Blood Red

And they’re never going to find me.

And Rowan Mundy and Sullivan Leary . . . what about them?

Imagine having them both at once: two beautiful redheads, one representing good, the other evil. Which would win in the end?

Neither.

I’m in control. I decide who wins and loses, lives and dies.

I decide how, and when . . . and where.

So. Maybe it should be right here in Mundy’s Landing after all. Maybe two of them together will be enough, so exquisite that when all is said and done, he’ll be satisfied at last.

If that’s the case, why not stay?

Why not live right here among the locals? They’ll never suspect that the most brilliant killer of their time is right there in their midst.

For all he knows, the Sleeping Beauty Killer did the same thing.

“Do you remember Rick Walker?” Rowan asks Jake, her voice shaking as she says the name.

It’s met with a moment of silence. Then a taut, “What about him?”

“He . . . I . . .”

Jake curses softly. “I knew it.”

“What? What did you know?”

“I knew you and he were . . . I knew it.”

“No! We weren’t—-we didn’t—-”

“Then what?”

She hesitates, hearing someone calling Jake’s name in the background.

“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t—-”

“It wasn’t what? You didn’t what?”

Now she can’t find her voice at all.

“Did you sleep with that guy, Rowan?”

She swallows hard. “No. I didn’t sleep with him. I stopped it before it went that far. He made a move on me, and I . . .”

“Slapped him across the face?” he asks. “Did you slap him across the face?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t tell me so that I could slap him across the face, or—-” He breaks off to call to someone on the other end, “I know, sorry, I’ll be right there.”

“Jake, listen—-”

He cuts her off. “How long did it go on?”

A little more than eight minutes.

Eight minutes, and I burned the cookies.

“It wasn’t like that, Jake. It didn’t go on. He made a pass, and I didn’t stop it right away, and . . . it didn’t go any further than that. I barely saw him again after that day.”

“But you did see him.”

“Not that way. The kids were friends. He lived next door. And after we moved away, I never saw him again . . .” Dammit. She swallows miserably before concluding the sentence: “. . . until last week.”

“You saw him last week? Where? Did you run into him?”

“No. I got a package in the mail, and I thought it was from him.”

“Why?”

“Because it arrived on the exact day that he . . . you know. The anniversary.”

“So you remember the exact date, after how many years?”

“Fourteen. How could I forget it? I was so upset after it happened. It was horrible.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet.”

“Jake—-”

“So you didn’t see him for fourteen years, and then out of the blue, he sent you a gift on your anniversary.”

“I don’t have an anniversary with him, Jake. It was the anniversary. And it wasn’t a gift. It was something stupid that he knew would remind me of him.”

Mercifully, he doesn’t ask what it is. She can’t stomach the thought of painting a vivid verbal image involving the smoke alarm and burnt cookies.

“So you saw him . . . when?”

“Saturday.”

“Saturday,” Jake echoes, and she can sense the wheels turning. “So you lied about going shopping? You were with him instead?”

Oh, how she wishes she could lie again.

Those days are over. Own it, dammit. Own what you did. Ask for forgiveness.

“I really did go shopping. But I saw him, too. Only to find out why he’d sent the package and to tell him to leave me alone.”

“And did you?”

“He didn’t send it.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“I know. I don’t believe him, either. I mean, I didn’t. Now I don’t know what to believe. I’ve gotten two other weird packages since then, and if they’re not from him, I don’t know who they’re from.”

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