Page 54 of Seeking Evil

“What’s going on?” Patrick slowed and turned around. He hit the lights and siren.

“Inez just called in. She believes another young woman has gone missing.”

The words drilled into his brain and taunted Zeke.

“We’re on our way there now.” Patrick ended the transmission.

“Wait, if another woman has gone missing, then doesn’t that exonerate Flannigan?” Cooper asked as they left the city limits.

Zeke told him, “Not necessarily. Depends on when the new victim went missing.”

If the young woman was actually missing then they’d need to narrow down the last time she was seen by anyone. Since all climbing had been canceled until the suspect was caught, then she didn’t disappear the same way as Dawn and Sierra. It meant the kidnapper wasn’t being deterred by the ban on climbing. Which meant he was changing his MO. Not usually what happened with serial killers. He was stepping up his attacks. Did the fact that he’d taken another victim mean he’d finished with Dawn and Sierra?

His heart clenched at the thought of losing Sierra to a monster.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Sorry, my pretty girls. I’ll miss you both. Say hello to Maggie for me.”

Henry’s voice filtered through the wall of rocks. Henry had collapsed the exit. Had trapped them inside. The name of his wife cut through the terror racing through Sierra’s brain. Maggie. His dead wife. Henry wanted them to say hello to his dead wife. He didn’t expect them to live.

“Henry, no! Wait. It doesn’t have to be like this. Please, let us go. We won’t tell anyone you were involved.”

Nothing but silence past the wall of rocks.

“Henry!”

The only sound was the racing of her pulse in her ears and Dawn’s sobbing.

Sierra crawled over the rocks until she was able to reach Dawn. “Come on, we have to go now.” She grabbed Dawn’s good hand and pulled her up.

“No, please.”

“Dawn, he’s blocked the exit. The only way out of here is back through the basement. Hurry. We still have a chance at beating Henry back.”

Dawn tried to pull free. “No. I can’t go back there. Please, they’ll kill us.”

“And if we stay here, we’re dead.” Sierra ran while pulling Dawn along with her.

Sierra’s lungs burned from the dust in the air. She could feel herself slowing down. The extent of what she’d gone through, the drugs she’d been injected with, taking their toll.

Their breaths came in gasps. Bent over and stumbling through the claustrophobic space, it felt as if it took twice as long to reach the end of the tunnel. Almost there, surely.

A terrifying sound stopped her dead in her tracks. Another explosion. Just like the one that blocked the exit. This one was even more terrifying because it took away their only chance of escape.

“Why are you stopping?” Dawn asked. “What was that noise?”

“He blew up the entrance to the tunnel. We’re trapped in here.”

Sierra bent over and dragged in handfuls of breaths to try and assuage the panic spiraling inside.

Don’t fall apart. Don’t you dare fall apart.

She forced herself not to think about being trapped in here and running out of air. She had to do the next useful thing.

“We have to go back.” Her voice sounded anything but confident.

“Why? You said we’re trapped here? There’s nothing we can do. We’re going to die here.”

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