Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6) Read online

  The

  Killer on Call

  Collection

  books one - six

  by

  Gwendolyn Druyor

  www.KillerOnCall.com

  Copyright © 2014, 2015 by Gwendolyn Druyor

  ••Get your Bonus Book!••

  Want to know how Tim became the Killer with a Conscience? Visit my website below and subscribe to get your complimentary copy of Justice.

  KillerOnCall.com

  Enjoy!

  Gwendolyn

  Table of Contents

  Ecstasy

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Gin

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Morphine

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Valium

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Pot

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Absinthe

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  My Dear Reader

  Ecstasy

  Killer on Call

  book one

  by

  Gwendolyn Druyor

  www.KillerOnCall.com

  Copyright © 2014 by Gwendolyn Druyor

  One

  Kissy would forever blame it on the garlic. As she regained consciousness she tried to bring a hand up to wave the smell away but found that her hands had been cuffed behind her. She blinked her hazel eyes a few times trying to clear the heavy mist from her vision. Her long straight dark brown hair hung smooth behind her down the wooden slats of the chair that was driving splinters into the backs of her thighs.

  She was distracted from this pain and the taste of blood in her mouth by the sight of an extremely well-built man who was hanging from a beam to her left. A sisal rope crossed his barrel chest, circled up his arms, bound his wrists and then ran through rings attached to the beam. He was a dark man with an even darker farmer’s tan to mid-thigh and mid-Herculean-bicep. He wore only a pair of worn red boxer-briefs and a cloth grocery bag over his head.

  Kissy heard a moan to her right. She turned her head, sending a flash of stars spinning in her vision. Blinking through the haze she saw another man, this one clothed in a tuxedo, lying on the cement floor. What little hair he had was drenched in blood seeping out of a wound high on the crown of his head. His face was turned towards her and she watched as he blinked his eyes, slowly becoming conscious as she was.

  The sound of voices bled in through the thrumming in her head. Two voices. The one coming closer was familiar. The seductive female voice was not. With an effort, she focused on the male voice. His face swam into focus as he straddled her lap. She bucked against him, realized that was the wrong move and tried to shrink away. She tried to avoid his gaze but as her options were bloody old man on the floor, blue handed hunk in the air, and garlic-breathed man’s neon green shirt in her face, she gave in and looked up into his eyes, his intense gray eyes whose pleading gaze didn’t match the mocking viciousness of his words.

  “She’s my date, Vanessa,” he said, speaking to the blonde behind him. “I get to kill her.”

  A small evil smile haunted his lips, then he leaned in and kissed her with that awful garlic breath.

  Two

  Kissy burst through the back door of Julia’s apartment without knocking. “Julia Goodenuff, I am going to die if I don’t find a man to fuck right now.” She pulled up short at the sight of a white-blond, kinda nerdy hunk in the kitchen. After just an instant of flapping her lips like a fish, she recovered admirably. “Good to see you, Timothy Goodenuff. Julia didn’t say you were coming to visit.”

  “Julia didn’t know,” said Julia from the couch on the far side of the main room where she lounged with a cast-wrapped leg elevated on three pillows.

  Timothy wiped his hands on the frilly pink apron tied about his slim waist and offered one to Kissy. “You’ve changed, Kiersten.”

  Kissy’s breath caught as she slid her hand into his warm, firm grasp. “It’s been ten years since anyone’s seen you, Timothy. Everybody’s changed. And it’s Kissy now.”

  “Kissy.” He made a meal of the sibilants. “You’ve grown up nicely.”

  He reached out and lifted the fringe of dark brown hair hiding the left side of her face. “You still have that scar from homecoming.”

  She lifted his hand and traced the triangle of black dots on his forearm. “And you’ve still got that AP History tattoo.”

  “Tattoo? Julia stabbed me with a stack of pencils.”

  “But he’s gotten over it,” Julia drawled from the couch.<
br />
  Kissy drew her finger from the lead remnants in his arm down to a long, black-painted pinkie nail. "You're going goth?

  Tim looked down at the nail. "It represents my dark side."

  Kissy dropped his hand and turned to grab a cider from the fridge. “Where have you been for a decade?”

  She shut the door and perused the collage of postcards taped up over just the past three years.

  “Merchant Marine,” Timothy said.

  “Bullshit,” his sister called out.

  “Timothy,” Kissy drawled disapprovingly. She saw a smile quirk his lips as he turned back to his mixing bowl.

