Page 71 of Call Back

“Like with Emily?”

“Yes. But I’m her advocate now, if that makes sense. She can’t help herself now, so I need to step up and seek justice for her.” He paused. “That sounds corny.”

“No,” I said softly. “That sounds noble.” It only drove home my heart’s stupidity.

“My mother hates what I do—in fact, I got an earful this afternoon when she called about the fundraiser. She wants me to go into insurance with my father.”

“I can’t see you as an insurance salesman,” I said.

“I’d hate it. I like what I do . . . but I hope it doesn’t get in the way of starting something with you.”

He fell asleep soon after, but I couldn’t stop thinking about those files and the fact that he’d gotten up to look at them after he came to bed—if he’d even come to bed. I lay in the dark for what seemed like forever until I finally decided to get up. I slid out from underneath Brady’s arm and carefully got out of bed, trying not to disturb him. When I was standing next to the bed, I hesitated. What if Brady found me doing what I planned to do?

I crept into the hall and turned back to look in the room. Brady was still asleep.

I’d do this quickly.

Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I turned on the light over the stove—enough light to see what I was doing but hopefully not enough to wake Brady. I spun around, looking for the envelope, and found nothing. Where had he stashed it? He hadn’t been out here for more than a couple of minutes max, which included gathering up all the photos and papers. That would have left him with precious little time to hide it. If I found it, though, and he caught me looking at it, I wouldn’t be able to claim I’d stumbled upon it.

I had to be really sure this was what I wanted to do.

And I was . . . because something about the woman whom I’d glimpsed in that photo looked familiar, and it would eat at me until I figured out why.

I opened drawers and cabinets, searched under the sofa and behind the drapes. I was about to give up when I decided to check the coat closet, and that’s where I found it—hidden in a basket of gloves and scarves. Which meant Brady really hadn’t wanted me to find it.

What was he hiding from me? Why?

I took the envelope into the guest bathroom and locked the door behind me. Sitting on the tile, I dumped the contents onto the floor. There were multiple photos of dead women, all naked and all covered in blood. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was going to see this through.

I opened my eyes and picked up one of the papers. It was a police report of a woman’s murder, which had occurred twenty years earlier. Her body had been found in the woods up in Hendersonville. Her cause of death had been blood loss due to a cut through her carotid arteries, but her body had sustained multiple cuts, mostly angled lines, but also one oddly shaped cut.

My heart slammed into my throat. An oddly shaped cut.

There were few clues and no leads. The murderer was never found.

I knew I should look at the photos of her body, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I picked up the next report. Another female victim, this one murdered seventeen years ago. It was a similar case—her body had been naked, covered in cuts, one of them distinctly unusual, and she’d bled to death. She had been found one hundred miles west. No leads. No resolution.

There were two more reports, a murder fourteen years ago, and then one ten years ago. Ten years . . . Her body had been found the first week of June, near Clarksville. Same cause of death as the others.

Without reading anything else, I knew. She was the woman who had been tortured in the basement of the house I’d stumbled upon in the woods. No wonder I hadn’t found anything about her murder in the news. He’d taken her body over an hour north. Her name had been Melanie Seaborn, and her murderer had never been found.

But I knew he was out there. Waiting. Stalking me. Still killing women.

I had witnessed this poor woman’s torture. I owed it to her to see her photo. But I had to flip through several other crime scene photos before I found hers. I tried to look away, but the vacant look in the women’s eyes caught my attention. The same monster had ended all of their lives.

Was it Bill James?

But I let that thought go as I found Melanie Seaborn’s photo. She lay in a ditch, completely naked. Her body was very pale, and there was a slit across her throat. I recognized her face from that night ten years ago. Her photo was the one I’d seen on the table. My brain just hadn’t connected the dots—maybe it had been making a last-ditch attempt to protect me from what I’d seen, from what I knew. But now that I had the photo in front of me, there was no denying it. I remembered her frightened face now, her terrified eyes. She’d probably hoped I could help her, but I’d been tied up and injured myself, too weak to help either one of us. I saw the knife slashes on her body. The cuts I’d seen him slash onto her flesh that night in the basement.

Then I saw the mark on her thigh. The C with a slash through it. The same mark I bore on my own thigh.

I picked up the other photos and found the same mark on every single woman.

Brady knew that my scar hadn’t been caused by any cookie cutter. He had chased me down yesterday morning after Emily’s murder, fearing for my life. I’d suspected why—and this seemed to verify it. My stalker had murdered Emily, and he must have carved that horrible mark into her leg. And now Brady had a packet of photos of murder victims, all bearing the same mark.

Why hadn’t he confronted me about it? Did he think I was selfish for not telling him the truth? Was I selfish for keeping the information to myself?

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