Hensel nods before his phone rings. He glances at the screen, intending to ignore the call. Then he raises his eyebrows.
“Problem?”
“It’s Quantico. I better take this. We’ll discuss Waggoner later.”
“Sure,” Darcy says, pulling the blanket over her shoulders as the room empties.
Though she’s on the third floor, she locks her gaze on the window, afraid if she turns away someone will climb through. The night holds many dangers. Like Richard Chaney, Eric Stetson was another pawn for Michael Rivers to play. His obsession to murder Darcy and her family only grows. There are others, she knows, and they’re coming for her soon. She’ll deal with the dangers when they present themselves. For now, her only concern is keeping her children safe.
Hensel speaks in the hallway for two minutes, during which Darcy runs scenarios through her head for how best to approach Jennifer about long term psychological counseling. Her daughter is stubborn and too self-conscious of how her friends perceive her. She’ll fight Darcy on this, but if her daughter has any hope for a normal adulthood, she needs to talk about what happened.
Darcy loses herself in thought, absently massaging her forehead around the wound, when the door reopens. Immediately, she knows something terrible happened. Hensel’s face is drawn, eyes flitting around the room but never meeting hers.
“What is it?” Darcy asks, easing her leg off the cot. “Is it my kids? Talk to me, Eric.”
He swipes the hair off his forehead and leans against the door, arms dangling at his sides as if they turned to rubber.
“Eric?”
“That was the Deputy Director. There was an incident at the prison in Buffalo.”
Darcy sits up and swings her legs off the cot.
“What kind of incident?”
“They found two of the guards with their throats slashed. Michael Rivers is missing.”
“He couldn’t have escaped. The prison is locked down twenty-four hours a day.”
Hensel taps his finger against his phone, considering.
“New York State Police set up choke points around the prison, and Rivers’ photograph is on every news channel in the northeast. They’ll catch him, Darcy.”
But Darcy knows they won’t. This time the Full Moon Killer isn’t sending one of his followers to end Darcy’s life.
He’s coming for her, himself.
And she’ll be waiting.
***
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Copyright Information
Published by Dan Padavona
Visit my website at www.danpadavona.com
Copyright © 2020 by Dan Padavona
Artwork copyright © 2020 by Dan Padavona
Cover Design by Caroline Teagle Johnson
All Rights Reserved
Although some of the locations in this book are actual places, the characters and setting are wholly of the author's imagination. Any resemblance between the people in this book and people in the real world is purely coincidental and unintended.
About the Author
Dan Padavona is the author of the The Darkwater Cove series, The Scarlett Bell thriller series, Severity, The Dark Vanishings series, Camp Slasher, Quilt, Crawlspace, The Face of Midnight, Storberry, Shadow Witch, and the horror anthology, The Island. He lives in upstate New York with his beautiful wife, Terri, and their children, Joe, and Julia. Dan is a meteorologist with NOAA’s National Weather Service. Besides writing, he enjoys visiting amusement parks, beach vacations, Renaissance fairs, gardening, playing with the family dogs, and eating too much ice cream.
Visit Dan at: www.danpadavona.com