Page 69 of Seeking Evil

Inez came back through with a man who looked far older than his years. He was short, maybe five-four, with a receding hairline and a ruddy complexion. His dark eyes darted around the room.

“Come sit with me.” Inez led him over to the sofa.

Once she and Derek were situated, Zeke did his best to make the older man feel at ease. “Derek, we’d like to ask you a few questions, okay?”

Derek glanced at Inez who gave him a reassuring nod. “It’s okay. You can trust Zeke.” Inez leveled him a look as if to say, “Don’t you dare make me out to be a liar.”

Zeke pulled up a photo of Lindsey first. “Do you know this woman?” He felt like a heel questioning this man, but it was necessary to rule him out if he weren’t involved.

Derek stared at the phone before slowly nodding.

“How do you recognize her?”

Derek took out his phone and typed a message before turning it to Inez, a clear sign he didn’t trust Zeke.

“He says she’s staying here. He saw her a couple of times around the place.”

Zeke showed him Dawn’s and Sierra’s photos. “What about these two women?”

Derek typed quickly.

“He saw Dawn the same way he did Lindsey. But Sierra actually talked to him. He said she was nice.”

Zeke smiled. That was just like Sierra. Always there for the downtrodden. Sierra went out of her way to show people she cared. And Sierra was a good judge of character. Clearly, nothing about Derek put her on edge. Was it because of his handicap? Or was Derek Thoreau as innocent as he appeared to Zeke?

If that were the case, then they were back to square one and they had no idea who they were hunting.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Idon’t hear anything,” Dawn said suddenly.

Sierra had been so busy trying to keep them from being shot that she didn’t hear Dawn at the beginning.

“Sierra, stop.”

“What is it?” She looked around, expecting the shooter to be standing near them.

“There’s nothing, no shots, no sounds of someone following us. I think we lost him.”

Sierra listened. “You’re right.” Truth be told, they’d been walking for hours without any more shots fired. Was it possible the shooter had given up and left? Could it be that easy?

“What time do you think it is?”

Exhaustion weighing on her had Sierra struggling to put one foot in front of the other. The flashlight flickered a couple of times and then went out. Sierra tossed it aside. “I’m guessing three, maybe four in the morning.” The thought of being out in the open when daylight broke was unsettling. They’d be easier to pick off.

Though summer, the night’s chill had sunk through the clothing she wore clear to her bones. The thought of a warm shower and something to eat urged her on.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see those barrels and the women in them staring out at me. It was sick what he did to them. And there was an empty barrel with my name on it, Sierra. I was supposed to die.”

Sierra shivered. Dawn’s name had been handwritten like her own. Like the others.

“Did he sit and talk with you?” She wondered if Henry chatted all the victims up like he had her.

“Yes. He told me I reminded him of her. I assumed he meant his wife. He called her Maggie. He took me over to his little sitting area where those poor women were looking on and he talked like he was my friend and not someone who wanted me dead.”

“But he didn’t want you dead. Henry was protecting you from his partner. He hid you in that room because he didn’t want you harmed.” Sierra got the impression Henry hadn’t wanted to kill her either. But he obviously was willing to supply his partner with victims even though he appeared to have an aversion to killing. Why? Who was this person Henry protected?

“Can we sit for a second?” The exhaustion in Dawn’s voice had Sierra searching for some place out of sight to rest. She found a group of trees in the meadow.

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