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“Final touch.”
Roan tossed Cairo the collar. My lips peeled back as he approached.
“No biting,” he said, winking at me.
This isn’t a battle worth fighting. I can always take the damn thing off when they leave. And, I don’t get to choose my punishment.
I ran a finger down Cairo’s arm as he fastened my mark of ownership around my neck.
I didn’t decide. These wild, dangerous men did. In exchange, I atoned for my crimes, and the ones to come.
Impossible to believe now that I sought to find a way out by killing myself. Gran would never have whispered that option in my ear—the real or imagined. She always told me to fight. Reminded me the blood of revolutionaries burned in my veins. And finally, I understood what I had to do, and naturally it came from the mouth of a genius.
“Choosing a worthy opponent and taunting them to catch before they kill again is a classic serial killer profile. They get off on staying ahead of the chase just as much as they do the killing. But they usually choose cops, detectives, or journalists. Maximize the chance of their cleverness broadcasted on the media. They don’t go for farm girls. What makes you so special?”
Obviously, I’d been asking myself why the Letter Man chose me from the very beginning, but I didn’t stop to think what him choosing me really meant.
If Scott wanted the glory of the hunt, why didn’t he post his letter to the local PI? If he wanted to die, why not choose someone with a badge and gun who’d take him out as a public service?
But then, I didn’t need to ask why he didn’t choose those people. Cavendish said himself that this was all about me.
Not infamy. Not glory. Not the joy of holding a town’s fear in his grip. The last letter said this wasn’t the first time they killed, but it was the first time it was personal. I had to find out why.
There had been three tragedies in my otherwise happy, normal life. Losing my parents when I was three. The knockdown, drag-out fight between me and Ivy that sent my sister packing and ruined our relationship. And last, the circumstances that led to that fight, our grandmother’s death.
I know what happened to her, and I knew the enemies I made in the wake of losing her. But Scott Cavendish wasn’t one of them. I never met the guy before I spied him across the street. Ivy’s tales of his exploits with Douglas Herbert were as far as he penetrated my radar. He had nothing to do with my life, and he wasn’t involved with my gran’s death.
So why did he look at me, sneer dripping with hatred, when he said it was his honor to die in the name of destroying me?
A stabbing pain pierced my temples. I massaged them the way I did for Cairo.
Thinking about this spun my mind in circles. Everything was telling me there’s no reason Scott Cavendish and his friend should’ve targeted me.
But they did. So, everything I knew was wrong.
I’m here. The Bedlam Boys stopped me. They brought me here, where if it’s not completely safe, I’m still no longer living in an abandoned farmhouse or dank motel room while a new, unpredictable threat is after me.
Jacques said there’s a classic serial killer profile, which meant something nudged Cavendish outside of it. I was asking the right questions now. Searching the right path. It would lead me to the answers to end this once and for all—without killing or anyone getting hurt.
I let Cairo guide me to my knees.
This is where I need to be.
“To your bed.”
I crawled inside. It was a tight squeeze. I lay at a ninety-degree angle, shoving my head in the corner to let my legs stretch as far as they could.
Cairo stuck his hand inside. The shout wasn’t out of my mouth before the metal hooked my collar, chaining me to the doghouse.
“Cairo!”
“Night, Rain.”
The lights went off one after the other, surrendering me to the dark.
Chapter Nine
A loud noise woke me the next morning.
Jacques stood over the countertop, chopping various things and throwing them in the blender.
I pushed myself up, stretching out my kinks and coils.
“Thirteen.”
Mumbling under my breath, I shoved the dog bed back in the house and tossed the blanket in after it. I didn’t bother asking why I got another number.
After the house went quiet, I grabbed one of the dresses they left on the coffee table, tore off the collar, and carried the bed and blanket to the couch. The bed ended up being my pillow for a surprisingly restful sleep. Not as comfortable as Cairo’s bed, but far better than the night they planned for me.
“Thirteen,” I repeated. “What’s that supposed to be?”
Jacques finished his smoothie and took a sip. It looked awful. A thick, green sludge with floating black bits I couldn’t identify. Jacques, though, was another story. This guy did not spend the night on a frat house couch, cuddled with a dog bed.
