Page 59 of Girl, Bound

A body bag.

Empty, butunmistakable.

Ella's heart skipped abeat, a surge of adrenaline jolting through her veins like an electric shock.She whirled on Holbrook.

‘That was in thisguy’s house?’

‘There’s your proof,’Holbrook said. ‘We got an anonymous tip. Said Shawcross had a stash of bodybags hidden in his basement. Figured it was worth checking out.’

She turned back to thebody bag, suspicions in full swing. Something wasn't right here, somethingbeyond the stench of Holbrook's incompetence. She took a step closer,scrutinizing the bag with a critical, analytical gaze.

And then it hit her.

The bag was old, thethick plastic cracked and cloudy with age. The zipper was rusted, the teethsnarled and broken. It looked like it had been dragged through hell and back. Afar cry from the sleek, pristine bags they'd found at the crime scenes.

The other bags hadbeen identical, as uniform as a stack of dollar bills. But this one wasdifferent, a lone wolf in a pack of purebreds.

She spun back toHolbrook, her face a mask of cold fury. ‘This doesn’t seem right,’ she spat.‘That bag's not from our crime scenes. It's too old, too beat to shit.Someone's playing you for a fool, Sheriff.’

Holbrook's face wentpale, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land. But Ella wasn'tdone, the rage building inside her like a volcano ready to blow.

‘And what about thetip, huh? You ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, it might be a setup?That someone's trying to throw us off the scent, send us chasing our tailswhile the real killer slips away?’

She could see thedoubt creeping into Holbrook's eyes, the first cracks in his smug,self-satisfied façade. But it was too little, too late. The damage had alreadybeen done, the trail going colder by the second.

Ella watched theofficers bundle Eddie Shawcross into the back of a cruiser, all the while hespat curses.

This wasn’t right.

And Ella needed to fixit.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

He watched from thedriver’s seat. He was a gargoyle carved from flesh and bone, fixated on theunwitting prey that would soon be in his sights.

She was perfect, alost soul wandering through the valley of the shadow of death, unaware of thebeast that lurked in the darkness. He could smell her desperation, herloneliness, the acrid stench of a life gone wrong.

The woman hadprofessed her sins through what she believed was an anonymous platform, safe inthe knowledge that no one would ever see the real person behind the confession.

But she was wrong.

They all were.

Eric Saunders, KaraMurphy, Christian Maddox.

The fools had showedpromise, but ultimately, they were unable to remake themselves. They succumbedto death, losing the battle between morality and deceit.

Three test subjects,three failures. Tonight, he’d see if he could tip the scales a little moretowards success.

The tools of his darktrade were ready, laid out with surgical precision in the passenger seat. Thesyringe, a gleaming fang, filled with liquid oblivion. The sedative, a poisonthat would drag his victim down into the abyss of unconsciousness. And the bodybag, a cocoon of darkness that would enfold her in its suffocating embrace.

He shivered withanticipation, a frisson of electricity crackling along his nerve endings. Thethrill of the hunt, the rush of power that came with holding a life in hishands - it was a drug more potent than any chemical, a high that he would chaseunto the very gates of hell.

But there was feartoo. He knew he was living on borrowed time. That the jaws of justice wereclosing in with every passing moment. This would be his last hunt, his finaloffering to the altar of morality. And then he would disappear, fade into theshadows like a ghost, leaving behind four life lessons that hopefully futuregenerations could learn from.

As he waited for thenext test subject to emerge, he suddenly felt the weight of his own history.The memories came unbidden. A flood of images and sensations that threatened todrown him in their icy depths.

He had been a monsterlong before he had ever picked up a syringe, a predator who stalked the digitalwilderness in search of secrets to exploit. With a few keystrokes, a few linesof code, he could peel back the veneer of privacy that people clung to sodesperately, lay bare their darkest desires and deepest shames.

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