Page 80 of Unpacking Secrets
The note. I hadn’t accidentally thrown it out. He took it—the night I came home to find the door unlatched.
He’d been in the cottage.
A new rush of nausea washed over me at the thought of him in my home, touching my things.
“I had them with me the day I watched you through the window, you and your boyfriend, nothing but those useless curtains between you and my binoculars. I used to watch Missy up in her room from that very spot.”
I nearly gagged again, closing my eyes as I fought down a surge of bile. The gun was no longer pressed to my back, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think he didn’t have it ready should I try to make a run for it.
“If that bitch wanted to protect you, she should’ve told you what was waiting for you here,” he taunted.“A matter of life and death.Leaving the old woman to explain? Even if she hadn’t kicked the bucket, she had no clue. If she had, I’d have killed her the minute Missy ran.”
I closed my eyes against a wave of grief, but I heard him moving over the leaves underfoot, circling me, and opened them again. This was no time to be caught off guard.
For the first time since learning his identity, I looked at Tom Heller head on as he came to stand in front of me. With a gleeful smile, he turned in a slow circle beneath the suncatchers, arms out wide in a macabre rendition of my first reaction to this sacred place.
“Perfect, isn’t it?” he asked, his eyes strangely bright now as he smiled down at me. “An ending fit for an artist. I couldn’t create the masterpiece I had in mind for Missy, but yours will honor you both. Mother and daughter, joined in death.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked hoarsely.
His expression twisted into something that might've been sympathy on any other person. He slid the gun into his waistband and reached out to touch my face. When I flinched away from his hand, he caught my hair in a painful twist, jerking my face up toward him. A sharp cry of pain slipped past my lips before I could stop it.
To my horror, the sound seemed to please him. He gently stroked my cheek with his other hand as bile rose in my throat.
If I puked on him, would he kill me any faster?
“This is the way it has to be, can’t you see that? None of the others held a candle to Missy. Just poor, sad substitutes.” A reminiscent smile lit his face. “She would have fought like a wildcat. I spent months planning it after I first saw her. I knew it would be beyond anything else I’d done.”
“You’re vile,” I whispered.
“Oh yeah, you’ll do just fine. The temper, the spirit. Just like her. Missy was worthy of being my masterpiece. I could have drawn it out for days, maybe even weeks. I told her how special it would be between us, but then she left. Stupid, sneaky little bitch!”
With the hand that had caressed my cheek, he drew back and struck me hard across the face. The sudden burst of pain sent tears sliding down my cheeks and stars dancing across my vision. When he yanked my head back up, I saw the twisted pleasure in his eyes. Every one of my fears was confirmed by that unholy glint.
He was going to kill me, and it wasn’t going to be an easy death.
After all my mother had done to save my life and her own, this bastard was going to finish what he’d started before I was even born. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that he would succeed.
I’m sorry, Mom. You told me to protect myself, but I failed.
“Such a pretty thing you are, Juliet,” he said softly, pressing the pad of his thumb so hard against the bruise blossoming on my cheek that I cried out. “We could have had such fun, if you weren’t a meddling little whore like your mother. Still, it can’t be helped. The clock is ticking. We’ll just have to leave a pretty picture for your boyfriend to find, won’t we?”
He reached for his belt and drew out a tiny pocket knife that filled me with a terror even more paralyzing than the gun had. Henry’s name echoed in my head as I did the only thing I could think to do.
Fisting my hand, I punched upward between his legs, throwing all of my strength into the blow.
Heller let out a bloodcurdling scream and dropped the knife to the forest floor, doubling over as I shot to my feet. I bolted in the direction I prayed would lead me back toward the inn. With tears blurring my vision, the trees around me morphed into a hazy wall of green and brown.
My legs and lungs burned as I ran. With gasping sobs ripping from my chest, I wouldn’t have been able to hear his footsteps behind me, but I didn’t dare to assume he wasn’t following me.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, I repeated over and over as I wove between the trees.
I didn’t bother to wipe at the tears that soaked my cheeks, could think of nothing beyond getting as far away as fast as my feet would carry me.
When I collided with a rock-solid mass, I shrieked and drew my fists defensively upward. A whiff of sea salt and driftwood filtered through my terror even as I struggled against the arms that encircled me.
“Red, it’s me. Look at me, Juliet. It’s me, I’ve got you,” Henry said in a frantic whisper.
“Henry,” I gasped, throwing my arms around him.
