Page 25 of The Forbidden Secret
“Well, then that makes you three entirely useless.”
None of them were able to complete a single scream before I ended them all.
Chapter Nine
Evelina Bianchi
I expected to go straight from one safe house to another, but Zeke surprised me when he pulled into a public library and parked beside the front doors. I looked between them and him.
“There aren’t many safe places in the city, but this one… well, it has metal detectors and only one entrance. The security cameras are disabled for the next four hours, so it’s as safe as any place could be.”
Zeke’s words went in one ear and out the other as I tried to understand his motivation for this. “Do you have something to do?” I asked.
He glanced between me and the building. “I don’t.”
“Then why are we here.”
“You have been pacing for two days. You don’t seem like you’re doing well in the house, so… I want to give you the chance to do something until this is figured out.”
Until this is figured out.
I was beginning to think that after three weeks of sitting inside various houses with only Zeke and occasionally Jaimieas company, there would never be an end to this madness. I had thought about any way out of it safely, but there simply wasn’t one. Without risking my life and Beatrice’s life, there was nothing I could do.
I sometimes found myself wondering why Zeke couldn’t just kill Clide Newton and get this all over with.
He was definitely right.
Ineededa change in scenery.
“Thank you,” I told him sincerely.
He nodded as he parked the car and left his gun in the center console. We walked into the library together, and I found myself scanning every possible face—everyone who walked by us. I wondered if any of them knew what was happening—if any of them were involved.
When we walked into the library, the security guard gave us both a stern nod, and the second we had made it through the doors, Zeke went in another direction and left me alone.
Alone.
I felt like I could finally breathe as I looked around and found myself being unwatched. I could finally be a person again, if only for a few moments. I could read, research, or do whatever I wanted to do with my time here.
But as I glanced toward a row of computers in a closed-off room, I bit my lip and allowed an idea to spring to life. It was foolish, perhaps. But… I reminisced on Jaimie referring to Zeke as “Coleman” when I first met her, and I had clung to that information. A last name that I didn’t know previously.
I didn’t allow myself to think twice before rushing to the computers along the wall and sitting down.
I wouldn’t contact Maggie. Not after what happened last time. But Icouldlearn more about the man I had been living with. He had not been forthcoming about his past or his personal life, but the internet went deep, and with the time he was offering, I knew I could find something.
I just had to look.
I began typing before I thought any more about it, starting with his full name.
I didn’t find anything, so I scanned a handful of different websites to find an online presence. He didn’t have one. It was as if he was a ghost in recent history, and nothing I searched for was creating results. What did I know about him, aside from a brief assumption of his age and his illegal occupation, which would certainly not be plastered across the web. I didn’t have the slightest inkling of how to access the dark web, and doing so on a library computer was off the table, anyway.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I thought of any other search criteria I could enter.
I left out his first name and instead searched for only his last name—one that was too common for any substantial results. I scrolled through story after story, finding nothing of substance.
And then, a news article from years ago crossed the desktop, and just like all the others, I read it. This time, though, my heart sank at the devastating story. I had been surrounded by gore and death my entire life, but I would have remembered aserial killerbeing found and prosecuted in the city.
Andrew Coleman killed a dozen women almost fifteen years ago, and I read the gory details of his arrest. He had been charged for something unrelated—something not disclosed in the document. When they had gone into his house, the decomposed bodies oftwelve womenwere found.
