Dead Silence A Body Finder Novel

Chapter 19


VIOLET CLUNG TO JAY’S HAND AS SHE SPRINTED up the street. Her vision had cleared, but only a little.

“You saw them. Tell me you saw them!” she cried, not caring who heard her now. If it really was the killer she’d seen—and the imprint was a dead giveaway—he already knew they were following him.

Jay tried to hold her back, slowing her pace. “But I didn’t see where they went, Vi. Did you?”

Violet shook her head. “It doesn’t matter though.” She glanced up and down the row of houses, and only one of them stood out to her. Only one of them had a medley of colors that erupted all around it. “That’s it,” she said, pointing at the one just ahead of them. “They’re in there.” She dug her phone out of her purse and shoved it at him. “Call Rafe. Tell him where we are. Tell him we found Chelsea.”

Watching as Jay fished out a flyer from the plastic box that hung on the For Sale sign, Violet waited just long enough to hear him reading the address to Rafe on the other end . . .

. . . before she slipped away.





NO REST FOR THE WICKED


THEY MOVED QUICKLY, PULLING THE GIRL AS HER boots banged and clattered along the top of the old floorboards. There were boxes strewn about and maybe a broken chair or two, hard to tell for sure, but it was mostly garbage they had to maneuver around. The house was definitely vacant. Probably only inhabited by rats at this point.

He figured they’d be safe as long as they could just stay quiet.

Besides, there was no way the curly-haired girl and her boyfriend would know they were in here. No way they’d figure out where they were hiding. Eventually, they’d get tired of searching for their friend, and they’d move on to the next place.

Then he and Kisha would duck out again, and head for home.

He dropped the girl in a heap on the floor as he crept toward the front of the house. He was just about to peek out the window, between the boards that covered the broken glass, to try to see out to the street beyond, when he heard it.

The back door.

And the voice.

“Chels.” She was quiet. Uncertain. But far too close for his liking.

“Kish,” he whispered, swinging his arms in wide arcs in the dark as he searched frantically for her. When his fingers closed around her arm, he dragged her up against him, his mouth right at her ear. “Help me get her up those stairs.”

It was hard to see the staircase in this kind of blackness. It was there, though, off to the side of what had once been a banister. But without a handrail, the banister was now just a row of pointed spikes that would more likely impale you than prevent you from falling.

Kisha didn’t argue, she just reached beneath the girl’s arm and heaved her up, using the last of her strength—probably more than she even had left—to help him. To get Colton’s girl someplace safe. Out of the way.

To hide her.