Page 131 of Unholy Masks

We might have never found Noah if not for his single mistake. He would have gone on to kill more than we could count.

Predators like Noah Mercer survived because they learned to be invisible. They didn’t hunt in dark alleys. They hunted in plain sight, always patience, always kind.

The first mistake he made was approaching Irene. His only mistake. But one mistake was all it took. We didn’t have a doubt now—it was him.

Ryden and I had been watching Noah Mercer for two days. We went to AFC. We had been subtle, because we didn’t want to lead the cops to Noah Mercer, not before we found evidence.

We watched him at his house. He barely went out. When he finally stepped outside, he was following a girl.

Not Irene. He might have understood that Irene wasn’t as easy to hunt as he had hoped at first. He might have found out that she lived with Ryden or something.

Whatever it was, Irene wasn’t his target anymore.

It was this other girl, Tina Clark.

The way he shadowed her wasn’t impulsive. It was methodical. He stayed just far enough behind to disappear into crowds. He was studying her life, and the life around her—the blind corners, the people who noticed nothing, the moments when she believed she was alone.

Tina had dark black hair. Her smile was always wide. And she was 21.

Irene was 21.

His victims were all over the age bracket. I blinked. Paused.

“How old was Sofia?” But I already knew what connected them.

“Nineteen.”

“Nikki?”

“Eighteen.”

Ryden frowned.

“Rose is twenty. So’s Valentina.”

“Tina is twenty-one.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck it is!” My fingers curled around the steering wheel. “His mother died at twenty-six.”

“He was nine when she died,” Ryden whispered, a frown cutting between his brows. “So, he killed her? But how did he end up with Grant Mercer? In this house? And why did he start killing after all these years?”

“I don’t know, I don’t need to know.” I closed my eyes. “But he thinks he can stop once he kills six more women in his mother’s place.”

“What do we do?”

“He must die soon.”

We couldn’t afford to wait. Who knew when he was planning to kill Tina?

“But Grant will notice. He’s got someone who cares about him.”

“We’ll deal with that later.”

I was itching to punish him, make him feel every ounce of pain the girls had felt when he killed them. Cut and carve and make him bleed for the pain.

“We can’t,” Ryden said, his voice steady. He looked at me, like he saw the madness in me, like he understood it. “We already have too many arrows pointing straight at us. We can’t afford one more, Red.”