I tossed the notebook in the fireplace. Fine. I’ll do the rest myself.
“How-how do you know me, Jonah? Why did you kill my parents, and why do you want to kill me?”
I rubbed my head. “Shut the fuck up.” I squeezed the trigger, and it went off again inches from her ribs. She let out an ear-piercing scream, and suddenly the glass in the door shook as someone pounded on it from the other side.
“Spencer!” a man shouted. “Are you okay? Let me in!”
She looked just as shocked as I was, and when she opened her mouth to scream again, I smacked her in the side of the head with the gun.
“I have a key!” he shouted, and a moment later, the door flew in and a bullet from the chamber flew out.
Bang!
The man dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. Spencer covered her ears as terror burst through her body. Blood ran into her eyes, and her mouth opened in a wild scream.
“You shot Foster!” She molded her scream into a word. “Why my neighbor?”
“It doesn’t matter why!” I screamed back and felt myself slip a little.
I tucked my gun away, pulled the duct tape from my bookbag, and tore a piece off to wrap around her hands.
She tried to buck forward, so I backhanded her across the face. She flew back, and I fused her hands together in a single twist as the blow registered through her fear.
Shit, things are starting to unravel quickly. Who the hell is this guy?
Once she was secure, I took my phone out and brought up the chatroom feed. I scrambled to send one last message, knowing they were monitoring her laptop.
I grinned at Spencer as I hit send.
Chapter Forty-Six
Blake
“I don’t blame her, Blake.” Bri stood next to me and watched as I tried to piece together all the evidence on the huge conference table. “She’s mentally finished, and all this douche bag does is play mind games and power trips. Her leaving is a way for her to feel like she has some kind of control, and can’t you see that’s why Sarge ordered you to stay behind? You know this. You’re just too blinded by love to see it.”
I heard her, but my entire body was off. Something was wrong. I hated that Sarge wanted me to stay put. Jackson had just called ten minutes ago to check in and said she was fine, but I couldn’t shake a bad feeling.
“Let me go get us some coffee.” She squeezed my arm to reassure me before she left, closing the door behind her. I sank into a chair and picked up a photo of Deana Long to study the background for the billionth time. My father always said sometimes the obvious clues were hardest to find, but they were there looking right at you.
That horrible doorbell from Spencer’s computer went off, and a message flashed up on the projector.
A: A sudden movement drew my eyes to the window. My stomach formed into a hard knot as the shape darted to the next pane. He was here, circling the property, no doubt, scoping the exits. We had the safest house on the street, designed to keep danger out, but history had proven this man was unstoppable. I was his puzzle, a game, a quest he was determined to conquer. The sand in the hourglass had slipped away, and time was no longer on my side. All this because I had stumbled upon someone’s secret…
A: “You know the problem with tiny, dark secrets?”
I kept waiting, waiting for more detail, but the screen gave up nothing more.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I hissed and rubbed my dry-burning eyes. Was this a scene she was supposed to use? Or was he setting up a scene?
I changed seats so I was in Spencer’s chair and went through each photo again. I held them up next to the words on the screen, hoping something would click.
One by one, each victim’s photo had their moment to prove something to me, and one by one, they were set aside with no help from the dead.
I took out a marker and drew a bubble with Spencer’s name in the center. Lines jutted out from her name to each victim’s information. Again, nothing connected them aside from Spencer being the one to write their story. My fingers drummed loudly on the steel table. Something nagged at me.
“Sorry, Benny decided to make an entire pot of coffee, and the grounds…” I tuned Bri out as she fussed over her sweater and stared at the words.
“You know the problem with tiny, dark secrets?” I murmured to myself.
“They leak from your subconscious to haunt your conscious.”
My head whipped over to Bri, and she stopped fiddling as she caught my expression.
“Where is that from?”
She huffed. “Your girlfriend’s book.”
“What?” I sat a little straighter as my chest started to contract.
“It’s from her book.” She sipped her coffee.
“Do you remember what came next?” My blood ran cold.
“Ahh…” She moved to the screen and read his text. Quickly, she scanned the words, then she reached for her phone and started to tap away on the screen. “I think,” she paused, “yeah, um.” She shook her head tapped some more. “Okay, here.” She turned to face me. “A sudden movement drew my eyes to the window. My stomach formed into a hard knot,” she read, her voice raised. “I knew it was hard to see in my windows except from the driveway, but even those were tinted.” Bri’s eyes looked into mine. “He is quoting from Spencer’s book.”
My mouth had already gone dry at her words. “That’s Spencer’s house. He’s going after Spencer!”
“Blake.” Sarge’s tone held a warning, and I didn’t wait for more direction as I flew out the door. I raced down the hallway and nearly tripped over one of the officers as I left the station.
I fumbled with my phone. It took three tries to hit her number, but it went to voicemail.
I pushed all the horrible possibilities out of my head and focused on the others. She could be in the shower, could have turned her phone to do not disturb, or she was avoiding me. All three, I would gladly take.
This wasn’t happening, not now. It couldn’t be!
A horn blew at me as I cut someone off at the light. I flipped on my lights and blew another light. I was good at driving and had excellent peripheral vision. By the time I hit her road, my shirt was wet with sweat.
I slammed the gear in park a few yards away and sprinted down the snow-packed street, following someone’s footsteps. I saw Jackson in the truck, so I hooted like an owl to get his attention, but he stayed still.
“Jackson!” I whispered, but again, nothing. Jackson was too smart to fall asleep on the job, so I inched closer. “Hey, man.”
I knocked on the door and glanced in the side mirror to see blood draining from his neck.
“Shit!” I dropped to the ground and pulled my weapon free. Out of habit, I checked the clip and slid one in the chamber. I tugged my phone free. “This is Detective Daniels. We have an officer down. I repeat, officer down. I need backup to 699 Lakewood Road, now,” I hissed at the dispatcher and heard her repeat my words.
“You are advised to stand down, Detective, until backup has arrived.”
Not a fucking chance.
Careful to follow the already packed snow, I wove around the house and up to the sliding glass doors. Bentley spotted me from underneath the wooden chair and lifted his head like he was interested. He gave a little growl, but when I smiled and waved, to my relief, he flopped back down.