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The Magician continued talking as he prepared his tools for killing her in the same meticulous way a surgeon might prepare for a surgery. Carefully, he laid each item out on the dirt. A length of rope. A blindfold. A metal hook.
“The fifth woman was called Maria Moore, and she was the mother of two children. They were only small—the boy was three years old and the girl just a baby. They won’t remember their mom when they grow up.”
Tears filled Cass’s eyes at the thought of the brother and sister growing up with the knowledge their mother had been murdered. She knew how it felt to lose someone you loved and have such a devastating story go along with it.
“How could you? You took a mother away from her children.”
He flashed his cold, gray gaze toward her. “She was too young to be having children, anyway. She must have gotten pregnant when she was only a teenager. Little whore. Two different fathers, too. Didn’t she have any respect for herself? Those babies are better off growing up without her. They’d have only followed in her footsteps if she’d been around to influence them.”
The idea that this man thought he had some kind of moral high ground was ridiculous.
“She begged for her children’s lives before she died.” He shook his head in disgust. “As if I’d hurt an innocent child.”
Yet he’d been more than happy to hurt innocent women. But she guessed no woman was innocent in his eyes. He was probably one of those men who thought that because Eve committed the original sin, all females were tainted.
He wasn’t done.
“Number six was a cute eighteen-year-old called Keely Smith. I pretended I was lost and called her over to my car. She was all smiles and curves, leaning in my car window to look at a map on my phone. All it took was a rag and some chloroform over her mouth, and then she was mine.” He shook his head, a cold smile playing across his lips. “She cried for her mother. She was an adult, but she became like a small child needing their mommy for comfort.”
He picked up the smaller knife, the blade long and thin, like a filleting knife. He placed it against the palm of his other hand and stroked it like a grandmother would stroke a baby’s cheek.
“The last one is the freshest in my mind... Anna Whittle. Blonde, twenty years old. She smelled so good.” He glanced at the ground, to her right, where a spot was the most freshly turned, no grass or much of anything growing yet to disguise the area. “Of course, she won’t smell so good now.”
Cass remembered her. It hadn’t been long ago. Only a couple of weeks.
She realized the rate at which he’d abducted and killed the other girls had increased. The first two had several months between them, while she and poor Anna Whittle were only a matter of weeks apart. Did that mean as soon as he was done with her, he’d go straight back out and find someone else? Had he planned for her? Had he followed her to work, known her routine, been watching her before he’d taken her? If so, did that mean he already knew who he was going to take next? She wished she had some way of stopping him and saving any other women from going through what she was experiencing now, but how could she stop him when she couldn’t even save herself?
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” she begged. “You don’t have to make me one of them.”
He looked up at her, his brow furrowed. “You already are one of them. And anyway, you asked for this.”
“No, no, I didn’t.” She shook her head, frantic.
“Oh, I think you did.”
He was crazy. He probably told himself all women asked for it. Like the way they dressed, even if it was something simple like the work outfit she had on now, was enough of a reason to be beaten and abused. He’d clearly been rejected when he was younger, and now he saw all women as something to hate.
She stared around at the mounds of earth and gulped back a sob, her eyes prickling with tears. I’m so sorry, she wanted to tell each of the women. I’m so sorry your lives ended this way. You all deserved better.
He must have buried them deep enough for this area not to stink of death. She guessed he didn’t want any wild animals coming along and disturbing the bodies. He’d created a kind of place of worship here, but it was himself he worshiped, his art of killing. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone or anything to come along and mess up what he’d worked so hard to make.
She turned her attention back to the chains around her wrists. The depth of the grooves beneath the chain around the tree trunk worried her. She didn’t know if it had been caused by all the women yanking on the chain in the same spot, or if the depth was caused by the repeated struggles of one woman in particular. If so, how long had he kept her alive, hurting her, while she yanked on the chain hard enough to cause the grooves in the bark her desperate effort to get away?
Cass focused on her bindings, trying to figure out how to get herself free.
There were two padlocks. One held the chain around the tree together, and the other secured the chains around her wrists. While the locks weren’t big—about the same size as the circle she created if she pressed her thumb and forefinger together—they looked solid. The one around the tree trunk was a little rusty, but she guessed that was from it being exposed to the elements.
She yanked and pulled, praying something would give. Her skin was already red from the chains cutting into her wrists, but she ignored the discomfort, knowing there was far worse to come if she couldn’t get free.
He seemed to have decided on the filleting knife as his weapon of choice. Holding it, with the blade pointed up, he stepped closer.
“No, get away from me!” She couldn’t even kick out at him to keep him away. The chains between her ankles had a little give, but not enough for her to lift her foot more than a few inches.
But if she slid to the ground, she’d be able to kick out at him. The chain around the tree trunk was loose enough to move up and down the girth, and while her hands were chained to the trunk, her legs weren’t. Maybe it would only buy her a matter of minutes, perhaps even only seconds, but it would be better than just standing there, helpless, while he carved off her skin as he was raping her.
He palmed the knife, stroking it lovingly across his skin. “I think I’ll start with your face. Maybe those pretty lips.” He took a step closer, and then another.
He’d almost reached her.
Cass dropped to the ground, yanking the chain around the tree trunk down with her. Wanting to get as much power behind her as possible, her teeth gritted in rage and fear, she drew her knees back to her chest then kicked out both feet as hard as she could.
The bastard hadn’t predicted the move at all. A flicker of confusion crossed his face when she’d dropped to the ground, and seconds later both her chained feet connected with his ankles, taking them out from under him.
He went down face first, crashing to the ground like a toppled tree, his hands under his body. She’d never expected her kick to be so impactful. She’d thought maybe he’d move away again and curse at her, telling her he’d make her think twice about coming at him again. Instead, he was lying face down on the ground, and he wasn’t moving.
He wasn’t moving at all.