Viper by Patricia A. Rasey

with mostly guys, she needed to be able to take a good ribbing as well as laugh at herself. Besides, Cara liked to give as good as she got.
    "Shouldn't you be home, Joe? I thought the kids were away. That wife of yours isn't waiting for you?"
    His smile reached his eyes. "She told me to get the hell out, said I needed to give her space. I guess I'm just too much man for her and twenty-four-seven sex is a bit of an overkill."
    The guys laughed and fist bumped each other.
    Cara rolled her eyes. "More like annoying the hell out of her twenty-four-seven."
    "Coming from the woman who never gets any."
    She snorted. "You act as if I care, Joe." 
    The last thing Cara wanted or needed was lack-luster sex. Her mind drifted back to the shower and her straying thoughts. Somehow she doubted sex with Kane would ever be deemed boring. Though, not a thought she intended to share with her co-workers.
    "Did we find out anything more about the dead vic?" Cara asked, hoping desperately to change the subject and get the topic off her. Last thing she wanted was the entire office talking about her lack of a sex life. Jesting with her partner was one thing, letting the entire office in on the joke was another.
    Jeff said, "Just before I left, the ME called. Thought he shouldn't have any trouble IDing her. Somebody's got to be missing her. If she's from Pleasant, he said he'd probably find out by tomorrow afternoon at the latest who she was."
    "Maybe if we get an ID we'll be able to discover who she’d been hanging with before she died and give us a clue as to what the hell happened." Joe held up his empty draft mug and nodded at Lyle for a refill. "Our best bet is going to be witnesses. That fucking storm killed our chances for footprints."
    Cara had a bad niggling in her gut. Something about this latest victim didn't sit right with her. "Too many prints out there to be of much use anyway. But you're right, the rain certainly didn't help. We can go back to the site tomorrow, but with slope of the landscape, our evidence is probably long washed away."
    "We collected what we could," one of the attending deputies offered.
    "Unfortunately, that isn't going to be good enough," Cara grumbled and took another swig from her beer. The alcohol sat like a rock in her stomach. Suddenly, she felt as if coming here hadn’t been the best idea. She had never been much of a social butterfly, preferring to stay home more than not. Spending the night drinking at the local tavern had never been her idea of fun, regardless of what her co-workers thought.
    Or maybe spending time in someone else’s company held more appeal.
    Lord, if she kept to that line of thinking, she'd be on her own slippery slope. Not like Kane would be interested. His taunts earlier had been just that. He'd never engage himself with a cop, not with the life he led. Cops and bikers didn't mix. They came from opposing sides of the law. Like mixing water with oil, the two elements never blended, no matter how hard you shook them.
    But like it or not, it was his vision that stuck in her head. Cara took another swig of her draft, disgusted by her train of thought. Maybe she ought to go see that psychiatrist yet. Unlucky for her, her libido had finally shown up and, like Cupid with his damn little arrows, had aimed itself right at the figment of her nightmares from the past ten years. Coming back to Pleasant might not have been the wisest choice after all.
    Joe chuckled. "Brahnam? Did you even hear a word I said?"
    Cara scratched her nape, giving him the best apologetic look she could muster. "I told you I wasn't much in the mood for mixing company, Joe. You’re the one who insisted I come hang out and have a beer."
    He shrugged off her accusation. "I was just saying that these killings were on the verge of being freakish, like something out of the Twilight Zone. What the hell is the guy doing with the blood? With no rope burns around the ankle, it's not like he's hanging them to drain. It's like