Nocturnal by Nathan Field Read Free Book Online

mysteries, haunted houses, and men with eyepatches. Girls are interested, maybe even fascinated, but they don’t want to get too close.”
    CC twisted her mouth to the side, pondering the point. “Yeah, maybe some girls are like that. But what do you care, anyway? You’re not looking for a boring Marina girl who drinks soy lattes and dates men in pressed chinos.”
    “True.”             
    “Not when there are red-hot bitches like me around.”
    I laughed, momentarily forgetting my troubles. Observing the change in mood, CC brushed the hair away from her face and re-crossed her legs, pressing her long calf against her knee to highlight its elegant curve. Then she hooked a finger under her pencil skirt and inched it up her thigh, flashing me a corruptible smile.
    “Headache’s gone,” she said.
    I shook my head – not tonight .
    “Come on baby,” she purred, slowly parting her magnificent thighs. “You know you want to.”
    And suddenly I was standing over her, running my fingers through her hair while she deftly whipped off my belt and reached inside my jeans.
    Despite everything that had happened, I was still so easily swayed.
     
    “Is that you CC?”
    I was sitting upright in bed, roused by the click of the front door closing. My senses were instantly on high alert, and I wasn’t sure why. CC often left my apartment in the middle of the day, when I was fast asleep. She wasn’t in the habit of exiting quietly, either. I was used to hearing the water pipes groan as CC ran a shower, her agitated footsteps as she scoured the apartment for her mobile phone, and the clang and clatter of crockery as she fixed herself a quick breakfast. They were familiar, comforting sounds. Even when I woke up, I always went back to sleep with a contented smile on my face.
    But this time was different.
    Thinking back, I hadn’t heard the shower running, or the usual racket from the kitchen. And the front door had been eased shut rather than slammed.
    The clock on my nightstand read 1:48 PM. A clammy feeling came over me as I remembered CC moaning about a meeting with her bank manager first thing in the morning. Meaning she’d probably left the apartment soon after I’d fallen asleep, several hours ago.
    A bead of sweat ran down behind my ear. It struck me that the carefully closed wasn’t the sound of somebody leaving. It was somebody coming in.
    I slowly peeled back the covers and levered my legs out of bed. My bedroom was pitch black, courtesy of the foam-backed velvet curtains pulled across every window in the apartment, but I stopped myself from reaching for the bedside lamp. I knew the layout of my apartment like the back of my hand, and could maneuver my way in the dark. The intruder needed light more than I did.
    I bent down to retrieve the baseball bat under my bed, feeling a little bolder when my hands wrapped around its taped grip. There was a gun in the hallway closet, but I didn’t fancy my chances of making it across the living room and loading the clip in the dark. I guessed the intruder was trying to catch me in my sleep. My best chance was to meet him halfway.
    I moved towards my bedroom door, which I always left slightly ajar. I peered into the living room dark. Apart from my thumping heart, the only sound was the faint burbling of the aquarium’s air pump. I sniffed the air, detecting a foreign smell. A combination of musky aftershave and sour body odor.
    The same stench that greeted me in the office every night.
    Confirmation that Ralph Emerson was the intruder only intensified my fear. I immediately thought of the brutal murder of Charlotte in the R-rated version of Sensible Shoes , wondering if Ralph himself were capable of such an act. From experience, I knew you couldn’t always judge a writer’s character by his material. Some of the nastiest screenplays I’d read were written by guys who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Nevertheless, Ralph’s violent imagination seemed intensely relevant when