He figured they’d be safe as long as they could just stay quiet.

Besides, there was no way the curly-haired girl and her boyfriend would know they were in here. No way they’d figure out where they were hiding. Eventually, they’d get tired of searching for their friend, and they’d move on to the next place.

Then he and Kisha would duck out again, and head for home.

He dropped the girl in a heap on the floor as he crept toward the front of the house. He was just about to peek out the window, between the boards that covered the broken glass, to try to see out to the street beyond, when he heard it.

The back door.

And the voice.

“Chels.” She was quiet. Uncertain. But far too close for his liking.

“Kish,” he whispered, swinging his arms in wide arcs in the dark as he searched frantically for her. When his fingers closed around her arm, he dragged her up against him, his mouth right at her ear. “Help me get her up those stairs.”

It was hard to see the staircase in this kind of blackness. It was there, though, off to the side of what had once been a banister. But without a handrail, the banister was now just a row of pointed spikes that would more likely impale you than prevent you from falling.

Kisha didn’t argue, she just reached beneath the girl’s arm and heaved her up, using the last of her strength—probably more than she even had left—to help him. To get Colton’s girl someplace safe. Out of the way.

To hide her.

CHAPTER 20

THE SMELL OF STALE URINE HIT VIOLET FIRST—human or animal, she had no way of knowing, but it was strong—and it burned a path all the way to her sinuses. Instinctively her hand shot up and she covered her nose and her mouth, trying not to gag as the urine scent melded with the smells of mildew and old garbage and something else that festered just beneath it all.

Feces, Violet thought. It was probably feces.

“Chels,” she said timidly, hating that she was virtually blind now. For all she knew, the killer was standing directly in front of her.

Ahead of her, she heard voices, low and unintelligible voices. He was talking, but who was talking back? Was it Chelsea?

She took another step and noticed something else, a strange sound, like the trickling of water. But not a faucet, not steady and driven by man-made devices.

No, this sounded more like a stream. Like the soft cascading waters of a mountain stream.

Right here, in this crumbling old house.

Violet knew what it was. It was another imprint, of course.

He was a violent killer, and it made sense that he carried more than one.

She tried to find the other, the one she knew from the lake house—the old coffee grounds—but she couldn’t amid all the tangible smells that competed for her senses.

She heard more noises. Banging and thumping. They were moving away from her, making her feel braver so she stepped again, her hands out in front of her to keep from walking into walls. “Chelsea!” she called again, this time louder, bolder.

As the sounds moved farther, so did Violet. She knew they were upstairs now, she could hear them above her, but she had no idea where the stairs were. She fumbled around, feeling her way along walls, and straining to see through the narrow openings created between the imprints. But those glimpses were too brief, not giving her eyes enough time to adjust to the blackness.

Her fingers brushed over something sharp, a spike that seemed to be sticking up from the floor itself. Beside it, there was another one, equally jagged. She struggled to make sense of them in her mind as she took another step.

But her foot caught on something and she careened forward, barely having enough time to process the fact that she was falling right toward one of those stakes.

“Jesus, Vi,” Jay cursed as he caught her from behind. “What the hell are you doing? That thing almost impaled you.”

“They’re upstairs,” she answered, ignoring his lecture.

His voice dropped. “And you just thought you’d sneak up there while I wasn’t looking? Can you even see, Violet?” She felt a whoosh of air under her nose and she knew he was waving his hand in front of her face.

“Stop that!” she insisted, brushing his hand away, but as her hand passed through the air, she knew she’d missed, that her timing had been off.

His words were challenging now. “Violet, this is a bad idea. We can’t just storm this guy. What if he’s armed? We already know he’s dangerous.”

She reached for his hands, and finding them, implored him. “That’s right, Jay,” she whispered. “He’s dangerous. And he’s up there with Chelsea. We can’t just leave her there, can we? Who knows what he’s doing to her. What if he is armed? Maybe we can stop him before he . . .” She didn’t finish, she couldn’t. Jay hadn’t seen what she had.

The pause was short, much shorter than she’d expected. “You’re right. We can’t just leave her. You wait here, I’m doing this alone.”

It didn’t matter what he said, though. Because what she was really listening to was where his feet hit the stairs.

She followed almost immediately, never really intending to stay behind. He could be pissed at her later. For now, she had a friend to save.

“You never listen,” Jay grumbled quietly, but he didn’t stop, and she could sense the determination coming off him in every step he took. He was less cautious now, less worried about each creak beneath their feet.

Suddenly it seemed he wanted to find Chelsea as badly as she did.