Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
The sensation of not being alone.
I couldn’t shake it.
Not even after I finished staging the scene.
Not even after I finally drove out of there, tossing the body bags and old suits in black bags into random people’s trash bins at the curb as I drove out of their towns.
It was still niggling at me as I pulled into a self-service car wash, vacuuming out the car, then pulling out all the mats, soaping them down, and spraying the fuck out of them. Same with the bins, though the rain had likely washed most of the evidence off of them.
Hell, I still couldn’t bury the feeling as I dropped off the bins stocked with dog and cat food supplies at a dog shelter, never wanting shit to go to waste if it could be avoided.
Even as I stood at the junkyard, watching the car get crushed, then paying the attendant handsomely for not putting that shit on paper, the thought was still there.
What if I hadn’t been seeing things?
What if someone had been there?
Someone wearing red…
CHAPTER TWO
Millie
Sitting at the red light, I reached up to twist my red hair into a bun that I twisted tightly enough to pinch my scalp, the pain keeping me focused, despite the two days’ worth of exhaustion pulling on my lids, slowing down my reaction times.
My passenger side floorboard was littered with empty paper coffee cups, evidence of my sleeplessness, and explaining some of the shakiness I felt in all of my limbs, in my very bones.
Not all of it, of course.
The other reason was a blood-soaked memory I was trying hard to block out.
I had to focus.
I had to keep moving forward, not looking back.
If I wanted to live to see my next birthday—and, hey, it was the big twenty-five, so I was hoping to make it these next few months—I needed to keep my mind on the future, each step or two in front of me.
The drive was seemingly endless, the only breaks being to get gas, coffee, and go pee.
I felt aches in every part of my body.
But it was the pain in my chest that had me pushing my foot into the pedal each time the tiredness begged me to pull over somewhere, to close my eyes, and catch a couple hours of sleep.
I had to keep going.
I had to get myself safe.
After I did that, I could finally do what my soul was begging for.
I was going to lock the door, grab a box of tissues, and sob my fucking heart out. To grieve the loss I hadn’t even gotten a chance to work through yet.
“Nope. No. Focus,” I demanded, gripping the wheels until my fingers turned white as I turned down the road I only knew because there was a massive Weeping Willow to the left side of it. I’d always been fond of them, even as a kid, so I took note of them when I came across them.
I’d only been to this property twice in my whole life. Once, at eight. The second time, at thirteen. Before I dug my heels in and told my father that I would not, under any circumstances, come and sit in a cabin with him, waiting for him to shoot some sweet little deer for no other reason than ‘sport.’
He didn’t even like venison.
And ever since the first time I’d seen a doe-eyed deer strung up and bleeding out, the very thought of it made bile rise up my throat.
I knew my father went to the cabin every now and again. But I’d insisted he always leave me behind. Something he grudgingly did, knowing I was old and mature enough to be left on my own for a few days, but not loving doing it.
Technically, the property didn’t even belong to my father. It was my uncle’s place. But since my Uncle Lou had suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed from the chest down and needing almost around-the-clock care that he got at a nursing home, my father had been the one paying the property taxes to keep it in the family.
That was the only reason I even considered running to this property, actually.
Because it couldn’t trace back to my father.
And, therefore, not back to me either.
It was the only way I could be safe.
Or as close to safe as I could possibly be.
I’d done everything right. Or, at least, I was pretty sure I did.
I took out almost every penny of my bank account, and used the cash to pay for everything on the trip to the hunting cabin. My phone, the one I’d spent twenty precious moments pulling pictures off of and sending them to my email for safekeeping, was in a garbage can outside of a convenience store back in Ohio.
I had… so little.
A couple bags full of clothes I’d bought on clearance, a comforter and pillow with the same backstory, a couple of books because, well, I had a feeling there would be a lot of long, boring days ahead of me. And, yeah, some houseware goods and food.