The Jeep pulled out of the driveway, kicking up dust as it reached the road, and then pulled along the winding forest trail, away from the lakefront house.

“Dahmer. Blond hair. Ninety-four. Seventeen victims. May twenty-first,” she recited from memory, rattling off the description. “Schizotypal personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder. Psychotic disorder.”

Morbid though the recitations were, they helped calm her nerves. Helped her focus. And Samantha needed Ilse’s focus—all of it. Was the woman delusional? Or was she right? Was a serial killer actually re-targeting her? If she was telling the truth, how had she escaped all those years ago, as a child?

How did you escape? a soft voice echoed in her mind. Ilse shivered once more, and shut the door to her home with a click.

She felt a tingle of anticipation, picking up her pace. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for her meeting.

CHAPTER THREE

Ilse moved back through the kitchen, pausing for a moment, standing next to her wood-burning stove. The faint scent of cinnamon and cranberries wafted from the oven. The granola she’d made the night before and left out to cool. It smelled nearly perfect.

No time to deal with it now, though. She left the oven door shut, and paused near a drinking glass in the dry rack. She frowned at the thing, certain she’d washed it the night before. But now, as she stared at it, narrowing her eyes just a bit, she could have sworn she spotted a bit of a fingerprint smudging the outside.

Running late for her meeting. But still…

She grabbed the cup, moved to the sink. Soap, water, rinse. Twice more. She stared at the glass, holding it over the sink.

Then she washed it again, just to be sure, before placing it carefully on the dry rack, wiping her hands off on the dish towel. She grabbed her keys from the counter, along with her wallet, and then turned, moving through the living room toward the front door. She locked, double-checked the locks, triple-checked the locks, then moved to the driveway.

She didn’t pilot anything nearly so nice as a Jeep. But her Toyota Avalon was nice enough. She called it the Boat, on account of the size of the cabin and the faux wood trim circling the dash like the console of a pontoon.

As she backed out of the drive, she moved onto the dirt road lined by old pines and scattered with prickling leaves before picking up the pace. She lowered her window exactly halfway, fiddling with the controls a bit to make sure the glass perfectly split the frame. Then she allowed herself to relax, inhaling the scent of lake water and the odor of pine needles and dust.

In the distance, through the trees, she spotted the gray clouds pulling over the small town of Three Lakes. A couple of gas stations, a few supermarkets, and two diners served the small township. Though portions of the town lived on the lakefront, the denizens of Three Lakes weren’t fond of attracting tourists. The lake community even had homeowners’ association rules against Airbnbs.