Page 60 of Brutal Ice

Violet forced herself to look at the photo.

“Then he came here. I was hunting him, and the bastard just came straight to my town. What are the odds of that?”

She had no idea.

“He took Fiona Law.” Another horrifying photo was slid toward her. “He took her approximately four months after Bailey was discovered dead. Fiona was later found in an abandoned corn field.”

Her gaze had locked on the photo. All the women…so much like me.

“He’d been waiting four months between victims. I thought there was time. But he took you sooner than the four-month period he usually followed.” He grabbed the photos and shoved them back into the file. He moved from behind the desk and toward the maps. “I plotted out places where I thought he would go. Abandoned sites that might work. Like I said before, he liked isolated spots. Abandoned property or property that had been for sale so long it might as well be abandoned. I figured out a couple of possible locations, and I set up cameras so I’d be alerted to movement out there.”

She backed up a step in surprise. “You had cameras at the winery?” She didn’t remember seeing cameras, but so much of that terrible night was a blur.

He turned toward her. “The feed went to my phone. I saw the sedan pull up. That boring as hell, unobtrusive sedan—at night, in a dead winery. I knew it had to be him. Who the hell else would it be—at that time, at that place?”

Damn. “You’re really quite good at hunting, aren’t you?”

A dangerous smile curved his lips. The smile a tiger probably sent his prey right before those teeth ripped into the prey’s neck. “Not my first ballgame, sweetheart.”

No, she supposed it wasn’t. Violet swallowed.

“I hauled ass out there as fast as I could. I wanted to catch him, but instead, I found you.”

And the killer had gotten away. But I got to keep living. Because of Royal.

“This is the part where you can walk away.” His smile had vanished. “You can turn around. You can realize that you don’t want to really be tracking down a killer with me. That it’s more than you anticipated.”

The drumming of her heartbeat filled Violet’s ears. It was more than she’d anticipated. No doubt about it.

“You can be assured that I will protect you.” His head inclined toward her. “I will make sure that you have guards. You need those guards, Violet. You see, I happen to believe that he stalked you before he took you.”

Goose bumps rose onto her arms. “Why do you believe that?” Please do share with the class.

“Because that’s what he did with the other victims. You can’t just snatch someone without watching the person first. Ty picked Marcella up from work every single night…except on Tuesdays. Because on Tuesdays, Ty worked as a volunteer at the local fire station. Guess which night Marcella was taken?”

“Tuesday.” Not a guess.

Royal nodded. “He knew her routine. He knew when to take her. Knew when she’d be vulnerable. Same thing with Bailey. He took her when her roommate went out of town on a cruise with her fiancé. When Bailey was alone for five days.”

Violet wet her lips. “What about Fiona?”

“Got her in the morning when she was doing her daily jog. There was one stretch where she cut through a park. She went in the park—a street sweeper saw her. But she never came out. He knew exactly when to take her.”

Her goose bumps got worse. “And you think he knew exactly when to take me.”

“As you got closer and closer to the show date, your rehearsals got longer, didn’t they?”

A nod.

“On the night of your abduction, you were the last to leave the theater.”

“I-I needed to be perfect.” Micah had been particularly vicious that day. So she’d stayed, and she’d worked until her body had been near collapse. Is that why I couldn’t run from him fast enough? Why I couldn’t fight harder? Because I was already so weak? She could remember her knees trembling…

“You are fucking perfect.” A snarl.

She jerked.

He rolled back his shoulders. “Sorry.”

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