Chapter Twenty-Six
George pulled the car into the detached garage behind his aunt’s house and shut the overhead door, sealing himself off from prying eyes. The hum of the motor faded into silence, leaving only the ticking engine and the faint rasp of his breathing.
He hadn’t known his mother even had a sister until a lawyer contacted him after the woman’s death. The revelation had come out of nowhere, another bitter reminder of how little his mother had ever cared about him. Wanda had run away at seventeen because she believed her boyfriend loved her more than her family ever had, and that man vanished the moment he learned she was pregnant. Instead of swallowing her pride and going home, she’d spent the years that followed bouncing between welfare checks, a revolving door of men, and one bad decision after another. Drugs had entered the picture not long after George was born, and from there, her life had spiraled even further.
Her sister, Susan, had apparently gone in the opposite direction. From everything the lawyer and a few curious neighbors told him, she’d built herself a polished, successful life. She’d never married, never had children, and had spent decades in this quiet suburban neighborhood earning the kind of respect his mother had spent her life destroying. How Susan had known about him—and why she’d never bothered finding him while she was alive—remained a mystery she’d carried to her grave. She’d left instructions for her lawyer to track down her only living heir, and while George appreciated the money and the house, resentment still simmered beneath his gratitude. If she’d taken him in years ago, his life might have turned out very differently.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he opened the trunk and looked down at Grace Whitman’s unconscious form. Her blonde hair spilled across the dark lining, her face slack with chemically induced sleep. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her through the garage and up the stairs to the second floor.
The windowless room waiting there had been his first renovation project. He’d tripled the insulation in the walls, ceiling, and floor until no sound escaped. No one heard what happened inside except him, and that was exactly how he liked it. This was where his masterpieces took shape. The only woman he hadn’t killed here since leaving Pennsylvania had been the reporter. She hadn’t earned the privilege of entering his workspace after the names she’d called him. Grace, though, was different.
He laid her across the plank table in the center of the room and took a moment to study her. Even unconscious, she looked composed. Delicate. A fitting centerpiece. She would wake soon enough, and he secured her wrists and ankles with practiced efficiency before stepping back to admire the image she made.
The shrill chirp of his phone cut through the silence, drawing an irritated scowl across his face. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the security alert. The front-door camera feed sprang to life, and his jaw clenched when Mrs. Pennington’s face filled the screen. The elderly woman from across the street stared into the camera with all the persistence of a mosquito that refused to die.
Every time she saw him arrive home, she came over with some trivial request—assistance with a lightbulb, a loose hinge, or a stuck window. He’d spent months cultivating his reputation as the helpful, quiet neighbor, and maintaining that pleasant mask was growing tiresome. Some days, he imagined wrapping his hands around her narrow throat and silencing the constant interruptions for good.
The alert chimed again.
She would keep pressing the bell until he answered.
Grace wasn’t waking anytime soon, so there was no risk in leaving her for a few minutes. Locking the upstairs door behind him, George headed down the stairs and arranged his expression into the easy smile the neighbors had come to expect. By the time he stepped through the pedestrian door in the garage and walked down the driveway, his mask was firmly in place.
“Mrs. Pennington? I’m over here.”
The woman turned from the front porch, relief brightening her lined face as she clasped her hands together. “Oh, there you are. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
He forced himself to keep his annoyance buried beneath polite concern. “Well, I was kind of in the middle of something…” He let the words trail off, hoping she’d take the hint, but the expectant look on her face told him she wouldn’t.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I was hoping you could just help me for a moment. My hallway light is out, and I’m too old to climb up on a chair to change it. That, and I think I’m too short, even with the chair.” She chuckled at her own joke.
George gave her a smile that never reached his eyes. He wanted her four-eyed, wrinkled face gone from his sight, but he’d worked hard to ensure the neighbors in the area believed he was just a nice, quiet guy. Some of them even brought him dinner and baked goods. Meanwhile, a few had tried to set him up with their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, or friends, which he’d avoided by conjuring up a long-distance relationship. The last thing he needed was anyone thinking he was rude or strange.
“Sure, Mrs. Pennington. I’d be happy to help.”
Everyone had descended on the crime scene within minutes, deputies and agents flooding the alley while Sean fought to keep panic from swallowing reason. The chaos around him blurred into shouted orders, crackling radios, and the scrape of evidence cases being hauled across the pavement.
He should have seen it coming. The thought pounded through his skull with every breath.
The killer had already targeted him once and made it clear this had become personal. He should have realized that if the man struck again, Grace could be the obvious target.
But how had he known about her?
Sean had been careful. Hyperaware of every mirror, every passing car, every shadow in the days since he’d been run down. A deputy had already checked his Mustang for a tracking device.
Nothing.
But…
A curse slipped under his breath.
Brian’s head snapped toward him. “What?”
He dragged both hands through his hair, trying to force order into thoughts that kept colliding. “This morning was a setup. It was more than him telling me he knew where I lived. My head was all over the place when I drove back over here, trying to figure out how to tell Dan the beach house was a crime scene. I barely remember the drive.” The realization landed like a blow to the gut. “He could’ve been right behind me the whole way, and I wouldn’t have noticed.”
The weight of it crashed over him, and his chest constricted as guilt clawed upward.“This is my fault. All of it.”
Brian caught him by the shoulders and forced him to focus. “Hey. This is not your fault, brother. It’s that psychotic monster’s fault. Now pull yourself together and let’s think this through.”
