Page 50 of The Girl He Claimed

Adam was down here. Now,they just had to catch up to him. Paige moved forward carefully; after the trapAdam had laid before, she didn't want to risk running into a tripwire thatmight trigger some kind of trap.

The rustling sound continued tocome from somewhere ahead, coming in bursts as if someone were moving there inthe dark. Paige thought that she could see an archway ahead, barely visible inthe light of her flashlight.

Paige motioned for Christopher andCaroline to follow as she approached the archway. She moved slowly andcautiously, her gun held steady in front of her.

She raised her gun and took a deepbreath, readying herself for what was to come. With one final step, she roundedthe archway and moved into the room beyond.

Her flashlight picked out cratesand barrels that had obviously been there for decades, if not longer. Paigefound a light switch, and, barely daring to hope, she tried it. To hersurprise, it worked, a single bulb above flooding the old storeroom with light.

It gave Paige a sense of thedimensions of the room. It was bigger than she had thought it might be, withseveral connecting tunnels leading off in different directions.

There was no immediate sign of AdamRiker, but that didn't mean that he wasn't there. It would be easy for him tobe hiding among the barrels or just out of sight in one of the tunnels.

"Riker, come out if you'rethere," Christopher called out. He'd obviously decided that Adam must knowthey were there and that there was no point in being secretive.

There was no answer, though. Theywere going to have to search.

"Wait there," Paige saidto Caroline as she and Christopher started to move around the room, splittingup so that they could check every hidden corner.

As she searched, Paige found herthoughts drifting back to the question of the tunnels. Those tunnels meant thatthey couldn't trust the key card data, could they?

Paige's mind raced as she thoughtabout this new revelation. What if the Exsanguination Killer had also used thetunnels to move around the institute undetected? She could have gone from onelocation to another without leaving a trace. It meant that people whopreviously had a good alibi because they'd seemed to be in one location were nowsuspects again.

Paige thought about the tunnelentrance in the library with a sense of growing dread. Caroline's alibi hadrested on the data clearly showing that she'd never left, yet there had been atunnel entrance right there. What if...

Paige heard a short cry of surprisefrom Christopher and spun towards the sound, her gun rising to cover anydanger. What she saw there made her freeze in shock.

Caroline was holding Christopherclose, a needle jabbed into his neck as she administered a sedative to him. Hernormally friendly, helpful expression had been replaced by a cold look ofdetermination.

Paige realized, to her horror, thatshe was looking at the Exsanguination Killer.

"You!" Paige said,keeping her gun raised, looking for a clean shot.

"Not a good idea, Paige,"Caroline said. She was holding Christopher in front of her now, supporting hisweight as the sedative took effect. His gun clattered to the floor. "Idon't think you'd want to hit your partner, would you? Especially not when,from what I've seen, he's a bit more than that to you. Isn't he?"

Paige's heart raced as she tried tothink of a way out of this. She couldn't believe that Caroline was theExsanguination Killer. It didn't seem possible.

"Why, Caroline?" Paigeasked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Why not?" Carolinereplied, a hint of a smile on her face.

"Why not? That's your onlyanswer? You killed the Thorntons. You killed my father."

"Oh, of course, you've spentso long trying to understand why when it comes to murderers, haven't you?"Caroline said. Her tone was as calm as if the two of them had just beenchatting over coffee rather than with a hostage between them. "You askedyour questions, trying to understand what makes serial killers do what they do.Are you going to ask me those questions, Paige?"

"I'm going to kill you,"Paige said. At that moment, it was a certainty inside her. This was the killerwho'd taken so much from her, the killer she'd been searching for her entireadult life. She'd dreamed, again and again, of what it would be like to takerevenge for what this woman had done to her father—to get justice.

"I wonder if you'd doit," Caroline said. "And of course, right now, you'd have to shootthrough dear Christopher. Go on, Paige, ask me again why I did it."

Paige decided to play along. Maybewaiting would give her a chance at a clear shot. Caroline was smaller thanChristopher. She couldn't support the dead weight of his sedated form forever.

"All right, Caroline. Why didyou do it? Why did you kill all those people? Why did you kill my father?"

"What should I tell you,Paige? Shall I tell you a story about a young woman who had suffered all kindsof things at the hands of men who should have protected her? Shall I tell you astory about a young woman who went into some woods to kill herself using hermother's painkillers and a knife? Would you like to hear that?"

"If it's the truth,"Paige said.

"Oh, truth, who knows abouttruth?" Caroline said. "Doctors tried to tell me that all kinds ofthings were true, that I wasn't thinking right, then that I was cured, justbecause I learned to pretend better. But back to your father. He found thatgirl, in the woods. And she, I found a better way. I found a way to takecontrol of what was going on."

---