Focus, he snapped at himself. It didn’t matter what laws the receptionist had broken. She’d outed him. Revealed his real name to the entire Internet.

His heart was racing so hard that his head hurt. He drew a breath, trying to calm himself. He was safe here in the old pedo’s house. Nobody knew he was here. Nobody knew that he was connected to the old man whose body had long been claimed by the river.

I’m safe here. And I have hostages.

He could still get away. He would get away. Then he’d find a way to kill that receptionist bitch from wherever he ended up. He’d make it hurt, too.

“I can’t believe I was almost alone with him.” Millicent was crying into the camera and the picture abruptly shifted to a picture of the nursing home’s exterior.

A photo of his father flashed on the screen, taken before Konrad Kaiser had had his “stroke.” When he was still a healthy man. When he could still beat the shit out of anyone who crossed him.

Including his mother. Her photo appeared next to her husband’s as the news reporter shared the fact that Konrad Kaiser had been accused of killing his wife, but had been cleared of all suspicion.

Because he’d lied. His old man had used his influence to lie. He’d called in favors with colleagues and old clients and even a few cops to establish an alibi. He couldn’t have killed his wife, he’d claimed.

Even though I saw him do it.

“Now we have to wonder who did kill Myra Kaiser nine years ago,” the reporter mused. “It seems more likely that her son had a hand in it—”

“No!” Cade thundered. He had not killed her. He was not taking the rap for what his piece-of-shit father had done. There was no fucking way.

“—now that we know he’s suspected of killing at least ten people,” the reporter was saying. “There are the seven bodies that the police have pulled from the river, the pediatrician who originally discovered the bodies, a CSU technician, and the wife of victim John Brewer.”

They’d found Stella, then. Cade had zero regrets about killing her.

“If you see this man, please call the following number.” A new photo flashed on the screen and he could only stare dully. A photo of me. It was a real photo, not the sketch the cops had been circulating everywhere since Michael Rowland had described him on Saturday.

He had to get away. Had to find someone to change his face.

I should have run before now. Because now he couldn’t run. His wounds were dark red and oozing. If he hit the road now, they could turn gangrenous, and that was a very bad way to go.

He’d stay here in the house. At least for now he was safe.

Chapter Twenty-Three