Feelings for her stormed through him but now wasn’t the time. He needed to catch this killer and then maybe figure out his life. This was for Scotty and for all the other victims of the psychopath. Capturing Evi1Geni-us was the only way to keep Yael safe. He just hoped she gave him a chance to prove himself to her again. To prove he wasn’t like all the other assholes who’d doubted her in the past.

32

Ashley had arranged for a four-wheel-drive SUV to be delivered to the tarmac where their jet landed. Alex insisted on driving. They were still five miles from the school and it seemed to be taking forever to get through the snow-covered highways.

They were driving through a blizzard in the dark because they needed the odds to be stacked against them even more than they already were. Why couldn’t something be easy for once? Why couldn’t that poor traffic cop have arrested EG rather than becoming another tragic victim?

Yael wanted to tell Alex to hurry but the back wheels were already fishtailing dangerously. Crashing would destroy their chances of getting to Laura in time.

The auction had started ten minutes ago and Yael’s stomach revolted every time she thought about her friend suffering.

Ethan Grice had again muted his mic on the live video but was presumably recording the sound on another device. Laura’s blood already stained the white sheet beneath her. Her screams had been silenced, replaced by the dulcet tones of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. Yael would never be able to listen to that music again. The comments box was cheerful and lively and the suggestions there made Yael gag. Viewers were paying thousands of dollars to watch EG inflict pain on a woman who’d never hurt anyone.

EG had put Yael’s stolen family portrait on a table in view of the main camera and there was no way the world wouldn’t figure out who she was and what her link to both the school and Laura was in the next few hours. No doubt the crazies would be blaming her for all Evi1Geni-us’s crimes in the next news cycle.

She ground her teeth. As long as they could save Laura it didn’t matter. She’d lived through vilification before.

What didn’t kill you made you stronger…

Yeah, if that old adage was true her bones would be tungsten steel by now.

When would this end?

From the looks on her companions’ faces it ended today, but what if they were in the wrong place? Or what if one of them was hurt in the process? She didn’t think she could bear it if that happened.

Did EG truly expect to get away with this?