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No one was anywhere within miles.
No one would hear her scream.
The darkness was the most obvious thing, there being no streetlights, no lamps lighting the driveways or front porches. Not yet.
Darkness everywhere.
I cut my own headlights, knowing a surefire way to be seen was to let those shine around in an area that was meant to be desolate.
I prayed my engine wasn’t loud enough to be heard.
I thanked God that Ron had the good sense to have the main road paved even before all the houses were done.
There were so many units.
The ones without walls were written off immediately.
If, by chance, the local cops did patrol this area, he needed to make sure he wouldn’t be seen.
So the mostly or fully finished units were the only options.
It could have been any of them.
It would have been smart to be any others.
With no trail leading back.
Not even a fake trail.
But I knew.
I knew which one it was.
I knew it was the one he had wanted to shack up in after leaving Jules penniless.
I knew it was that one because he would want her to pay there, for taking that away from him.
Stealing his little vacation after his hard work.
I didn’t pull up.
I parked a while away, hidden behind one of the partially built houses. I took off on foot, heart hammering as I closed in on the house. His house. Technically, her house. Since it was her money that was paying for it
Honestly, if he hadn’t banked on me, his plan was pretty solid. He could kill her and bury her in the basements of one of the half-finished houses. By the time anyone found her body – if ever – he would have been long gone, likely conning some other woman out of her money.
He knew what he was doing.
He had likely done this before.
Taken a life.
He was being too calm, too collected about it.
Most new killers were impulsive, planned the clean-up after the deed was done.
I came up on the back of the house, seeing a hurricane light on in what was the kitchen, the subway tile looking even more stark thanks to the bright LED bulb.
I saw no one at first from my spot perched right below the window. But shifting to the other side, I finally saw him.
Not-Gary.
Standing beside the island, digging through a black duffel bag, naked down to the waist of his board shorts. His hair looked damp as well.
I stifled a surge of panic that maybe I was too late, maybe he had killed her and showered already.
It would do no good to jump to conclusions.
I moved away from the window, feeling a pit in my stomach at losing sight of him for the couple seconds it took me to get to the steps leading up to the door at the side of the kitchen.
I slowed there, going up careful not to make a sound, wondering a bit fleetingly if he had been careless enough to leave the door unlocked. If he thought he was safe out here in this vacant neighborhood, he might have. For the sake of convenience.
Hell, as if to prove my point, there was a wheelbarrow with the name of the contractors hired to build the houses propped up beside the stairs. This house was done except for a few finishing decor touches. There was no reason for there to be a wheelbarrow there anymore.
If he was carrying a body out, he wouldn’t want to fiddle with a lock.
That worked in my favor.
By the time he heard the door opening, I would be through it, and halfway across the room toward him.
So long as he didn’t have a gun that could stop me first, I had no doubt that I could take him.
From that angle, I could see him from the side, watching as he started pulling items out of his bag, placing them on the island.
And it was right then I knew without a shadow of a doubt.
This man was a killer.
An experienced killer.
Because he was pulling out very specific items.
Gloves. The long kind that would go up to the elbows. Like butchers wore.
A long-sleeve shirt.
Long pants.
Cheap sneakers.
A hat.
The outfit he would kill her in, then burn or bury, get rid of somehow, someway. Items he likely got at a big box store with cash. Impossible to trace even if they were somehow found.
They would ensure that none of him would transfer onto her.
My skin went cold at what came out next.
A simple, but thick, plastic bag.
See, the way someone killed someone said a lot about them
Guns, they were impersonal. That was why pros used them. It was a quick, efficient way to take a life that involved as much – or as little – contact between you and your victim as you wanted.
Knives could be personal or not. Pros used them sometimes too. They were quiet. The death could be quick if you knew where to sink the blade in. They could also be weapons of passion. In cases of overkill, it was always a knife.
