Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
In fact, I’d seen the man just three nights past outside selling the Santas he’d carved out of wood using his chainsaw.
Now, though, this guy was dead, chopped up—literally—and the comparisons between his murder and the other killings indicated it was the same killer.
Plus, the guy had a fucking calling card.
He tucked the people’s scalps onto a freakin’ lamp shade and turned the lamp on. Frying the flesh and allowing it to burn and melt onto the lamp itself.
He’d done that to ten victims so far, and it seemed that number was rising.
And, if the same routine held true, over the next three months, two more murders would be committed.
For the last year, every four months, in a different state each time, three murders were committed by this man. They weren’t one hundred percent positive that the murders were committed by a man, but the profilers strongly suspected it was.
The murders had started in Florida. Then they’d moved from Alabama to Mississippi. Mississippi to Louisiana. And now Louisiana to Texas.
All of the murders were grizzly, but none of them more so than the last one I’d seen in Benton.
Though, that might just be because I saw the actual aftermath of the murder, but still.
The thought of him doing something like that here was freaking me out.
Like, I was literally sick to my stomach thinking about leaving my new apartment.
And then Janie gave me the out I needed.
“You want to watch Abrielle?”
Was it bad of me that I didn’t even hesitate?
“Yes,” I breathed. “Can I?”
She nodded. “I’ve been meaning to do this anyway…I started formula full-time today after her appointment at the pediatrician. The doctor said that if I was going to breastfeed, six weeks was a great start. She would get all the immunowhateverthefucks from doing it for that long. She also told me I was a good mother and to not stress.”
I blinked. “You are a good mother.”
She blew out a breath. “I think I need some time alone with Rafe. I’m so busy worrying about her, trying to be a good mom and working, that I haven’t given him much time lately. I know that you were going to go to the party, but honestly? This works out for me. I think we’ll skip it, too. It won’t take much to convince Rafe that I need to run home for a few minutes and to leave her here with you.”
I laughed, relieved that I wouldn’t have to go to the party. A party that I really didn’t even belong at yet since I’d been on as an employee for Hail Auto Recovery. “It works out for me, too.”
Honestly, I was relieved as fuck that I wasn’t going to have to leave.
Despite being invited to the club for this mandatory ‘team building party’ that the Hails put on every three months or so, I wasn’t really part of that team, or at least I didn’t feel like I was.
They told me I should go, that I’d be welcome, but I just didn’t much feel like it.
I’d had a long day on top of a sleepless night after I heard that there was a murder that might be linked to the serial killings sweeping the southern states, and I couldn’t get those images of the crime scene I’d seen out of my freakin’ head.
I was seriously messed up.
“Let’s do it.” Janie jumped up, clapping her hands.
***
Parker
I listened to her through the wall. She’d moved in a couple of weeks ago, and little did I know that the girl could talk.
And talking wasn’t really an accurate description either. Try gabbing. Incessantly.
All she fucking did was talk. To herself. To other people. To another girl who came over and talked just as much.
Only, this time, it was different. She was talking to herself, and what she was saying sounded panicked.
“I don’t think you’re breathing normally,” she whispered. Only, her whisper wasn’t really a whisper at all so I didn’t know why she even bothered.
“I don’t know what to do!” she cried.
I’d had enough.
Getting up, I grabbed my stethoscope and headed for the door. Moments later I found myself standing in front of her door.
I knocked, and she answered moments later, a look of hope on her face that was quickly dashed.
“I’m busy.” Then she tried to shut the door in my face. “And what are you doing here?”
I held my hand out and stopped her from closing it.
“I’m your neighbor.” I pointed to my place next door to hers. “And I can hear you through the walls. Who’s having trouble breathing?”
God, the woman was beautiful. Young, but so goddamn beautiful.
“I’m watching Janie and Rafe’s daughter for an hour while she errrrm…runs to the grocery store. But Abrielle isn’t breathing normally…I don’t think.”
I pushed past her and walked farther into her apartment.
Though the floor plan was nearly identical to my own, her decorations totally changed the whole look and feel of the place, though.