‘ Wow wow wow! Grips you in a choke hold and does not let go… Oozes suspense and bone-chilling twists and turns. Astonishing… One of those rare books you stay up all night to read.’ @a_likely_storie, 5 stars The beautiful young woman is perfectly still, curled up in the trunk of the car, her long dark hair hiding her face. Her cotton blouse has ridden up a little, revealing two small dots an inch apart on her back. Just like the others. Guilt has kept FBI Agent Tori Hunter away from her home in Manchester Bay, Minnesota for twenty years, ever since her twin sister disappeared on the Fourth of July, when the girls should have been together. But when she receives an anonymous newspaper clipping about another missing girl, Genevieve, Tori is dragged back to the past. Just like Tori’s sister, Genevieve vanished without a trace, her empty car abandoned on a lonely lakeside road as Independence Day fireworks lit up the sky overhead. Returning to Minnesota lake country, Tori finds Genevieve’s distraught parents desperate for answers. How could their beautiful, popular daughter be snatched so near her own home? Under pressure to make an arrest, the police have no time for Tori’s theories. Besides, they already have a suspect for Genevieve’s abductor: a local man seen flirting with her the night she disappeared. But then the suspect is found dead in his isolated cabin, days before another girl’s body is discovered bound and strangled in the trunk of her car, two strange dots on her back. The bloodstains surrounding her body belong to the one man Tori thought she could trust. Reeling, Tori knows the closer she gets to the truth, the more her own life is at risk. But can she catch this killer before it’s too late for Genevieve? An absolutely addictive mystery thriller that will have you turning the pages late into the night. Perfect for fans of Kendra Elliot, Robert Dugoni and Tess Gerritsen. Read what everyone’s saying about Silenced Girls : ‘ Wow!... This book was totally impossible to put down! One of the very best books I’ve read lately! I highly recommend! ’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘This book had me from page one! The suspense was so palpable and I found myself unable to go to bed… I just had to try and read it to the end… Suspenseful thriller! A must-read! ’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘This book will keep you up all night!... I found myself getting so wrapped up in the characters and their lives… Silenced Girls will keep you up late and turning those pages till early dawn… leaves you guessing all the way to the very end!’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘ Amazing… grabs your attention from the first page and keeps you turning pages well into the night... Loaded with suspense, plot twists, a touch of romance and a strong, yet vulnerable protagonist, this book has everything you need… I can’t wait to read more of Tori Hunter! ’ Tropical Delusions, 5 stars ‘I was hooked into the book from the start!… so many twists and turns… completely unputdownable and I couldn't wait to see what the ending was going to be!… a fast-paced thriller that will keep you awake at night —completely worth five stars!’ Tropical Girl Reads Books, 5 stars ‘ You'll never know what hit you! Loved the characters… So many twists and turns! Loved it!’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘ OUTSTANDING… great read. Multiple twists which keep you turning pages… I have read all of Stelljes' books and this is at the top of the list!’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars
Release date:
November 11, 2020
Publisher:
Bookouture
Print pages:
350
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
“Dispatch, I’m 10-8 leaving the Berglund place up on Little Birch,” Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Gregerson reported, noting his availability for service, having addressed the noise complaint. Once he was around the front of the cabin, he chuckled to himself. The two mid-twenties couples were still going strong with the bonfire blazing. The empty beer cans were plentiful on the ground, and the country rock music—along with their boisterous voices—was just a bit too loud for the cabins tucked in along Little Birch Lake.
Gregerson turned himself around and made his way back along North Little Birch Lake Road, stifling a late-night yawn as he approached and then turned left onto Highway 4, called the H-4 by locals of Shepard County. The highway was quiet with only one lonely set of headlights passing him in the northbound lane in the two miles before he approached County Road 48. He turned right, planning to work his way southwest to Manchester Bay for a short break. He reached for his now lukewarm coffee and took a drink as he eased around a gentle bend. Up ahead on the right shoulder he viewed a white car. Its lights were turned off, the hazard lights not flashing. He slowed and pulled behind it, a mid-nineties white Grand Am. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but the car looked familiar to him for some reason.
