A tear leaked from the corner of her eye.
“He’d always let me out again, until that night.”
He couldn’t let you out that night because he’d died.
“Before he left, before he locked that closet door, he told me that he was bringing back my brother. Only he didn’t. My dad never came back, and when I went to the campsite that he loved so much…when I finally broke out of that closet and raced to find him because I was sure he’d be at his favorite spot, he was dead. Head all bashed in. Neck twisted. He was gone, and I had no one. I was twelve years old! And I had no one!” The ambulance seemed to race faster. It hit another hard bump on the road.
Her body bounced. “I’m sorry,” Sloane said. She meant those words.
“You will be sorry.” A vow. “You’ll be so sorry when I put you in the ground. You stirred everything up, don’t you see? You went to Mary Jean. She told you too much, I know she did. I worried that she’d told you about me.”
She hadn’t. Mary Jean had never mentioned a second son.
“So I had to give her an injection. Had to make sure she never spoke to you or anyone else again. And then…then you made me curious. My dad talked about my big brother—the big brother who I knew wound up killing him. I’d been watching Preston over the years. Always keeping my eye on him. But when you entered the picture, when you got all focused on Preston, I decided it was time for me to finally take my vengeance on him.”
“You came here. That’s why you’re in this town. You came here for Preston.” He’d just wanted his perfect moment to strike.
He knew the final words that the killer spoke to his victims because Adam was there. He heard those words. He’d been there for the final moments of the Last Breath Killer’s victims.
Take a deep breath. Pray that it won’t be your last.
“I’m sorry, Preston.” Noble had offered his apologies again and again. “I should have been watching her. I should have been?—”
Preston had his phone at his ear. “She’s in an ambulance.”
“Why is Sloane in an ambulance?” Josie shrieked back at him.
“Because some sonofabitch took her.” He couldn’t question Frankie. Frankie had gone into cardiac arrest when he’d been wheeled into the ER. But Frankie had been trying to say something outside.
“Am…Am…”
And Frankie had pointed his hand toward the ambulances.
“You can talk to the ambulance company,” Noble was saying behind him. “They can track all their vehicles. Here, I’ll go get someone from the hospital admin. They can help us.” He bounded to the right.
“I have help.”
Noble stopped in his tracks.
In his ear, Josie asked, “Are you talking to me or someone else?”
“Ambulances can be tracked.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Okay, you’re talking to me. Got it.”
“I need you to figure out which ambulance left this hospital in the last hour to hour and a half?—”
“Needle in a haystack,” she muttered. “Do you get that ambulances are constantly going to and from hospitals? Even in small counties?”
“This one would have headed toward the woods. Not stayed near town. Think mountains. Think secluded.” He rattled off the name of the ambulance company that Bridget worked for.
“I’m already in their system,” Josie told him.
Hell, yes, she was.
“They currently have three ambulances that are on active circulation and one…one is heading away from Cashiers. Winding path, speeding too fast—you know they monitor the speed limits, right? The companies can. The drivers are supposed to only stay within?—”
“Give me the location. Give me the exact coordinates.”
