For a brief description of what takes place in each of the previous chapters, visit this page.
For a list of the characters from the story you are now reading, visit this page.
For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.
And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…
by Rachael Yukey
A never ending suicide
Of nightmares you have inside
Savatage, 1987
Julie Hanson surveyed the scene unfolding before her, marveling at how things tended to escalate whenever Mallory happened to be in a group of females. We only drove to Wisconsin to buy a lute for Vicky. How the hell did it turn into a sex soiree with the seller?
Lacey O’Donnell, the seller in question, was shuddering, gasps of pleasure escaping her lips. Her heaving shoulders rested against the back of the couch, bare buttocks on the edge of the cushion, Mallory’s face buried between her thighs. All Julie could see of her partner’s head was a mass of blonde hair.
Mallory’s pants and underwear were strewn about, her knees pressed into the plush carpet. Vicky was cross-legged on the floor behind her, a hand working furiously between Mallory’s thighs. Jolts of ecstasy gripped Mal’s body, but not enough to distract from her business between Lacey’s legs. Vicky’s free hand was moving beneath the hem of her own skirt.
As for Julie, she’d just discovered that Lacey’s couch was a recliner model. She was tilted back at a forty-five-degree angle, legs splayed out on the footrest with Patty nestled between them. It was a strange experience for Julie who, at six feet one, seldom got to couple with a woman as tall as she was. Patty was only fifteen, but had almost an inch on her. Julie’s hand was inside of Patty’s plain cotton panties, fingers buried deep inside the girl’s juicy cunt, her palm grinding a needy clit.
Suddenly Lacey cried out, her fingers twining, then tightening in Mallory’s hair, hips bucking. Her cry mounted into a shriek, then she subsided, head resting against the back of the couch, wearing a smile that was positively beatific. Mallory lifted her head, a grin on her lips that quickly vanished as her body jerked in response to Vicky’s ministrations from behind. “Oh my God, Vic,” she groaned.
Quickly getting to her knees, Vicky wrapped an arm around Mallory’s waist, using that hand to engage the blonde’s engorged clit, then slipped two fingers of the other hand deep into the warm wetness of Mallory’s cunt.
Mallory rested her head in Lacey’s lap. “Oh!” she wailed. “Oh, fuck.”
“Lovely,” Lacey whispered, caressing Mallory’s cheek with one hand, the other smoothing the younger woman’s blonde locks. “So, so lovely.”
Still nestled into Julie’s lap, a rapturous Patty was whimpering, her body moving in a steady rhythm. Julie rode with her, finger-fucking the younger girl with gusto. She was half-crazed with arousal, her panties thoroughly saturated, but for the moment Julie was content to enjoy the hot action on the other couch while driving the gangly yet cute teen in her arms to the pinnacle of ecstasy.
With a long, drawn-out cry, Mallory threw her head back, blurting, “Oh, God… I’m gonna come!”
“M-me too!” Patty wailed. And come she did, her thin frame shaking like dice in a cup. Her pussy clenched tightly against Julie’s probing fingers, explosive, ecstatic gasps torn from her chest.
Mallory pressed her head into Lacey’s lap, then jerked it back up again, crying out repeatedly as her own climax came crashing down. A minute or so later she subsided, collapsing onto the older woman’s thighs. Lacey bent low, whispering something to Mallory that the others couldn’t quite catch.
After what seemed to be an impressively long climax, Patty finally relaxed. Julie slowed the motion of her fingers, letting off the firm pressure of palm against clit, but then Patty was shaking her head violently. “No, keep going!” she wailed.
Julie had to smile. Fine by me, she thought. Clamping her hand once more against the girl’s vulva, Julie got back to work, and mere seconds later Patty was screaming out loud as a second orgasm consumed her. That wild cry trailed off into a squeak, then she collapsed.
“Oh, goodness,” Lacey purred. “You’re multi-orgasmic, my dear. Delightful!”
“Sometimes she is,” said Vicky, her voice unsteady as she massaged her wrist.
Lifting her head from Lacey’s lap, Mallory twisted around to glance at her lover’s sister, noting the girl’s flushed cheeks. “Need to get off, Vicky?” she inquired, amusement in her voice.
“Oh, only more than anything in the entire world,” Vicky acknowledged with a chuckle.
“May I?” said Lacey, her head cocked to one side. “I’d very much like to taste you, if you’re up for it.”