“Dispatch, this is Gregerson. I’m 10-20 on County 48. Checking on a disabled vehicle.”
Gregerson stepped out of his Bronco. With his left hand resting on his gun, he approached the car, scanning the interior with the beam of his flashlight. The car’s doors were locked. As he peered inside, he didn’t see any items to identify its owner. He walked around the front of the car to the passenger side and saw the problem. The right front tire was flat as a pancake, the mangled rubber mostly detached from and twisted around the rim like a pretzel. Gregerson slowly walked along, continuing to peer inside, moving the beam of the flashlight around, and then he stopped. Resting on the backseat he saw a balled-up hooded sweatshirt. He could make out the logo and some letters: Manchester Bay Girls Soccer.
“Huh. I better call this in,” he muttered. He was now pretty sure who the car belonged to.
Gregerson climbed back into his Bronco and called dispatch: “I need a license check.” A minute later he had his answer and his suspicion was confirmed.
“Dispatch. We need to 10-21 the sheriff. I found his girls’ car abandoned out here on County 48.”
Tori Hunter sat alone on the old green couch with her legs tucked tightly together. Her jean shorts were slightly soiled and her white scoop-neck tank top lacked its normal crispness, all a result of being in the same clothes for nearly twenty hours. A barely touched glass of water wrapped in a plain white napkin sat in front of her on the worn walnut coffee table. She could hear voices approaching in the hallway. “Nothing from the scent of that sweatshirt?” one voice asked.
“No. The dogs couldn’t track it. There’s a bulletin out for the girl, but…” the second voice replied before drifting out of earshot.
She languidly shifted her eyes to her left, to the aged, dusty-green microfiber of the couch and the faded, almost invisible, oblong brown stain. Unclasping her hands, she brushed slender fingers lightly over the blemish, a spot she’d been part of creating years ago when fighting over a can of soda. She must have sat, laid, slept, or jumped on the sofa a thousand times over the seventeen years of her life.
“Victoria? Victoria?”
She emerged from her trance and sluggishly glanced to her right to see a familiar face: Cal Lund, chief deputy sheriff for Shepard County. A proper and courteous man, he always called her by her given name.
“Can you come with me?”
Tori nodded before slowly standing up. She followed him out of the office and then trailed him down the long hallway toward a door with Investigations stenciled across the frosted glass. This was one part of the building she’d rarely been allowed to explore or experience.
Cal opened the door for her, and Tori walked timidly inside then followed him down a narrow, beige hallway and into a square room devoid of exterior windows. It contained only a sturdy, metal-legged table, four aged yet durable chairs with green padded seats, and a video camera mounted up in the corner. There was a one-way mirror on the left wall.
A black-haired man in a dark suit with a crisp white dress shirt and striped tie sat on the left side. Cal pulled a chair out for Tori on the right side of the table opposite the mirror. She seated herself and Cal slid her chair back toward the table before going around and taking the open seat on the other side.
“Have you heard from the sheriff?” Tori asked softly as Cal sat down. She always referred to her father as the sheriff, even at home.
Cal shook his head. “No, I haven’t heard from him, at least not since he brought you in here. He’s still out at the scene.”
She suspiciously peered at the other man, who Cal introduced as Special Agent Johnson from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. “They’re assisting on the investigation.”
“What am I doing in here?”
“Your dad wanted us to talk to you.”
“But I told him everything I know.”
“I’m sure you did,” Cal replied matter-of-factly as he opened a spiral notebook. “But we need to go over it again. Do you understand?”
Tori nodded.
“Good,” Cal replied as he took the cap off his pen. “Last night, let’s start from the beginning…”
“The whole town must be here,” Jessie exclaimed excitedly as she turned onto Lake Avenue. “This is going to be such a blast!”
“I hope so,” Tori replied a bit nervously to her fun-loving twin sister Jessica, or just plain Jessie as everyone called her.
“What do you mean ‘hope’?” Jessie replied with a grin, lightly punching her sister on the arm. “You’re meeting up with Jason, right?”
