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She ignored him and ran onwards, coming to a row of ten houses along the edge of the village. They were each spaced about thirty feet apart. Charlotte veered towards the one on her far left, edged around the side, and checked her surroundings.
No voices. No heavy footsteps. In one direction, the village, in the other, a vast field with a tiny little hut in the middle.
She breathed a sigh of relief. She’d won. She glanced at her watch. Still twelve minutes to go before deadline.
Charlotte waded through the overgrown grass, narrowly avoiding several piles of manure. Just as she was about to reach the footpath, Charlotte tripped over something bulky and toppled forward. She dropped her parcel and steadied herself on the ground, lunging her hand into the thick undergrowth at her feet.
She gripped something cold, greasy, like a dead fish. She parted the grass to get a good look at the culprit, pre-preparing her disgust. Charlotte pulled her hand away and flicked off the residue, a thick red liquid with a repulsive odor.
It wasn’t a dead fish. Nor the remains of a pig carcass.
Charlotte struggled to make sense of it. When she took in the whole scene, it resembled a portrait that had been torn in the middle and each piece placed back together slightly off-center.
Then the reality hit her, and Charlotte screamed.
She’d fallen on a dead body, mutilated down the center.
And the old man, now with a maniacal expression, loomed closer still and showed no sign of slowing down.
CHAPTER ONE
Ella Dark had been in this hospital chair for eight hours. Hundreds of patients had come and gone, and Ella had watched them all but not observed a single thing about them. All she could see was Tobias Campbell, the infamous serial killer who’d been haunting, stalking, and tormenting her. He wasn’t in the hospital, but he lived in her head, as he had done since they’d first met in prison three months ago.
Last night, or in the early hours of that morning, Ella had found Tobias waiting for her at her apartment. He’d abducted her boyfriend, Ben, and used him to lure her into his trap. Ella and Ben had both been moments away from death, but Ella’s FBI partner had intervened at the last second. Mia Ripley, Tobias’s lifelong nemesis, had arrived and blasted away all the henchmen Tobias had brought along with him. Mia had transformed Ella’s apartment into a lake of blood and punctured skulls, but when Ella had thrown Tobias Campbell himself off her balcony to the concrete below, Tobias had all but vanished when she searched for his corpse.
Now he was out there, and if Ella knew Tobias as well as she thought she did, vengeance would be his only desire. He’d be plotting his next attack from wherever he was hiding, and it wouldn’t be long before Ella and Mia were in his sights again.
And next time, he wouldn’t leave so much to chance.
That’s why Ella needed to find Tobias first. Find him, kill him, stamp his corpse to dust.
But where could Tobias be hiding? He had links all over Washington, D.C., all over the country. If he wanted to go invisible, he could easily do so.
Ella’s nurse appeared beside her, clipboard in hand. The nurse untied the blood pressure machine around Ella’s arm and checked the monitor.
“Miss Dark, you’re as healthy as you’re going to be for the next few weeks,” the woman said. “But you need considerable rest. If you keep flaring up these existing injuries, you run the risk of sending your nervous system into shock. You’re also going to be left with significant scar tissue along your arms and thighs. It might not sound like a big deal, but scar tissue can lead to skin disease.”
What a relief. After last night’s brawl, Ella was certain she’d need a cast or a walker or a skin graft.
“Thank you for your help. Am I discharged?”
“You are. I’m going to suggest some painkillers and skin cream to help speed up the healing process. You have gravel trapped beneath the skin on your arm, but the shards will rise to the surface in the next few days. Then it’ll pop out of the skin.”
“Understood.”
“Other than that, you’ve been very lucky. You haven’t suffered any damage to any vital organs or arteries, but it was very close. I advise you to get a lot of rest and be a little more careful in the future.”
Careful wasn’t a term Ella was familiar with anymore. “I’ll take it on board. Thank you for everything.”
“Your friend’s in the room up ahead,” the nurse said. “And I’m about to check on your other friend next. I think he’s fine though.”
“How are they doing?”
“Feel free to see for yourself.”
Ella went through the curtain and searched for the room where she’d left Mia a few hours ago. Not that she had to look very hard. Mia’s irate voice carried across the ward like a siren. Ella pushed open the curtain and found her partner unhooking herself from a bleeping machine.
“Doc, if you think I’m spending any more time in a Goddamn hospital bed then I’ve got some bad news. It ain’t happening. Look at me, I’m fine.”
