Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

have so much potential. Let that stupid bitch go and live your life.”

In a second, Kerry had straightened up and then there was a fist swinging toward him. DJ blocked it easily and shoved the boy, who fell backwards. DJ stood over him and then crouched down, pinning his arms on the ground and sitting on his chest, the way his brothers had done to him when he was a child. To get him to stop, to get him to listen.

But Kerry wasn’t listening. He was shouting, cursing, screaming, and any minute someone was going to come walking out or call the police. So DJ grabbed the boy’s throat, cutting the vile words off midstream. Kerry’s eyes went wide, hot with terror, and DJ felt something shoot through his abdomen—pleasure, power. He could fix this.

“Now, listen to me, Kerry,” he said, pressing down on the man’s throat. “Listen. Kerry, stop.” But the young man kept struggling, bucking his chest, kicking his legs, so DJ pressed harder, letting his anger take over. No one ever listened to him.

DJ brought his face close to Kerry’s, saw it turning red even in the shadows cast by the streetlight. At last, the younger man grew still. “There, see? You’re going to have to trust me, Kerry.” DJ’s arms shook as the tension fell out of Kerry’s body, his eyes closing. DJ closed his own, breathing deep. “Trust me, it’s better this way.”

For a moment, everything was still. The distant sound of cars passing in the night, a rustle of wind in the dead branches above. DJ opened his eyes, staring at the boy. Then he looked around. The opposite side of the street was lined with parked cars, forming a barrier between him and the unlit houses beyond. As far as he could tell, no one had seen a thing. Still, every moment they were out in the open was a risk.

Snapping into motion, DJ rolled Kerry’s body over his shoulder and rose slowly to his feet. He walked carefully to the passenger’s side of his car, door hanging open like an invitation. With Kerry slumped and buckled into the seat, he ran to the other side and got back in with one more glance around the neighborhood.

He needed to buy himself time to think, time to plan. No one knew Kerry had gotten in the car with him. If he could get the boy out of the way, there would be time to make sure he didn’t have any evidence on him, and DJ could decide what to do next.

The barn. DJ could dump Kerry’s body in the barn—one of the many places on the property his father couldn’t get to anymore, since his stroke. Forcing his eyes to stare straight ahead, DJ started the engine and drove toward home.

34

Elle

January 19, 2020

Five days. It had only been five days since Amanda was taken, and now she was dead.

In the interview room at the police station, Elle stared at the chipped wooden table under her arms until her eyes burned.

Every time she blinked, she saw the girl’s face again: purplish bruising on her lips, bursts of red flecking the skin around her eyes. Smothered, Martín had guessed while waiting for the first responders to arrive. He was in the room next to hers, answering questions for Sam. They weren’t suspects, she knew, but it made her anxious nonetheless.

Five days, not seven.

She wasn’t Cassandra, after all—not some omniscient prophet, doomed to be disbelieved. She was no better than a cheap psychic, making baseless predictions and hoping one would land. Amanda and Natalie’s cases were connected; she had gotten that right. But they hadn’t been taken by the Countdown Killer. No matter how the deaths varied over the years, he never broke his signature. The bodies were always found on the seventh day.

The door handle turned, and Elle looked up to see Ayaan enter. Exhaustion made her usually glowing skin dull, darkening under her eyes. Her somber navy hijab had been put on in haste, slightly askew across her forehead.

“Elle, were you offered a drink?” she asked.

“Yes.” The word croaked out of her. “Ronny’s bringing me a tea.”

“Good.” Ayaan sat across from her, opened a folder. Inside were freshly printed crime scene photos.

Elle closed her eyes, but the images were already branded on her mind from seeing them in person hours before. At this moment, Amanda was probably being cut open by someone in her husband’s office, dissected for secrets. Maybe they would find the killer’s DNA. Maybe this would give them a lead, an opportunity to save Natalie. But that wouldn’t change the fact that an eleven-year-old girl was dead.

She thought of Dave and Sandy Jordan, wondered if the police had told them yet. Ayaan would have been the one to do the job. Would the police wait until a reasonable hour to wake the Jordans up with the worst news they’d ever received, or had Ayaan already been to their house and returned? Elle opened her mouth to ask, but the words stuck in her throat. It didn’t matter whether they knew yet or not; the result would be the same. The couple would be destroyed.

Ronny came in with a mug of peppermint tea, set it down in front of Elle with a sad smile. The crisp smell cleared her sinuses, stuffy from crying, as she wrapped her hands around the mug. After a moment, she lifted her eyes to meet Ayaan’s.

The commander’s gaze was steady, her pen poised to take notes. “Tell me what happened.”

Between sips of tea, Elle explained about Martín coming home after being called to a crime scene, talking to him in bed, the doorbell ringing, the discovery of Amanda’s body. She had no idea when she had last slept, but the peppermint and adrenaline shot through her, making the words come out fast and unfiltered. She finished with the text she had sent to Ayaan, after they had called 911.

For a few moments, Ayaan let