Page 88 of Rangers Unexpected Return

I couldn’t see the screen, but I saw the color leave her face.

“What did it say?” I asked.

Judy looked toward the ceiling.

Toward the room where Rylie waited with Trigger and Max.

Then she read the message aloud.

“Eight are sleeping. “

“One remains.”

Every instinct I'd trusted for fifteen years came alive.

The Keeper wasn’t merely coming for Rylie.

He had already chosen her.

8

JUDY

Eight are sleeping.

One remains.

The message on Carson’s phone contained four words, but they changed everything.

The Keeper wasn’t deciding whether to kill Rylie.

He had already chosen her.

“Where did the package come from?” I asked.

“No return address. Postmarked Dallas three days before the victim disappeared.”

“What date?”

“July twenty-second.”

“Did the other victims receive one?”

“Dallas is checking.”

Rylie stood in the doorway with Trigger behind her.

She had come downstairs while Carson was reading the message.

“What package?” she asked.

Trigger’s hand settled against her back.

I didn’t want to frighten her.

I also couldn’t protect her with half the truth.

“The seventh victim received a bottle of pink fingernail polish before she disappeared.”