Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

But she didn’t dare waste any time. She wanted to tell the police everything she knew, get them out searching the area where she’d been found before the evidence Jasper was trying to destroy could be destroyed—if it wasn’t too late already. That was also why she’d used the man’s cell phone to call 9-1-1 the instant she got the couple who’d helped her to pull over.

“You really shouldn’t be sitting here. We can talk in the hospital.” This came from a young, clean-cut detective by the name of Mike Hampton. Evelyn was sitting in his office with a blanket draped around her shoulders and a cup of coffee waiting on the ledge of his desk.

“Admittance takes forever,” she said. “We need to act now.”

“We are acting now,” he assured her. “I’ve got a team out there, but they can’t do anything with that building he burned, or the car, until it all cools off.”

She pressed her fingers to her temples. “How long will that be?”

“A few hours, maybe more.”

“And then it’ll be dark,” she muttered, irritated by the limitations that hampered police progress while Jasper seemed able to get away with whatever he pleased.

Detective Hampton ignored her sarcasm. “Meanwhile, why don’t I take your statement, write down everything you recall while its fresh in your mind?”

Evelyn was eager to go over it all. She told him what she’d told the sergeant at the front desk when she first hurried into the police station, only in greater detail. But as she spoke, she realized that she didn’t have a lot to offer as far as the kind of details that might differentiate Jasper from any other man.

“So you didn’t get a look at his face,” the detective said.

She hugged the blanket closer. “No. He-he was wearing a ski mask.”

“When he came this morning, too?”

“I can’t say. I was crammed into the refrigerator by the time he entered the shack.”

Hampton checked his notes. “You said the door to the refrigerator was open when he came back, that you were shocked he didn’t notice.”

“That’s true, but...I couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything. My head was curled into my knees. I’d used my elbow to crack the door to give me a little ventilation, which is why I couldn’t pull it closed fast enough.”

“And you’re sure the car he burned is the car he used to abduct you?”

“It had to be. It was a blue sedan that ran me off the road. I was in too much of a panic to get his license plate number when he was coming after me. I was just trying to get away, to survive. But this morning I looked for license plates, and...he’d taken them off.”

“Then I’m guessing he filed the VIN number off, too,” he said with a frown. “But...we’ll look for that, of course, when we can.”

She nodded.

“What makes you so sure the man who nearly killed you twenty years ago is behind this latest attack?” he asked. “Did he say something specific, or…?”

She craved the bolstering effects of the coffee he’d provided, but her hands weren’t steady enough to bring the cup to her lips, so she continued to let it grow cold. “No. We-we didn’t have a chance to interact. It was that picture he left taped to the chair that told me.”

“Your prom picture.”

“Yes. Who else would have access to that?”

He didn’t bother to answer that question. “What about a description?” he asked. “I understand you didn’t see his face. But can you tell me anything about his general size and body shape?”

“He was tall, strong—pulled me out of my overturned car as if I weighed nothing.”

“Can you guess at his height?”

She hesitated. “I can only give you those details for when I knew him in high school.” Damn it! Nothing else was clear enough.

“And he could’ve grown since then. Some boys do.” The detective bent his head as he read over his notes. “Well, we’ll see what we can find at the scene. Maybe we’ll get lucky and come up with a shred of evidence that will give us an indication as to where he’s living.”

“Thanks,” she said and tried to remain hopeful. But later that day, when they could actually start looking, they admitted that everything had been destroyed. The only thing they found was a shallow grave not far from where the shack had been.

It contained the body of a woman who’d been abducted three weeks earlier.

***

By the time Hillary got home, Jasper had half the house packed.

“What’s going on?” she asked, obviously shocked.

The kids were asleep, so he kept his voice down. “We’re moving.”

She dropped her purse. “Why?”

“Because you never wanted to come here to begin with.”

“But...what about my job?”

“You’re a nurse. You can get a job anywhere, especially with your references. You don’t like the hospital you’re at right now, anyway, remember? You’ve told me as much.”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t make do, get used to it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

She came deeper into the room. “There are other considerations, Andy. What about the lease on this house?”

“What about it? It’s month-to-month. We’ll give our landlord a check for September and be out of it.”

“That’ll cost us an extra thousand bucks!”

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