Page 49 of Once Silenced

“She lives in Slychester,” Ann Marie added.“Tonight her neighbor suspected a problem, called it in.The police checked; she wasn’t at home.She hasn’t made it to the evening class she’s been teaching at Corbin College, and her car’s untouched.But her keys were found in the driveway.We’re thinking it was an abduction.”

“Abduction?A different M.O.?”Putnam snapped.“Are you sure this is the same guy?”

“It’s an escalation,” Riley said firmly, her experience with the darkest of minds shining through her composed exterior.“You know as well as I do, some serials change their own rules as they approach their endgame.Maybe he sees this as his magnum opus.”

“His masterpiece,” Ann Marie whispered.It was a grotesque thought—but a fitting term.“If he wants to draw this out, to savor his final act, then maybe we still have time to catch him before he kills her.”

“If we can find where he’s taken her...”Riley interjected,

“But how do we track him?”Prendergast asked, a frown creasing his brow.“How do we find where he’s taken her?”

“Patterns,” Riley said suddenly, her voice cutting through the tension.“We need to go back over everything, every clue he’s left us, everything we know.There has to be something we’ve missed.”

The silence that followed was almost a physical presence in the room.Ann Marie could see the cogs turning behind Riley’s dark eyes, the way her brows knitted together in concentration.There was an electricity to the moment, a sense of a fuse burning down, and Ann Marie felt it tingling in her veins.

“Wait,” Riley said, breaking the stillness.Her voice had that edge of clarity that came when she was on the brink of an epiphany.“The anonymous email to the Cipher Society.The one Derek Aldrich quoted—the killer vowed by ‘the sacred shrine we hold most dear’ to take the lives of the people who had wronged Martha Lancaster.”

“It was a promise,” Ann Marie whispered.

“Could he be more literal?”Riley remarked.

“Martha Lancaster’s grave,” Ann Marie added.“That’s what Aldrich told us the ‘sacred shrine’ was.”

Riley’s gaze snapped to her junior partner, a silent acknowledgment of the connection made.

“Yes, and that’s in Slychester,” Riley confirmed.“That has to be it.”

“Can we get there in time?”Ann Marie asked.

Ann Marie and Riley both knew Gwen Beck’s life hung in the balance, and with each passing second, the scales tipped towards an outcome they were desperate to avoid.As for Agent Putnam, Ann Marie could see doubt in his eyes.But she knew that Riley wasn’t going to take no for an answer.Riley stood up, her movements decisive.

“We have to.Let’s get to work.”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Gwen’s consciousness surfaced slowly, each breath a ragged gasp.Her head pounded, and a raw ache circled her neck.The space around her felt close, unforgiving, and dark.Panic fluttered in her chest, but she realized that the pain was guiding her back to reality.

As she shifted, trying to understand where she was, Gwen could feel the cool press of metal against her cheek.The urge to move, to escape, surged, but her body refused to obey.With mounting dread, she tested her confines, only to find her wrists ensnared in a merciless grip.Duct tape, she realized with grim certainty, bound her hands as effectively as chains.

The air was thick, laced with the acrid tang of rubber and oil—a mechanical, lifeless scent that invaded her senses.It spoke of captivity, of vulnerability.She wanted to scream, but she could only manage a whimpering moan.

Her world was reduced to darkness and motion.Then she recognized the only sounds piercing the blackness: the steady thrum of tires on asphalt and the distant growl of an engine.Gwen’s heart sank with the knowledge of where she must be—bound and trapped in the trunk of a car.Her breath came in shallow bursts, hot and panicked.

She realized that somewhere beyond the walls of her enclosure, someone else was controlling her fate.Whoever had attacked her in her driveway still held her, a trapped bird in a pitch-black night.Where they were taking her, and what awaited her at the end of this journey?

She focused on subtle shifts and turns, trying to glean any hint of her location or where she was being taken.But the world outside the metal shell remained elusive, sounds muffled as if she were submerged underwater.

In the dark, Gwen’s mind began to race, unbidden images flashing with merciless clarity.The attack, so sudden it fragmented time—her keys slipping from numb fingers, the asphalt of her driveway pressing into her knees as she fell.She had fought, oh how she had fought, but the cord around her neck pulled had tight, stealing her consciousness.

Memory tore through the fog of Gwen’s mind, sharp and brutal.The weight of her attacker’s body against hers, the smell of sweat and malice that had filled her nostrils as she struggled.His breath, hot and heavy against her ear,

She replayed the moments leading up to the assault, searching for a misstep, a clue.But her attacker had been swift and hard, she had seen no face, no identifying mark—only the force of hatred that had borne down upon her without warning.

Why her?The question looped endlessly, the lack of motive terrifying.She thought of her classroom, of the students who might be gathering their notebooks, awaiting a lecture that would not come.A shiver ran through her, more frightening than the chill of the trunk’s isolation: her assailant could be anyone, driven by any number of slights real or imagined.She had reported many stories, after all, argued with subjects, and sometimes even with colleagues.

As the car veered once more, Gwen’s head knocked against the side, pain flaring white-hot for an instant.Nausea returned, a roiling tide that began to pull her under.As the car steadied and continued along its unknown path, darkness crept back in, claiming Gwen Beck once more into unconsciousness, leaving her questions unanswered and her fate uncertain.

*

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