Page 95 of Ash and Poison

This was.

A secret arrangement with other men, who catered to a single man or even many men.

Pulled together by their horrible secrets.

Doctor T to Hannigan to Rip… There were still too many people in the mix.

We jogged toward the hunting cabin, hidden deep in the shadow of towering trees. Its weathered wood was darkened by time, the boards uneven and splintered in places.

Even though it was so old, it still looked well-maintained.

“Long hair. Petite, porcelain skin. Kind eyes. Is that how Riley looks?”

“Did you see her photo or something?” Asher asked, eyes narrowed.

“No. I described Millie, Asher. It’s the pattern.”

Dear A,

Sometimes, he asks me to fly away.

“Fly, little bird,” he says. And he tells me to hang myself deep in the woods as he licks my throat.

He tells me to feed my delicious flesh to the carrion birds. He says they’re starving, and he says if I die in bed, if my flesh isn’t eaten, the nightmares will chase me to my grave.

That he’ll dig me out, and eat my bones. That he’ll never stop eating.

I only want to close my eyes, and sleep peacefully.

Is that too much to ask?

I want to sleep. I want to sleep.

Why won’t you let me sleep?

Please. Please.

Riley

23

THE PATTERN

DIYA

The pattern.

Something that defied logic.

Even the smartest of killers had a pattern. If there hadn’t been these hidden threads connecting their kills, most serial killers would have never been caught.

The randomness would have shielded them, faceless and forgotten. But patterns always had a way of surfacing, no matter how deeply they were buried.

“Hollow Heights has a serial killer—a serial rapist—and he’s been doing this for over fifteen years.”

He would have killed more, after Millie, before Riley. If not in Hollow Heights, somewhere else.

“More than fifteen years,” Asher said, horrified. “Jesus.”