“I’m so up for it!” Vicky enthused. Lacey indicated the opposite end of the couch with a dramatic sweep of the arm. Vicky stood, unfastened the clasp of her skirt and let it fall to the floor, then pushed her panties down and off before settling into the cushions. Getting to her feet, Lacey guided Vicky’s legs onto the couch, arranging her so the girl’s back rested against the overstuffed roll arm. That accomplished, Lacey returned to the sofa to kneel between Vicky’s legs. She got right to work, delicately licking and kissing the inner thighs, running her tongue along the edge of the girl’s sweet pussy lips.
“Oh, my gosh,” Vicky breathed, spreading her legs even wider. “You’re really good at this.”
Lacey lifted her head for a moment, favoring the teen with a sweet smile. “Thank you, darling. I like to think so.” With that, she covered Vicky’s slit with her mouth.
Julie’s arousal was off the charts. Her breathing was erratic and harsh, her body quivering. Patty twisted around to face her, a smile on her lips. “Sounds like you really need to come,” she said.
“You have no idea.” Julie’s voice shook.
With a boldness that would have been completely beyond her only weeks before, Patty pressed her open mouth to Julie’s. Their kiss was furious, wild, with little art but tremendous passion. Then Patty disengaged, sliding from Julie’s lap and twisting to face her. The girl’s trembling fingers loosened the woman’s jeans. Julie raised her hip from the seat, and Patty practically ripped the faded denim from her body, taking the panties along for the ride. Then she leaned close, her mouth next to Julie’s ear.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she murmured. “I’ve always looked up to you so much. You’re, like, everything I want to be. And now—now we’re actually having sex!” She gave a shaky laugh. “I f-feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”
Even in the midst of her almost unbearable need for release, Julie was touched. Cupping the girl’s face in both hands, she drew Patty into a tender, leisurely kiss.
When they parted, she rested their foreheads together. “I’m flattered,” she said, then broke into a wicked grin. “Now eat me!”
Patty grinned back, then nestled between Julie’s thighs. Julie felt a finger slip inside of her, then another, and let out a little moan. When the girl’s warm tongue brushed her clit, it raced to her head in a glorious surge of pleasure.
Julie was about to settle in for what promised to be a very enjoyable ride when a sharp cry from the other couch drew her attention. Lifting her head, she saw that matters there had escalated. Lacey’s mouth was fastened to Vicky’s clitoris, and her right arm moved back and forth as she finger-fucked the sweet teen. Julie took a moment to admire Lacey’s mature beauty, particularly her shapely ass. The sight heightened Julie’s already considerable ardor, and a particularly intense jolt of pleasure wracked her body, drawing a cry from her that was almost a shout.
Vicky let out a long, low moan that seemed to last an age. Her body went rigid, her fists clenched, then she slowly relaxed with a contented sigh. Lacey lifted her head, favoring the young girl with a tender smile. Vicky offered a weak grin in return before her eyes drifted shut.
Julie gasped, caught by surprise as another sudden wave of rapture swept through her, and the three lovers on the other couch all turned to look. Unable to do much more than pant for breath, Julie nodded at her partner, her sister, and the matronly musician, then cried out again as those divine feelings began to escalate. She closed her eyes, shutting herself off to everything but what was happening down below, firmly clasping Patty’s head between her thighs.
It was a long, luxurious, glorious plateau. Julie heard herself crying out repeatedly, the sounds seeming to come from far away as all of her senses focused in on the powerful sensations coming from her center. Then she was screaming, hips bucking, fingers tangled in Patty Spisak’s hair.
Then something happened that Julie had seen happen to her partner on occasions uncounted, but she herself had only experienced a time or two. The pleasure became so intense that she could scarcely bear it, every part of her sensory apparatus on overload. Then the world went gray. Julie Hanson had passed out.
***
“This was a mistake.”
Nettie huddles close to Anna under the blanket, doing her best to breathe quietly so they can hear the voices coming from the other side of the wall. Her sister’s cheeks are becoming gaunt; how long has it been since either of them has eaten?
The disembodied female voice carries on, its tone admonitory. “I mean seriously, what were we thinking? Northern Minnesota in January? It was a ridiculous idea.”
“It has its problems, sure.” Creepface speaks in calm, almost tranquil tones. “But it also—it heightens the suffering. Every second is agony for them, not just when I’m there. You can see that, can’t you?”