  He murmured, “I’m Tim now.”

  “Whatcha making, Merchant Marine Tim?” Kissy asked as she leaned against the counter that separated the kitchen from Julia’s self-designated great room.

  “A salad.” He held onto a bulb of garlic while he pulled his cell out of his pocket and checked a text. Kissy sipped her cider. “All I see is lettuce, onions, anchovies, and that bulb of garlic.”

  Tim looked up from the phone as he started cutting the garlic. “Do you still play guitar?”

  “Yes. I’m doing a tour of the open mics in town.” Kissy wondered if she could get a waist like Tim’s if she ate smelly salads.

  “And that one in Atlanta,” Julia added.

  “Oh yeah,” Kissy amended, leaning back against the wall. “And that one in Atlanta. I had a layover. I also do circus tricks now.”

  “Not very well,” Julia murmured.

  Kissy turned to smile at her. “Who’s in a cast?”

  Julia looked back down at her book. Kissy turned to Tim who was scraping the entire bulb of diced garlic into the salad.

  “Who’s gonna wanna kiss you after you eat that?”

  Tim paused as he picked up his fork, thrown by the question from left field. “I,” he started and stopped for another moment’s thought. “I wasn’t really expecting to be kissed tonight.”

  Kissy tilted her head and considered this. “That’s too bad.”

  She took a sip of cider and pushed off the wall. In two strides she was at Tim’s side. With a hand icy from holding the cold drink, she cupped the back of his head and kissed him. Tim stood with the giant salad bowl in one hand and a fork in the other, dumbfounded. When he finally leaned in to enjoy the kiss, Kissy turned away and returned to leaning on the wall.

  “Okay. You can eat now.”

  Julia sighed lustily from the couch. “Be careful, Kissy. He has no heart. He says he will never fall in love.”

  “A girl doesn’t always need love.”

  “He’s my little brother!”

  Kissy looked back at Tim, who looked a bit like he’d been run over by a truck. She smiled to herself and ambled over to the fridge.

  “Beer?” she asked, taking one out.

  Tim managed to croak out, “Please.”

  After a couple of sips and a bite of his salad, Tim looked at his phone again. He typed a reply and then looked up at Kissy. He was still a little flushed. “Would you like to perform at a warehouse party?”

  “Sure,” she said. “How much does it pay?”

  “Performance is the price of admission.”

  “Hey!” She perked up. “I’ve heard about this. Theatre of E. It’s like a rave of performance artists run out of a warehouse in the clothing district.”

  “Every Wednesday.”

  “Today is Wednesday,” she observed.

  “Wanna go?” he asked.

  Kissy finished her cider as she considered how awake she really needed to be at her desk job the next day.

  “Let me go change and grab my ukulele.”

  “I thought you played guitar,” he asked through a mouthful of odor.

  Kissy smiled. “A lot changes when you don’t visit for ten years. I played guitar in high school. I’ve learned some new tricks since then.”

  “And earned an appropriate name,” he breathed for her ears only.

  Kissy smiled slyly at him and dropped her bottle in the recycling bin on her way out the door.

  He shouted after her, “I’ll meet you outside in ten.”

  She stopped and looked back inside. “I’m a girl, Tim. And we’re going to a party. I’ll meet you outside in thirty.”

  The screen door slammed behind her covering Tim’s murmured, “And I’ll be waiting eagerly.”

  Three

  Exactly twenty-seven minutes later, Kissy came down the back stairs from her third floor apartment and found Tim gently swaying on the porch swing. His jaw dropped a little when he saw his sister’s BFF in a tiny red dress that dripped with fringe. The outfit showed off her long legs and matched the ukulele case slung bandolier-style across her chest. She let him look while she checked a simple key ring.

  “House. Bike. Work. Handcuffs.” She tucked the keys into a pouch on the carry strap and looked up. “Ready.”

  Tim refrained from asking the obvious question. He stood, offered a hand to her, and led her down the stairs to the garden nestled in a courtyard hemmed in by the backs of three apartment buildings. They crossed to the back gate and he held it for her examining her surprisingly defined biceps framed by the delicate fringe hanging from her shoulders. As they walked down the street, he broached the subject of their transportation.

  “I am a safe driver. But I don’t want to see those stems scratched even a little so would you mind wearing a pair of chaps on the way there?”

