Page 104 of Winter

The storm was bad. By the time he got into town, it was hard to see out of the windshield.

Raffaelo knocked on Knox Westerwick’s front door and waited. Strange. No answer. He knocked again. “Knox? Inca?” Nothing.

His heart began to pound. He went to the window and looked in; there was nobody there, but something caught his eye. A smashed bottle … and blood. Not much, but drops of it on the floor. Raffaelo cussed and went back to the door, kicking it in easily. He dashed into the living room and stopped, terror screeching into his veins. There was more blood on the floor. Raffaelo grabbed it and turned—and his heart stopped.

In blood … Inca’s? … scrawled across the wall were written six words:

You’ll never seeher alive again.

Everything fell into place. Knox. Knox Westerwick, the easy-going cop, the flirt. Everybody’s buddy. As Raffaelo raced out of the house and into the snow, towards Olly’s house, he could only think one thing.

How did we not see it?

Olly tookone look at Raffaelo’s face and knew. “Jesus, no …”

“It’s Westerwick,” Raffaelo spat. “He’s taken her. There are signs of a struggle at the house, and blood … and a message.”

Olly held up his hands. “Now, wait. We don’t know that it’s him. Someone might have taken them both.”

Raffaelo fumed, his terror making him antsy, but Olly was right. Olly picked up his cell and tried to call Knox.

His deputy answered in a happy, sing-song voice. “Hey, boss. God, this storm is really closing in.”

Olly frowned and, looking at Raffaelo, switched the phone to speaker. “Hey, Knox. Where are you?”

“We thought you were with Inca.”

“I am.”

“You went out in the storm?”

Knox laughed and both of the men listening heard the slightly hysterical tone. “Well, I wanted to make an event of it, you know? I could have just killed her at my place, but what fun would that have been? This way, in this storm, I get to take my time, and there’s really nothing you can do about it.”

Raffaelo moaned, and Olly looked appalled. “Knox … what are you talking about?” He needed to hear him say it.

“I’m going to kill Inca, of course.”

Olly felt the breath being pushed out of his lungs. “You? Knox? All this time.”

Knox laughed. “God, you were all so blind. Yes, me, Olly. Yes, I killed those women.Yes, I’m going to kill Inca, and believe me, she will suffer the torments of the damned before she dies.”

“Why?” Raffaelo was now on his knees. “Please, Knox … please, don’t hurt her.”

There was a silence on the phone then, in a mocking voice, Knox said, “I’m sorry you won’t be able to say goodbye before I stab her to death, Winter, but you should never have loved her. She ismine.”

The line went dead and Raffaelo howled. Olly grabbed him, trying to calm him down. “Raff. Raff, come on. We have to think straight, think about where to find her.”

“What’s going on?” Behind them, Tommaso, his face pale, was standing in the doorway. Raffaelo stared at his brother, his eyes bottomless pits of sorrow.

“It’s Inca,” he said, his voice breaking. “She’s been taken.”

Inca woke, dazed, in the trunk of a moving car. Her hands were bound behind her back and, although she tried, she could feel they were bound with plastic ties. What the fuck was going on? Knox? He was the killer? She tried to clear her fuzzy head, her mind whirling.

Knox was the killer. He had killed her mother, her father, and now he was going to kill her. It didn’t make sense … why?

The car stopped. Oh God. The trunk opened and she was hit with a blast of freezing snow. Knox easily pulled her out of the trunk. Inca screamed, but the sound was lost in the blizzard. Knox carried her over to another car, then she saw the other car … and Belinda Clements waiting.

“Hey, bitch,” Belinda said as Knox dumped Inca into the new car’s backseat.