Chapter 14 #3
“He told me.” There. Done. Said. “I was in the coffin. I was awake. He hadn’t started to put dirt over me. He called out, told me…”
I can still hear the bastard’s voice. Always, in his nightmares, that voice would come to screw with his head.
Preston cleared his throat. “He told me that I would be like him. He said he’d searched for me. Looked so hard. That my mother had tried to hide me, but it wouldn’t work. Guy said, just flat out said, ‘Your father has found you.’”
Those stupid, life-changing words.
Your father has found you.
“Preston…”
She stared at him with sympathy in her eyes. When she should be looking at him like he was a monster.
He marched for the den. For all those big windows that stared out at the mountains. “‘Take a deep breath,’” Preston said, remembering. “‘Pray it’s not your last.’”
“That’s—that’s what our attacker said to me.” She rushed behind him. Touched his shoulder.
But he was already spinning around to her in shock.
“Preston, those are the exact words that he said. ‘Take a deep breath. Pray it’s not your last.’” She shook her head. “I thought you were unconscious. How did you know that he said that to us before he started dumping the dirt on our coffin?”
His heart thundered in his chest. “I didn’t hear our attacker.
I never heard him speak a word.” The mad beating of his heart echoed in his ears.
“Those are the words my father said to me.” Preston hated calling the jerk that.
No, no, he’s not my father. Just some bastard who donated sperm so I could be born.
“He said it, right before he started shoveling dirt on my coffin. He laughed and told me that he always told those words to his victims.”
But…
Then he’d said more.
You’re gonna be different, though, aren’t you? I can feel it. Now prove it to me. Prove that you’re different. Prove that you’re strong…strong enough to come from the dark. Prove that you are just like me.
“He…always told those words to his victims?” Her lashes flickered.
“You didn’t mention that to the authorities.
He received the moniker of ‘Last Breath Killer’ because when he called the victims’ families, he’d say that their loved ones had taken their last breaths.
Then he’d rattle off coordinates. The latitude and longitude that would lead to the coffin.
” She swallowed. “Him saying those final words to you—that detail wasn’t in any statement you made to the cops or the Feds.
I know because I read every single one.”
He was not the least bit surprised to discover she’d read all his statements. “I also didn’t tell them that he was my father.” That was the kind of secret a guy took to his grave. Even when he crawled out of it.
“No one knew but you.” Her delicate brows lowered. “He said it to all of his victims. But he’s dead.” Certainty. “He can’t be the one who buried us. It’s just not possible.”
The drumming of his heartbeat would not slow down.
“The cops shot him, but they never found a body.” He reached out again.
Curled his fingers under her chin and tipped back her head.
“How do you know for sure that he’s dead?
” Then, deliberate, “Maybe he came back to finish the job he started on me.”
She stepped closer. “I know he’s dead. I found his remains. Took me quite a bit of searching, but I did it.”
“You…found his body.” He should stop touching her.
She should want him to stop touching her.
“I found him. Shot. In the back. Just as the cops described. Found a bone with a bullet still lodged into it.”
He didn’t blink.
“But more. His skull was fractured. His neck broken.”
Preston wasn’t breathing. Take a deep breath. Pray—
“He could have received all of those injuries when he fell into the water after getting shot. The water in that river gets pretty rough, and he would have bashed against all the rocks.”
“You…found him in the river?”
“No.” A pause. “The FBI’s current theory is that his body washed up. Winds or the current shoved him free from the river.” Then she added, “His remains were in a remote area near the water. Real hard to access.”
“You could have left him there.” Why had he said those words?
“The families of his victims deserved to know that he was truly gone. You deserved to know that you were safe and that you didn’t have to fear the past coming after you.”
He was not safe. And the past was very much after him. “It’s been years. The body would have decayed. Animals would have fed. Probably only bones left.” No way could there be more than bones after all this time. “How could you possibly know if the person you found was the Last Breath Killer?”
“The person I found was Mitchell Donahue. I know because his DNA matched to yours. Mary Jean confirmed to me that she knew he was the Last Breath Killer.” A long exhale. “She confirmed to me that she was there when he buried his first victim.”
No, no, no.
