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Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take& .
Chapter Thirty-Six
Benne covered his tracks so well, Jack couldn t find Lynn. The man had used multiple aliases and false
addresses for his registrations.
The only thing Jack had found that might possibly be a lead was on Lynn s cell phone. One number
linked up to an address that had been recently rented. Still, it took until the wee hours of Sunday morning
to find the house.
Already dawn was starting to creep in, a line of orange on the horizon. Jack felt relatively safe on a
Sunday morning, he doubted anyone would be awake at this hour to see him.
As he snuck around the house, he noticed the normalness of it. Although it was a bland house, no
landscaping of any sort, nothing about it made it stick out from any other house on the road.
Well, except for the fact that an insane man owned the place.
One window in the kitchen was open, just a little bit, and it was enough so that Jack could slide it up and
shimmy inside. He carefully crawled over the shiny sink and perfectly clean countertops, landing with as
much stealth as he possibly could.
He clenched his gun, his heart pounding as he made his search through the house. Most of the upstairs
was typical, scarcely furnished, but somewhat livable. Every inch of the house was immaculate. Counters
shined, floors gleamed and carpets outlined every footprint.
The carpet tracks showed the most traffic between the kitchen and a couple of rooms in the back. Jack
stepped in the previous imprints, creeping along the hall.
But no Benne.
Where ever he was, he wasn t on the main floor.
In a back bedroom, Jack s grip tightened on his gun. The room was filled with monitors and keyboards.
A couple of the screens were focused on beds.
Several were on Lynn bound to a bed, dressed in only a hospital gown, and from what he could tell in
the black and white monitors, she looked ravaged. Deep within him, every fiber of rage, anger, disgust
and revulsion threatened to boil up. He made a fist, the only outward sign of his internal seething.
He forced himself to pause.
Seeing Lynn, his Lynn, bound like that, he wanted to barrel through the house, save her and kill the bad
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guy without thinking twice.
His chest grew and contracted from the deep breaths he forced into himself to stay calm. Barreling
downstairs and playing superhero wouldn t save Lynn.
Benne was probably waiting for him, somewhere here in the house.
Jack ground his teeth.
Caution. He had to be cautious.
Repressing the protective issues, he clamped down his emotions. Lynn was all that mattered.
Jack turned to leave the room when something made him stop and look at one of the other monitors.
He tipped his head to the side.
 Cathy? He saw his partner, spread out on a bed similar to Lynn s. His stomach dropped.
What? How?
He d just talked to her! She d been
It just dawned on him that he hadn t spoken to her. While he d been on his rampage to find Lynn, he d
never bothered to check in. He d left messages, but she d never gotten back to him.
Benne had the two women who meant everything to him.
He was going to kill Benne.
There would be no trial.
Benne heard the footfalls upstairs and his temper flared. He glanced down at Hush, still semi-conscious
from her latest steps in the purifying process. One more good cleansing and she would be ready, every
element of the previous degradation she d been forced to endure by that other man would be gone.
How her skin gleamed in the white room. He reached down, stroking her arm, the flesh pink and pure
like a newborn baby s skin. She d fallen asleep during the last process, and she slept soundly now, her
body glowing and shining in the light.
He grimaced as the footfalls started again through the house.
He couldn t have these interruptions.
Benne listened to the approaching footfalls and stepped underneath the open stairwell, waiting.
The intruder, a man, came down a couple more steps. Benne waited, a knife in his hand.
 Lynn, the intruder said, starting to hurry down the stairs. He carried a gun, shifting it from side to side
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as he came down each step. Even though his steps were cautious, urgency flowed through him.
Hush jerked on the table at her name, and her eyes flickered open. She tried to move her arm, but
couldn t from the restraints. They clattered against the headboard.
 Lynn, I m coming.
Benne struck. He reached through the open stairs, plunging a knife in the man s calf. The man stumbled,
falling down the remaining stairs, and Benne came out from behind them, kicking the gun out of the hand
of the man. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]