“When I realized she was dead, I wasn’t sorry, but naturally I feared being caught. I made it look like a mugging. Her wallet and jewelry are in a keepsake box under my bed at home. To this day, that homicide is in the cold case file.”

“No one ever suspected you?”

“No one. I was so insignificant, you see. Still am in most minds.”

“Marilee never suspected?”

He made a scornful sound. “My sister has been too busy guarding her own dirty secret to pay much attention to me. I wish I had killed her when we were children. I thought about it once or twice, but never got around to it.”

He tested the strength of the ribbon again. “I wonder where Tierney happened upon this.”

He was still kneeling in front of her, and even though he hadn’t yet laid a hand on her, she was quaking with fear. How much longer could she keep him talking? Where was the helicopter? Where was Tierney? She refused to believe he was dead.

“You were telling me how you chose your victims. I understand why you killed the girl who laughed at you. But you didn’t know Torrie Lambert, did you?”

“Not until that day. She’d ventured away from the group and was quite a distance off the trail. I spotted her walking along the western road, near our old homestead, where I happened to be working that day. I engaged her in conversation, listened to her tale of woe, dispensed advice, and then when I tried to comfort her—”

“Comfort her?”

“Touch her. She wouldn’t let me.”

“Did you rape her?”

His eyes flashed angrily. “I can get it up. Have no doubt about that. If we had more time, I could prove it to you, Ms. Martin.”

His reaction made Lilly believe the opposite of his claim, but she wasn’t foolish enough to contradict him.

“To her everlasting regret, Torrie Lambert called me a weird little creep.”

He was breathing heavily, with agitation. Or possibly excitement, which was even more terrifying. Quietly, she said, “Her hair ribbon became your trademark.”

“For lack of a better word, yes.”

“You took it into Tennessee to throw off the trackers. Correct?”

He frowned with chagrin. “I didn’t realize I’d crossed the state line. It all looks the same. But, yes, I transported it out of the immediate area to throw off the trackers.”

“Tell me about the other four. Were they also random?”

“No, they were definitely planned.”

“How did you choose them?”

“You have it reversed. They chose me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Carolyn Maddox’s young son is diabetic. She couldn’t afford his insulin, and she couldn’t get health insurance. She came to me practically begging for help.”

“You gave her the medications her son needed.”

“Along with comfort and encouragement. But nothing I said or did was ever enough to make her like me. Not that way,” he said, his implication plain. “She had time to stop by the store to pick up her kid’s medicine for free but never enough time to see me alone.

“She made time for one of the guests at the motel where she cleaned, though. Oh, yes, she had time for him. I saw them together in his car, right there in the parking lot, pawing each other. It was disgusting. She didn’t make it home that night.”

Her car with the ribbon in it had been found at the side of the road, halfway between her apartment and the motel. Lilly remembered that the motel guest had been questioned, then dropped as a suspect.

“The nurse?”

Tags: Sandra Brown Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net