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The woman is moving slightly. Rotating slowly on the rope. And when the body turns, Jess knows how she’s going to die.
All of the skin on the woman’s back has been removed. Calved away, parts fluttering loose, most completely gone. Out of the wound, Jess can see flesh: what she assumes to be lungs, intestines, organs, hanging down, still connected. But worst still are the ribs. Open, curving outward from her body, like stark white wings.
Jess’s whole body is weak, paralyzed by the sight. She can’t imagine who could do such a thing to another person. They’re not human. They can’t be … They can’t be …
“She’s an angel.”
She jumps as she hears his voice next to her, then scrabbles backward in the mud. He walks slowly into the clearing from behind her. He’s soaked, mud staining his clothes, his T-shirt sticking to his chest.
“I told you not to run. I told you,” he says. His voice is monotone, flat and unfeeling. He points the gun at her legs, then pauses as he sees the bone and blood bubbling from the hole in her jeans.
“Please, please …” Jess sobs. “Please … What did you do?”
He glances up at the woman for a second, then back to Jess. His eyes are dark, black holes, unresponsive.
“She didn’t last for long,” he says quietly. “Passed out from the pain. Couldn’t take it when he cut into her back. When he broke her ribs, pulled her lungs out, still breathing.”
Jess’s hands clamp to her mouth. She can’t take it all in. What this woman must have gone through, the pain she must have experienced. She feels sick, and hot acid rises in her throat.
“Cut her eyelids off,” he says, pointing backward. “She needed to watch, see what he was doing to her.”
“Who?” Jess cries at him. She looks around the clearing. “We’re the only people here, you sick fuck!”
He laughs, sharp and shrill, then he repeatedly thumps the heel of his hand hard into his skull, his head facing toward the ground, eyes screwed shut. She watches him, horrified. “He’s everywhere,” he cries. “A part of me. Always watching. Always here. And now he’s going to do it to you too.” He looks at her again, and points the hunting knife toward her. Suddenly she can’t breathe. Her eyes flick from the sharp blade to the woman above her. “A fucking choir of angels.”
But then he stops. He tilts his head and listens. Then raises the gun up again, shining, wet black in the pouring rain, the muzzle pointed at her face.
“Griffin,” he shouts, the bravado back in his voice. “Nate Griffin.”
Jess is confused but turns as she hears movement in the trees to her right.
The man shouts again: “Get out here right now, or I’ll shoot your little girlfriend in the head.”
Then she sees him. He steps out of the undergrowth. He raises his hands slowly above his head.
“Leave her alone,” Griffin says.
CHAPTER
79
GRIFFIN HAD BEEN to the lodge before. In happier times, with Mia. It was their haven, a little bit of peace and quiet. “Where nobody can hear you scream,” she had joked.
Griffin knows who it is. The Echo Man. He’d been at Libby’s memorial. He’d been at the police station just days before; he could have sent that Tinder message, made that one mistake. And he was good with knives. He was a chef, for fuck’s sake.
But the whole drive up to the cabin, he’d struggled with the comprehension. The father of his niece and nephew. Cara’s husband. How could she not have realized? How could this man have killed all these people? Have killed Mia, tried to kill him?
But the evidence was there. It had to be true.
He’d raced through the pouring rain, knowing that as every second passed, Jess was with a killer. He’d parked, leaving the car a good distance away, not wanting anyone to hear his arrival.
He’d carefully looked through the window, but the lodge was empty. A chair stood alone in the middle of the room, with what Griffin assumed to be blood on one of the arms. The door was open, banging in the wind.
He turned and looked out into the darkened woods. He knew they were out there. But where? And then he heard her scream.
Griffin followed the noise, running through the trees. Rain poured down his face, soaking his clothes, but he hardly noticed. Stopping, listening, then running again, tracking through the woodland, adrenaline charging him forward.
But then he saw the drop, and at the last minute caught himself. Slowly, he climbed around, carefully scrabbling down the muddy walls.
