Page 201 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

His tail didn't move. His ears flattened. He looked up at me. She went this way. She’d left through the back, and she hadn't walked out on her own soles. No… Not her. Someone took her this way and she never came back.

My hand was already reaching for my phone before I'd consciously decided to call Mason. The screen blurred for a second. I blinked hard.

Fucking focus Reed. I unlocked it, hit his contact and lifted it to my ear while my eyes never stopped moving across the garden. The call barely rang once.

"Reed."

"Seraphina’s house. Now."

Silence.

"Mason."

Something in my voice must've reached him. The easy familiarity disappeared instantly.

"What happened?"

I swallowed. My throat felt full of gravel.

"Get Derek."

Another pause.

"Elias."

"...Someone took her."

Nothing. No questions. No disbelief. Just the sound of him grabbing his keys.

"We're moving."

The line went dead. I lowered the phone slowly. For a second, I simply stood there, breathing through my nose.

Think.

Don't panic.

Think.

My eyes dropped to the flower beds. Boot prints. Big ones. Deep. Four… No… Three different tread patterns. Heavy men. They hadn't cared where they stepped. Hydrangeas lay crushed into the mud. Wild clover flattened beneath thick ribbed soles. The neat little rows she'd spent hours planting were gone.

I stared at them longer than I should have. She would've hated this. The stupid thought hit me like a punch. She would've walked outside tomorrow morning with her coffee...and the first thing she'd have noticed wouldn't have been the broken porch. It would've been her flowers. Something twisted painfully behind my ribs.

Goddammit...

Why her? Of all the people in this godforsaken valley...Why her?

The videos. The missing women. The white van. The fucking email. The card. Pieces I'd spent four sleepless days trying to force together suddenly crashed into each other all at once. My stomach dropped.

No.

No.

Please don't let this be connected. Please don't. I turned back toward the porch. The broken ceramic crunched softly beneath my boots. Gerald, or what was left of him. I looked a bit closer and saw something.

“What?”

Frowning, I crouched carefully. This is now a crime scene, don't contaminate it. I pulled a pen from my pocket instead of using my fingers. Slowly… Carefully… I nudged one painted green fragment aside another. Then another. Something white appeared beneath the shattered ceramic.