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FYRE
Arrow lets out a quiet huff, but I keep my eyes on the distant lake house. “I know, my girl, I can feel it too. She’s in there.”
I’m crouched beside Arrow, my arm resting over her shoulders. She shifts ever so slightly as her tail swishes from side to side. It’s not the eager lashing like when she’s minutes away from a walk back in the city. This is a slow, almost thoughtful wag.
“Let’s go. But quiet.”
I stand, stepping carefully through the underbrush. We’re still too far away for anyone inside Peter Monroe’s lake house to possibly hear us, but I want to give Arrow enough time to realize that we’re stalking prey. She needs to be as silent as possible.
Which is laughable, because I’m making more noise than her at the moment. Snow crunches under my wet shoes, and my breath comes hot and fast despite how I try to calm myself. There’s an inane urgency pulsing through me.
What if I’m too late?
I don’t let the thought fester, because it won’t do any good. I came as soon as I could. I’m going as fast as I can. I can fuck this up by rushing into that sprawling lake house and drawing the attention of everyone inside…or I can move stealthily and surprise them.
It’s a torturous half hour before we reach the strip of manicured lawn now buried in freshly fallen snow. I crouch behind one of the last pines before they clear out completely. Arrow coming to a halt beside me as I take a moment to study the windows.
Not a single light on that I can see, but it’s not dark enough out for that to mean that there’s no one inside. Plus, Red wouldn’t have Charlotte holed up in the glass-fronted living room partially visible from my vantage point.
He’d have her in Peter’s Toy Box.
My stomach tightens.Be strong, my love. I know your mind wants to crack. I know you wish nothing more than to seek the peace of disassociation…but don’t do it. I need you to keep your wits about you.
It pisses me off that Red might have undone all the progress I’d managed to make on Charlotte’s fractured psyche, but that’s another thing I can’t think about right now. Now’s the time for action, not—
Light blooms in an upstairs window. Arrow stops panting, her eyes as intent on that warm glow as mine. I give the back of her neck a squeeze, and murmur, “Stay.”
Her soft whine fills me with pain, but it’s the best way. I have no idea what she’ll do if she spots Red, and I can’t risk him hurting her again. I glance down at the scrape on her shoulder, my jaw bunching.
More than he already has.
“You see that sick sonofabitch trying to escape, you go for the jugular, okay?”
Arrow stares up at the window, and I have no idea if my command sinks in or not. But when I stand and hurry over to a snow-encrusted hedge a few yards away, Arrow stays where she is.
Good girl.
I reach the side of the house and risk a quick peek into the window. A wide, open-plan living room stretches along the glass-fronted wall looking out on the serene lake beyond. From memory I know this area separates the bedrooms from the kitchen and the rest of the living areas.
The door that opens to the stairs leading down into Peter’s Toy Box is on the other side of the house, disguised in the dining room behind a wall that, through a clever trick of perspective and light, appears to only be a foot or two wide. It was sheer luck they discovered a hidden cavity—a narrow staircase leading below the house to a chamber adjacent to the basement.
It didn’t appear on any plans. The electrical wiring was self-contained. Whoever had built it was a genius.
For years, I’d thought it was Peter. He was, after all, an architect. But after spending seven hours with him on the night I took his life as a gift to my darling Charlotte, I realized he was merely cunning, not genius.
Thankfully, the men I communicated with that night unearthed nine bodies before I severed Peter’s still howling head from his shoulders.
The families of nine little girls received much-needed respite from the demons that had been haunting them. But I still blame myself for not keeping him alive longer so I could have used him to connect with other depraved criminals like him.
I won’t make that mistake again.
This time, Red isn’t getting away. I’ll keep him alive for seven years if I have to, until I’m satisfied that I’ve scraped every ounce of use from him.
My eyes flicker over the vast living area, tastefully furnished in white, and taupe, and golden oak. Thank God for that orange glow in the upstairs window, because judging from the pristine condition inside and the cold, dead fireplace, I might have assumed the house was deserted.
The glass doors are closed, the windows shut. I’d assume locked, and definitely ready to trigger an alarm—silent or not—if tampered with. I’ll have to find another way inside. I crouch as I move along the wall, ducking so that I won’t be spotted on the off chance someone enters the living room and happens to look in my direction.
If Charlotte hadn’t escaped all those years ago, Peter’s hidey-hole would have remained his dirty secret for decades. This house is the antithesis of what a kidnapper’s nest looks like. All these open windows, the sprawling property. Sure, it’s remote, but this place looks like it couldn’t hide a thing. Especially at night. Peter didn’t even bother with mirrored glass, that’s how sure he was that no one would ever come knocking.
