Page 23 of Already Lost

That was when Tessa’s fear really reacheda pitch.

The song continued playing behind them ashe slowly began to drag her around, ignoring her bound feet and the fact shecouldn’t even stumble in a controlled way after him.

He was so fine, I thought I was lucky

A husband, a child, the future I saw

She was this maid from down in Kentucky

Red hair that reached almost down to thefloor

Oh, my man and the rose

Oh, how the story goes

Oh, my man and the rose

that took him from me

The man who was holding her stopped movingsuddenly, and Tessa looked up into his face, feeling her heart stutter in herchest.

The look on his face was twisted. Furious.

And Tessa knew then she wasn’t going toget away from this.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Laura rushed forward, trying to stop themfrom meeting. This was just what she had seen before, and she couldn’t let ithappen. Not like this.

But it was like her feet were made oflead. Fear made them stick, made them slow, and by the time she had stumbledover to them, Zach and Chris were already deep in conversation.

All she could hear was buzzing in herears, so loud she couldn’t even make out what they were saying. It washappening. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She’d done everything shecould not to let them meet, and now they were meeting anyway. This wasn’tright.

She couldn’t stop it.

Even as she struggled to grasp thesituation, Zach said something that made Chris stop cold, the side of his neckgoing red. There was a moment when Laura reached out for Chris’s arm, trying tohold him back, but she was too slow and her hand closed on air. He was alreadygone, launching himself at Zach, pushing the old man to the ground. Landing ontop of him. Grabbing something out of his pocket – why had he been carrying aknife in his pocket? – and stabbing it into Zach’s chest. Laura could onlystare and scream as bright red blood surged out of Zach’s chest, splatteringthe pavement, falling back onto his own face as he choked for air…

Laura shot awake to the sound of hammeringat the door, sitting bolt upright in bed. She reached for her gunautomatically.

“Laura?”

She relaxed, if only by a small amount.That was Nate’s voice. Not some crazed attacker – Nate. “What is it?”

“You were screaming. Are you okay?” Natesounded panicked, like he was about to burst through the door to check forhimself.

“Oh, God,” Laura muttered, putting a handagainst her forehead. She raised her voice again to yell back to him. “Sorry –it was just a dream.”

“Jesus.” She could almost hear Nate slumpagainst the door in relief. “Well, I just got a call, anyway. The captain’s meetingus at a scene in the north of town. They just found another one. It sounds likewe’re the closest.”

Laura glanced at her phone, fully chargedbeside the bed. It showed two hours until her alarm was due to go off. “I’mcoming.”

She was actually glad she’d been so tiredand stressed out about Chris last night that she hadn’t managed to finish gettingundressed. She shoved her feet into her shoes, grabbed her jacket and herphone, and yanked open the door, almost beating Nate down the stairs to the caras he locked his motel room door.

She pulled her hair out of its ponytail asshe slid into the passenger seat, letting Nate take the wheel. Both of thembuckled up and then Nate was driving, screeching right out of the parking lotand onto the road. He was taking turns so quickly on the empty nighttime roadsthat Laura almost didn’t manage to retie her hair into a neat new ponytailbefore he brought the vehicle to a sudden stop, staring at the GPS. They’d beenno more than a couple of minutes away from the scene. Could that possibly be acoincidence, or did the killer know where they were staying?

“I think this is it,” he said, peeringahead.

Laura didn’t need to confirm it with theGPS. “Let’s go!” she said, urgently, opening the door and heading in thedirection of the sound she had faintly heard once the engine stopped.

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