“You’re seriously fucked up. You know that, don’t you?”
“And yet here you are.”
A muffled snort. “You know what I’m in it for.”
“Which is—how did you put it? Seriously fucked up.”
“We have to end this soon.”
“We need the pickup truck back first,” Creepface replies, that same preternatural calm underlying every word. “It’d be stupid to move them in the rental.”
“Yeah.” The woman on the other side of the wall hesitates. “I’ll head out now and see if I can find out how much longer that’s going to take. Can you get back okay on the snowmobile?”
An impatient huff. “I got in, didn’t I?”
“Fine, fine.” The woman sounds thoroughly exasperated. “I’ll be back. Listen, as soon as we have our wheels back, we end this. Finish them off, get what we need for the shroud, and ditch them somewhere. Do you hear me, David?”
***
“David!?”
Nettie sat straight up, covers tumbling from her torso, shaking like a newborn lamb. Casting her eyes around wildly, she took in the dark, unfamiliar surroundings, fighting off a momentary surge of panic. Pull it together, dumb ass. It’s a hotel room, not a gulag.
Fumbling around on the bedside table, she managed to switch on the lamp. Blinking her eyes in the sudden glare, she took in her unexciting but reasonably comfortable room at the Comfort Inn and Suites in Cedar Rapids.
“Fuck,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. A glance at the digital clock next to the lamp told her it was just after one AM. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, pushed herself to her feet, and plodded into the bathroom.
As she let loose a seemingly endless stream of urine, she replayed the still-vivid dream in her mind. She glumly realized that one of two things were likely to be true: either she’d been delirious during the events that had taken place in the dream, or it really was just a dream, not a true memory at all. Of course, there was a third possibility, one that had been preying on her mind off and on ever since the flash of supposed memory she’d had outside that little convenience store up by Forbes.
Was it possible she and Anna’s tormentor hadn’t been Jacob Brentshaw after all? How did that make sense? He’d been tried, and offered no testimony or statement of any kind. He’d accepted his conviction and imprisonment without comment.
No—the simplest, most logical answer was that these snippets of memory that kept coming to her in dreams were at best badly distorted, at worst complete fabrications of a traumatized subconscious. Nettie used the toilet paper, then stood, pulling her panties snug.
Minutes later she was stretching back out on the bed, closing her eyes and trying to clear her mind. Trust yourself, Nettie. She shivered, amazed that she was already drifting off so quickly, Anna’s voice—or what she imagined to be Anna’s voice—already speaking to her in a dream. Her sister’s face seemed to loom before her. Your memories are everything, Nettie. You have to believe in them.
Nettie’s eyes flew open. Uh-uh. Any dream but that one, damn it.
Except it hadn’t exactly felt as if she was asleep, or even close to it. Nettie shivered again, more violently this time. Weird images and waking visions were nothing new to her, a lingering vestige of deep trauma that she supposed she’d have to endure for the rest of her life.
Turning onto her side, Nettie pulled both knees up, hugging them to her chest, wondering how long it would take to shake off the demons sufficiently to get back to sleep. She was already resigned to facing Melissa Brentshaw the next morning in a state of utter exhaustion.
But she was wrong. That dismal thought was the last thing she remembered before waking from a thankfully dreamless slumber at eight-thirty AM, sunlight streaming through the hotel blinds.
***
“So what do you want to know?” Melissa Brentshaw regarded Nettie over the rim of a frosted glass containing a house special rum and fruit juice beverage that listed on the menu for seventeen dollars.
Nettie’s mental picture of Jacob Brentshaw’s sibling had been dashed to smithereens when they made their introductions. Shortish, thinnish, her long, narrow face framed by a straight shock of blonde-accented hazel hair, Melissa did not present an imposing presence at first glance. Yet the moment your eyes met hers, one immediately recognized the same indefinable air of authority Nettie had sensed over the phone. When she speaks, I’ll bet the people she works with snap to.
Taking a sip of water, Nettie steeled herself. There was no notable family resemblance to Jacob, but just knowing she was seated across from her kidnapper’s sister made her skin crawl. I have to tread carefully here. Nettie sensed very strongly that if she allowed any discomfiture to show, this nondescript woman would walk all over her.
“How much do you know about the circumstances of your brother’s criminal conviction?” Nettie asked.
