Stones Unturned Read Online Free PDF

teeth within his mouth grow. The cute girl that he'd seen a few times going in and out of the building over the last few weeks was standing on the steps down below. She was dressed in a leather jacket and a short black dress and was clutching a tiny purse. Waiting for somebody to pick her up, he imagined.
    "Ain't it a little late to be goin' out now?" he asked the night, watching as she pulled up the sleeve of her coat to check the time.
    Danny inhaled sharply, differentiating between all the different smells that filled the night air of Boston, until he found the one that he was looking for — the scent that had pulled him from his room onto the rooftop.
    He had smelled the girl before — a mixture of perfume, body soap, and shampoo — but this was different. The other scents were all still there, perhaps even a bit stronger than usual, almost as if they were there to cover something up. But he could still smell the odor underneath it all, pungent and sharp. It took him a moment to realize exactly what it was.
    The smell of blood; a woman's blood.
    Danny smiled again, amused by what his heightened senses had revealed to him. He'd wanted to talk to the girl from the first time he'd seen her, but knew it was impossible. The way he looked, she'd probably start screaming the minute she laid eyes on him.
    He saw the scenario play out in his head; him going out on the street to just say hi, and suddenly she'd be screaming, running into the house and slamming the door. By the time he made it back to Conan Doyle's, the sound of police sirens would be coming closer.
    "Fucking bitch," he growled, the ever-present ball of anger inside him increasing in size as he raked his fingernails over the granite of the wall he was perched upon. He was tempted to jump down there; knowing full well that the fall wouldn't hurt him. It gave him pleasure just imagining the look on her pretty stuck-up face as he came at her, letting her know that he could smell her stink from inside his house.
    The muscles in his legs tensed as he prepared to actually carry out what he was thinking, but a silver-gray BMW came roaring down the street, traveling way too fast, and came to a screeching halt in front of the girl's house.
    She stood on the steps for a bit, arms crossed, pretending not to notice that her ride had arrived. The guy opened the door, coming around the car to escort her to the passenger side. He was pulling her close to him, whispering in her ear, and kissing on her neck. Danny couldn't quite make out the words, but he heard her call him an asshole. The guy just laughed, returning to the Beemer's driver's seat.
    As they pulled away from the curb, tires squealing just to show anybody around how cool they were, Danny came to the conclusion that he didn't like them — the girl or her boyfriend — and had the overpowering desire to share that with them.
    In a move that seemed perfectly rational to him at the moment, Danny leapt from Conan Doyle's brownstone, landing in a hunched crouch in the middle of Mount Vernon Street.
    Pretty good jump, he thought, sniffing the air, finding what he was looking for.
    And he began to follow their scent.
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    Eve let the music of the dance club fill her, the rhythmic pulse of the loud, techno beat acting as a kind of surrogate heartbeat. It wasn't anything like having the real thing, throbbing around inside your chest, but in her situation, it would have to suffice.
    It was hot inside Sultan's, the hottest new club on Lansdowne Street. Three hundred or so sweaty bodies moved to the music on the dance floor, and she was in the middle, pretending she was one of them, acting like she belonged. And for moments, here and there, as she allowed herself to get caught up in the music, she could almost believe.
    But eventually something would come along to screw it up. Something always did.
    Eve saw him across the room, an island of absolute stillness in a turbulent sea of gyrating bodies, and he was