Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
PART TWO The Other Pretty Girls
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
PART THREE Jenna
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-one
Chapter Seventy-two
Epilogue
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Prologue
Miller’s Marsh Pond, outside of Cherrystone, Washington
Hauling a dead body around isn’t easy. How could it be? There’s always the possibility that something can go wrong. An earnest young cop could flash his heart-racing blue lights, signal the figure behind the wheel to pull over, and step up to the driver’s side window. He sees a hand dangling from the neatly bound package. In such a situation, a handgun on the passenger seat can be the perfect solution.
And then, one body might become two.
A couple of teenagers without a place to go or even the money for a motel might choose the wrong spot to have sex. They select a place for its very seclusion, the same reasoning a body dumper would employ when choosing his locale. They see the man with a corpse but it’s too late to leave. Pulled from their steamed-up car, they scramble, crying and begging for their lives, to a gulley.
Pop. Pop. Skulls are pierced by the bullets from a practiced shot. Sweet.
And then, one body might become three.
The risk is always there, but at least one man knew, just then, that it also had its benefits. It brought a rush. Such jeopardy produced a kind of euphoria that was as real as the high he felt when the life oozed from the woman’s body. It was almost the same kind of charge that came when the light in the victim’s terror-filled eyes went flat and dead like the buttons on an old overcoat.
He looked to the west toward the pond, sheathed in ice. It looked like sheet metal in the light of a cloud-shrouded sky. The wind nipped at his face. If he’d remembered how hard it was to lug a dead body, he’d have moved his vehicle closer to the water’s edge. Dead weight had new meaning, for sure.
A car sped by on the highway. Even though it was a half mile away, he crouched slightly and watched as its beams gashed through wisps of fog. Ghost fog, he imagined, as he caught a glimpse of the swirling motion of heavy, cold air.
He’d packed up the woman’s body in a blue down-filled sleeping bag. A nice one. The killing had been done in haste, which of course was never a good idea. That didn’t bother him just then. He had more pragmatic concerns and they made him wince. He hated that he’d wasted a perfectly good sleeping bag when a ratty old blanket would have been just as serviceable. It had gotten to that point. The whole thing—the murder, the body dump, the return to where it had all played out. All to make sure that nothing, no clues—hair, blood, fibers—could tie him to what he’d done.
It was all about convenience.
It was as if he was that Starbucks barista he’d seen absent-mindedly pushing the buttons to make a latte for some woman who babbled incessantly about her busy life (“I’m not just a mom, I’m a lawyer, too”) and how she needed “a boost” to make it through the day. He no longer had any doubts about what he’d done or why he’d done it.
“I’m addicted, you know,” said the woman who reeked of coffee and baby wipes.
He smiled faintly, the cold air biting his handsome face. Pushing buttons. Killing a woman. So easy. He was addicted, too.
He shook off the memory.
He widened his stance and braced himself; his feet slipped a little on the icy mud as he lifted her body from the back of his truck. As he heaved and flung her over his shoulder, he let out a soft groan. She’d seemed so much lighter in life. Wispy hair. Tiny hands with pretty pink nails with carefully applied white tips. Her ankles were so thin that he was sure they could wear the rings from a shower curtain.
A shower curtain would have been cheaper, he thought.
He moved toward the frozen water’s edge. A fortress of weather-ravaged cattails guarded the flat plain of ice, with the exception of the point of entry that he’d selected for what he had to do.
She’d left him no choice. It was that simple.
He flopped the heavy bag onto the hard ground and spoke. He was quiet, but his words cut through the chill of the night.
“Jeesh, bitch, couldn’t you have worked out some? Skipped the mochas? Called Jenny Craig?”
Considering her condition, she wasn’t even that fat. She was just dead. She was doing nothing to help him and that made him angry. He tried to roll her; however, the leather cord from the bag snagged a log.
“Damn it! You make nothing easy, do you?”
He pulled the hunting knife from his hip and slammed its blade into the cord.
Snap.
Realizing he needed his insurance that she’d sink in the mud, he returned once more to the truck bed and procured a pair of heavy chains. A beat later, he was at her body, spinning the chains around her like a spider in a frigid night.
“Down you’ll go,” he said softly, a puff of vapor came with his breath. “Down, bitch, you’ll go.”
He steadied himself and pushed once more and the body rolled onto the ice.