Page 30 of Seeking Evil

He’d formed a connection with Dawn because she reminded him of someone he cared for. Sierra wondered about her own fate. Would she be spared, or would Henry turn her over to the mastermind behind it all?

“She looks just like her.” Henry was saying. “And she’s from the same state as my Maggie. Every time I looked into that face, I could feel Maggie’s disappointment. I couldn’t go through with it.”

“Maggie’s your wife?” Sierra asked quietly while studying Dawn’s restraints. They were much like what she’d had before. If she could find a way to get Henry out of the way, then perhaps she could walk Dawn through the steps of freeing herself and Sierra.

“Yes,” he said wearily. “I loved her so much.”

“Loved?” Sierra felt the need to keep him talking. She wanted to know more about Henry. Maybe he’d slip up and reveal something useful.

“She died recently. My poor Maggie.” He shook his head. “I thought I could go back to being the person I was before with . . .”

He didn’t say it but Sierra believed Henry had been part of a serial killer team operating in the area. He’d helped kill those women in the barrels. Something happened to stop them. She believed it was marrying Maggie. But Maggie hadn’t really changed Henry. Though she wondered how much of the killing process was on Henry. He seemed to be the docile one. Taking orders from the person in the mask. Finding victims for them.

“She didn’t know about your past.” Sierra choked over those words. Henry had lived a lie for the duration of his marriage.

“No. Maggie made me a better person. I never told her about it, you know.” He shrugged. “She and I married, and she moved in here. She didn’t know about this place. What it was used for before her. What was stored down here.” His attention went to the barrels.

“You went straight for twenty-five years, Henry. What changed? Was it Maggie’s death?” Sierra glanced Dawn’s way. She wept softly. Probably in a state of hysteria from what she’d gone through. There were marks visible on her body. She’d been hurt. Not just by Henry.

“I had nothing to live for after Maggie passed. Nothing kept me from returning to my old self.”

“Maggie. Do you think she would approve of what you’ve returned to?”

His eyes flashed anger. “You don’t know her. You know nothing about her. Don’t pretend to know what she would think.”

Sierra, you’ve gone too far. Back up a bit.She assumed Henry had met and married Maggie shortly after the last victim from twenty-five years earlier had been murdered.

“What was Maggie like?” She tempered her tone to keep Henry cooperating.

“She was a wonderful woman. I met her later in life. I was in my early fifties. I wished that she and I knew each other earlier. Maybe things would have been different. For me and for . . .”

“For who?” Sierra believed the name of his accomplice was on the tip of Henry’s tongue.

His phone buzzed. Then it buzzed again and again as text messages poured through.

Henry pulled out his phone and read through the messages as they kept coming. “I have to go.” He shoved the phone into his pocket without looking at Sierra, and her heart leapt to her throat.

“Wait, Henry, you don’t have to do this.”

Henry ignored her and went over to Dawn. “I’ve got to get you out of sight now, my girl.”

“No, please,” Dawn pleaded.

Henry patted her arm. “It will be okay. I’ll leave the light on this time.” He rolled her into the room and shut the door.

“Henry, wait.” Sierra called after him, but he ignored her completely. He slammed the door shut. The sound reverberated through her body.

She listened as his footsteps headed up the stairs into the house.

Soon, the noise of the door opening and closing was followed by a car’s engine starting. She waited until she could no longer hear the sound before calling out to Dawn.

“Can you hear me, Dawn?”

She waited through every panicked beat of her heart while wondering if the walls to Dawn’s room would prove to be too thick.

“I hear you.” Came the faintest reply. It sounded like the best thing ever.

“My name is Sierra. I know we weren’t properly introduced. I’m an FBI agent. Dawn, people are looking for you. And they’ll be looking for me as well.”

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