“Yeah, so?” Tori replied, a small, self-conscious smile creasing her lips as she turned her face away.
“My serious and responsible twin sister has her first boyfriend!” Jessie teased happily. “I just love it, love it when my plans come together.”
“Ha, ha,” Tori mock-grumped in reply.
“Lighten up, sister, I set you up good. He’s really nice and pretty darned cute, too.”
They were identical twin sisters, each of them five foot five, lithe and athletic, with long auburn hair and soft, attractive features. They were both accomplished soccer players and students, but for identical twin sisters, their personalities couldn’t have been more opposite.
Jessie Hunter, like their father, had a bigger than life personality that was fun-loving, easygoing, confident, and personable. On the soccer field she was the catalyst, scorer, vocal leader, and the one exhorting her teammates to work hard and hustle. Off the field, Jessie was always dressed to the nines with her hair fashionably styled and her makeup perfectly applied. It was that effervescence that made her the most popular girl in their class, the one all the boys swooned over.
Tori was often told that she was very much like her mother. She was the quieter, more reserved, and inwardly intense of the two. On the soccer field she was the tough-as-nails stoic defender who rarely said a word. She let her playing do the talking. While Jessie was the style maven, Tori preferred to dress more modestly. Whereas Jessie had flowing hair, Tori pulled hers back in a ponytail and often hid behind her glasses at school. It was that shy and reserved nature, not to mention her willingness to hide in her sister’s shadow, that made her a little less approachable.
Yet as different as they might have been personally, they were inseparable—rarely, if ever, going anywhere without the other. They looked out for and protected each other. Mess with one, and you got the other. Perhaps the only time they were ever apart socially was when it came to boys, and for once it was Tori who would be the one to break away.
“So, what are your plans tonight?” Tori asked.
“I have no specific plans.”
Tori detected the mischievous tone and knew her sister had something up her sleeve, some game she was playing. “No specific plans, huh? Does that mean we’re perhaps trolling tonight?”
“Please, I don’t troll. I don’t chase. They come to me.”
“Okay, so who will be coming to you this time? Tommy Josephs? Jeff Warner? I’ve seen that Greg Brodt hanging around more, Mike Webb maybe. Or, I know… Steak?”
Jessie laughed and then shook her head. “They’re all friends but… I don’t know, this will sound really shallow, but I’m kind of bored with all of them.”
“Bored? You’re bored with them?”
“Yeah, it’s a little bit of been there, done that. I kissed Steak last week, but there was no… sizzle there.”
“No sizzle,” Tori laughed. “That’s funny. What about Eddie?”
Jessie smiled widely. “He is cute and all, but—” she shook her head “—no. Now if his brother Kyle showed up…”
“He’s twenty-three!” Tori protested.
Jessie smiled. “Six years more mature, twin sis. I think I kind of prefer the more mature guys at this point.”
“But, but…”
“Easy there, sister. I’m not serious about Kyle. But there is this guy named Rance I met the other day over at the college. He plays on the football team, wide receiver. I’d like to run into him. And, to ease your worries, he’s only two years older.”
Tori shook her head in wonderment at Jessie’s assessment and playing of the field. For Tori, lacking her sister’s innate social confidence, there’d never been much of a field to play or assess.
It was the Fourth of July, and downtown Manchester Bay was filled with revelers. With a population of just under 19,000, the sleepy resort town sat on the southern shores of picturesque Northern Pine Lake in the middle of Minnesota lake country and two hours due north of the Twin Cities. Northern Pine Lake was the anchor for a chain of eight connected lakes to the north. The town’s businesses and existence revolved around vacationers to the lakes and around the ever-expanding Central Minnesota State University, which rested up on the bluff a mile east of downtown.
Each year on the Fourth of July, Manchester Bay held a raucous party. The town center—from the intersection of Lake Drive and Interlachen Avenue, running several blocks north to South Shore Drive and the half-moon-shaped local beach on the bay—was blocked off. The streets were filled with partygoers, a mix of locals, vacationers, and cabin owners. For Jessie and Tori, it was a chance to gather with their large group of high school friends.
