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She had to stall him.
“I know why you’re doing this,” Ella spat out.
“You don’t know anything.”
“Everyone you killed. Zero victims.”
The pressure against her faltered. The Crawler’s mouth fell open in shock. She’d said the magic word. Now she had to use the opportunity to gain momentum. Misdirection was a fighter’s most prized tool.
Ella lifted up her legs and booted the man in the chest. He flew backwards, scrambling for support, and finding none. He smashed into one side of the mirrored wardrobe, cracking the glass, and collapsing to the ground. She rushed him. Now was her change to disarm, restrain, and capture this deranged monster.
He lay face down on the floor and for moment Ella thought she’d knocked him unconscious. She grabbed his wrist from behind, now knifeless and reached into her pocket for her handcuffs.
But the Crawler suddenly sprung back to life. The first thing she saw was the sickening smirk across his face.
The next thing she saw was the gun in his hand.
Her gun.
Pointed directly at her.
She crawled backwards, landing against the bed.
Cornered.
He edged closer, gun trained on her. She had nowhere near enough space to maneuver, no chance to escape a bullet. Any effort at physical contact would result in her death.
So she needed to mentally beat him.
“As soon as I saw you, I thought how much you looked like Phillip Colten. Now I know why.”
The Crawler cocked the pistol. His finger caressed the trigger.
“Because he was your father,” she continued.
His solemn expression turned into a grin. “Well done.”
This man was the son of Maryland’s most famous victim. And if her theory was right, he was also his father’s killer. A crime he committed when he was just a boy.
“Everything you’ve done has been meticulous, obsessive. It was all leading up to this, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Cheri Jo Bates. Black Dahlia. Kara Banks. All unsolved murders, although you don’t think so. You think you know who killed those women.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She couldn’t rile him up. If she did, it would be a death sentence. She couldn’t run, couldn’t kick the gun out of his hands. She just had to bide time.
“You wanted to prove your worth. Show the world you were more than just a kid living in some family’s walls. You were responsible for one of the world’s biggest murder mysteries, and you’ve decided to tell the world in your own, twisted way.”
“I left a trail leading right here. It was all in front of you.”
“I know. You hid everything in plain sight. You even scratched the initials T.C. into the noose at your last crime scene. You wanted us to think it stood for Tobias Campbell, but really it stood for the Crawler. Or your real name. Thomas Colten. The estranged boy assumed dead.”
The man’s expression changed again, not to the one Ella wanted. He narrowed his eyes and brought the pistol closer to her face.
“I am dead. I have been for years. Everyone thought my dad was a saint, but he beat me black and blue. The abuse killed me, and that’s why I had to kill him.”
