Anxiety pinched at Ellie’s gut. Bryce had something up his sleeve. That look… she knew it. He was going to make her life a living hell now he was in charge, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it—except quit and move away. Somewhere no one knew her. Somewhere she could escape.
She’d been considering it for days now. She’d even pulled up a map, trying to pick a location.
But with national news airing the story of the murdered little girls, there was nowhere to hide.
Three
Marvin’s Mobile Home Park, Crooked Creek
The dark, evil thoughts came out of nowhere. But they always lived in his head, whispering their insults, shouting that he was worthless, reminding him that he had no one. Voices that told him what to do, how to inflict pain.
Who to take.
They all had to suffer.
Glancing at the photographs on the seat beside him, the childhood rhyme about Monday’s child taunted him.
“Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for a living, And the child that is born on the Sabbath day, is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.”
But the girls were none of those things, and never would be.
Night shadows hugged the exterior of the woman’s trailer as he waited for her to come home. Overgrown weeds and patches of poison ivy choked the property, the mobile homes separated by broken-down cars, old tires, children’s toys and junk.
With the streetlight burned out, he could easily hide in the dark corners of the yard. Aside from shouting two doors down and at least three or four dogs barking into the night, the area was quiet. No animals that he could see. Still, he knew how to handle dogs.
Slipping from his vehicle, armed with the chloroform rag, he crept into the shadows of the metal carport. Hunched behind a garbage can, he waited, anticipation building inside him and making his blood hot. His body hardened as he imagined pushing her to her knees and forcing her to beg for her life.
Wind rustled the trees, tossing a Bud Lite can from a neighbor’s property across the graveled parking lot. An old man staggered from his trailer, stumbled, then grabbed the rail and wove to his pick-up truck.
The fool shouldn’t be driving.
But he was not the problem tonight. Tonight was about taking Monday’s child.
Tension coiled inside him as the minutes ticked by, and the rhyme played over and over in his head like a broken record, just like the country CDs she had played. Songs about drinking whiskey and cheating wives.
A half hour passed before the sound of an engine broke the silence. A black pick-up pulled into the carport.
His pulse jumped as she opened her car door and slid her legs over the side of the seat to the ground. A coal-black braid hung down her back, the car’s interior light shimmering across ebony skin. Her full lips puckered into a frown as she slammed the door shut and stood, fiddling with her phone.
Anxious to take her and get the hell out of here before her neighbors got home, he lunged toward her, grabbing her around the neck in a chokehold. Quickly he pressed the rag over her face. She kicked, trying to elbow him, struggling to jerk his hands away, but he was stronger. He tightened his hold, cutting off her air until her body went limp, and her head lolled back.
Smiling to himself, he dragged her into the bushes. Then he scooped her into his arms and carried her to his car.
Opening the trunk, he shoved her inside, slamming the trunk shut.
Excitement made his cock throb as he drove away.
Four
Sunday
Springer Mountain, Georgia
Dawn cracked the sky, a sliver of sunlight seeping through the gray clouds as Ellie grabbed her backpack from the trunk of her Jeep. Wind shook the trees and rustled the bushes, the scent of rain filling the air.
Her gaze fell to the bundle of mail on her back seat. More hate mail.
Several letters had arrived yesterday, the ugly words taunting her and keeping her awake long into the night. Some sounded threatening, yet she’d hoped that folks were simply blowing off steam. She’d been too ashamed to show them to her boss or anyone else.
But as she was a cop, she’d kept every single one of them, and she’d also told the therapist about them