Melissa shrugged. “Only the bare essentials. He got picked up with two little girls he’d been holding for over a week in some trailer in northern Minnesota, and he’d been hurting them. One of them died. Then he got linked to a string of basically identical crimes all over the midwest. Pretty sure those victims were all dead, though.”
The short, matter-of-fact summation, delivered in an utterly level voice, gave Nettie a grade-A case of the screaming horrors, which she fought valiantly to suppress. Then it dawned on her that it didn’t quite add up. Her eyebrows lifted.
“These crimes were committed by your own brother, and that’s really all you know?”
A humorless smile touched Melissa’s lips. “It’s not something I especially wanted to know about. I avoided the news stories. Of course I got questioned, but the interviewers didn’t tell me much. I don’t think any of them really believed I had any information they could use. I didn’t go to any of the court dates, and the family—honestly didn’t talk about it much, at least not around me.”
“That seems odd. I’d have thought something like that would be the big topic of family conversation.”
Melissa shook her head. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have much in common with those people, and by that time I was already on a one-way trajectory out of hillbilly hell. I was avoiding my family as much as I could, so about the only time I saw my folks was at dinner. My mom had a rule at the table: only pleasant conversation. So if they ever talked about Jacob at all, I was in my room with the headphones on, studying my ass off so I could get a college scholarship and not end up like the rest of my loser family.”
Nettie absently chewed on the inside of her cheek. Something was still not tracking here. “But you knew exactly what I wanted to talk about when I called before. And you’d already connected the incident in Minnesota last month.”
“I’m not an idiot.” The voice had gone cold. “I see the same news everyone else does. Two girls, held captive in a remote location for an extended period of time—of course I saw the connection. My brother did that same shit, remember? Honestly, I was kind of expecting to hear from someone like you.”
Nettie nodded slowly, keeping her gaze focused on the woman across the table. “Fair enough. How well did you know Jacob?”
The waiter appeared at that moment with their order. Nettie nodded her thanks, dismissing him with a wave. She took an experimental bite of her chicken alfredo, then looked up at Melissa, who was forking a morsel of salmon into her mouth. Melissa chewed and swallowed, wearing a thoughtful expression.
“Like I told you on the phone, I barely knew him at all. By the time I was old enough to understand anything, he was living in this apartment in Le Claire. He didn’t come by the farm very often, and didn’t talk to me much when he did. I was at his place maybe three or four times, never for very long. He kinda kept to himself.”
“Did he interact much with the rest of your family?”
“I think maybe my older sisters dropped in on him sometimes. I especially remember Shannon talking about having seen him when she was up to Le Claire. But not any details, if there even were any.”
“Any friends or associates that you know of?”
Melissa’s mouth tightened. “Not a clue. Look—Antoinette, isn’t it? You’re not asking a single question I wasn’t asked after Jacob got arrested. And I know you must have the records of those interviews. So what’s the point to—to any of this?”
Nettie allowed herself a slight smile. “Just making sure the bases are covered. It’s not impossible that you might remember something that slipped your mind the first time around. Or that you’ve learned something since then, just from being around family members and other such.”
“I’m almost never around family members.” Melissa shoved a forkful of potatoes into her mouth.
Nettie took a bite of salad, mostly to buy herself a moment to think. “Let me ask you this, then,” she said, after she’d chewed and swallowed. “What was your reaction when you learned of Jacob’s arrest, and the reason for it?”
Melissa’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, then back to Nettie. “Surprised… but not.”
“I don’t follow.”
Melissa pursed her lips, appearing lost in thought. “Jacob was creepy,” she said at last. “In a low-key sort of way. One of those guys who sucks out all the oxygen just by walking into a room. It wasn’t anything he said or did—it was his whole demeanor. They say serial killers seem just like everyone else until they get caught, but at least where he was concerned, I call bullshit. I never felt comfortable around him. All the same—” She trailed off, then took another bite of salmon.
“All the same?”
“I wasn’t surprised he got arrested. Hell, most of my family has been in jail at one point or another, including him. But there’s a big gap between thinking someone’s a habitual criminal and thinking they’d go and do something like that. When it happens—it changes how you see things. Now when I meet a standoffish person, I’m always wondering what’s really going on in their head, and if they have a rotting corpse stuffed in a locker somewhere.”
“So there was never anything that would lead you to believe something like this was taking place?”
“Not even a little bit. If he’d been busted for flashing his knob at schoolgirls, or sex with livestock… well, that’s more like what I’d have expected from Jacob.”
