Page 122 of Temptation
“I didn’t help Bridget. I put the dirt over her.”
No.
“I did pull the sheriff out of that body drawer, but that was just because other deputies were coming. They’d already planned to search in the lab area. I knew I had to get her out. Had to look like I was helping. If Adam hadn’t been busy, we would have transported her. Buried her.”
“I didn’t tell you to knock out the sheriff and put her a freaking drawer!” A snarl from Adam. “You should never do shit like that without talking to me! I give the orders. I make the plans. Me, not you.”
Right. That tracked. Serial killing teams were exceedingly rare—thankfully. But when you did have a team, one tended to be the dominant. One more submissive. A rule follower.
Now she knew which one followed rules. “How did you two meet?”
Silence.
“People who love books can meet in bookstores.” Sloane kept her fingers lodged in the mud. “People who love painting can meet at an art studio. People who, ah, share an interest in?—”
“We met in a chat room. He happened to like my pictures.” Adam smirked at her. The sun was up but covered by thick clouds. “I usually take pictures when my victims are still out cold. When they’re spread in the coffins, alive but in a pose for the dead. I snap my pics then. And Eugene here—he liked them.”
A shiver slid over her.
“Didn’t get to do that with you and Preston. Mostly because you weren’t supposed to be there that day.”
She hadn’t been out cold when he’d put her in the coffin.
Adam leaned in toward her. A shovel waited behind him, propped up against a tree. A shovel that had been used to dig her grave. “The dark web is full of people like me and people like him. People who have urges that they don’t understand. I helped Eugene to understand himself a bit better.”
You helped turn him into a monster.
“Want to know a secret?” Adam asked.
She wanted to keep him talking. She wanted to stay out of the grave. “Sure.”
“I’ve known for years where my brother lived. Years. Well, he has lots of houses, doesn’t he? Seven, at last count. But I’ve known this place was special. It’s been his home ever since he killed our father. So when Eugene and I connected a year ago, I convinced him to move here. To help me keep a closer eye on Preston. To help me…because I knew the perfect time to attack would come.”
Her gaze slid over Adam’s EMT uniform. “You got a job helping people because no one suspects the heroes, do they? They turn to you. They go to you willingly.” Just as she had in the hospital.
“Nope, they don’t suspect me. Not when I’m in the uniform.” Laughter. “Told Eugene to do the same thing. Told him to become a deputy. He’d have access to info about everyone in this town that way. It would open all kinds of doors for us.”
Eugene was young, impressionable, and far too eager for violence. He would have been the perfect tool for someone like Adam.
“I know about your research. Trying to see what turns us into monsters, aren’t you?” Adam smirked at her. “Trying to see why I’m just like my dad?”
She didn’t lower her eyes. “I know why.”
“Why?” Spittle flew from his mouth.
“When your father went to take Preston, you said he locked you in the closet. You didn’t like that. It was too much like a grave, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t respond.
So she pushed, “I bet he kept you in that closet pretty often, didn’t he? He kept you trapped.”
“No.”
“Do you remember how you felt the first time that you watched him kill someone? You told me that you were, what, seven?”
Again, no response.
So she pushed, “Did it make you sick? Were you terrified? Did you want to help but you were too afraid of what your father would do to you if you tried to save the person in that coffin?”