“Our last year together.” As one of the ringleaders, Jessie was almost wistful about it. “It’s going to be tough leaving and not seeing everyone all the time.”
Tori, ever the practical one of the two, was far more sanguine. “By next summer, you’ll be so excited to go off to Iowa State with me that you won’t be sad at all.”
“Ahh, here’s a parking spot,” Jessie said, pulling into a slot on Lake Drive. “Oh, and would you look who we’re next to.”
“Gee, funny how that worked out.”
“What? You think I wasn’t making plans all day while you were gone?” Jessie replied with a wickedly happy grin.
A group of their friends were awaiting their arrival, leaning against the back of Jason’s rusted black Ford Explorer. Their joint best friend, Katy Anderson, was hanging with a bunch of girls on the sidewalk in front of the truck. “It took you two long enough,” Katy needled boisterously once Jessie parked.
“Sorry, I was waiting for someone to get home from work,” Jessie rejoined, throwing a thumb at her sister.
Tori made her way over to Jason. The two of them awkwardly said hello, trying to be sly about really liking each other, and in the process making it oh so obvious that they did. Jason was her first boyfriend, and she was his first, too. Their friends all thought they were cute together, trying to figure out the logistics of being boyfriend–girlfriend.
“Let’s go,” Jessie commanded with an arm wave to her friends.
Ahead was the entire town celebrating the Fourth of July. Lake Drive was filled with food stands, carnival rides, a mini midway, and multiple beer gardens. An eighties cover band was playing a passable version of A Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran” at the small stage a block ahead.
Before everyone walked away, Jake Williams, known as “Steak” since they were all young kids, called everyone over. “All of you go buy a big lemonade, the ones with the yellow covers and long green straws,” he suggested, and then added under his breath, “then bring them back. We have vodka.”
Everyone did as Steak suggested, making their way over to the stand.
“Can I buy you one?” Jason asked hopefully, extending his hand for Tori’s.
“Yes, please,” she replied as her fingers interlocked with his.
“You and your friends hung out at the carnival. Do we have all the names?” Cal asked, going through the ones Tori had provided name by name. There were over twenty.
“Those are the ones that I remember hanging around with us,” Tori confirmed. “There were thousands of people downtown, but the names I gave you were in our group. It’s the same people we always run around with.”
“And did anyone cause you concern?” Agent Johnson asked with a furrowed brow.
“Of my friends? Gosh, no.”
“I’m asking about anyone else, Ms. Hunter. You mentioned this guy your sister ran into over at the college, the football player. His name was Rance, right? Did he ever show up?”
“No, not that I noticed. She never said anything about that, and I never saw her with anyone I didn’t know.”
“And you two were together the whole night?” Cal asked for confirmation.
“Yes. I mean, I might have been talking to one group of people and she was talking to someone else. I might have been playing this midway game and she was playing another, but we weren’t far apart. We almost never are.”
“And you didn’t notice anyone unusual hanging around?”
“What do you mean, ‘unusual’?”
“Was there anyone who kept appearing that was new, that you didn’t know or recognize? Was there anyone odd following you around? Was there someone that maybe creeped you out?” Agent Johnson asked, his pen hovering over his notebook.
“No,” Tori answered, shaking her head.
“Come on, really?” Johnson pressed. “You saw no one? I just find that hard to believe.”
“I didn’t!”
“Do you think that’s because you were with Jason?” Cal asked directly. “That was your focus, wasn’t it?”
Tori nodded as she looked at her hands, a tear running slowly down her cheek.
“Tell me about your car,” Agent Johnson inquired, flipping through some pages of notes. “Was it running okay?”
“Yes, why?”
“There weren’t any problems with its operation?” Johnson persisted. “It wasn’t running rough at all?”
“No.”
“Any issues with the tires?”
“No. The car was just tuned up like a week ago.”
“Tell me about the vodka,” Agent Johnson said, changing course. “Who supplied it?”
Tori hesitated to answer.
“Victoria, the drinking isn’t what matters right now,” Cal counseled. “But we do need to know more about it. Who supplied it? Jason?”
