and walked over to tower over her.

"We've got it under control"

"A woman died here, they shouldn't be allowed to just come here and trample this place like that."

"It was just morbid curiosity I'm sure Mr. O'Rourke. We'd already taken what we needed from here, no harm done."

He didn't seem too satisfied with her response and she found herself becoming annoyed. "Where is your wife Mr. O'Rourke? I still need to ask her some questions."

"Not tonight." Why is he so persistent that I not talk to his wife?

Riley turned and headed back to his truck without another word, slamming the vehicle into drive before driving back to the farm. He'd snuck out of the house because he didn't want to disturb his wife who was having a rough time.

The pills he'd given her must've been more powerful than he thought because she'd been sleeping for hours, which was good all things considered. She'd lost her best friend of almost thirty years and he knew it had hit her hard.

He'd been standing at the back window gazing into the dark at nothing, his mind on Sonya and the day's events when he saw the lights up in the woods and guessed correctly that it had to be kids roaming around out there. He hadn't thought twice about picking up the phone and calling down to the station, but he still had to go see for himself that they'd been run off. Damn kids!

He idled the truck into its parking space and walked up the steps to his quiet house. Usually this time of night the TV would be going, and the soft cadence of conversation could be heard, but not tonight, tonight everything was deathly still.

He was as quiet as possible when he opened the backdoor to walk in, but it was in vain. She was in the kitchen, tying her robe around her waist, fresh from her bath. She looked up with a frown when he walked in. "Where were you?"

"Uh, I went up to the woods. There were some kids up there earlier messing around the crime scene." He'd wanted to keep that from her as well and from the look on her face he knew he'd been right.

He walked over and wrapped his arms around him. "How are you doing Val?" She wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his chest. He was surprised when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers. "I need you."

He opened his mouth under hers, still not sure but letting her take the lead. She seemed hungrier somehow, more passionate than she'd been for quite some time. Not since her last pregnancy disappointment when the stick did not change color.

He remembered hearing somewhere that sometimes people need to reaffirm the fact that they were alive when someone close to them had died. So he went with it when she pressed herself against him, letting him know that she did indeed want him.

He lifted her in his arms and started to head out of the kitchen to take her back to their bed. "No, take me here. I don't want you to be careful with me. I want you to take me the way you used to when we first got married."

His cock came to life at her words and he laid her back across the marble topped island. He tugged the short silk robe open and pushed it off her shoulders to find her naked beneath. "I see you came prepared." He grinned down at her, not showing any of the unease he felt at this turn of events.

He was tentatively waiting for the dam to break. For the reality of what had happened to her friend to sink in. He was sure that that's why she was acting this way, so wild and abandoned. Two things she hadn't been in a very long time. He figured this was just her way of reassuring herself, and who was he to tell her no?

He lowered his head and licked her flesh, feeling that fire in his gut for his woman for the first time in way too long. Things between them had cooled about a year or two ago and he knew it was because of their childless state.

Her inability to get pregnant had driven a wedge between them that no amount of reassurance on his part had been able to fix. He felt like a bastard for thinking it, but he was glad for the change. It had been a long time since he'd felt this level of lust for the woman he'd married and planned to spend the rest of his life with.

Now he put it all out of his mind as he set about turning her body to liquid fire. Her pussy had always fascinated him, with its fat lips that filled his head with visions of running his tongue between them.

He spread her open with his fingers and inhaled her fresh scent before giving her his tongue, diving in deep until she hissed with pleasure. She gripped his hair in her passionate haze, pulling him into her as she moved against his ravishing mouth.

He felt himself harden further and released his cock, taking his heated flesh in his hand and stroking as a string of precum escaped its tip. "Now Riley, I want you now." He left off eating her out and stood to his full height of six foot two.

Looking down between her thighs he led his cock into her until he was fully seated, his cock swelling to its fullest inside her as he closed his eyes with remembered pleasure. He'd always liked being inside her, and didn't expect that to change, though latelyBetter not go there Riley, not now.

He brought his complete focus back to her and ran his hand down her middle to where they were joined, flicking her clit with his thumb as he surged into her. "Yes!" She hissed out the one word as her hands came up to cup her breasts and squeeze.

His eyes followed their movement and he grew even harder inside her, wondering at this new fire in her, a fire that he'd not seen in a very long time. Not that he was going to complain, he liked her like this, had missed this side of her in fact.

Because though her appetites had waned, his were still in full force. He loves to fuck and made no bones about it, and when she'd withdrawn from him and the marriage it had been hellOnce again he dragged himself back from those wayward thoughts and turned his full attention on her once more.

It wasn't long before her wild actions, the way she tugged on her nipples and gyrated her hips as he fucked into her had him close to cumming and he leaned over and sucked one of her nipples between his teeth.

A nipple she held up for him. He bit her none too gently because he knew how much she liked that and it wasn't long before he felt the quivering deep inside her, drawing his seed from him.