Going on instinct, Nettie skipped over her next few questions in favor of one she’d been saving for last. “Do you have any idea what he wanted their hair for?”
Melissa’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me? Jacob wanted their… their hair?”
Momentarily stunned, Nettie rocked back in her chair. “You really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Wow—okay.” Nettie shook her head to clear it. “You really did keep it at a distance, didn’t you? Up until that last kidnapping, the one where he got caught, Jacob Brentshaw cut all the hair off the heads of his victims, then left the bodies somewhere they’d be found, with their hands crossed over their chests. Obvious clipper-cut, close-cropped right down to the scalp. Most likely post-mortem, because it’d be tough to do that neat a job if the victims were struggling. He—” Nettie broke off.
Melissa had gone white, the touch of blush on her cheeks standing out in sharp relief. Her jaw hung slack.
Nettie leaned forward, placing both hands on the table, “That means something to you, doesn’t it?”
Melissa seemed almost in a trance. “She—she cut the h-hair off of them. My dolls, I mean. She cut the hair off all my dolls.”
Nettie’s mind was reeling. Melissa had displayed a commanding presence and utter poise from the word go. Whatever this was, it was big. She forced herself to remain calm. “She who? And why?”
Melissa shivered; a whole-body experience that Nettie would never quite be able to describe. A trembling hand wrapped itself around an expensive drink, hoisted it to quivering lips. Melissa tossed back the last third in a single gulp. When she put it back down, she appeared to have recovered. She was still pale, but that weird quivering had ceased.
“Shannon,” she said, her voice firm once more. But for the first time, she wasn’t meeting Nettie’s eyes when she spoke. Her gaze was fixed on her plate. “My sister Shannon. She cut the hair off all my dolls. When the Cesaneus girls died.”
Nettie drew in a slow breath, carefully keeping her expression neutral. None of the prior investigations of the Brentshaw case had turned up so much as a hint of this. “Maybe you’d better back up. What are we talking about here?”
Melissa looked up and to her right. Following her gaze, Nettie saw the server approaching.
“Everything tasting all right over here?” the clean-cut young man wanted to know.
“Delicious, thank you,” Nettie replied automatically.
“It’s fine,” said Melissa in clipped tones, “but I could use another one of these.” She waved a hand at her empty glass.
“Be right back with that,” the kid replied with a smile, already turning to go.
Nettie took another bite of chicken, even though she didn’t really want it anymore. Anything to try and restore the facade of casual lunchtime conversation. She had a very strong sense that her interview subject was one small step away from bolting. She was opening her mouth to reiterate the question at hand, but Melissa beat her to it.
“Maddy and Barbara Cesaneus,” she said. “Twin girls. Shannon started spending a hell of a lot of time with their dad when she was about sixteen, which was kind of creepy because he was somewhere in his twenties, and married. Also because—”
The waiter arrived with Melissa’s drink. Thanking him with a nod, she took a substantial sip. “Anyway,” she went on after he’d departed, “Their mom died when the girls were about two. Boating accident, if I remember right. Shannon was still hanging around with their dad, probably sleeping with him. I know she was babysitting sometimes; she’d bring them over to our place.”
Nettie held up a hand. “So you knew them? The twins?”
“Sure—they were my age. Not that—” she took another sip of her drink. “They weren’t exactly the playmate type. Even at that age I knew they weren’t happy girls. They didn’t want to do much, and I don’t remember ever seeing either one of them smile. Looking back, I’m pretty sure they were being abused. Even when it was hot out, they always wore long pants and long-sleeved shirts. Lots of turtlenecks, too. I’d guess the adults in the family probably saw the signs, but I didn’t realize till I was a lot older.”
“How come they didn’t report it?”
Melissa snorted, then took another sip. “My family? Get out of here. Of course they didn’t report it. They don’t ever volunteer information to the police. Hell, they won’t even speak to a cop, unless one of them’s been arrested. Maybe not even then.”
Nettie was starting to see the shape of it, even if it wasn’t fully formed in her mind just yet. “So what happened to them?”
“Their house burned down when the girls were ten. Electrical fire, it was. They were trapped in an upstairs bedroom, and were both dead by the time the firefighters got to them.”
“And Shannon cut off your doll’s hair after that?”
