being. We had a son and then she got some fancy job and worked all the time. Eventually, she told me she wasn’t happy in our marriage anymore and then she took my boy and left me. Just like you did to John. I know just how he feels, he’s slowly dying inside from wanting you and not being able to have you.”
“Then how is it going to help him if I’m gone?” Amberly asked desperately.
“Because he’ll finally have to give up any hope that you’ll ever get back together again. Because he’ll have Max to himself without having to share him with you. He’ll get on with his life because he’ll have no choice. But as long as you’re running in and out of his house, eating dinner with him and keeping the connection alive, you’re torturing that poor man.”
Amberly had never seen the light that shone from Ed’s eyes, a zealous righteousness that frightened her more than anything else she’d ever seen before. He truly believed he was righting a wrong, fixing a friend he obviously cared deeply about.
He’d killed three innocent women in his mad quest to get to her. There was no reason to believe that anything she said would make him change his mind about killing her.
As he returned to his work on the dream catcher she struggled more frantically against the ropes that bound her. Somehow she had to get free.
She had to fight for her life.
She couldn’t let Ed win. She refused to become nothing but a distant memory to the son she loved.
“Does John know what you’re doing?” she asked, noticing that each time he talked he stopped his work on the dream catcher that would become her tombstone.
Once again, he straightened to his full height. “Of course not. John could never hurt you. As far as he’ll know, you’ll be just another tragic victim of the work he hated you doing. He’ll mourn you for a while, but eventually, he truly will be able to move on. He’ll be happy again and that’s what I want for him, that’s why it’s necessary that you be gone.”
Be gone.
Oh God, she didn’t want to be gone. She wanted to live. She wanted to raise Max and find love…the kind of love Cole had shared with his wife, the kind of passion he’d shown Amberly did exist in the world.
She wanted to make love to Cole one last time, to hear the sound of his soothing voice when things were stressful. She wanted to look across his kitchen table and smile at him as they shared a morning cup of coffee.
Tears blurred her vision as she remained helplessly bound and the dream catcher was nearly finished. She knew that when it was done, the end result was that her stabbed body would be found someplace in Mystic Lake with the dream catcher hanging over her head.
“Done,” Ed said as he tied the feathers into place. As he rose to his feet and smiled at her, Amberly’s blood went cold as she realized there was now nothing to stop him from finishing with his final victim.
THERE WAS NO WAY FOR Cole to second-guess how Max had run from wherever he’d been held. A fence and little houses, that’s what Max had said, but it made no connection in Cole’s brain, and he had to remind himself that no matter how bright Max was, he was still a terrified six-year-old. A fence could mean chain link or picket, and little houses could be dog houses.
An urgency rocketed through him as he looked first in one direction and then another. How could he possibly know which way to go? It had been sheer luck that he’d run into Max at all.
At that moment, his cell phone rang. He answered to find Sergeant Davis on the other end. “We’re in Gershner’s house now. We’ve found enough evidence to link him to the murders in Mystic Lake and we also found a receipt for a storage-unit rental at U-Store It. It’s on the corner of 95th and Baylor. Three months ago, he rented unit eight.”
As Sergeant Davis got Cole’s location, he gave Cole directions to the storage place and said he was in the process of sending officers to the scene.
As Cole clicked off, he was already running. According to Davis, he was only two blocks away. Two blocks from Amberly. There was no question in his mind that the storage unit was the kill place Gershner used, and