Allison Brennan - Silenced

Good. Routine is good.

Brian kept his distance. Because it was a weekday and edging toward ninety degrees, the trails weren’t crowded. There were a few people running or walking, and the rushing businessmen with those idiotic earpieces, talking as if no one else could hear them.

He’d followed her several times over the last year, important when in business with someone who lied for a living, and so far she’d run the same five-mile route nearly every day. He cut through a narrow patch of trees and trekked up a short, steep embankment so he could cut her off.

At the top, he looked at his watch. It would take her another three to four minutes to reach this spot. Brian stretched and focused on catching his breath after climbing the slope. Just another runner trying to beat the heat. He tilted his head in greeting at a male who jogged past him wearing a million-dollar running suit. The guy passed Brian without acknowledgment. Asshole .

Brian spotted the bright pink shorts as Wendy turned a corner. She’d be winded by now, over three miles into her run. He waited until she was thirty feet away, then ran in the same direction at a slower pace. Don’t make her nervous. Don’t make her think he’s a threat.

A pulse of adrenaline flooded his system. For him, killing was a means to an end, and he never felt more than an initial fear and thrill. But this pulse, this vibration of danger, excited him.

That excitement made it hard to slow down, but he did, letting Wendy run past. She had one ear bud in, one out, classic style of serious runners. He pulled latex gloves from his pocket. Twenty yards ahead the path curved to the left before starting the descent back to the main park. He glanced behind him. A pair of women approached, fast-walking while they chatted. He had one chance.

As soon as Wendy rounded the curve, Brian sprinted and tackled her like a linebacker. She went down hard, opening her mouth to scream, but he’d knocked the wind out of her. She flailed for something in her pockets. He searched her, found a container of Mace on her key chain, and tossed it away.

She gasped for air, and he punched her in the face. He took no pleasure in hitting the woman, he simply needed her silent.

He jumped up and dragged her into the thick shrubs. He rolled her onto her stomach, held his hand over her mouth, and pinned her with his body until the two women were beyond earshot.

His brother had told him to fuck her, then kill her, so her murder would look random, but the fear of getting caught made his cock shrivel.

The longer this job took, the more likely he’d be seen. He didn’t even have the dark of night to hide him.

She fought back, surprisingly strong for a little thing. But he had eight inches and eighty pounds on the bitch. It was almost worth taking his time, to see how long it took her to wear herself out.

But of course he didn’t, because there could be any number of people coming up the path.

Brian sat on her ass and wrapped his gloved hands around her neck. Squeezed. He didn’t need to look at her, didn’t particularly want to, while she died. Her being on her stomach made his job much easier. She couldn’t kick him. She tried to scratch him, but couldn’t reach back far enough. Her death didn’t take long at all, but he kept his hold on her neck for another minute just to make sure.

He was about to get up when he heard a group of runners, pounding the trail, kicking up dirt. He waited, lying on top of dead Wendy. He’d picked a good spot for the kill-if he couldn’t see any passersby, they couldn’t see him. His nerves were on edge, the overwhelming fear of exposure making him want to bolt, but he forced himself to wait.

When he was certain the group was gone, he rolled off her body, disgusted by touching the dead thing. He was about to jump back onto the path when his brother’s words came back to him.

It can’t look like a hit.

Brian removed Wendy’s fanny pack. Robbery, right? He looked inside. License, twenty-dollar bill, pen. Hardly worth killing anyone over.

He stared at Wendy’s body. No fucking way he could rape it. He didn’t even want to be this close to her, not anymore.

But he didn’t have to rape her, right? Just make it look like rape.

He pulled down her shorts and panties, then spread her legs as far as they’d go. She’d hate being found dead like this. How else could he embarrass her?

He looked around, trying to come up with an idea. Then an idea struck him. He grabbed the pen and wrote on her bare ass, chuckling quietly at his own humor.

Brian was back on the trail less than two minutes later. When he was far enough away, he called his brother. “It’s done.”

“We have another problem,” Ned said. “But I’ll take care of it tonight.”

Ned hung up, leaving Brian with no idea what problem Ned had uncovered.

Tuesday

Ivy glanced at her fourteen-year-old sister, sleeping curled onto her side, face to the wall in Ivy’s bedroom. Sara’s dark blond hair shimmered in the ambient glow from the streetlight creeping in through slatted blinds. Ivy had been too late to save Sara from learning the horrifying truth about their father. Too late to save her sister from the raw, unrelenting humiliation. Too late to save her from the pain.

Waves of guilt-tainted fury washed over Ivy. She bit her hand to keep from crying out. “I’ll kill him before he touches you again,” she whispered.

Though it was July in DC, the girl slept with the white down comforter bunched over her lanky frame, the corner tucked under her cheek. Ivy had to forget the past, keep it firmly locked behind her, if she was to keep Sara safe. It was so hard! Wasn’t it Isaiah who said, “Forget the former things, dwell not on the past?” Easily said. If she was going to create a new life for them in Canada, she had to put everything in the past. Her crimes. Her regrets. Her vengeance.

Nearly four in the morning, her head was as clear as if she’d slept eight hours instead of two. She didn’t bother with the farce of trying to go back to sleep; instead, she slid from under the lone cotton sheet, the air from the ceiling fan a welcome caress on her sweating body.

Ivy couldn’t remember ever sleeping peacefully through the night. Maybe as a little girl she had, before she learned that monsters came wrapped in handsome faces coated with sweet words.

But now there was no time for tears, no time for rage. Events out of her control had forced her to speed up her plans since reuniting with Sara last week. Seven years ago, when she was just fourteen, Ivy had buried her tracks-changed her name from Hannah Edmonds to Ivy Harris, worked in a cash business, and had the added benefit that her father had been so angry at her betrayal that he’d told everyone she was dead.

Being dead had its advantages.

The digital clock blinked and the numbers changed, from 3:59 to 4:00. She’d spend the hours before sunrise reviewing the plans for the final exchange. The ten thousand dollars she’d been promised for this recording would give them the resources to make it into Canada. She already had perfect false identities for her and Sara. The others were on their own.

Ivy’s heart twisted with guilt. She’d been responsible for this house, for those who lived here, for so long. Could she really vanish with her sister, leaving the others to fend for themselves? They were the Lost Girls, those society didn’t want to admit they’d failed. Ivy wasn’t much older, but she’d been on her own for much longer.

Mina had no street smarts; Nicole would burn through her money, then fall back to hooking on the streets; no one would protect Maddie from succumbing to her pill addiction. The only thing that had stopped Maddie from killing herself-with pills or her razor blade-had been Ivy’s constant pressure and support.