Homicide! (Parker & Knight Book 2) by Donald Wells

1
    D avey Simms grinned as he watched Carla Vasquez crook her finger at him and run off into the woods.
    They were at Taggart Lake with a group from their high school, enjoying the last few days of summer before they all drifted apart. Some of the kids were off to college out of state, some to state university, but everyone knew that things were about to change forever.
    Davey was going to work full-time in his father’s paint store. College wasn’t for him and besides, Carla worked at her mother’s café next to the paint store, and she too would be staying in town and working full-time.
    Davey had been in love with the beautiful Carla since their first meeting during freshman year of high school. Carla, on the other hand, barely paid Davey any attention and preferred the hunky, manly type.
    Davey was more nerd than man, but love can change you sometimes and Davey reinvented himself this past year, determined to win Carla Vasquez’s heart.
    A strict high-protein, low carb diet mixed with a weight training regimen packed pounds of muscle on Davey and by the end of the school year, Davey could call himself a genuine hunk, and when contact lenses replaced the dorky glasses that he wore, he was a handsome hunk, but he wasn’t through yet.
    It took every penny he could save from working in the paint store, plus the money earned from cutting lawns, along with the ultimate sacrifice, the selling off of his precious comic book and coin collections, but by the middle of August he had enough money to buy a red Harley Davidson.
    Fate was in his corner as well, because Carla had recently broken up with that “jerk”, Ty Collins, the kid that used to dunk Davey’s head in the toilet at school.
    Carla was available, Davey had turned himself into a hunk and he had a motorcycle that would make him seem even cooler. Carla wouldn’t know what hit her.
    When he arrived at the lake, every head turned his way and he saw that Carla couldn’t keep her eyes off him. He was wearing a tight pair of black jeans along with boots and a red, muscle T, the shirt showed off his guns, while the boots added much needed height.
    It took every bit of restraint not to walk over to her, but Davey played it cool, his self-discipline was rewarded when it was Carla who approached him. After that, they were inseparable, and he gave her a ride around to the other side of the lake while she rode on the back of the bike and held on. Davey enjoyed the feel of her pressed against him, and looked forward to greater intimacy.
    Once they were alone, Carla got off the bike, gave him a sexy smile, and crooked her finger at him in a, “follow me” gesture.
    When she ran off into the woods giggling, Davey flipped down the kickstand on the bike and ran after her, his mind racing with thoughts of conquest.
    At last, Carla wanted him, and he was about to make out with his dream girl.
    He lost sight of her, but knew that there was a meadow nearby and hoped that she would be waiting for him, lying down amid wildflowers with welcoming arms.
    When he spotted the shape lying amid the tall grass, he smiled, and then he crept nearer. When he was fifty feet away, he went into a sprint and threw himself into the air to land beside the form he had thought was Carla.
    It was not Carla.
    The odor struck him first, the stench of death, and then his eyes took in the bloated, distorted, purple face of the corpse. He began to hyperventilate, and as he stood, his foot slipped in a pool of body fluids and he toppled onto the corpse, the result being that his lips brushed against the dead flesh of the thing’s gashed and blood-blackened throat.
    He didn’t even stop to tell Carla what had happened, but rather, he ran by her in a mindless panic, his arms flailing wildly in the air, and, given the horror of his discovery, she could have forgiven Davey for that, what she couldn’t forgive, or ever forget, was the sound he made as he ran.
    It was a high-pitched wail such as a little girl