The muscle in Colin’s jaw pulses slowly and his eyes grow dark, conflict swirling through them. “I don’t like that.”
I roll my eyes playfully. “We will be fine,detective. You do know we were all taking care of ourselves before you and your friends came along, right?”The smile on my lips starts to feel a bit more natural, and I lay a hand on Colin’s chest.
“You’ve never been in this much danger before.” His eyes flash when he says it, and my lips pull at another smile, this one sad.
“You forget who we are, Colin.”The Terror Trio, I don’t say, because I don’t need to. I can see the realization in his eyes. The three headlines of the three women who never asked for this. “Danger follows us. Always has.”And we might do a bit of following in return.
I give his chest a couple of pats. “We’ll be back bright and early, and I’ll be expecting you.” I give him a wink and turn for the door, disappearing inside before he has another chance to argue. Because I have no choice; I need to save her before it’s too late, and the clock has been ticking for far too long already.
***
Vera fucking Bryan.Age thirty-seven. Never been married. No children. No pets.
Lonely little bitch.
Although I guess by that standard, I’d be considered a lonely little bitch, too.
I sit in the driver’s seat of my mother’s Suburban, my boot propped on the dash to the side of the steering wheel. Pulling the lever on the side of the seat, I drop backward a couple of inches, getting comfortable.
On my way into town, I stopped in at a few places. It’s not often I do the hunting without Stone’s help, so I don’t usually have the opportunity to do much scoping. I didn’t want to use my GPS to plug in Vera’s address that Maeve provided me, in case her disappearance somehow got tied back to me. Instead, I stopped into Stiff Peaks, had a quad vanilla latte, and askedthe friendly, teenage barista behind the counter if she could point me in the direction of the Twilight Falls housing establishment. Then I drove around the vast neighborhood aimlessly until I spotted this sad-looking Yorkie yapping from inside someone’s fenced front yard, and it was at that point I decided I needed a sidekick for this mission.
I scooped the little pup out from the yard and carried her around Vera’s neighborhood until I found her house number. I figured I wouldn’t look so out of place carting this little cutie around, and she got so comfortable tucked into the crook of my arm that I forgot to take her back. At a certain point, I decided I’d never be taking her back.
I mean the dog lookedsickly.I’m sure I saved its life.
“Do you think Colin will forgive me for this, Rue?” I ask her. Her name tag says Brenda, but what the fuck kind of name is that for a dog? She answers quite well to Rue, so that’s what I’ve been calling her—after my favorite designer who just came out with the cutest line of dog sweaters that Rue is going to lookadorablein.
She yips in response, followed by a high-pitched whine, and because it sounds so similar toof course Colin will forgive you, bestie,I pluck out a French fry from the fast-food bag between us, and watch it disappear into her tiny mouth.
According to the information Maeve gathered on Vera, she’s worked at the Sunset Peak Independent Living Community for almost a full year. Two people who are documented as having received care from her have passed away in that time.
Maeve tracked her employment back over a decade and discovered she doesn’t stay in one single town longer than a year. Before Sunset Peak, she was in North Peak. Bit of a bigger town, easier to blend in. Three people died while receiving care from her. All of their causes of deaths are listed as natural, though Maeve noticed a commonality in every single one of their tox reports:morphine.
Some of the families opted for autopsies and the medical examiner noted this medication, and that seems to be where the buck stops. No question about why they had morphine in their systems when it wasn’t prescribed in their charts, and nobody connecting the deaths to each other.
Nobody made the connection to Vera, either, because she was on to the next town before someone would notice there was a smear of murders on her medication cart.
If her history is at all telling of her future, Vera is planning for Elizabeth Mills to be her final kill before she moves onto the next town.
That will not be happening.
I take turns studying my nail bed and the employee entrance to Elizabeth’s apartment complex, waiting for Vera’s shift to end. I did pop in to say hi to Elizabeth, and to tell the girls at the front desk that Colin requested no further medication administration without a witness present. They told me he’d already called and made that exact request, which had my heart pumping with excitement that he’d been just as put off by the nurse’s behavior as I was.
Plus, I’d gone in because I wanted to swipe some morphine off Vera’s cart.
I hold the little glass bottle between my thumb and pointer finger, giving it a gentle shake and reveling in the fact that for today, and for the rest of her life after tonight, my future mother-in-law is safe.
“Have you ever tried morphine?” I ask Rue. She blinks at me. “Me neither.”
The external lights on the building flicker to life fifteen minutes after the sun begins to set, and two hours later I realize I’ve been distracted by the contrast of the dark parking lot I’m shadowed in and the bright glow from the units littering the wall of apartments. Rue curled herself into a tiny ball a while ago, belly full of French fries and heart full of attention.
My gaze carries to the even darker line of trees off to the side. The memory of Colin and I’s romp through the forest in hunt of each other’s hearts sparks to life in my limbs, tingling a path of goosebumps up my neck.
On the outskirts of my line of sight, the employee door swings open and Vera begins striding across the lot toward her vehicle. She has one hand clutched around an oversized bag that hangs from her shoulder and uses the other to pull the tie wrapped around her hair out, letting her black waves cascade toward the ground behind her. My narrowed eyes follow her as she crosses in front of my vehicle, not sparing a glance in any direction but forward. I hate that she’s living her life so carefree and guiltless while she attempts to murder the love of my life’s mother.
Little does she know she has no right to be carefree, because she’s no longer the predator in her story.
Straightening in my seat, I pull the lever again to bring my seat forward.