“No, it was Steak.”
“Steak?” Agent Johnson asked, looking up.
“Jake Williams,” Cal answered. “A local boy.”
“He had it,” Tori stated. “We all poured from the bottle.”
“And you had how much?” Johnson asked.
Tori looked to Johnson, then to Cal, and back to Johnson. “Jessie and I went back one more time, maybe an hour before the fireworks show. We poured just a little into our cups.”
“Just a little?” Johnson asked skeptically. “Come on.”
“Victoria, are you sure about that?” Cal added. “You have to be honest here.”
“I am,” Tori insisted and then looked at Cal, her eyes matching his. “The sheriff knows we drink sometimes. He once said to us both that he knew we’d start going to parties with our friends and there would be drinking. His instructions were to be careful and to call if we ever needed his help. No questions, no judgments, just call. We were having fun, but we were being careful, I swear.”
“After you refilled your cups, what happened next?” Cal asked.
“The fireworks are going to start any minute,” Jessie called out. She took one last sip from her lemonade before tossing it into an overflowing garbage can. “Let’s get a spot to watch the show!”
Jessie led their ever-expanding group over to the east side of the beach and the playground. Tori held Jason’s hand as they sat down on a bench off to the side to take in the show. Jessie was walking along with Katy, plus their soccer teammates Mickey Olson, Corinne Whitworth and Lizzy Cowger, and they all grabbed swings at the swing set. The boys in their friend group all grabbed spots on the jungle gym. Tori made eye contact with her sister, who beamed a smile back to her. Tori could tell her sister was almost giddy for her.
Manchester Bay always went big on the fireworks for the Fourth. Synchronized to music, they were launched from the end of the long fishing pier at the opposite end of the beach. A massive crowd gathered in lawn chairs or on blankets on the beach and in the park and then along South Shore Drive, which was barricaded for several blocks to allow for more seating. A flotilla of speedboats and pontoons were anchored in the placid waters of the bay, as well as in front of Mannion’s on the Lake, a restaurant farther northwest up the shoreline.
As they settled into their seats on the bench, Jason casually put his right arm gently around Tori’s shoulder. Self-conscious to a fault, she almost always held back her emotions and affection. Yet, in this moment, she was… content. For once, she stopped caring what anyone else thought or saw. Instead of keeping just a little distance between them, she snuggled closer to Jason and then turned her face to his. Rarely the initiator, she almost surprised herself as she leaned up and kissed him, first just a little peck on his lips and then a second, softer kiss that she held for an extra moment as the fireworks show began.
It was a long show, lasting nearly forty-five minutes before there was a rapid-fire launching up into the sky.
“I think this is the grand finale,” Jason observed as one rocket after another shot up into the sky, exploding loudly into a kaleidoscope of colors over the waters of the bay. With his arm wrapped lightly around Tori’s shoulder, he pulled her a little closer and then leaned down and kissed her again. “Do you want to get out of here? Just you and me?”
Tori froze. She knew what this question meant, to go off alone with him, and where it was leading. She’d talked about this with Jessie, who’d already taken the plunge. Tori had openly wondered whether she was ready. It had been a frequent discussion topic between the two of them.
“You are,” Jessie had assured her. “You’re ready.”
“How do you know? How do I know?”
“Because you’re asking the question. If you ask the question, this question, the big question, then you know—”
“—the answer,” Tori finished the sentence. Her body was a jumble of nerves at the thought of… sex.
“Tori, he’s a really nice guy. I’m pretty sure it’ll be his first time, too. Enjoy it. It’s one night and an experience you’ll never forget.”
She thought back to that conversation one more time as she pondered Jason’s offer. She was ready. “Yes, let’s go.”
Tori caught her sister’s eye, tilted her head ever so slightly toward Jason, and mouthed, I’m leaving.
Jessie smiled and winked back at her sister.
“And that’s the last time you saw Jessie last night?” Cal asked.
“Yes,” Tori replied, nodding with tears streaming down her face, clasping her hands and trembling.
