Scarlet Angel (Page 20)

He has no idea who I am.

I release him when he drops to the ground, not fully unconscious, but not awake enough to fight back.

With quick movements, I cuff his hands and drag the cable connected to the cuffs to tie off at a beam in his living room. I then tie his feet together, and pull out the electric nail gun from my oversized purse.

A bloodcurdling scream erupts from his throat when I use the small—yet powerful—nail gun on his feet, securing them to the ground with rapid succession. Then I pull out the lube while he continues sobbing.

“Who the fuck are you?” he cries out.

An agonized sob rips from his throat when he tries to move his feet. Those nails are too long for him to pull out of the floor without ripping his feet to shreds.

“Don’t worry, Morgan,” I tell him, grinning as I smear the lube on his bare chest. “I brought lube. I want you to enjoy this. It’ll feel good when I’m inside you.”

With one hard thrust, I plant the knife in his side, and another bloodcurdling scream erupts, but I see it the second he realizes who I am.

“Doesn’t that feel good?” I mock.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No way. It’s not you.”

I lean down, getting right against his ear. “You should have saved me all those years ago. Then I could have saved you.”

With that last taunt, I tug his boxers down, and I pull on the gloves before lubing his dick. The sicko is actually hard. That’s a first.

He watches me, probably thinking I’m going somewhere else with this. The side injury isn’t lethal. I know where to stab to inflict pain but spare life.

He’s in a lot of pain, but he’s such a sexual deviant that he doesn’t seem to even care. At least not until I pull out the other knife and slowly slide it down his lubed up torso, nicking the flesh but not slicing into it.

His breathing stops when I reach his most prized possession.

“Don’t,” he whispers, panic paling his features when he sees what I’m going to do. “I had nothing to do with what they did to Marcus. I swear that wasn’t me.”

“You held the mirror. You laughed as Kyle took the slice. You’re the one who encouraged Kyle to redeem himself in your eyes. You’re the reason it happened. Why should you keep this?” I ask, hearing his fearful cry when I nick just the side.

“Don’t! Please! I fucking beg you.”

A deliciously dark smile curves my lips. “I remember your response when we begged. Fuck them. Kill them both.”

With that, I take the slice, struggling to cut through the harder appendage than I’ve worked with in the past.

His screams pierce the air, and his pleads fall on deaf ears. Just as ours did.

The blood starts running, and I squeeze out three bottles of lube, letting it clump on him as he continues to wail, losing his color as quickly as he loses blood. They bleed more and faster when they’re hard. Interesting.

Just to be a total sick freak, I throw a knife to the floor, stabbing it through the severed appendage I’ve dropped beside his face. He screams and screams, and I laugh as I walk outside.

Two gasoline cans are already waiting. Jake has done as he promised he would. Now that he’s heard what I’m doing, he’s probably on his way to Delaney Grove to execute the first part of our plan.

Singing while Morgan cries and chokes on his own vomit, I spray the gasoline around, then douse his body.

“They say the most painful way to die is by fire. I wonder who volunteered to find out that information,” I chirp cheerfully.

Morgan shakes his head, trying to form words, but he’s in too much pain, overwhelmed by agony and shock.

I strike the match, and his eyes widen one last time.

“I didn’t even need to hear you confess your sins,” I say quietly.

I watch the flame slowly eat away at the matchstick, almost reaching my fingers, before I drop it to his body. The flames start to soar, rapidly licking up the trails of gasoline. I slowly start walking out, hearing the roar of the fire as it spreads, chasing each strip of gas.

“Pretty soon, they’ll all burn,” I say as I walk out the door.

Chapter 13

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

—William Shakespeare

LOGAN

“What’s beyond these woods?” I ask the sheriff as he tries to blatantly ignore me.

He’s at least 6’3, almost even with me in height. He looks like he spends more time in the gym than any county sheriff I’ve ever seen. His active deputies are more plentiful than small town sheriff departments I’ve been around in the past.

