Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
I made a mental note to leave her a glowing review as I moved to the elevator, glad to find it empty, not wanting anyone else to look at me with pitying eyes. The cops, forensics guys, hospital staff, Julie, and the clerk at the desk were more than enough.
My room was at the center of the hall, and I rushed inside, placing down my drink and bag on the desk before doing what all the true crime girlies did when they were staying in a hotel. Opening the closet, the bathroom, pulling back the curtain, checking behind the curtains and under the beds.
After that, I grabbed two of the hangers from the closet, and fixed them together to prevent the door handle from moving easily.
That was a flight attendant trick.
A belt around the top triangle thing would have been better. But I had no belt.
Then, not as a true crime girl, but just as one who was grossed out by the very idea of them, I checked for bed bugs. Before finally sitting down.
It wasn’t until I had half of the coffee in my system, as well as the blueberry muffin, and the sun was peeking through the curtains that everything seemed to click back into place.
Detective Wells Vaughn had been woken up to come to my house.
That wasn’t how things worked. Whatever detective was working would catch a new case.
Unless…
I knocked my phone onto the floor with the urgency that I reached for it.
Unless I wasn’t the first victim.
See, the thing was, I wasn’t always a Navesink Bank resident. I’d grown up in New York State. Like deep in New York State. Lots of snow and not much else.
From there, I’d gone to college in Florida.
Where I quite quickly learned that the heat and humidity would not suit me literally all year long.
From there, I debated all my options, and decided that New Jersey was probably my best option. Close enough to New York that I could visit my family on holidays, but far enough that I wouldn’t be obligated to be there every weekend or something like that.
I didn’t have a big family. But the ones I did have, well, let’s just say that there was a reason I went to school all the way in Florida instead of something closer and cheaper that wouldn’t strap me with lots of student loans to deal with for a few years.
Navesink Bank had been a strike of good luck after living in a more rural part of Jersey for a while.
Navesink Bank was an area of both average and extremely affluent people. Which meant I managed to get myself a job at a fancy place catering to fancy people that paid really well.
I’d only been in the area just shy of two years.
In that time, I’d gotten to know a lot more about the area. Namely that it has this crazy, thriving criminal underworld. I probably rubbed shoulders with mafia men and outlaw bikers and loan sharks every time I went out into public.
I’d been fascinated by them, so I’d focused a lot of my attention on researching them and their histories.
Which meant I’d kind of neglected other sorts of crimes going on in or around the area. I was too busy researching the criminals with moral codes to focus on the ones without them.
Like the man who’d attacked me.
A man who had clearly done so before.
My fingers were slow and clumsy on my phone screen, typing in random search words over and over until I finally got news reports.
Her picture was right there by the headline, brown hair, green eyes, with a very smart, almost studious look to her. Madison Silvo.
Victim of the Silent Sadist?
That was the headline.
The Silent Sadist?
If he had a nickname, this was not the first time he’d struck.
Madison, I had to notice, looked a lot like me. Short, slight, almost girllike, with dark hair.
She lived alone.
Like me.
She’d been attacked at night.
Like me.
But unlike me, she’d been horrifically tortured, raped, and murdered.
Was that what I’d avoided?
So, so narrowly?
The articles I found didn’t exactly have a lot of details, but that might have been because the detectives didn’t want to have that information getting out. Or because they just… had nothing to go on.
It didn’t take long to find the information on the other victim.
Ashley Moore. Twenty-eight. Same height and build. Same brown hair. Lived alone. Like poor Madison, she had also been tortured and raped before she’d been killed.
That wasn’t all.
Madison had been killed on October 5th of last year. Ashley, the 5th of October the year before that.
And me?
I’d been attacked on the fifth.
I’d been the survivor of the Silent Sadist.
“Oh, God,” I said, jumping up as my stomach rolled, sure I was going to lose the coffee and muffin. “Okay. Alright,” I cooed to myself, pressing a hand to my belly as I paced the small hotel room. “It’s alright,” I said, hoping I might start to believe it.