And waits.Chapter NineteenCash“Who is he?” I demand, my heart hammering in my ears.
“Horace.”
The girls all stare at each other. “What?” Daphne asks at last.
“It’s Horace,” Brielle repeats and stands to walk back to the bedroom. “And he’s a fucking psychopath. Call Asher.”
“On it.” I dial the other man’s number and as soon as he answers, I start talking. “She knows who he is. First name is Horace. What’s his last name?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” Daphne says with a frown. “He was always just Horace.”
“We know where he lives,” Millie says. “Right by Mama.”
“Jesus. Did you hear that?”
“I heard it,” Asher says, “but I don’t know what it means.”
“I’ll send you the address of their mother’s house. If Horace is nearby, he can’t be far. We’re headed there now.”
“We’re leaving, too. Give me that address. And, Cash, follow protocol. We don’t want anything to mess up this bust.”
I text him the address while we hurry down to the car. I’m driving, with Brielle in the passenger seat. “Now, who the hell is Horace?”
“He was a man who lived near us growing up,” Brielle says. She pulls on her bottom lip, watching the city speed by. “Our parents hired him here and there to help around the house. He did yard work, painted the house, did some plumbing, electrical. Really, he was the family handyman.”
“Creepiest handyman ever,” Millie mutters from the back seat. She grabbed their grandmother’s book on the way out of the apartment and is now reading it in her lap. “I never liked that guy.”
“None of us did,” Daphne agrees.
“Why? What made him so creepy?”
“He was just always there,” Brielle says. “If we were outside playing, he was nearby, trimming hedges or pruning flowers. If we were inside watching TV, he was just beyond the window, looking in.”
“Did he ever approach you? Touch you?” My stomach turns at the thought of some sick fuck putting his hands on these women when they were girls.
“No, he never touched us,” Daphne says. “In fact, he avoided touching us. I remember one time, he was sitting at the table in the kitchen having coffee with Mama, and I walked past him and innocently brushed his arm. He recoiled as if I’d burned him.”
“He and Mama had an affair for years,” Brielle adds. “She played with him. I was a kid, and still I knew it. She used to laugh when he left the house.”
“They weren’t quiet,” Millie says. I glance at her in the rearview and watch her wince. “And she humiliated him. Even back then, I knew it. Why in the world would he come back for more of that nonsense?”
“Could be a pattern for him,” I reply, thinking it over. “If his mother humiliated him, and then your mother did the same, he might think that that’s how women behave. That it’s normal.”
“Well, that’s just fucked-up,” Daphne says.
“I mean, he’s a serial killer,” Brielle reminds them. “So, pretty much everything he does is fucked-up.”
Lights flash behind me just as my phone rings.
“Asher,” I say into the phone.
“We’re behind you. I have four more cars behind me.”
“Excellent,” I reply. “Just follow me. The road in there is rough, so it’ll be slow going once we’re off the main road. I’d say we’re about twenty minutes away.”
“Copy that. Once we get to the house, you do not go inside.”
“I know the procedure,” I reply and hang up. “I’m with the FBI for fuck’s sake.”
Brielle reaches over and takes my hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. I glance her way and smile.
This is almost over.
I’m so fucking relieved. I want to be with her in a normal setting when I’m not constantly worried about her well-being. I just want to be with her.
“We’re almost there,” Daphne says, pointing to the lane that turns off the main road. “Turn there. After we go over that part that was washed out, turn right. His house is about a half a mile from the turn.”
“Got it.”
We have to slow down more than I’d like, but there’s no choice with the lane in the condition it’s in.
Just when I round a bend, Brielle holds up a hand.
“Stop the car.”
“What?”
“Stop the goddamn car.”
I slam on the brakes and turn to stare at her. “What? What is it?”
“Do you see him?”
She’s staring straight ahead. I follow her gaze and about come out of my skin.
Standing maybe ten feet in front of the car is a shadow.
A man.
“I fucking see him,” I mutter in surprise.
“He’s dead,” Brielle says.
“Do you see a shadow or a man?” Millie asks. “Because I see a shadow.”
“Me, too,” Daphne says.
“That makes three of us,” I add.
“I see a man. I see Horace,” Brielle says. “Drive through him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah. Fuck him.”
I nod once, put the car in drive, and step on it, plowing right through the shadow. It dissipates around us, and I gingerly drive over the washed-out area, then turn onto Horace’s driveway.