Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94686 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94686 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
I stared at Dawn’s bedroom door.
She’s really dead.
Troy snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Could Dawn have told your doctor to up the first girl’s sleeping pill prescription?”
“Sure. Yesterday, I would’ve said that Dawn had the control, but would never do that.”
“Now you know that she would?”
“Yes.”
“Wendy also had access to that smoothie.”
Benny killed Dawn so bad, they’re wiping her remains up?
“You hear me?” Troy said. “The smoothie that Lucy took to the first dead girl, well, Wendy sat next to the blender as Lucy made it. I figure Wendy dropped more pills in. Now you have this Vicky chick, doped up on already a high prescription, she drank brandy earlier with Wendy, and then had a pill blended smoothie. That could put her to sleep for a long time.”
I barely broke down what Troy was saying. “Where is Benny now?”
“He’s still in Dawn’s room. He showered and changed. I think he’s overseeing the cleaning process, making sure there’s nothing that can connect him to Dawn’s murder. We don’t have much time.”
“For what?”
“To get everyone the fuck out of here.”
“I’m not running from Benny out of my own home.”
“Hamburger meat.” Troy’s bottom lip quivered.
“Excuse me?”
“Hamburger meat. That’s what Dawn looked like when Benny finished with her. Bits of flesh. Cracked bones, and hamburger meat. Now Benny won’t kill Viv or Jazz, and maybe not me, but he’s waiting to get you. He just killed a white woman from a high-powered family and another high-powered family’s home. Your spot, man. That means he’s only thinking about getting rid of the threat to Jazz. That’s the only thing on his mind. Maybe he’s being rational. Maybe the fuck not. You really got the balls to roll dice on your life, man?”
Hamburger meat. My stomach grumbled at the thought. Even worse, other scenarios came to my head. Oh, my God. How will I deal with Dawn’s family?
Troy shoved my chest. I almost lost my balance. “What was that for?”
“You’re sinking.”
“What?”
“You look like you’re about to fucking lose it.”
“I’m pretty damn close. A woman I’ve known all my life, since I was a kid, was brutally murdered.”
“Don’t forget. She was a murderer too.”
“We still don’t know that for sure. That was the point, to know for certain.”
“Benny doesn’t need facts. He’ll kill them all. I’m getting Viv to take Lucy with her.”
“And Wendy?” I quirked my eyebrows.
“She deals with Benny.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed them. “I can’t let that happen.”
“Wendy did it. I wasn’t sure about Dawn. I’m still not, but Wendy was all over it. I’m just not sure how she killed the last two. In order for someone to knock the radio into the pool they had to know the exact location of cameras and which way they pointed.”
I gritted my teeth. “Wendy knew that. She’d been in my monitoring room many times before, sometimes without my even being there. She would’ve known the camera positions better than me. Even Dawn didn’t have that sort of access. It’s just that I didn’t put much into it since Wendy was always so drunk and. . .”
“Useless and ditzy-acting. Yeah. She did that a lot in all of the footage, acting like a bratty airhead.”
Two men marched out of Dawn’s bedrooms with full black plastic bags in their hands. Both had on plastic gloves and white masks over their noses and mouths. The chemical odor of bleach radiated from their scarred skin. One of them had a jagged scar going from his neck to his ear.
Troy and I didn’t say anything until they headed down the stairs. Viv and Lucy stepped out next. She tossed me a worried look. “Take care of Jasmine, please.”
“I will,” I said. “And go out the front. If I know Benny’s men, they’re only using the back entrance.”
Troy glanced at Viv’s behind for a minute and then returned to me. “Time is running out. We save Lucy and leave Wendy. Are you okay with that? Because once we leave her, it’s final.”
“I think Wendy did it, but I’m not comfortable with Benny being the last person she deals with before leaving this earth.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. I just think—”
“There’s no thinking about it, man. Either you know for sure or not, but in the end. If you want her alive, you get her out of here now.” Troy checked behind him and then whispered, “Only problem is that if Wendy is the killer then Jazz may not safely make it back to the states. The person who killed those three girls got off free. Instead of taking your money and counting her luck, she went after Jazz in the alley. This person isn’t sane.”
No. Hell, no. I can’t let anything happen to Jasmine.
“You’re right. I can’t be focused on Wendy’s safety. I need to be concerned about Jasmine.” I considered it some more.