Page 67 of Temptation
So was he. I will kill this bastard. I will find him. I will make him pay.
“She could have disappeared right after her shift ended this morning,” Sloane added. “That’s been so many hours. That was the last time anyone saw her.”
Too many hours. Because even without the thick clouds that were above them now, the sky would have been darkening. It was nearing normal sunset.
“So, I, um, when I first started researching you and the Last Breath Killer—I was curious about what made you different.” She eased a bit closer to him.
“I’m not different.”
“Yes, you are. Different doesn’t have to be bad.”
I am bad.
Her hands twisted in her lap. “I tried to figure out how long your oxygen would have lasted. If you hadn’t gotten out, that is. I talked to different experts, and I learned that the amount of air really depends on the size of the coffin. Let’s say you were in an average-size coffin. You have to look at the internal volume of the coffin and the volume of a human being.”
She’d lost him. Her words were coming fast. Tumbling together.
“Looking at the volume helps you figure out how much air is inside.”
“Air is important,” he gritted. Life changing. Life ending, too.
“If you’re trapped, and you’re burning through around half a liter of oxygen every single minute, then you could potentially have five hours of breathable air in the right scenario.”
The woman was calculating oxygen amounts? “Nothing about the scenario is right, angel.”
“That timeline is based on an estimate. The coffin size could be wrong. And you could be breathing faster because you’re terrified or because you’re screaming or—” Sloane broke off. “She’s going to be terrified. Bridget would be screaming.” A shudder worked over her body.
Yes.
“She could have five hours.” Another shudder. “She could have less. A lot less. She’s alone in the dark, and she’s trying to get out.” A long pause. “It’s already been more than five hours. If he took her right after her shift ended this morning, if he buried her right away, it’s…it’s still long past five hours.”
Preston hated to feel helpless. Fury burned in his blood. “I don’t know how to find her,” he bit out. “I want to find her. I want to help her, but we don’t have a way to track her. Not like you were tracked. We got lucky, Sloane.”
It’s not like Bridget would have also been wearing a bracelet that took them right to her. Debra had found Bridget’s phone, tossed near the Accord in the parking lot. No phone, no tech to trace her.
“My bracelet wasn’t in evidence.” Soft. “You heard the deputy. He didn’t remember it.”
“That was Eugene. Eugene Calvin. He’s a green-behind-the-ears kid. He can’t be sure what is and what’s not in evidence.”
She scooted even closer to him. Put her hand on his leg.
His stare locked on her hand. The impact of her touch snaked through his entire body. When she touched him, every cell reacted. Seemed to tune to her.
“What if it’s not in evidence, though?”
He heard the swish-swish-swish of the wipers against the front windshield. “Then it’s still in the dirt.”
“Let’s find out.”
Find out? “Why are you so worried about the bracelet?” He’d buy her another one. He’d buy her anything she wanted in this world.
“Because…because we got out. Because killers like trophies.” Again, her words came fast, tumbling out. “Because he fired gunshots at the station in order to get our attention and he left us a shovel in the back of her car because he wanted us to know what he’d done. I think…I think he even wants us to find her. He wants us to see what he did.” Her hand pressed harder against him. “I need to borrow your phone. I bet the tracker in the bracelet is still working. If it’s working, I can find it.”
He reached into the front pocket of his pants and hauled out his phone. Finding the bracelet wasn’t going to do anything. It was probably sitting in an evidence bag at the station, but if she wanted to track it, then she could damn well track it. He unlocked his phone and handed her the device.
Her fingers slid over his as she took the phone from him.
“You calling Atlas?” he asked. Atlas and Lily had tracked her bracelet before.
