Page 76 of Deathtoll

What better place to spill Emma’s blood than the very spot Mordocai’s blood had been spilled? Poetic justice.

Murph picked up his phone to call the captain with his latest theory.

He hesitated.

He’d been a soldier. He’d been trained in E&E, escape and evasion. He’d been trained how to sneak through the woods unseen. He drove a beat-up pickup, not something that would be immediately suspicious if seen. But if he drove up to Asael’s hiding place with the captain and a couple of police cruisers in tow…

Instead of Bing, he dialed Kate.

“Did you find her?” she asked as soon as she picked up.

“Not yet.”

He could hear her gulp of disappointment before she said, “I called her again. This time, it went straight to voicemail.”

“Her battery is probably dead. What’s going on at your place?”

“Joe just checked all the doors and windows again. House is locked up tight. Hunter had to leave, but Mike came to spell him. He’s outside, in the front. Chase is in the back. Are you still looking for Emma?”

“Going down my list of possible hiding places.”

“Thank you.”

“If I finish my list and don’t find her… I thought I’d spend the night at your place too. I could take the living room couch.”

“I already promised it to Joe.”

And there Murph was, suddenly jealous of Joe, which was stupid because Joe was head over heels in love with his wife, Wendy.

“Kate…”

“Thank you for looking for Emma.”

We need to talkhe wanted to say. But now was not the time. It never was the time lately.

Thank God frustration didn’t have calories. He would have been the Goodyear Blimp by this point.

* * *

Asael

Asael drove by Kate’s house. One stupid cop up front, one inside. Pitiful.

He drove to the corner, turned right, then right again onto the street that ran parallel to Kate’s. He pulled over between two houses so if the inhabitants of either one looked out, they’d assume he was visiting the neighbor. Forty yards in front of him, in line of sight with the back of her house, another cruiser sat by the curb.

Asael turned off the dome light, then slipped out of his car. He used various landscaping features as cover until he was in Betty’s backyard.

He let himself in. Because his stomach growled as he walked through the dark, half-empty house, he headed straight to the kitchen. Enough moonlight filtered in to make out that the muffins he’d seen on the counter the last time were gone. He opened a cabinet. Empty. He didn’t want to open the refrigerator. He could have unplugged it; that would have taken care of the fridge light, but dragging it away from the wall far enough so he could reach in there wasn’t worth the bother. Kate Bridges had probably cleaned that out too, just like she’d cleaned out the cabinets.

He strode back to the laundry room and stood to the side of the window, watched as the light came on in Kate’s bedroom next door.

“Optimistic,” he said, “to think you’re going to sleep tonight.”

When she stepped into her bathroom, he scowled. The bathroom window was up high. He couldn’t see in there. But he didn’t have to wait long for her return.

She was back in five minutes, wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt instead of a nightgown. Maybe because she had that cop in her house. Or maybe because she expected a call at any second that her sister had been found, anticipated having to jump into her car to rush to Emma’s side.

There was that optimism again. She thought she was going to get her sister back. Asael laughed under his breath.