“You cared more than anyone,” I whisper in her ear while the others refuse to look away. I frown at them and growl, “You don’t need to stare.”
“No, it’s fine,” Shelby whimpers. “They're used to my meltdowns. Shit, you haven’t even seen me suffer from a migraine yet.”
Shelby hides her face against my chest while Taylor takes over. “We have a few people at the store, watching out for this guy. Once we get his picture, we’ll need to figure out how to hit his house.”
“And what do we do with Violet if she’s alive,” Maverick mumbles, frowning at the suspects on the board. “Does she have any living family? Her reappearance could bring the media here, draw attention to how the fucker died. We should prepare for the fact that saving this girl and killing the Shasta Slasher might put a huge target on the club.”
“Stop being rational,” Shelby hisses at him. “I’m looking for gumdrops and rainbow kisses, not harsh reality.”
“I’m just saying that we need to be prepared for everything. This guy’s house might be boobytrapped. It might be more than one guy. He might have a bunch of girls locked in his house. We don’t have a fucking clue.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll start working on those possibilities,” River tells his brother. “Shelby’s overwhelmed, and we can’t really do anything until we know more about the guy Dione snitched on. Once we have details, we’ll put together a plan, alert Ellsberg to possible hell raining down on us from the situation, and then we end the Shasta Slasher.”
Shelby smiles at her friend and then up at me. “I hope you get to rip his head off.”
“We all do, man,” Hugh says, and I flip him off.
Once alone with her in the creepy fucking basement that my woman turned into an office, I cup Shelby’s face and wipe the wetness from her cheeks.
She stares up at me, fighting more tears. “I don’t want our daughter born in a town where a man like the slasher still destroys lives.”
“We’ll find him. You’ve gotten so close already,” I say, gesturing to her whiteboards covered with pictures and writing.
“I might be completely wrong. He might not even live in Shasta.”
“Then how did he see Violet?”
“Maybe her volleyball team traveled to his area, and he spotted her. He could have just visited Shasta for his victims.”
“Nomp. You know that ain’t right. He grabs them here, and he dumps their bodies here. But you said he doesn’t kill them right when he takes them. He hurts them first. That takes time and privacy. You’re right that he’s here in Shasta. He’s probably one of these fuckers.”
“I love you,” she says, taking my hands and placing them on her belly. “I knew when I found my man that I would love him fiercely. That's how Campbells love, but I’m still startled sometimes by how much I feel for you.”
Her words make me uncomfortable. They’re too beautiful to be said next to a board detailing so much suffering and death.
“After we kill this guy, you gotta stop hunting monsters.”
“Never,” she says with lots of drama. “I won’t go soft. I have to be tough to protect the ones I love.”
“I can be tough for you.”
Shelby gives me a little smile. “You don’t want me too soft, Dean. It wouldn’t be me, and you love me.”
“You know I fucking do. More than I should.”
“You just feel overwhelmed because loving like this is new,” she promises and hugs me as well as she can with our kid playing blocker. “One day, you’ll be so used to feeling this love that you won’t fear it anymore.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yeah, we will,” she says, calmer now.
Though I’m still learning about Shelby, I know she’ll sleep better tonight if we hang around the house for a while. Our new place is just where we sleep and fuck. Here in this creepy fucking ghost house, she feels most at peace. As much as she wants to kill the Shasta Slasher, I’m more worried about her and our baby staying safe and healthy. They’re my future, and I’m not willing to put them in danger. Not even to stop a monster.
THE CHAPTER WHERE THE REAPER SHOULD BE FEARED
THE WEIRDO
One trip to the grocery store is all it takes to put a target on the Shasta Slasher’s back.
Barry O'Meara lived a block from the Victorian until a few months after Violet Navarro’s disappearance. Then he moved just outside Shasta to a smaller house on a larger lot.