Then, he told himself that he was six-two and strong, and that anyone who had tried to break in to steal his hard-earned possessions would regret their actions. He would make sure of it.
Ed reached for the heavy flashlight in the storeroom cupboard. There were dangers in the world, and he would be a fool not to protect himself.
This flashlight was heavy, and he was sure that anyone who tried to attack him would come off worse. It was probably just some stupid kid messing around, but still.
He stepped into the kitchen, feeling as if he wouldn’t mind teaching some kid a lesson with this heavy flashlight. It might, in fact, make him feel better to beat someone up.
He’d hit Molly a couple of times, but never anything serious. Just one or two slaps, but she’d never called the cops on him like she’d threatened to do. Just as well, considering what would have happened then. Perhaps she didn’t have the guts for it, or else, she knew that she’d deserved what she got.
As would this person, whoever they were.
But as Ed looked around the kitchen, a figure leaped out from behind the door, so sudden and fast that Ed yelled in surprise. He raised the flashlight, clumsy with shock, but the figure was holding something that was hissing, and a burning cloud was shooting out from it, and as it seared his face, white-hot pain filled him. His eyes were in agony. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe.
Coughing, Ed recoiled, now seeing the figure only dimly through a haze of tears. He'd been pepper sprayed, he realized. Pepper sprayed in his own kitchen. He needed to get out because this was suffocating.
He turned, stumbling as he made for the door.
And that was when he felt the sudden, sharp pain in his back. Then another, and yet another, a pain so swift and deep it took his breath away. Suddenly, it was harder to cough and impossible to walk.
He fell to his knees, trying to puzzle out what had happened, but it was too late. The world was going swiftly dark.
He toppled forward.
CHAPTER ONE
Breathless, but filled with resolve, Deputy May Moore put her gloved hand on the door of the small house in the quiet lakeside town where, until recently, a killer's accomplice had lived.
Or so she now believed, even though the uncertainty still gnawed at her. They were closer to the truth, but she didn’t yet know enough, and she was looking for more.
It was seven a.m. on a cold, fall morning in Tamarack County, Minnesota, and in this house, May felt sure there were answers to be found.
"Lauren went missing, ten years ago. Someone was watching her. Filming her. And it was Harriet’s camera. Hers!" May muttered to herself, feeling the pain at her sister's disappearance flare anew. She pushed back her sandy-blonde hair, blinking hard. The sharp early morning wind was blowing it into her eyes and making them water. Or maybe it wasn't the wind doing that.
"C'mon," her older sister Kerry muttered from behind her. "Let's get in here and see what we can find."
Kerry, wearing her FBI work jacket and with her short, blonde hair looking tousled in its pixie cut, looked as determined as May felt.
Kerry had helped May raid this house yesterday. The clues had led them here, to the house where Harriet Downs lived, a woman they’d been tracking for weeks after piecing together the evidence, and who they were now sure had been this monster’s accomplice.
Finally, this mystery that had consumed her thoughts and darkened her nightmares was coming full circle. It had been a long journey, starting with Lauren’s shock disappearance ten years ago, at eighteen years old, storming out of the house following a fight with May. She’d taken the trail to Eagle Lake. Witnesses had seen her go that way. A scrap of bloodied fabric from her blouse had been found near the lake, but no trace of Lauren had ever been found.
May had suspected for a long time that this abductor was part of their community, and it had been confirmed just a few weeks ago after a threat had been left on her laptop at home while she was out. The threat had included grainy footage of Lauren, taken on that day she’d walked out. Someone had been watching her, waiting to get her.
But the footage had provided a vital clue, thanks to Kerry’s FBI expertise, and the fact the camera that had been used had a dead pixel. They’d been able to match it up with other historic footage. Relooking at Lauren’s cold case, this had led them on the trail of Harriet.
Harriet, too, had been taken when she was a teenager. One of the kidnapper’s earliest captives, May surmised, because they had since discovered evidence of others too. But for some reason, this psycho had spared Harriet’s life. Perhaps they had gotten close. She was the one who had survived, although May feared all the others had died at his hands.
And May and Kerry had tracked Harriet down, yesterday, to this very house.
The problem was that Harriet Downs, at some stage, had gone deaf. Perhaps it had been after a virus, and the man who’d held her hadn’t allowed her to see a doctor. She couldn't hear at all, and she battled to speak.
They’d gotten no information from her yet. She was locked away in a holding cell, but so far, she was laughing, seemingly confused, and they hadn't gotten any coherent information from her. May had no idea what had played out over the years, who this man was, or where his other victims were. So now, they were searching, hoping to find clues in the place where this damaged woman had lived.
The house was old and shabby, with a yard that had gone untended for what seemed like years.
Looking around at the mess, the dirt ingrained in the ragged carpet, the dishes stacked in the sink, May wondered if Harriet had started to disintegrate mentally, if she’d been here a while. She was definitely far from normal. It scared her to think they might never get answers from her. She could be incapable of it, or else unwilling, hiding behind the cover of her damaged mind.
The only available answers might be right here in this house where she must have spent years.
