Chase nearly slammed into the back of Drake’s Crown Vic as she pulled up to the Elliot cottage.
She hopped out, gun drawn, and burled through the snow toward the side porch.
Halfway there, she came to a full stop.
“Drake?” she asked, heart pounding. “Drake? You okay?”
The man on the porch lifted his head, and stared up at her through bleary eyes.
Chase ran to him, and then stopped again when she realized that there was someone resting on his lap. She was so tightly wrapped in blankets, that it was hard to make out her face, but for a split-second Chase thought that it was Ryanne Elliot in Drake’s arms.
“Get away from her!” she cried. “Get away!”
Agent Stitts hurried up the stairs, beating her to the punch.
“It’s not her,” he said. “It’s not Ryanne.”
Drake nodded.
“It was her next victim—but he got here just in time.”
Agent Stitts bent down and picked up the girl. Drake didn’t resist.
“She’s alive,” Stitts said, as he made his way toward Chase’s car. “We have to keep her warm.”
Chase nodded and felt relief wash over her. They hadn’t even known that another woman was missing, but she was safe now.
Her solace was short-lived, however, when she realized that the killer was still on the loose.
Grasping her pistol with two hands now, Chase bounded past Drake, staying low as she scanned the interior of the cottage.
“She’s dead,” Drake said at the same moment that her eyes fell on the woman lying in the center of the room, her body surrounded by a pool of blood.
“Oh my god,” Chase whispered. “What happened?”
Drake’s words echoed in her head.
He got here just in time… But who’s he?
Drake, with no emotion in his voice, his eyes still locked straight ahead, replied, “I was too late—I got here too late. Colin was already gone.”
Chase breathed deeply.
“What? Where is he now?”
Drake shook his head.
“I don’t know, but he’s gone. I doubt we’ll ever find him. But Ryanne’s dead, Chase. She was the one writing the books, killing the women.”
He pulled a small black notebook from beneath the blankets that were draped over his shoulders and held it out to her.
She took it, noting that his hands were shaking badly.
“We need to get your warm, Drake. You’re going to freeze to death out here.”
But even before the puffs of warm air that accompanied her words dissipated, a strong feeling suddenly came over her.
A gut instinct that she just couldn’t ignore.
That’s what he wants, Chase thought with horrible sadness. That’s what Drake wants.