Beneath Her Skin by Gregg Olsen (ebook reader for manga txt) 📗

Larry Milton was likely the most notorious serial killer in a state that for some reason had more than its share of such predators. He stalked and murdered several young women before being convicted of killing two college girls in Pullman.

Larry Milton was definitely in the Infamy Hall of Fame.

“Your sister was killed by him?” Hayley asked in disbelief.

Savannah studied the teenage girl. She was blonde and pretty like her own sister. A few years younger than her sister had been at the time of her death, yes. But nevertheless, Hayley and Taylor were both reminders of a tragic loss.

“You know she was,” Savannah said, locking her eyes on Hayley. “You and your sister warned me.”

“That food message thing was random,” Colton said, almost wishing it to be true.

Savannah shook her head. “I let myself think that for a while. But it wasn’t,” she said, turning to face the twins. “The two of you were working together. You were both trying to help me do something to save her. I just dismissed it.” She stopped as a tear rolled down her cheek. “She was dead two days later, and I could have stopped it.”

Colton wanted to ask what happened to her, but he thought better of it. The woman with the corkscrew hair and sad face was falling apart right in front of their eyes.

“I’m glad you came. I’m glad you’re all right,” she said. She got up and went for the tape, pulling it from the VCR. “I never should have showed that reporter this.”

“You didn’t give her a copy?” Shania, who’d been mostly silent, asked. Savannah shook her head. “No, this is the only copy.”

“Good,” Colton said, snatching the tape.

“Hey!” Savannah called out, lunging at Colton.

He held the tape from her, like a game of keep-away.

“You care about these girls,” he said. “You said so yourself.”

“Give it to me,” she said.

Colton pushed her, and Savannah slumped back down onto the sofa. It wasn’t a hard shove, but the fact that he’d knocked down a stranger drew a gasp from his mother. What he did next, however, shocked everyone in the log house.

“I don’t want to see this on Entertainment Tonight,” he said. Without another word, he spun around, opened the woodstove, and shoved the tape inside.

“Don’t!” Savannah cried out.

But it was too late. Too, too late.

“Sorry about the carbon monoxide and the other toxins in the plastic,” Colton said.

Savannah sat back down and buried her face in her hands. There was nothing she could do. In a very real way, deep down, she was glad that the tape was gone. It had been like a finger pointing at her for almost fifteen years. As she looked back up and watched it melt, then burn, a sense of relief came over her.

Hayley hugged Colton. Taylor had wanted to do the same. Both understood his reasons for destroying it.

It was for them. To protect them.

“Who else has seen it?” Shania asked.

“No one,” Savannah said. “Just you four, me and that reporter.”

“Why didn’t you show it to the university?” Taylor asked.

Tears came once more to Savannah’s sad eyes. “Because…”

Shania sat down and put her hand on Savannah’s knee. “Why?” she asked.

Although tears flowed, somehow Savannah pulled herself together and picked out the words she needed to say.

“Because I was ashamed,” she began. “Guilty. My sister was dead, and anyone else probably would have heeded the warning. I was operating under the assumption that logic should rule the day, not emotions. I messed up. What was on that tape was real. It wasn’t some mumbo-jumbo carnival game. Somehow you two sensed what was going to happen to Serena. Have you done that since? I mean, of course you have.”

Neither Hayley nor Taylor answered. They might have if Colton and Shania hadn’t been standing there.

“My sister’s death is my shame, and it will be until the day I die,” Savannah said.

“You couldn’t have known,” Hayley said.

Savannah nodded. “But you knew. You were babies, and you knew.”

“We were babies,” said Taylor. “We didn’t know anything.”

Savannah didn’t seem convinced. Even in her shock and grief, she was able to process the past like the researcher she once had been.

“Your age has nothing to do with it, then or now.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Taylor said.

Savannah shook her head and dried her tears. “Of course you do. Everyone on the bus went into the water and died. But not you two.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Colton said, actually meaning every word.

“Nothing like what happened with you when we were babies has ever happened since,” Taylor said.

Savannah remained unconvinced. “Really? That surprises me.”

“Be surprised then,” Taylor said.

As they sat there, the tape dissolved into the red and orange coals of the woodstove. The only trace that it had burned was a ribbon of dark soot along the top of the glass panel that allowed a peek inside.

“Really,” Hayley said, looking at Colton and hoping that he didn’t think she was some kind of freak, because she wasn’t. She and her sister did see things differently from others, but they figured they likely weren’t alone in that regard. Sure, they were special, but not any more so than anyone else who could pick up on the hidden hurt, the secret worries, and the dark plans that others foisted upon the unsuspecting.

While the five of them huddled around the woodstove, all could agree that its contents shouldn’t be disclosed, but there was that reporter and her ceaseless need for attention and recognition.

How in the world would they convince her to forget about it?

Chapter Forty-Nine

It was after 2:45 a.m. when Shania, Colton, Hayley and Taylor got back into the car. For the first few moments, no one said another word. Even after what they’d seen on the video and heard from Savannah Osteen with their own eyes and ears, it seemed as if there were no words to convey whatever anyone was thinking. Hayley caught Colton’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror. He’d protected her and her