Page 80 of Forever Gone

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

Silence held inside the barn.

Connor approached the front quarter panel, keeping his weapon aimed below the window line. The driver’s door appeared closed. Grime dulled the lower edge of the side glass.

He shifted toward the hood and angled the flashlight through the windshield.

A woman sat behind the wheel.

Her brown hair rested against the seat. Dark jeans. Red sweater. Tan coat open across her lap.

Connor circled toward the driver’s door.

Linda Mercer’s head had fallen slightly toward the passenger side. Her eyes remained wide, fixed on the windshield. Her mouth hung open.

Blood had dried along her chin and neck.

Connor’s beam moved across the center console.

Something dark and wet rested on the passenger seat.

A piece of flesh.

The severed tongue lay beside Linda’s purse.

For one second, Connor could not move.

The barn narrowed around him. His breath stopped halfway into his chest. Karen Sloane’s body returned in a rush, followed by Ruth Keller on the study floor.

Three women.

Three mouths emptied.

Connor stumbled backward, nearly catching his heel on the ladder. He lowered the weapon and forced himself toward the doorway without touching the car or anything around it.

Outside, cold air struck him.

He grabbed the radio.

“Dana, get me forensics and every deputy we have on shift. Now.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sleep refused to come.

Selena lay on top of the motel bed with one arm beneath her head and the other resting across her stomach. The bedside lamp had been switched off twenty minutes earlier, but the room never became fully dark. Light from the parking lot pushed around the curtains, outlining the dresser, the chair, and the boxes stacked against the wall.

Those boxes contained what remained of her Washington life.

Books. Files she had been allowed to keep. Framed photographs wrapped in sweaters. Two sets of glasses she never used. A chipped ceramic bowl Brent once claimed improved the taste of takeout noodles. The contents had survived the drive south, yet Selena had not found the energy to unpack them.

Doing so would make the motel room feel less temporary.

From the reception office came a scream.

Selena opened her eyes.

A burst of music followed, loud enough to carry through the wall. On Eric’s television, a woman pleaded with someone not to enter a basement. The warning went ignored. A door creaked. Heavy footsteps descended beneath a rising string score.