Page 14 of Make You Mine

Only this time, there’s an added tinge of unease, but it’s overshadowed by the need to kill him myself. It’s been growing for a while. Since he escaped our grasp because a dead criminal can’t hurt anyone, and I’ve more than made peace with that.

He doesn’t deserve to live.

Accused: Jason Ripley

Age: 28

Born: Tulsa, Oklahoma

Occupation: Supervisor at a small lawn company.

Lives: Dallas, Texas (Prior address is from Los Angeles, where he resided for eight months and then moved back while evading the LAPD.)

Currently Resides: Two streets from the witness’s home. (Shrine found inside a guest bedroom with pictures of Ava Perry in various scenarios: some in public, others in the privacy of her home, and a few are intimate.)

Reading a few more pages, I take note of the obsession Jason has with the victim under state protection. There are highlighted sections of his interview after his arrest: threats and the hoarse growls of her name detailed by those who witnessed his capture.

Each report is almost an exact copy and paste—the new details giving me a small glimpse into her living nightmare—and a weight settles on my chest. Guilt eats at me.

It’s probably why Captain Perez chose me; he knew I’d take it personally. Knows I’d do anything to stop Jason from killingagain, and his hard-on for this young woman means she’s both a target and his destruction.

She’ll be the cause of his downfall. That one mistake all animals like him make.

Because crimes of passion are sloppy and desperation leads to reckless choices.

Closing the folder, I sit back and meet his hard stare, fighting not to show the ire flowing through my system. I’m still angry, but this time it’s for a woman I’ve never met.How we’ve failed to protect and end this nightmare for her and any possible future victim. “They have to know he’s desperate, that he’s coming for her in a place he’s familiar with. Jason having lived here and escaping our chase gives him an edge.”

His nostrils flare while nodding. “Yet on the same note, it has a few advantages. The first is the detective who almost caught him and knows how he operates.” Perez opens the top drawer on his right and pulls out another folder. This time, it’s in red. “That’s what makes you the only person I trust with her life.”

“I still don’t like it?—”

“Noted.” Perez lifts his brow while tapping the red file with his pointer finger. “He has to travel through a few states and evade a lot of people, including you, to get to Miss Ava Perry. Those women—allthose young lives taken—deserve justice, Ford. And this is our best chance to do just that.”

Nodding, I scratch the two days’ worth of stubble on my jaw. “They’re going to need all the manpower available to track him down. Jason Ripley is conniving and resourceful; thinking this capture will be easy is a mistake.”

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