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“Let me know when you want to go look at dogs,” he suggested as he walked me to the front doors.
“I definitely will.”
“Or anytime you want to talk,” he said. “It can’t be easy to be going through this alone,” he added.
“It’s not,” I admitted. “But I’ll be alright.”
“I’ll make sure of it,” he said, reaching out toward me, then dropping his hand at the last second. The whole thing made another of those shivers move through me.
“Thank you, Detect—“
“Wells,” he cut me off. “You can call me Wells.”
With that, he reached to open the door to the hotel, and I forced myself to go, even though everything in me wanted to stay closer to him.
I was almost girlishly excited at the prospect of him going with me to pick out a guard dog.
If it was completely insane of me to have… stirrings about the detective investigating my case, well, I was just going to go ahead and give myself some grace, given the circumstances.
I went right up to my room, calling to set up an appointment for security installation at my house, got in contact with work again, had an early dinner, and was about to finally get some sleep when I got an alert for a new email on my phone.
From a local celebrity of sorts.
Wanting to talk to me about being the only survivor of theSilent Sadist…
CHAPTER SIX
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Crime Time with Poppy
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“Hello, my beautiful, creepy people. This is Poppy—your friendly, local true crime peddler—and this isCrime Time with Poppy.
“Tonight we are doing a deep dive into an alarming case unfolding in my very neck of the woods.
“This is the story of the man the news has, unfortunately, dubbed theSilent Sadist. Because, you know, we should be sensationalizing these psychos. But, anyway, this isn’t about him.
“As any veterans of this podcast know, we like to focus here on the victims and survivors of crimes, rather than the criminals themselves.
“So tonight, I would like to introduce you to three bright, beautiful women who unfortunately all managed to cross paths with a man who would take two of their lives. And attempt to take a third, until her quick wits and love of all things true crime managed to save her.
“We will be discussing the lives of Ashley Moore, Madison Silvo, and Mari Yates.
“This is gonna be a long one, folks, so grab a coffee and a snack, and buckle in. You might just hear something that will save your life someday too…”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Detective Wells Vaughn
To say I’d been less than professional would be an understatement.
I shouldn’t have taken her to the diner, driven her to her hotel, offered to go and pick out a dog with her, and almost reached out and touched her.
She was a victim of a sex crime.
She’d almost been murdered.
