Chapter 12 #2
Debra notched up her chin. “Because you’re a survivor, too? That the story you’re selling? You survived your boyfriend’s attack and now you like to go all deep and dark into the minds of killers?”
“I—”
“What did I tell you before?” Atlas’s sigh filled the room. “Say less. Perhaps I stuttered when I gave those previous instructions. So let me repeat, say less.” Atlas took Sloane’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
“She’s not leaving town—” Debra began, voice heated.
“I’m not leaving town,” Sloane declared, her own voice flat.
Yep, shocking no one, Atlas gave her that same look for a third time.
“He’s still here,” Sloane said.
“Preston? Yeah, the dumbass is outside the station right now.” Atlas tugged her toward the door. “So?”
“Not Preston. The killer. He’s still here. We can’t let him get away.” No, more than that. “I can’t let him get away.” The bastard had buried her alive. Then just left her to die beneath the dirt. Did he think she was going to let that go?
Not happening.
“Sloane… Hell.”
She ignored Atlas, for the moment, and shifted her focus to Debra. “I can help you.”
Debra’s brows rose. “How?”
“I can profile better than anyone working at the Bureau.” She knew one particular jerk who was far too high in rank at the FBI’s BAU. Talk about someone who was overhyped. “I can help you hunt this killer. Stop trying to pin the crime on me. Work with me instead.”
“Huh.” Not a yes. Not a no. Debra tapped her chin. “What is it that you think you know?’
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Preston snapped.
“Okay. Play your games. Whatever.” Utter unconcern. “Just thought you’d like to know that you weren’t alone.”
“Because you’re the daughter of a serial killer. The real-life Poison Princess, right in front of me.”
Instead of taking offense at his taunt, Lily merely rolled one shoulder. “Here I am. In the flesh.”
“I’m not like you.”
“No, you didn’t grow up knowing about your dad, did you? You probably missed him. Was curious about him. Spun some fantasies in your head about the guy—and then reality slapped you in the face like a shovel full of dirt.”
His eyes narrowed.
“We aren’t them.” Adamant. “We don’t have to carry the darkness the same way they do.”
Okay, those words…maybe she does understand.
“We still have the darkness. At least, I do,” she admitted. “It’s part of me. Always will be. I just carry it differently. I control it. It doesn’t control me.”
Preston cleared his throat. “You should…you should stay away from me.”
“I’m not the one who came hunting you. That was Sloane.”
“Keep your friend away from me.”
She stepped closer, as if he had not just warned her to stay away. “Why?” Her head tilted back as she stared up at him. “Because you’ll hurt her?”
No. I would never physically hurt her.
“If you do, I should warn you…I’ll kill you.”
Wait. Hold the hell up. She could not have just said those words to him. They were soft and steady and…
“Or Atlas will.” Another shrug. Lily seemed so unconcerned as she threatened to kill him in her cool voice.
“We’re both incredibly fond of Sloane. She’s not a monster.
I don’t care what crazy story you might have read about her on the Internet.
Sloane is my best friend in the entire world.
She has stood by me when others turned away in disgust. So don’t ever threaten her. ”
She has stood by me when others turned away in disgust.
Sloane had known about his father.
She’d known, and she’d still let him kiss her. Let him strip her. Let him put his mouth all over her.
She’d known…
And she’d still risked her life to save him.
“Yes. There it is.” Now Lily seemed pleased.
His gaze had drifted toward the entrance to the station.
“Not just running on rage any longer, are you? Starting to think a bit more clearly?”
He sucked in a breath.
“What did you fear, that she’d blast the truth about your father everywhere? No. That’s not Sloane. She’s more the type to take secrets to her grave, not broadcast them.”
His chest ached.
She left the house in my damn t-shirt.
She had handcuffs around her wrists when she was loaded into the patrol car.
“You…threatened to kill me,” he said, circling back to that particular point.
Lily turned away. She headed back up the steps that led to the sheriff’s station. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“The perp is from this area. Or, if not from here, then he knows the place extremely well,” Sloane explained.
“He picked a secluded spot for our burial. He already had the ground dug up before we arrived. He’d planned everything—that tells me he’s organized.
Highly organized. He is familiar with the trails out here.
He knew exactly where to go so that we would not be discovered and so that he would not be disturbed while he worked. ”
Debra didn’t speak.
“Highly organized, intelligent, fit. I saw him, from the back, anyway. So I know he was about six-foot-two, and his shoulders were almost as wide as Preston’s.”
“You didn’t see his face,” Debra pointed out.
No, she hadn’t. And she’d explained that to Debra and the deputies before. Before as in, at the hospital. During the initial Q&A. Before Sloane had become a suspect.