Death at First Sight (Spero Heights Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a rat infestation.”
    Lia cringed and covered her mouth, suppressing a gag.
    “Don’t make faces now. It’s been fumigated.” Saunders scoffed. “You really think I’d put you up in a place crawling with rats? What kind of monster do you take me for?”
    The kind that kidnaps and exploits a traumatized teen. Only she wasn’t a teen anymore. She was pushing thirty. So much of her youth had been wasted on Garrett Saunders and his climb up the ladder of authority. And Lia couldn’t help but feel guilty for being his safety net, no matter how unwilling she’d been.
    Saunders pulled out a wad of keys and made his way toward the door. “It’ll be some time before I rent any of the other apartments out. I have some renovations planned for the first floor—but you’re six up, so you’ll have some time to get a handle on yourself. Make all the noise you want,” he added with a sneer.
    He slipped a key in the deadbolt and cracked the door open, which Lia then realized was keyed on both sides. He wasn’t even trying to pretend that she wasn’t his prisoner anymore.
    Saunders nodded at the kitchen. “The fridge is fully stocked, and there’s ice cream in the freezer. Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya.” He winked at her before stepping out into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
    The tumbler in the deadbolt clicked into place. Lia listened to Saunders’ whistling fade as he made his way down the hall, then she heaved out a hopeless sob and collapsed on the couch.
    She lay there for what seemed like hours, feeling helpless and pathetic. Ambulance sirens and screeching tires became white noise, along with the droning air conditioner and a drip in the kitchen sink.
    As the sky began to fade outside, Lia’s heart rate hiked up a notch. She hadn’t been lying to Saunders. There was a definite chance that she wouldn’t survive the next morning. Being cooped up inside for ten years had given her an unhealthy amount of time in front of the television, and on one of the four channels she received, she remembered a news piece about St. Louis County.
    The journalist had been focused on heroin, but the staggering number that had caught Lia’s attention was the twenty-five average deaths that occurred on a daily basis. It was the one time she considered herself lucky and thankful for Saunders and his podunk parish.
    She didn’t feel so lucky anymore. Tears wet her cheeks, and the lump in her throat that had been there since she’d awakened in the shitty apartment made it hard for her to swallow back her sobs. Her heartbeat grew more persistent, until it felt like the thing was trying to find a way out of her chest.
    A door slammed in the hallway, and Lia gasped. She rubbed her hands over her face, trying to scrub away the tears and dried vomit. Imminent death or not, she refused to let Saunders see what he’d reduced her to.
    She waited for the sound of heavy boots and keys outside her door, but all she could make out was a soft scraping noise, as if something was being dragged down the hall. Another door slammed, this one closer than the last.
    Lia almost called out, annoyed that Saunders couldn’t leave her in peace. He was probably waiting to see what she would do. Testing her to see how she would react when his remodeling project reached her floor. He couldn’t be bothered to bring her meds every day, but he had time to screw off in the apartment next to hers? Anger boiled in her stomach.
    Then a muffled, feminine cough seeped through the thin wall between the apartments.

 
    Chapter Six
     
     
    Dr. Delph stood in his office, one hand holding the towel at his hip in place and the other pressing the desk phone to his ear. The full moon loomed outside his window, illuminating the sweat that glistened across his chest and back. He had been so engrossed in his meditation that he’d almost missed Graham’s call.
    “I’m close. I can feel it,” the vampire whispered through the receiver. “I just