Temptation Calls. Caridad Piñeiro

against her body. The sicko liked to keep her naked, her feet barely touching the ground.

      Meghan pulled at the chains feebly, weak from the need to feed and the daylight that snuck in through the window at the end of the day, searing her skin. She couldn’t recall how many times that sunlight had popped in to inflict its punishment. Had it been two or three days? she wondered.

      It was becoming hard to focus due to her waning strength and the fear that touched her during the long bouts of being alone and confined. Fear that would roar to life once he’d come back to play his demented games.

      She should have known better than to go with the old man. She’d thought he’d be an easy conquest. The weak usually were.

      Only he’d turned the tables on her the moment they’d left the club.

      Meghan hadn’t known what hit her. All she knew was that a sudden explosion of pain had brought her to her knees before she lost consciousness.

      During her captivity, she’d learned that the perverted ol’ bastard had used a Taser on her. She still bore burn marks from the last time. Which was not good. She wasn’t healing anymore because she was too debilitated.

      If the old man took any more of her blood, or played too many more of his sadistic little games, she wouldn’t survive.

      Maybe that was for the best, Meghan thought. This wasn’t the kind of life she’d envisioned for herself. She’d been hoping for college in the city followed by a 9-to-5-rush-home-to-the-suburbs kind of life.

      Thanks to Blake that would never be. Blake. That skanky-assed punk vampire.

      Meghan swore that if there was one thing she’d do before she met her end—the second time—it would be to see that Blake got his for what he’d done to her.

      The creak of the door alerted her to the old man’s arrival and thoughts of revenge were driven away by dread. Meghan pulled at her chains, but it accomplished nothing. He smiled at her foolish attempts, and picked up a scalpel.

      Meghan bit back a whimper. She hated when he used the scalpel, but she refused to let him know. Her pride was the only thing she had left. Despite her intentions, however, she couldn’t control her involuntary flinch as the old man ran the flat edge of the blade along her midsection.

      “Good afternoon, my dear,” he said, bringing his face so close to hers that she had no choice but to look into his cold blue eyes.

      “What’s so good about it?” She jangled the chains with what little strength she had left.

      “It’s your last.”

      Peter holstered his Glock and stepped away from the wounded teenager. Given the extent of the young man’s injuries, he probably wouldn’t survive.

      Peter’d had no time for guilt or second-guessing. If he hadn’t shot back, he’d be the one bleeding to death on the floor of the warehouse. And if the teen had gotten away, he would have been free to hurt someone else. The way he’d shot those kids in front of the Artemis Shelter.

      Peter took another look around the gang hangout. A few tables and chairs. Beat-up secondhand sofas clustered in front of a state-of-the-art plasma television. Some clubhouse.

      “Sorry, Detective. We lost the other suspect about two blocks away.” The officer was winded as he spoke, a testament to the chase he’d given.

      “The one you shot outside is dead. He’s one of the perps you were trying to find,” the second officer said.

      Two down and one on the loose. And with one perp dead and the other likely to expire, Peter would be up before a review board in the morning. Taking his gun out of his holster, he held it out to the young black officer. She hesitated, but he waved it at her. “You know the routine.”

      She took the gun and nodded. “I’ll hold it until CSU finishes.”

      “I’d appreciate that. Did you get a good look at the third perp?”

      Her answer was interrupted by the growing wail of an ambulance siren. It arrived in a rush of activity as the EMTs tried to stabilize the wounded perp.

      CSU arrived minutes after that, as well as his captain. Peter appreciated the older man coming down to the scene to offer his support. “Captain,” he said with a respectful nod.

      “You okay, Daly?” The older man reached into his jacket pocket, eased out a pack of cigarettes and offered Peter one.

      “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

      Captain Fitzgerald smiled and slipped the pack back into his pocket. “Neither do I, but it helps some of the men, you know.”

      Peter doubted a smoke would help him deal with the fact that he’d killed one person and critically wounded another. He watched the ambulance pull away, and then turned his attention to the CSU people who were busy taking photos and gathering evidence.

      His captain tracked his gaze and said, “Did you have any other choice?”

      Peter replayed that moment in his mind, going over each step the perp had taken. Rewinding the scene in his brain again and again, but no matter what, the outcome was the same. “Perp was firing at us. He had Rodriguez and White pinned behind their car. I had no choice.”

      “And the second one?”

      “Firing from the doorway. They weren’t going to stop, Captain.” The two teens hadn’t stopped the other night when they’d shot those kids and they’d had no qualms about trying to add a few cops to their growing pile of bodies. The prints they’d found on the van had led them here, to young men who had rap sheets already pages long.

      “You’ll have to give a full report in the morning, Daly. Make sure you’ve got your facts straight.”

      “Yes, sir,” he said and motioned to the two uniformed officers answering CSU’s questions. “They’ll be able to confirm everything, Captain. I did it all by the book.”

      The captain grasped his shoulder in a gesture meant to reassure. “I have no doubt about it, Daly. You always do everything according to regulation.”

      Peter nodded, but the comfort from the older man’s words wasn’t enough. Following the rules only made it a little easier to deal with the fact that he’d killed two people. The day that it became easy, he’d turn in his shield.

      But for today, just as he had told his captain, he’d had no choice.