He put his hand up. “I already had my coffee, and I’ve got to run.”

After he left, she thought about the text from last night. She pulled it up on her phone. What might be in your coffee? What kind of game was he playing? But would he be that obvious? She poured the coffee down the drain.

Forcing a cheerful tone, she looked at Annabelle’s plate. “Okay, girlfriend. You did a good job on your eggs. What do you say we go to the playroom and do some coloring?”

“Okay.” Annabelle slid off the chair, and Kate took her by the hand.

Annabelle ran to the large box next to her easel and pulled out the box of crayons and five coloring books.

“Which one do you want, Mommy?”

“Hmmm. Let’s see,” Kate said, fanning the books out on the table. “I’ll take Moana. Which are you going to have?”

“Frozen.”

They were coloring together, Annabelle chattering away, and Kate tried to enjoy the moment. After a while, Kate closed her coloring book. “I think I’ll try a different book. Maybe the one with all the animals,” she said, sliding it to her.

She opened the book, flipping past the pages that were already colored, then past a hedgehog she had no interest in doing. When she turned the next page, she dislodged a page that had come away from the binding, one already bright with crayon. She bent to grab it off the floor and saw the image—a picture of a long knife, its blade colored with dark red dots that looked like drops of blood. Next to it was a woman wearing scrubs, her face distorted, the eyes and mouth drooping ghoulishly like melting wax. In the corner was a bed filled with stuffed animals, but empty of a child. She brought her hand to her mouth, stifling a gasp so as not to scare Annabelle, her heart thundering against her ribs.

What the hell use were guards and security when someone could sneak into her daughter’s playroom?

That’s when it dawned on her that this was precisely the message the killer was sending. I can get to you wherever you are.

18

Hot flames licked the floor, dancing their way toward her with alarming velocity. The room was so thick with smoke that she could barely see, and she croaked a dry plea for help even though she knew it was in vain. Why hadn’t she listened to her intuition? She’d known something was off when he’d asked her to meet him here, in this shack miles from civilization. Was this really going to be her end? Tied to a rickety chair in a burning house like some clichéd movie character? Her eyes started to close, and she could feel herself fading. Maybe it was better this way—if she passed out, she wouldn’t feel her flesh burning.