Page 32 of Into the Veins

There were no branching trails, no signs to follow other than a cave-in warning ahead. Her flashlight beam dissipated within a few feet, and she lowered her hands to her sides. A dark shape caught her attention off to the left of the trail, and she blinked to clear the water from her eyes. She couldn’t make out the source other than it didn’t match any of the surrounding greenery and crossed the path to get a closer look. Crouching, Blair holstered her weapon and reached for the black fabric stretched over a grouping of vines. Water beaded against the knit as it conformed to her hand.

“What do you have?” January took up position behind her.

Blair inserted her hand into the knit folds and poked her fingers through three openings. Her stomach clenched. “It’s a ski mask.” Like the one the killer had worn when she’d attacked them on Tiger Mountain. She pushed to her feet, searching for something—anything—that would give her an idea of what’d happened. There. Blood pounded at the back of her skull as she brushed away a handful of broken vines and exposed the shiny stainless steel of a weapon underneath. A Sig Sauer P365 pistol. The same weapon she’d recognized in the back of her patrol car when she’d ordered Colson to remain at the trailhead three days ago. She curled her fingers around the grip. Mud washed from the surface as she turned it over in her hands. She released the magazine and squinted as something else took shape in the soil. No shots fired. “It’s his weapon.” Blair cleared the vines to give January a view of what she’d uncovered, her control threatening to break as the evidence stared up at her. “And an empty syringe.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

He couldn’t control the tremors in his hands.

A deep ache set up residence in his muscles from trying, but the convulsions wouldn’t be contained. Colson rolled onto his side. Mud and dead foliage clung to his hair and clothing as the pain intensified from the injection site. She’d forgone dosing him with ketamine and had gone straight to poisoning him. Strychnine, if he had to guess. Couldn’t have been a large dose, but the effects were no less agonizing.

“I warned you to stay away from this case. You and the sheriff. You should’ve listened.” Her voice rang clear through the beat of his pulse behind his ears. No disorientation to distort her identity. No mask to manipulate her tone. She crouched beside him, watching as another round of convulsions contracted the muscles down his spine. “This isn’t what I wanted. You weren’t supposed to be here.”

He couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t scream. There was only pain. The wave of agony faded—however short—and he gasped for oxygen. “Then why don’t you let me walk out of here.”

A heartless smile thinned the killer’s mouth. Nothing compared to the photographs he’d noted above the fireplace in Evyn Garder’s home. No. Something had changed. Something had turned Ember Garder into a serial killer. Long dark hair, the same color as her sister’s, had been cut short, sharpening a once beautiful face. She was only a couple years older than Evyn’s thirty years, but a lifetime of experience—of horror—carved a hollowness into her features Colson couldn’t ignore. “Even if that were possible, you know I can’t let you leave. You’ve seen my face. You know what I’ve done.”

“Why?” The single word was all he was able to manage as he collapsed into the circle of brush. Curling one hand into the earth, he closed his eyes, preparing for the next flood of pain. He’d stayed conscious long enough to realize she’d dragged him farther off the trail. The wildlife park wasn’t surveilled by full-time rangers. Less chance of someone discovering the bodies of two more victims until Ember wanted them found.

“Did you know nearly a quarter of a million people attempt to commit suicide every year? Only one in twenty-five achieve their goal, but the effect of social media has driven that number higher over the years. There are studies that prove social media consumption increases depression and loneliness in its users, yet we just can’t stop ourselves from mindlessly scrolling throughout the day.” Ember shifted her weight between her feet, nearly dropping her left hip to the ground, as she twisted a large ring on her index finger with the other hand. A coiling snake encompassing a rich green gemstone. An emerald? “People—women especially—become obsessed with perfect strangers on the other side of influencer profiles. They work hard to make their skin as clear as the results of filters. They starve themselves to look like the fitness influencer they follow, who’s had more work done than most Hollywood actresses. They’ll even go into massive amounts of debt to acquire all the same brands these women are pushing for a commission or to attend their conferences, hoping they’ll learn something that will change their lives for the better. You see, our hearts eat lies when we’re hungry.”

Conferences. Fitness influencers. Colson raised his gaze from the ring as understanding hit. “Evyn attempted suicide.”

Ember’s voice dipped into dangerous territory. “I found her on the bathroom floor eighteen months ago. She’d cut her wrists with a pair of scissors. I still remember just standing there, staring at her as blood soaked into her hair. I didn’t know what to do, what to think. In that moment, I wasn’t her big sister who’d looked out for her most of our lives. I was absolutely helpless.” The killer shook her head. “She’d seemed happy, if you can believe it. She had a great job at the university, was nearly finished writing her thesis about the venomics of ruby-eyed pit vipers. She was engaged, had lots of friends. I travelled for work quite a bit, but there wasn’t a single moment she hadn’t been quick with a smile and a hug.”

Colson recalled the older photos of Evyn Garder on the mantle, the ones with a smiling woman with the whole world at her disposal and a sister on her arm. The woman he and Blair had interviewed had changed, just as her sister had.

“Turned out, she’d been suffering for months, and I had no idea.” Water dripped from sections of Ember’s hair as she set one knee into the ground. “The hospital staff gave me her phone while she recovered. I started looking into what might’ve triggered her attempt. What I found…” Ember removed the snake ring then slid it back onto her fingers as though eager to rid herself of it but needing to keep it at the same time. “There were screenshots saved in her notes app, photos of some of the influencers she followed, with a daily record of her weight, how many calories she’d eaten, which exercises she’d done that day. Over the course of a few weeks, she’d lost over twenty pounds using Brennan Jefferson’s programs designed to destroy a woman’s muscle mass and drain her energy. All in the name of health.