“So, you and Jason went off by yourselves,” Johnson accused.
“Yes.”
“And what time was it you left your group of friends?”
“I think ten forty-five, around there. It was after the fireworks.”
“And you two were off doing what?”
Tori looked to Johnson and then to Cal, panicked.
“Victoria, where were you and what were you doing?” Cal pressed.
She looked down, the tears cascading. “We were… parked, just Jason and me.”
“Where?”
“Cal…” Tori pleaded.
“Answer the question, Victoria,” Cal pushed. “Where were you?”
“At the college. There’s that narrow road behind the visitor’s stands for the football field that goes into the woods. We were back there.”
“For how long?”
Tori wiped her cheeks with her hand. “A few hours. We were back there for a few hours.”
“Just the two of you? Nobody else?”
“Just us.”
“No other cars were back there?”
Tori shook her head.
“And you were doing what exactly?” Johnson questioned.
Cal cut in, “I think we have all we need on that for now.” He looked back to Tori. “When did you get home?”
“I think two or maybe two fifteen. I snuck into the house through my window.”
“And you went to check on your sister?”
“Yes,” Tori replied, sniffling, wiping her puffy eyes.
“And she wasn’t there. Your twin sister wasn’t there and that didn’t alarm you?” Johnson prodded.
Tori shook her head. “I figured she was just sleeping over at Katy’s, Mickey’s, Corinne’s, or Lizzy’s house like we always do.” She looked to Cal, whose face remained stoic. “We do that all the time, Cal. All the time. So, I went to my room and to sleep.”
“I see,” Johnson answered, jotting down notes and shaking his head. “And the next thing you remember is what?”
“I guess the phone ringing,” Tori answered. “But that happens in the middle of the night all the time, people calling the sheriff because something bad has happened. But then the sheriff came into my room and…” Tori started sobbing, now struggling to breathe, to speak. “Oh… my God…” she croaked.
The door burst open and Sheriff Big Jim Hunter stormed in. “That’s enough!” the sheriff barked and then looked to his daughter. “I need some time with Tori.”
“Yes, sir,” Cal replied.
“Sure, Sheriff,” Johnson added.
The two of them quickly packed up and left.
Through nearly swollen-shut eyes, Tori peered up to her father.
Big Jim Hunter was a force of nature. Tall and sturdy, he had a barrel chest and broad shoulders that supported a large, square head with salt-and-pepper hair cut high and tight. A menacing, bushy horseshoe mustache ran down to a bulbous chin, framing his rectangular jaw. He had a commanding voice and an imposing presence that demanded respect and instilled fear.
Yet in this moment Tori could see the giant bear of a man was a shell of himself. His face was ashen. His normally piercing eyes were panicked, and his typically booming voice faintly quivered. He took a chair next to Tori and slowly sat down. Even in this moment, with her own emotions roiling, she could sense that the man beside her had aged twenty years in a matter of hours. Her father bent over with his elbows on his thighs, looking despondently to the floor.
“Sheriff, what’s going on? Where’s Jessie?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? What happened? Nobody has told me what happened.”
The sheriff paused for a moment. “The car was found abandoned on County 48. We know that Jessie dropped off Katy at her house a little after one. We can only assume she was on her way home then because 48 is the shortest route back to our house. It appears she had to pull over to the side of the road because the right front tire went flat. One of my deputies found the car. It was locked and the hazard lights off. Your sister’s purse and her keys are gone. The spare tire and jack are in the trunk, and it doesn’t look like they’ve been touched. I have investigators at the scene but…”
“You can’t find her.”
“No,” the sheriff replied, looking down once more.
“She was abducted, wasn’t she?”
“We don’t know for sure.”
“Someone grabbed her off the side of the road, didn’t they?”
“We don’t know, honey. There is no sign of a struggle…”
“She’s… gone. Gone!”
“Tori, we don’t know that for sure.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Sheriff!” Tori wailed, the tears flowing again. “You’ve told me, told us, before that when girls go missing they don’t come back!”
“I know I said—”
“You said that some crazy man gets them and… they don’t come back. Ever!”