Melissa gave a shaky nod, her expression distant. “Yeah. I don’t know how badly the girls were disfigured by the fire—don’t want to know—but the one thing I do remember is all the hair was burned off of both their heads. Now Shannon—it’s actually kind of weird. Whatever fucked-up thing was going on in that house, Shannon had to have known about it, and maybe even participated. It must not have bothered her too much, but she was devastated when they died. I mean, like, she went completely off her rocker.”
Melissa paused for another sip of her drink. Nettie held her silence, sensing that she’d get the most out of letting the story unfold in its own good time.
“Anyway,” Melissa went on, “the reason I know about the hair is that Shannon was completely obsessive over it. She—I don’t know. Fixated on it in this bizarre way. And then like the day before the funeral, I come home from school to find all of my dolls lying on my bed with their hair cut off. Turns out Shannon took it all, then went down to the funeral home and demanded access to the bodies so she could give them the hair. I don’t know what she thought she was going to do—super-glue it on? Ewwww. But anyway, they had to threaten to call the cops to get rid of her.”
Nettie’s mind swam. It was all starting to make a horrible, macabre sort of sense. She wasn’t all the way to the answer, but she knew she was getting there.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s back up for a second. You said Shannon’s relationship with their father was creepy because she was underage, and he was married. Then you started to say there was another reason, but didn’t say what it was.”
Melissa rolled her eyes. “Because my fucked-up family. The Cesaneus twins’ father is probably an illegitimate cousin of ours. My uncle and his mom always denied having an affair, but they apparently spent a hell of a lot of time alone—her husband divorced her over it—and David came out looking just like him.”
Nettie’s fork clattered to the floor. Her jaw dropped, and she had to grip the edge of the table to keep her hands from shaking. “David?” she got out through lips that felt as stiff as cured oak planks. “Did you just say David?”
***
Ellen Brentshaw carefully made her way up the main thoroughfare of downtown Cedar Rapids, thankful for the well-maintained sidewalk. Her knee and hip were playing up again, and it wouldn’t take much for her to end up lying on the concrete, flopping around like a goddamn fresh-landed fish. How long before she’d be forced to endure the indignity of a walker? It was coming like a freight train, and she knew it.
She was already regretting this excursion, a bi-weekly afternoon ritual she had once greatly enjoyed, but stubbornly pressed on. Her favorite downtown thrift shop was the next stop, and she’d be damned if she was giving up now.
Two women emerged from Bradford’s Cafe across the street, one of several restaurants that always gave Ellen a twinge of bitterness when she passed them by. There’d been a time she’d had sufficient funds in her purse to enjoy that caliber of cuisine, oh yes. That was before she’d been sent up, leaving her idiot husband Clayton to run their enterprises. Run them he had… straight into the fucking ground. These days, the occasional breakfast at Denny’s was a luxury.
Ellen’s eyes briefly flicked towards the two women, then back in her direction of travel—then she looked again, coming to a halt. The shorter of the pair was her youngest daughter, Melissa. She and the other woman stood out in front of the eatery, exchanging what appeared to be last-minute words before going in separate directions. The much taller, dark-haired woman was standing with her back to Ellen.
Ellen thought to call out a greeting, then wondered dismally what the point would be. Melissa had spent the past fifteen years studiously avoiding her and the entire rest of the family, and Ellen knew there was little chance of rapprochement this late in the game. The stuck-up, ungrateful little slut had made up her mind that she was better than the rest of them, and Ellen supposed she was going to go right on thinking it.
Heaving a bitter sigh, she turned to continue on her way, then glanced back as the two shook hands. When the tall, black-haired woman turned in her direction, Ellen froze in place. Where had she seen—? Her mind flashed back to the news story picture Shannon had shown her. Uh-oh.
The woman made as if to walk up the street, but then Melissa put a hand on her elbow. More words were exchanged. Ellen sidled to the left so her body was at least partially hidden by one of those silly little trees growing through a hole in the concrete, then rummaged in her purse, coming up with her phone. Doing her best to control the palsy in her hands, Ellen snapped off a shot of the two women. It took a couple of tries, but she managed one usable image.
Setting off in the opposite direction, she made for the nearest corner, hoping Melissa would be unable to recognize her before she was out of view.
Once she made it, Ellen leaned against a brick wall, panting for breath. With shaking fingers she addressed a text message to Shannon, attaching the picture and captioning it with four words. You’ve got a problem.
On to Chapter Twenty-Six!
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