“It was her,” Sloane told him. “She was the first. He buried her, but when she screamed that she was pregnant, he stopped pouring the dirt on her. He let her out. She bided her time. She waited and when she had the chance, she ran. She never stopped running from him.”
His dead mother. Sloane had found her. He’d hunted for his birth mother for years. With all of his resources, he’d still turned up nothing.
But Sloane…
“The remains I discovered are with the FBI. And, yes, you’re right.
He was just bones. Normally, a DNA match on bones can take much longer to get.
You have to grind the bone into a powder and pull out the genetic material, but I was able to rush the process through some connections I have in Quantico. ”
His thumb brushed along her delicate jaw. “Aren’t you just incredibly resourceful?”
“Yes.”
Another careful brush of his thumb. What am I going to do with you, angel? He hated to drag her into hell with him. But letting her slip away to heaven wasn’t going to be an option for him.
“Your father is not the one who came after us. He is not. Mitchell Donahue is dead. His remains are bagged and tagged at Quantico. But the person who did attack us? He knew about the Last Breath Killer’s final words to his victims. He knew to say exactly what your father told his victims. How did he know that, Preston?
Who else did you tell? Who did you give those words to? ”
“No one.”
“Your adoptive parents?” she pushed. “Did you tell them? Or maybe Debra Tooni?”
A shake of his head.
“Did you talk to a counselor? Perhaps you thought that you were in a safe space, that you could reveal your darkest secrets?”
A final, careful caress along her jaw. “I didn’t tell anyone…not until you. You are the first. The only.” His hand fell back to his side. His fingers curled, as he tried to hold on to the feel of her skin. That softness.
They had a problem. A very, very big problem. How could their attacker know the words that the Last Breath Killer had used with his victims in their final moments? Especially with the Last Breath Killer dead.
She swallowed. He saw the gentle movement of her throat. Her shoulders rolled back. Squared. “Then the way I see it, we have some options.”
“Do tell.”
“Option one, our attacker was also a victim of the Last Breath Killer. Another victim who escaped the grave. A victim who became twisted. Who became a predator himself.”
That was what the bastard wanted to do to me. He wanted me to become a monster. Sloane had been right when she said his father had hoped to change Preston. His father had been determined to reshape him. In his image.
“Option two,” Sloane continued, “the Last Breath Killer wasn’t working alone.”
He refused to let any emotion show on his face.
“That’s a possibility that I have considered multiple times—even before you and I were taken—because moving someone is hard. Moving an unconscious person and burying the individual is not exactly light-weight work.”
No, it wasn’t. The task took considerable strength.
“Perhaps the person who attacked us was a secret partner of the Last Breath Killer.” She wet her lower lip. “Now he’s finishing his accomplice’s work. He went after you because you are the victim who escaped. That means you are the one who has to die.”
“What an uplifting sentiment,” he muttered. “Here’s another option for you.”
She waited. Looking beautiful. Eyes so dark. Standing close enough to reach out and grab, and oh, he wanted to grab. To hold. To keep.
Tread carefully. If he acted too quickly, he might lose the thing he wanted.
“What’s the third option?” Sloane asked him.
A roll of one shoulder. “Option three is that you’re wrong, Dr. Armstrong.
Mitchell Donahue was not the Last Breath Killer.
Maybe he was framed. Maybe Mary Jean lied.
Maybe the real killer got away. Maybe the real Last Breath Killer is still out there.
” Another roll of that shoulder. “Or, of course, it could just be a copycat. Someone who saw one of the true crime movies about the attacks. Someone who read a book about the murders. Someone who is just twisted in the head.”
“No.” Fast. Adamant. “No, it’s not just a copycat. A normal copycat wouldn’t know what the Last Breath Killer had said to his victims in those final moments. Only someone close to the original killer—or the real killer himself—would know those words.”
The doorbell rang, seeming to blast through the whole house, and she flinched.
Preston spun and stalked for the door. He heard the rush of her footsteps behind him. He glanced through the peephole, unlocked the door, and hauled the door wide open.
Sheriff Debra Tooni stood on the threshold, her hands on her hips. Zero sign of Sloane’s bags. “We have a problem,” Debra told them.
“What kind of problem?” Preston asked. Because she needed to be far more specific, considering the clusterfuck that was the case at the moment.
Debra’s lips tightened. “It looks to me like we may have another victim on our hands.”