“That’s not always the case. We have to believe…”
Tori knew. Deep down, she knew.
Twenty months later, Big Jim Hunter died. After her father’s funeral, Tori Hunter left Manchester Bay for the last time and didn’t return. Jessie Hunter was never found.
July 5, 2019
Manchester Bay, Minnesota
Nervously tapping his foot on the car floor, he glanced to his watch: 12:57 a.m. Thursday had turned to Friday. It was finally closing time for the Fourth of July revelers. Small groups as well as the occasional single were slowly trickling out the front door. They were making their way to the now small smattering of vehicles remaining in the long, narrow, banana-shaped parking lot. In a couple of cases, the partiers exercised the appropriate level of late-night caution, and a driver arrived to cart them safely away. He’d also seen another large group of people descend the length of steps to the marina dock and step onto the last remaining large pontoon, taking a moonlight cruise home.
Licking his dry lips in anxious anticipation, he once again reviewed his mental checklist. He reached for the right pocket of his light black nylon jacket to feel the thin rectangular bulge, assuring himself it was there. Flipping open the center console, he confirmed the two key items inside were ready to go for quick application. He peered to the sports car a hundred feet away across the street and could see the drop in tire pressure, the slightest listing of the vehicle to the right.
“Ahhh,” he exhaled. “There you are,” he murmured excitedly, his gloved hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, his muscles tensed, and his body coiled like a spring.
Genevieve boisterously exited the bar. She strode on her long, lustrous, tanned legs as she and her friend, arm in arm, noisily made their way to the end of the parking lot and her sporty little BMW convertible. The convertible roof was up now, although it had been down earlier in the evening. Threatening weather was predicted. It was a forecast soon to be realized as the night sky filled with a pulsating flash, and a husky gust of wind swirled the branches and leaves hanging above.
He glanced down to his cell phone. The weather radar displayed an ever-expanding amoeba of dark green, yellow, and red moving north-by-northeast. He estimated the storm’s full arrival to be in fifteen or twenty minutes max. It would bring heavy rain and powerful winds, a good old-fashioned midsummer Minnesota thunderstorm. Long having planned to act on this night, the storm rolling in was serendipitous.
He’d methodically studied and tracked her for some time. Genevieve was attractive, with round yet firm breasts and a skinny waist with nicely swaying hips to go with deep brown eyes, luscious full lips, and a radiant smile. She was the type he’d normally be attracted to in his everyday, normal life—at least physically. As for her personality and treatment of others, that was less attractive. She came from money, not of her making but of Daddy’s. The family money had given her an unearned sense of entitlement, a trait he loathed more than any other.
Genevieve started up the BMW, backed out, and then speedily pulled away. Knowing where she was going, he gave himself a ten-count before clicking on his lights and turning right onto South Shore Drive. This was where he had to trust things would proceed as he’d calculated. Given how Genevieve’s car was swaying from side to side as she motored north on the H-4, he suspected she wouldn’t notice her tire issue. As he observed her ahead, his only immediate fear was a state trooper lying in wait, hunting drunk drivers. Her erratic driving made her a solid pull-over candidate.
Ten minutes later she pulled into the driveway for her friend, another wealthy party-girl type in town visiting her parents at their expansive lake home on the northeast end of Northern Pine Lake. He turned left onto a side dirt road, quickly completed a U-turn, switched off his headlights, parked, and waited.
Five minutes later Genevieve came roaring back down the road. He could tell that the front of the car was riding lower as she zoomed by. She had nearly fifteen miles to go to Daddy’s house. He gave her another ten-count before switching on his lights and continuing his pursuit.
Genevieve turned back onto the H-4 and motored north for three miles before her right turn signal blinked. Her car slowed, and she took a sharp right onto the narrow, winding, and tree-covered County Road 163.
Her parents’ home was a vast compound on the west side of Big Spruce Lake, another twelve miles to the east. Strategically trailing her at a healthy distance, he sporadically lost sight of her taillights as she went around the tight bends and hairpin curves of the twisty, lightly u
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
