Page 144 of Moth to a Flame

Emotion swells in my chest. I snuff it out as I hurl myself out of my Porsche. There’s no time for warmth or pride or longing.

I have to be on high alert. My entire focus is placed on the sides of the road first. I don’t admit to myself that I’m searching for Regan. It’s too silent, and I refuse to think about looking for a body.

He’d spent a decade hating her. Ten years of plotting his revenge on the woman he brutally raped. No matter what she said to him, how she antagonized him to get him to pull over, he wouldn’t have murdered her.

He wants to torture her. Here, where he can get caught, is not where he would’ve done it.

She’s not here. She hasn’t been discarded twenty feet up ahead or on either side of the road.

Fuck. God, fuck.

Running my hand through my hair, I return to where I left my car and start scanning the road itself.

There it is. There it fucking is.

The clue Regan left me is right here.

A feral growl reverberates from deep within me as I kneel then and there. I pick up the small nail that I painted black earlier today. I’d recognize the shape anywhere.

My relief is a flicker of light.

He pulled out her nail. There’s blood on it.

He hurt her.

He.

Hurt.

Her.

I get into the car, and it’s torture. The worst pain of my life, going slow instead of burning rubber.

But I have to. I must.

She might’ve left me another clue up ahead.

I can’t miss it.

Hold on, love. I’m coming for you. I won’t rest until you’re back in my arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Regan

The man in thepark isn’t as huge as he normally is in my dreams. He’s big, nonetheless. Still wields a knife and has a baton shoved into a holster.

“You’re mine.” Same line as always. He edges closer. More rotten apples. More terror seeping into my veins. “Not just for tonight. Forever. I’ll make sure you’ll never forget about me.”

He hasn’t laid a finger on me yet. Hasn’t cut me or dragged me forcefully behind the bushes.

The pain, however, is already there. Dull and coming from my index finger.

Strange.

Despite the threat up ahead, I shift my attention downward, to my hand.

No nail. I have no nail on my index finger and blood trickles down to the first knuckle.

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