Page 102 of Grace

His smile widens even more. He tilts his head slightly, his lips part, then press to mine—he kisses me gently. My eyelids grow heavy and flutter shut, and my body trembles with the sweetness.

“I love deep emotions,” he whispers against my mouth. I look into the darkness of his deep brown eyes, intoxicated. “And I love stealing kisses from you. I love taking pleasure in you.”

“That’s what you used to do.”

“What?” he asks in his deep, resonant voice.

“You’d sit in the room and just watch me for hours.” The memory should fill me with horror, but it doesn’t.

“Because I can’t get enough of you.” His hand glides over my face.

I can’t get enough of you, either.

But I don’t voice the thought. I bite my lower lip instead and step away from him. If he said even one more word, he’d set me on fire, and the heat would make that even easier. The humid, heavy air is suffocating.

Chase takes two bags of chips and two bottles of still water from the shelf.

I shouldn’t be watching him, but I can’t stop. Chase is hard to miss, too. He’s handsome. Even men can’t take their eyes off him—though it’s the dangerous, mysterious edge that hooks them. When I’m close to him, I’m like a homeless man nursing a bottle in a brown paper bag all day, taking only small sips—yet by evening it’s empty. And he still doesn’t notice how drunk he’s getting. Chase Baker is like that. He makes me drunk and dazed. He seeps into the deepest corners of my mind and makes me obsessed. He stalks me like a quiet predator, unseen, and the next thing I know I’m in serious trouble. Since he told me he only hurt me because his brother had ordered it, I see everything differently. I see myself differently.

Chase’s muscular, sun-tanned arm moves as he grabs a jar of peanut butter I have been staring at for a long time—the movement yanks me out of my daydreaming.

I have to be careful not to be seen. But the lovers—the word makes my stomach twist—are so lost in each other that they don’t sense the danger closing in. The thought hits me as both relief and rage. They keep overlooking me, despising me, humiliating me. All I want is to matter. I’m in love, and that other girl ruined everything—poisoned my youth and turned my present bitter. I hate her.

Fury spreads through my chest as my fingers tighten on the steering wheel. But when I think about how close it all is to being finished, my grip loosens and my muscles ease. My gaze flicks to the diary jutting from my bag. It was hard to get my hands on it, but now it’s mine—comforting me. I trace the edges of the yellowed pages with my fingertips. My lips curve into an icy smile as I adjust my sunglasses to hide my pale blue eyes and my tears. I will mete out justice. Everyone who hurt me is going to pay.

I started with the king. But the others won’t get away, either. They have to suffer the way I did. I don’t feel sorry for them—the thought of their anguish, their grief only fills me with joy.

Chase

May, Oklahoma

Even if Ortíz manages to solve the crossword puzzle, he’s going to be really fucking angry and disappointed—because I won’t tell him where his son is.

You lost. That’s the solution.

This is only a game, too—one I made specifically for Grace. Only I know the rules, so only I get to decide who wins and who loses.

She told me she’ll only come with me if I let Jason go. So be it—I’ll let the kid go. I’ll show her I’m not that heartless, just enough to make her think she can control the events. She feels safe in the little world she created for herself… I don’t need anything more than that.

For now.

She was partly right when she called these places ghost towns.

May is—partly—a ghost town in the southern part of Harper County. Its population peaked in 1920 at 324, then started to decline steadily after World War II. In 1957, the school closed. Now, only fifty people live here. It has a post office, a church, and a few shabby homes. Wheat and cattle still matter to its economy, but I only know one person who’s still obsessed with tending her fields and farm animals.

Charlotte Gibson, who is a fucking psycho bitch.

There are few things in life that can creep me out, but she’s one of them—she sends a chill down my spine.

This fucking ghost town is her kingdom. She belongs in this horrible place. She’d scare Grace to death, so I sent her away before we passed the Welcome to May! sign. Grace got lost in the picturesque beauty of an abandoned town destined for decay—it really is beautiful in an eerie, horrid way. Wheat fields stretch as far as the eye can see. Abandoned houses, barns, and stables sit beside the dusty dirt road. A few cows and horses linger here and there. The residents are all somewhere between sixty and death. Charlotte Gibson is the only exception—she is a youthful, dark beauty of 28 laced with danger. She’s like a black widow. For two days, I handed the kid over to her. I didn’t want him to break too soon. But I’m sure the little guy won’t get over this kidnapping as fast as he did the previous one. Lucas only scared the cop… I’d have gone further. For Grace. Because no one understands how much she means to me.

I suspect that whenever she had some time on her hands, Charlotte kept whispering in the boy’s ear—things that would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

Fucking. Psycho. Bitch.

She loves terrifying people. She loves the fact that people avoid her like the plague, not even daring to come within five hundred yards. She has a crazed smile and crazed, empty, black eyes—eyes I have only seen in movies. The girl is such a great actress, she could make millions of dollars in Hollywood. But she prefers living in this filth—this is what satisfies her perverse mind and sick soul. I can understand her, because life dealt her a rough hand, too. I’d be sad if she left because I love working with her. She isn’t loyal to us because she’s afraid of us. She fucking laughs in Lucas’s face. She is playing with us. Lucas would never admit it, but he likes her, too. She has managed several times to make Lucas’s expressionless mask slip, to make his dark, icy smile appear—the smile everyone is terrified of.

We drive to the edge of town in the quiet twilight. I park in front of the old barn and watch Grace’s face. Because her face gives away what’s going on in her soul. Disgust, contempt, and anger are written all over it. Her lips part slowly, her breathing turns uneven, and a daunting emptiness settles into her eyes.