Kill Switch: A Vigilante Serial Killer Action Thriller (Angel of Darkness Suspense Thriller Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

in one go, Elena placed her glass on the table with a satisfying ahhh . She wiped a little froth from her top lip.
    “Thirsty?” Tess said.
    “Because of my medication, I haven’t been able to enjoy a drink for months.”
    “So you’ve stopped your medication?”
    “No, I’ve stopped caring. For now at least.”
    “But won’t alcohol interfere with your meds?”
    Elena rolled her eyes. “You sound like Cat.”
    As if to make a point, she took another sip of beer. Three parallel scars ran across the back of Elena’s hand holding the glass. She’d obviously been raked by something sharp, but the scars were faded, not enflamed, and flat to the rest of the hand, not pronounced, suggesting it was an old injury.
    If Tess was going to put her life on the line, she needed to know it was for the right reasons, specifically that Elena and her daughter were truly worth fighting for. To judge that, she needed information. The scar presented an ideal opening to dig into this family’s history through a seemingly innocuous question.
    With a flick of her head, Tess gestured to Elena’s hand. “That must have been nasty.”
    “Hmmm?”
    “Your hand.”
    Elena twisted her hand to look at it. “Oh, yes, it was. Got too close to a bear.”
    Tess frowned with surprise. “A bear?” She had expected it to be a work injury, an assault, a car accident, anything but an animal attack. How the devil did anyone get too close to a bear unless they were a complete imbecile?
    “I was trying to feed it,” Elena said, as if she expected that to explain things.
    So, either the woman was an imbecile or she had a death wish? “You were trying to feed a wild bear?”
    “No, a dancing bear. I volunteered at a sanctuary that rescued them.”
    “Ah.” As a young girl, Tess had been so close to her black cat Tickle that it had followed her everywhere like a little dog. She’d been devastated when the poor little thing had died of leukemia when it was only six. She’d cried every day for a month. One day, she’d love to work with animals. One day, when this life was far behind her. One day, after she’d finally reaped her vengeance back home.
    “We have thousands of bears in Transylvania,” said Elena, “but unfortunately, many people only see them as a way to make easy money.”
    “Transylvania?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Transylvania where Dracula lives?”
    Another wry smile crept across Elena’s face. “Transylvania where Vlad Tepes lived in the fifteenth century. You probably know him as Vlad the Impaler. He was the inspiration for Dracula.”
    “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
    “Anyway, we rescued bears people had trapped. Most of them traumatized from years of abuse or neglect.” She caressed her scarred hand. “This was Tia. My favorite. Her owner kept her as a tourist attraction outside his restaurant, but the problem was, camera flashes frightened her, so she always moved and ruined people’s photos. So her owner stuck needles in her eyes to blind her – if she couldn’t see the flash, she wouldn’t move, so happy tourist.”
    “Jesus.” Tess winced at the thought of it. “He stuck needles in her eyes?”
    Elena nodded. “She was almost dead when we found her. I nursed her back to health but forgot she was basically still a wild animal and got too close one day. It was my own stupid fault, not Tia’s.”
    Tess studied the three scars and then her drinking partner. Elena brought light into a world overwhelmed by darkness. Should Tess help her? Like there could be any other answer to that question but one. Tess would do everything she could to find Catalina. And along the way, she’d learn more about Tia’s owner. He was one real nice guy she’d love to meet.
    Elena said, “So, do you have any idea how we might find Cat?”
    With a red pen, Tess tapped an area she’d circled on the free tourist map of Krakow Elena had picked up in her hostel, a map exactly like the one Catalina had followed.
    “We’re sure this