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To that, I nodded.
“Vaughn,” someone called, making the handsome detective nod, then say his goodbyes to me.
The forensics team pestered me next, taking scrapings and pictures. All the things you see on shows. And more.
The paramedics came back then, urging me to go to the hospital. As if I was going to refuse.
The hospital, at least, was safe.
Or as safe as I could be with a potential rapist who had a score to settle with me now.
As I was jostling around in the back of the ambulance, I had a thought that made a pained little groan escape me.
I was going to be on somebody’s true crime podcast now.
CHAPTER TWO
Detective Wells Vaughn
The call came fifteen minutes after I finally crashed for the night, jarring me awake, my heart hammering, knifing up in bed before I was even aware of what had woken me up.
Then the ringing and vibrating from the nightstand had reality slowly coming back to me.
“Vaughn,” I barked into the phone, my voice rougher than usual from sleep.
“He struck again.”
“Fuck.”
I didn’t need to ask who struck again. I didn’t have any ongoing cases that would warrant waking me up instead of handing a case off to an on-duty detective.
“She’s alive.”
“What was that?” I asked, sure I’d misheard, that sleep was clinging to me a little more tightly than I realized.
“She’s alive, Wells,” he said, and I was on my feet and moving toward the pile of clothes I’d discarded not long before.
“She’s alive?” I asked, yanking pants up my legs. “How?” I asked, mostly speaking to myself.
“You’re gonna have to ask her yourself.”
“Which hospital is she at?” I asked, putting the phone on speaker, so I could shrug into my shirt, then my jacket.
“She’s still at home.”
“What?” I barked, a little louder than I’d intended.
“The officer at the scene said she’s a little bruised and blooded, but didn’t need to be rushed to the hospital. Everyone figured it would be best to get her report at the scene.”
She was not only alive, but she was able to give a report of the event?
How was that possible?
“What’s the address?” I asked, kneeling down to lace my shoes with impatient fingers.
This was the first lead we’d gotten on this sick sonofabitch.
He’d raped and murdered two women already, each event twelve months apart. Long enough for the news to die down, for people to forget the victims’ names.