“I found email receipts for dozens of products recommended to her from the influencers she followed. There were private messages being pushed at her from every one of them, selling her essential oils or trying to convince her she needed to start her own business. None of them saw a person on the other side of the screen. All they saw was a profit, a way to make money. Skin care, nail polish, personalized journals, business resources, even the receipt for Rachel Faulkner’s marriage conference. It was all there. Right in front of me, and I never saw it, until it was too late. I should’ve known better. I should’ve been there for her.” Ember’s voice flattened. “Everything she believed—it was all a lie. None of the women Evyn was trying to emulate were real.”

Rachel Faulkner. Cardin Townsend. Brennan Jefferson. Three social media influencers. Three victims Ember blamed for the deterioration of her sister’s mental health and suicide attempt.

“You wanted them to pay.” Colson pressed his shoulder into the ground in an attempt to sit up, but the poison had already robbed him of his strength. His jaw locked against the rush of agitation slithering through him. “You wanted them to face the harm they were causing.”

She slipped the ring off her finger once more and held it up for him to see. “I gave this to her as a gift after her thesis was published. She was going to graduate with her PhD. It was a reminder of how far she’d come and how proud of her I was. I found it in the trash can the night she tried to commit suicide. Now I use it to remind myself how far I still have to go.”

Sweat built in Colson’s hairline as the last few pieces of the puzzle fit into place. “The locations…you dumped the bodies. You knew Evyn frequented those trails. You wanted her to see…what you’d done for her. Even at the cost of making her our prime suspect.”

The vulnerability in Ember Garder’s eyes turned cold, and she shoved to her feet, her ring firmly in place on her index finger. “I wanted her to see the truth, that the people she idolized were nothing more than predatory businesswomen preying off of her insecurities and fears. I wanted her to see an example of what a real woman looked like, one who’d never lie to her, let her down, or convince her she was anything less than the intelligent, strong, beautiful woman she is.”

A moan pierced through the soft pattering of rain.

Colson craned his head over his shoulder.

Ember stepped over him, her heel brushing against his shoulder. She stood over a dark form curling in on itself. Bending down, the killer fisted a handful of the victim’s hair and forced her head back. Recognition flared as Brennan Jefferson cried out, but Ember simply reached into her jacket pocket and extracted a syringe. She set her thumb over the plunger and lowered the needle to the woman’s neck. “Rachel Faulkner convinced my sister she could win her ex-fiancé back with open communication and more offerings of sex, even after he’d cheated on her. Cardin Townsend manipulated Evyn into becoming a consultant and investing everything she had into a multi-level marketing scheme, and Brennan here…” Ember injected the clear solution into the side of Brennan Jefferson’s neck, and another whimper escaped the victim’s mouth. “Well, she’s the one who exploited my sister’s body image issues and encouraged her to lose weight when there was nothing wrong with her.”

“Stop.” Colson struggled against the riptide of pain arching his back and neck into impossible angles. The tendons in his neck stretched as white streaks lightninged behind his eyes. His lungs seized, his pulse skyrocketing well beyond normal levels. The right side of his body prickled as he rolled onto his front. Leveraging his elbow into the ground, he pushed off with his toes and reached a hand out toward Brennan Jefferson. He struggled against the haze threatening to pull him under. “Ember…stop. Killing her won’t change anything. I can…help you. I can help your sister. If you let me. You don’t…have to do this.”

Ember withdrew the needle from her victim’s neck, the syringe’s plunger still elongated. Her mouth parted, water beading across her lips. Clumps of shoulder-length hair swung gently in front of her face as she stared down at her latest victim. The determination in her voice, the single-mindedness that’d started her down this path, her obvious love for her sister—none of it would stop her from killing again. “What makes you think I need help?”

She inserted the needle into Brennan Jefferson’s neck again. The fitness influencer’s scream filled the clearing and tunneled straight into his already damaged heart. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as she collapsed back into the brush.

Small rocks and broken, dried twigs bit through his shirt and jacket as Colson clawed toward her. Sobs reached his ears as Ember rose to her feet, the syringe empty in her hand. He fisted Brennan’s jacket and pulled himself over her. The effects of the strychnine had already taken hold. The tendons along her neck flexed hard against the soft column of the woman’s throat, and a responding pain arced through him. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Hang on a little longer.”

“She’s already had two doses.” Ember’s voice barely pierced through the constant tick of rain as she turned her back to him. Crouching, she unzipped what looked like a duffle bag he hadn’t noticed until now and reached inside. She straightened, something long and solid wrapping itself around her hand. His gut protested. A ruby-eyed pit viper. “She’s going to suffer longer and worse than the others. She’s going to pay for what her influence did to my sister, and there’s nothing you can do for her now. There’s nothing anybody can do but listen for that last gasp.”

Two doses. It was a miracle Brennan Jefferson’s body hadn’t already gone into shock and shut down completely. He eyed the bright green, full-grown pit viper coiling around Ember’s fingers and wrist. Her heeled boots sank into the soil as she closed the distance between them. His throat burned. He relaxed his shoulder against the woman struggling for breath. “The FBI cleared out the maintenance shed on Tiger Mountain. They have…the trees you used to make the poison. They took the snakes into evidence.”

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