Chapter 58 Louise
LOUISE
Sometime later, a bump in the road shook me from my daze. I frowned, sitting up straight as I looked around.
The road had narrowed, the trees closing in above us. The sky was dark and brooding. We were on wooded back roads, not the interstate as we should have been.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking at Miles in the driver’s seat.
“Headed home.”
“I’m no MapQuest, but I’m pretty sure we should be on asphalt right now.”
“I figured you’d want to make one last stop at Hollow Hill before we totally close the book on this.”
My frown deepened.
“I was there yesterday,” I said, a strange curl of nerves suddenly awakening in my stomach. “I’ve been twice now. Took plenty of pictures. I don’t know what else we can look for. And believe me, at this point I want out of it. The FBI is investigating now. Kara’s case is in capable hands.”
Miles glanced sideways at me. “We came all this way, Lou. The least we can do is take one last look at the last place Kara was seen.”
The SUV hit a deep pothole, jarring me hard enough to lift from the seat.
“What road is this?” I asked, narrowing my eyes as tree branches clawed at the windows.
“I told you. We’re going to Hollow Hill.”
“Huh. I went a different way before. Didn’t realize there was another route.”
Miles didn’t respond—just gave a noncommittal shrug as he veered onto a narrower, overgrown path. Hollow Hill rose ahead, hulking and silent. We were approaching from the back. A side of the estate I hadn’t seen. A side the GPS didn’t know about.
He rolled to a stop and killed the engine.
“Ready for one last look?”
I couldn't explain the unease that settled in my gut like ice water, but I ignored it—like I always did.
I opened the door. The slam echoed loudly against the stillness.
I grabbed my camera, but I held it not as a tool, but a shield.
We climbed the crooked steps toward the back of the house. The porch sagged under our weight, warped boards groaning beneath every step. Empty beer cans, cigarette butts, and broken glass littered the deck. Graffiti scrawled across the back door in jagged red letters:
GET OUT
DEAD GIRL STILL SCREAMS
THEY’RE WATCHING
“Miles,” I whispered, but he was already at the door, his hand on the rusted handle.
Wind rattled something overhead. A loose gutter banged against the eaves. Somewhere nearby, a crow cawed—loud, insistent, like a warning.
Miles glanced over his shoulder at me. “You go right,” he said. “I’ll go left?”
I nodded, though every instinct in my body screamed turn around, get out, run.
The back door groaned open, long and slow, like a breath being drawn before a scream.
We stepped inside.
And everything felt colder.
I turned on my camera, the soft click and faint whir of the lens sounding deafening in the silence.
My boots echoed softly against the warped wooden floors as I took the same path Ryder and I had walked days earlier, retracing our steps through the hollowed-out bones of Hollow Hill.
Behind me, Miles’s footsteps faded, swallowed by the vast emptiness of the house.
Breath pluming in front of me, I lifted my camera and began snapping shots—the broken windowpanes, the dark corners, the beer cans and cigarette butts that hadn’t been touched in years.
I stepped lightly onto the narrow staircase and climbed, the steps groaning under my weight. The second floor loomed like a shadow, the hallway stretching in both directions like something out of a nightmare.
I turned right.
The door at the end of the hall, the master bedroom, was slightly ajar. This was the room where Ryder had found the pendant. The room where Kara might have died. The room where something—everything—had started.
I stepped inside.
Dust floated in the air like ash. The faded wallpaper peeled in long strips, curling like fingers. I snapped a photo of the fireplace, then another of the cracked mirror above it. I turned toward the window and moved closer, framing the empty yard below in my viewfinder.
Then—a presence.
Not a noise. Not a word. Just the sudden, absolute certainty that I was no longer alone.
I wrapped my fingers tighter around the camera, my pulse a roar in my ears. I started to turn, heart slamming into my ribs—
A hand clamped down over my mouth and nose.
I screamed—but the sound was trapped beneath flesh and bone. Fingers crushed my nose shut, cutting off air. A forearm locked around my throat, holding me in place. I thrashed, clawing at the arm, struggling to break free—but the grip was unrelenting.
I recognized the scent. The traces of cologne on the skin.
Miles.
“Don’t scream,” he hissed in my ear. “Don’t fight. It'll only make it worse for you.”
I squirmed harder.
“Geez, Lou,” he growled, yanking me back. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? I didn’t want to do this. Not to you.”
Then he shoved me.
I hit the floor hard. Shards of broken glass sank into my palms and knees, cutting through denim and skin like razors. I scrambled forward, frantic, but he was already on me. His hand tangled in my hair—crack!—his knee slammed into my face.
Pain detonated through my skull like a flashbang. The world exploded into stars. I fell to my side, dazed. Hot, wet blood gushed down my face, flooding my mouth, my throat. I gagged, bile rising. My limbs went rubbery. My body tried to shut down.
He wrenched my arms behind my back, sending me flat on my stomach.
My wrists were secured with a zip tie. I thrashed, screamed again, spewing blood, but he kicked me hard in the ribs.
My scream turned to a sickened gurgle as I vomited, unable to stop myself.
Duct tape silenced my next cry. My ankles were bound. I was hog-tied, helpless.
Then he flipped me over.
I stared up at him, the ceiling spinning wildly above his looming frame. Miles stood over me, chest rising and falling with animal-like intensity. His face—contorted, unrecognizable. His eyes weren’t even human. Something cold and rabid and thrilled.
“God, you just wouldn’t stop digging,” he muttered, as if disappointed in me. “I told you to let it go. But you—like her—you had to keep pushing. Had to get involved.”
Like her.
Another kick, this time aimed at my face, and everything went fuzzy again. My ears rang. My skin went cold. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
Then—through the swirling haze of blood and blackness—I saw it.
A thin black string.
Dangling from his hand.
Maci’s necklace—Ryder’s fiancé’s necklace. The one that vanished the day she was murdered. The one only the killer could have.
I blinked. Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes.
Miles was the String Strangler.
And I was his next victim.
It wasn’t until he unzipped my pants that I began to sob.