A Killer's Mind (Zoe Bentley Mystery #1)(25)

The police just said they had made progress. When asked if they thought Jackie Teller had been killed by the same person, the cops said they were still investigating all possibilities.

Jackie Teller had been found dead in Durant Pond. She had gone walking with her dog in the evening, and when she hadn’t returned an hour later, her mother had gone out to look for her and afterward called the police. The dog had come home a few hours later, its leash still attached. Jackie had been found by a search party that same night. She had been naked, her body lying in the shallow water of the pond, her hands tied behind her back. Zoe knew all this because Roy, Heather’s nineteen-year-old brother, had been part of the search party. He had come back home, shaken to the core, and blurted the entire story before their parents could whisk Heather out of earshot.

Two young women found naked, dead. Everyone was terrified. It was a small town’s worst nightmare. Zoe’s dad had driven to the supermarket the evening before, and he said the streets had been completely empty. Maynard had become a ghost town at night, its residents hiding in their homes.

Thoughts of the killer still roaming free in the streets chilled Zoe’s heart, but it fascinated her too. She had always loved reading thrillers and mysteries, and this was a thriller that had come to life just next door. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, trying to piece it all together from the meager facts she knew and the rumors she’d heard.

She took out the scrapbook from under the bed and opened it to the next free page. Then she carefully cut the article from the paper. She leaned her back against the door, prepared to shove the paper and scrapbook under the bed if her parents suddenly barged in. She taped the article into the scrapbook and read it again.

Progress. What could that mean? Were they about to arrest the killer? The man who grabbed women at night, stripping them and killing them? The monster?

That was the papers’ favorite word when mentioning the killer. A monster on the loose. A monster preying on helpless women. A monster hiding in Maynard.

But Zoe realized the horrifying truth. This wasn’t a monster. This wasn’t some sort of alien or a scaly creature rising from the sewers. Much worse. It was a man. A guy walking Maynard’s streets, probably living there. Maybe he had even gone to Zoe’s school when he was younger. Maybe she’d seen him yesterday on her way to school. Maybe her dad had met him in the supermarket. He might have been at Jackie Teller’s funeral, by her mother’s side, the killing of the girl still fresh in his mind.

Every stranger she met on the street brought the same question. Could it be him? She found herself staring at people intently, trying to see the flicker of guilt in their eyes. Two days before, she’d noticed the school janitor had a scratch on his throat—a scratch he could have gotten from a young woman, desperately fighting for her life. Trembling, she had gone to the bathroom and stayed there for almost ten minutes, trying to calm down.

She flipped through her scrapbook, pausing here and there, and then turned to the end, where she had taped a small map of Maynard. She had marked two locations on the map: Durant Pond and the White Pond Road Bridge.

Would there be a third?

For some reason, the streetlights weren’t working. Zoe paced quickly down the street, regretting her decision not to call her dad to pick her up from Heather’s. The night’s darkness surrounded her, chilling, suffocating. The wind blew through the trees, leaves rustling around her the only sound except for the fast tapping of her footsteps. She hugged herself, shivering. It was cold, and the icy air crawled into her collar, the ground freezing her soles. She couldn’t wait to get home.

One of her shoelaces was loose, but she didn’t want to stop in the dark street and tie it again. She hastened her pace a bit more. It wasn’t far now. Why weren’t the lights working? She shivered, the black shadow of a tree blocking what little moonlight there was.

She could hear something behind her. Footsteps. Another pair of feet, walking briskly down the street. Getting closer. The hard, labored breathing of a man intermingled with the sound of rapid pacing. She was almost home. If she screamed, people would come to help. It was probably nothing, just a man out for a brisk stroll.

He was getting closer, and she found herself hurrying, then running, panicking, sucking in large gulps of icy-cold air that chilled her lungs. Someone whimpered in fright. It was her. Behind her, the man was running as well. He didn’t shout at her to stop, didn’t call her name—he simply ran, his breathing heavier than before, almost like a growl, a snarl.

How many footsteps to her home? Thirty? Fifty? Tears of fear ran down her cheeks, and she glanced backward, saw his shadow—wide, tall, dark—his eyes predatory, narrowing, gleaming in the blackness of the night.

There was nothing to do but scream. “Help! Someone!” Her voice sounded strained, broken, not as loud as she’d wanted. No doors opened, no windows. No one came out of their houses to help her, and the man who chased her was upon her, grabbing her by the shirt. The collar choked her as she struggled onward, and he pulled her back, dragging her to a clump of bushes, throwing her to the ground, out of sight, helpless. A knife in his hand, he tore at her clothes, his eyes full of wildness and lust and hate . . .

Her hand jolted, trying to stop her attacker, and she woke up, a scream lodged in her throat. She lay in the darkness, breathing hard, her heart pounding, feeling constricted in her chest. Slowly, recognition seeped in. She was in her bedroom, just one door away from her parents’ room. The night was cold, and she had thrown the blanket off at some point. She picked it up from the floor, trembling, not sure whether from the chill or the nightmare. She fumbled at her light switch and turned it on, squinting in the sudden glare.