Page 98 of The Graveyard Girls

“But it’s not right,” Kat said in a tortured whisper.

“You want the police to come down on us like they did your family fifteen years ago?” Woody hissed.

Kat’s heart pounded. In her mother’s journal, she’d sounded so traumatized by everything that happened. All the gossip about the Graveyard Girls. Them being white trash. Her father a murderer.

Mama had wanted to be free of it.

As many issues as she had with her mama, could she start that shitshow all over again? And ruin her own reputation at school?

She wanted desperately to escape Brambletown and her family’s reputation.

Tears blurred her vision, then she glanced around and realized her best friend was gone. “Oh, God, where’s Carrie Ann?”

“She seemed pretty freaked. She probably left the minute we hiked into the woods,” Woody said.

Kat nodded. He was right. Carrie Ann had her car and was probably safe at home right now.

ONE HUNDRED FOUR

Gus’s Goat Farm

He savored the sound of Carrie Ann’s muffled screams from the back of the truck where he’d secured and gagged her. Just as he’d thought he could finish her off on that winding deserted road, a fucking car had driven by.

Seeing a truck like his might have alerted the driver that he was out of place, so he hauled ass the other way and decided to prolong his pleasure and her pain/fear by carrying her to the farm. With some of his victims, he’d made it swift and fast and unemotional, but he might play some games with her.

The thought excited him to no end.

After all, his life had become dull and routine. Meaningless except to kill.

A banging noise echoed from the back, feet on metal, and he realized she was kicking the sides of the truck. She was a feisty one, all right.

Just like Ruth had been.

And the first one… well that sick bitch had never seen it coming. Had thought she was in control.

He’d shown her different. She got what she deserved. And he was damn proud of that.

The truck bounced over the ruts in the road, and he rounded the corner and noticed the pick-up was gone. Shit, they’d found it.

Not to worry though. He’d wiped his prints free and planted the ones that needed to be there.

Pride made his chest puff up. No one in Brambletown knew how smart he was. Maybe one day they would.

He barreled on, but when he approached the turn-off for the farm, he spotted lights flickering across the field. And another light at the barn.

Shit, shit, shit. The damn police had found his place.

Panic made his pulse hammer, and he punched the gas and sped by. A mile down the road and he forced himself to slow in case another cop was watching the area. He couldn’t get pulled over on some routine surveillance.

No, no, no, not him.

He breathed in and out to calm himself, then clawed at his skin the way he used to claw at the walls of the closet he’d been locked in as a child.

A smile calmed his panic as he envisioned wrapping the red scarf around her neck. He already had her grave dug.

By now, hopefully her friends were gone and he could put her in the ground.

Then he’d watch the town and the cops get in an uproar in the morning when they realized he’d struck again.