  “Chaps?” she asked and then stopped walking as she leaped to a conclusion. “We’re taking a motorcycle.”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  Kissy looked down at her delicate dress and vintage ankle-strap pumps, and sighed. “At least I didn’t do anything with my hair.”

  They made it to the clothing district without incident. The adjustable chaps and leather jacket Tim kept in his seat fit Kissy well enough to stay on through the windy ride. The helmet was too big, but they cinched down the chin strap and it stayed on. Once they found the address and Kissy got to remove all the gear, she felt eighty pounds lighter.

  The address Tim had for the Theater of E took them to a broken-down-looking storefront. There were no streetlights outside. No lights on inside and no noise. Kissy tried the knob and the door opened into a small room filled with sewing machines. It looked for all the world as if the ladies had cleaned up and clocked out at five, their work to be started again the next morning. Pieces of shirts and trousers lay in bins along the center aisle; joined clothes lay to the opposite side of each machine.

  They walked to the back of the room and down a short hallway under a sign that read “Build American. Buy American.”

  Again Kissy opened the door at the end of the hall as Tim hung back. This time they found themselves in an empty, four-by-four space. The only decoration was a giant letter E painted in gold on the steel door in front of them. The door had no handle. They looked at each other nervously. Finally Kissy shrugged and Tim shut the door behind them. For a moment, nothing happened. And then the steel door on the opposite wall opened and a large Greek man in a snazzy tuxedo and face tattoos appeared. A wave of sound, heat, and nearly physical excitement poured around him to fill the small airlock.

  “Which of you performs?” he asked in a monotone.

  Kissy giggled and held up a hand.

  “What do you perform?”

  She raised an eyebrow at this, not expecting to have to audition. She pulled her bag around and extracted a glittery red ukulele. She played a few bars of “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath and then raised a shoulder at the man questioningly. He broke into an enormous grin and stepped back, ushering them inside.

  “Welcome to Theater of E. Cash bar. If you like a performance, make it hail on them.”

  “Hail?” Kissy asked, a tremor in her voice.

  Tim answered. “You throw change at them.”

  “I should have brought a helmet,” she joked to the Greek.

  He didn’t laugh. “Yep.”

  And he
shut the door firmly behind them.

  Four

  The Theater of E was about twice the size of the workroom out front. Lines of track hung from the ceiling ferrying lights and piñatas, as well as tubs of confetti which occasionally dumped over the crowd. Toward the north wall, a quartet performed on a set of industrial bucket drums, a didgeridoo, and an enormous upright bass played by two men on a ladder. Tim’s chest thumped to the beat and he felt it thrumming through Kissy and into his hand on the small of her back as he guided her to an alcove of curtained tables west of the stage.

  “This is incredible!” she shouted at him.

  He smiled and leaned close to murmur in her ear. “I could kill for a drink.”

  She put a hand on his neck and pulled his ear to her lips. “I would never kill another living soul. I know better ways to get a Manhattan.”

  He let his cheek glide against hers as he backed away. Then he turned and headed toward the bar, scanning the room as he went. Some of the people were dressed in casual club wear. But most were decked out in their Burning Man finery. Face paint, masks, and highly sculptured hair were the norm. At the far end of the east bar, tucked away behind a group of transvestites in training, he caught a glimpse of a tall red top hat. Glancing back to see Kissy focused on the performers, he turned and made a beeline for the hat.

  Tim lurked in the shadow of the trannies’ boas for a moment, watching his client. The man was dressed like a circus magician, all in black but for the red hat and matching spats. He sported a black Lucifer goatee and tiny round sunglasses despite the darkness of the room. He greeted strangers and regulars with equal joy, his smile barely touching his lips. Tim waited until the crowd between the two bars was so dense it was hard to make out individual faces and then he made his move.

  “Pardon me, madam.” He said to a burly woman with an eleven o’clock shadow and uneven breasts as he brushed through her fluttering feather boa. The woman smiled and reached up to adjust the metal chopsticks in her bun. Tim smiled back but kept moving to reach the proprietor of the Theater of E.

  Tim slid into a dark corner with his client who had identified himself as Mr. E. The man removed his hat to better blend into the crowd. Minus his hat, Mr. E turned out to be nearly bald.

  “I’m the KC. You have a challenge for me.”

  Mr. E pulled a picture from inside his hat and handed it over. “The Dogs of War think they run this neighborhood and this man was sent in to sell drugs to my performers.”