One town hall/sheriff’s department is large enough to host all the deputies also, and it appears Delaney Grove is their central headquarters, so to speak. The police department has five officers on its own, but the county? So many more.

Twenty-three deputies? Who needs that many in a county this small.

“I asked a question,” I say with authority, eyeing down the man with salt-and-pepper hair and dead eyes.

I should have come sooner. I’d have seen more than I expected. Already I see too much Leonard and Elise missed on their visit here.

“Four or five hunters’ cabins, and a whole lot of wild life you city boys don’t want to tangle with,” he says shortly, his tone thick with condescension.

He turns back to Johnson before glancing to one deputy. “You show these folks around. I’m going to go with SSA Johnson back to the fort.”

“The fort?” Elise asks.

“It’s what he calls our town hall,” one of the deputies says, grinning at her like she’s his type.

She casts a glare at Craig when he snickers.

I’m happy to get the sheriff and Johnson out of our hair, so I don’t object to them leaving us behind.

“Okay,” Elise mumbles to the deputy who is still beaming at her. The kid practically has hearts in his eyes. “They seriously don’t have women here, do they?” she adds.

“Not in uniform, ma’am,” the guy tells her, following us as we go to peer into the woods.

A hunter’s cabin would be ideal for our killer. He could come and go without being in plain sight. “The women who work in uniform are only in dispatch. Just two. Tonya and Tasha. They have a different office though.”

At least Elise can get some information from her new admirer.

Hadley is supposed to be bringing Lana with her when she drives in. Hadley couldn’t leave first thing this morning because there was a Delaney Grove related killing last night. Two towns over, in fact. Though no one here has wanted to talk about the death of Morgan Jones.

In fact, no one wants to talk about any of the deaths or the people who died.

We need to dig into his past and interview his family, just as we have all the victims, but SSA dipshit is making that difficult, since he refused to change the plans of coming here today. Why the rush?

And why did the unsub kill him quickly, compared to the others. It was definitely torture to be set on fire, and he was most likely castrated—they’re still trying to determine when the penis was removed, due to the scorched remains.

Words I never thought I’d say.

“These are your cabins,” the deputy tells us, resting his hands on his gun belt like he’s Barney Fyffe. Grinning like him too.

“Okay,” Elise says, eyeing him. “We’ve already seen the cabins.”

“I’m supposed to escort you in while they hold the town meeting, and escort you anywhere you need to go in case you need something.”

“We’re going to walk around and question the townspeople some,” Elise tells the lurker.

His eyes widen, and he shakes his head emphatically.

“You can’t do that. Sherriff Cannon said to keep you guys here, and take you wherever you needed to go. But he doesn’t want our people spooked by this dark issue.”

Dark issue? That’s seriously how he’s wording it?

“There’s a serial killer targeting your people. I held a nationwide press conference. How could they possibly not know?” Craig asks.

“Better yet, why wouldn’t you want them to know?” Elise inserts.

The deputy takes a step back, feeling ganged up on. He’s a nervous little guy.

“The sheriff controls the news stations we get. We have our own broadcasting network if we need the people to know something immediately. It’ll interrupt their regular service for the emergency broadcast.”

I turn away, looking at Craig. “This guy is dominating every aspect of their lives. It’s almost like an occult here.”

“And would be a damn good fit for a psychopath with narcissistic tendencies,” Donny says quietly, while Elise keeps Barney—or whatever his name is—distracted.

The original killer used this town’s faults to his advantage.

“The sheriff is trying to dominate us by acting as though we have no authority in his town,” I go on.

“What do we do?” Craig asks.

“Prove we’re the ones in charge. Print up flyers with the information of our profile, and start handing them out to everyone in town. We’ll divide into teams to ask questions.”

Craig nods, going into his cabin where we’ve set up our temporary headquarters—since the sheriff assured us his place didn’t have the room we’d need.