Page 104

Attachment: 1

Dear Maggie,

I pray to God that you are safe and that you get this e-mail fast.

Someone just tried to kill Chantal as she walked up to the home!

I saw them — two teen boys on a motorcycle. The one on the back had a pistol. I heard the shots, looked out, and saw Chantal fall face-first to the ground.

She is alive! Somehow all those bullets missed. But the next girl may not be that lucky.

PLEASE READ THE ATTACHED NOTE NOW!

If whoever it is carries out this threat to kill another girl, THERE ARE ONLY 45 MINUTES LEFT in the next hour!

The police are here. So they say the next one won’t be here.

We have text-messaged all our residents who are not on the premises that there is an emergency and to call in. Six have yet to do so. We are following up with calls.

Maggie, I don’t know if you’ll get this — I have been calling and e-mailing since Krystal was killed in your home — but I don’t know how else to try to reach you.

I will do anything you want me to. I just don’t know what else to do.

In the Service of the Lord and His Children,

Charlotte

Maggie clicked on the attached file. It was a photograph of a handwritten note in a pizza box. The lined page that had been torn from a spiral notebook—not unlike the ledgers she had—was on top of a half-eaten pizza.

And then she gasped.

While the paper had soaked up grease from the pizza, causing the ink to run and blur a few words, the message was clear:

The blood of this girl is on your hands

Just like those two women and Krystal

One of your girls dies EVERY HOUR until I hear from you

And I get back what Krystal took

Call me now! 215-555-3452

This is not the same person as the man I’ve been texting. We have already basically reached an agreement.

So, it’s Ricky, then? It’s not the same handwriting that’s in the ledgers.

But who else but Ricky would know about the connection between Mary’s House and Krystal and “what Krystal took”?

And he killed her. After raping and badly beating her.

She saw the clock in the top right corner of her screen. It had just ticked off another minute. It showed: MON 5:09 PM.

She glanced back at Charlotte’s e-mail. The time stamp showed it had been sent a minute after five. And Charlotte had said in it that only forty-five minutes were left.

Oh my God!

So he could kill another girl after five forty-five.