When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(110)

“This isn’t over yet,” D.D. gritted out. Pain radiated from every line of her body. Her arm, her head, her back, her bloody shoulder.

“You’re right, because when I’m done with her, I’m going to find you again. And your friend, as well.” He jerked his head to whomever stood behind her—Kimberly, Flora, someone who cared.

D.D. tried to open her mouth. She wanted to yell, “Shoot him,” even if it meant the damn bullet had to travel through her body first. Just shoot the beast and put him down like the mad dog he was.

Except then she was flying through the air. The brute had tossed her down the hall, where she slammed into her rescuer and both tumbled to the floor.

“Are you all right?” Kimberly asked breathlessly, trying to untangle from D.D.’s splayed form.

“Thank you for breaking my fall.”

“Jesus, D.D., you’re covered in blood.”

“Knife wound. Shoulder. Mostly bone.”

“What?”

“Shut up. He’s going after Bonita. She’s upstairs, I think. Move!”

“I’ve got him.”

“Not if I get there first.” D.D. heaved herself up, swayed once, then snatched her sidearm off the floor.

Oh yeah, she hurt. But she was pissed off even more. That demon son of a bitch . . .

Now, she really was going to kill him.





CHAPTER 47





FLORA





IN THE TUNNEL, FLORA REGISTERED the sound of gunshots. She paused, gritting her teeth through the sea of nausea. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Maybe that means Kimberly and the sheriff have already caught him.”

More shots. One two.

“Then what’s that sound, the monster getting away?”

Keith didn’t have an answer.

“We need a plan,” Flora said.

“You need a doctor.”

“Plenty of time to rest when I’m dead. What happens if we go right up here?”

“We roam around in the dark forever until years from now someone finds our skeletons?”

“That’s the spirit. Got your compass app?”

Heavy sigh. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“It’s okay. No one wants to live forever.”

“I love you, Flora Dane.”

“I love you too, geek boy. Let’s get going.”





CHAPTER 48





THE BAD MAN PAUSES INSIDE the doorway. I retreat slowly, putting as much of the prep table between us as I can. The space is now filling with steam as I’d hoped, the dishwasher chugging through its cycle, empty dish rack rolling through boiling hot spray before arriving at the end, then wrapping down and around to do it all over again.

He eyes the dishwasher, then me.

“Hoping to escape in a cloud of smoke?”

He smiles again. I can’t answer back and he knows it.

“Do you miss it? Being able to talk? Tell people things? Including what I did to your stupid mama so many years ago?”

I don’t move, just watch as he steps farther into the room. I’ve had years to study him, view him in action. I know he’s as powerful as he looks. I know he can take down fleeing girls in a single leap. I know he smiles so broadly when he uses that knife, there can be flecks of blood in his teeth.

“Your mother was a whore. She ever tell you that?”

Three steps into the room. At the edge of the prep table now. Soon, my back will be pressed against the giant range. I’m trying to think, through my own pounding heartbeat, if there’s some way I can use that.

“Maid service, my ass. She could never make enough money to support you cleaning sheets. Dancing between them, however . . . She did it for you. So her daughter could have something more than rice and beans for dinner.”

I decide the range is a bad idea. If he leaps now and pins me against it, he’ll use those gas burners on me.

I need to get to the dishwasher. But for me to slide left, he must move right. I’ll have to move closer to him before I can drop back.

No time like the present.

I lift the soaking mop head. It’s heavy and my arms shudder with the strain.

He laughs. “Gonna fend me off with a mop?”

I snap it in the air before him. Bleach sprays out. Maybe my mother lends a guiding hand, because some droplets nail him in the eyes. He yelps, jumping back, and I slide quickly into the steam of the dishwasher while I have the chance.

“You little shit! I’m not just going to kill you, I’m going to take my time with it. Cops are dead, you know. Neither put up a fight. Now your mom, she was interesting. Bitch had started intercepting girls on the way to my office, waving them off. Sometimes she even gave them money to board another bus, get out of there. She thought she could save them from her fate.

“I couldn’t let that continue, of course. The defiance. The disruption of my inventory. In my line of work, freshness of goods matters.”

He wipes at his eyes with his free hand. They appear red and swollen, but he doesn’t seem bothered. A man who has inflicted so much pain, maybe he likes it himself. Maybe, after all these years, he doesn’t feel it anymore.

The room starts to stir. He can’t sense it, but I can. His words, his voice, his presence—he’s making them angry. Reminding them of how easily he destroyed them.