Seth heard a tone of pride in the old man’s voice. So now he’s impressed that his son is a criminal?

“I let you believe what I wanted you to believe,” Leo said smugly.

Abbadelli straightened from his knot-tying job. “I believed Jason had killed those girls last week. You didn’t do anything to correct me.”

Leo’s face lit up in crazy mode again, setting off alarms in Seth’s head. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually. I wanted to show you I had more steel than you believed.”

Leo had been seeking Daddy’s approval? That was why those girls were killed?

“You needed to see what I was capable of. You always said I had none of you in me, only Mama in me. I wanted you to know you were wrong.”

“So you killed children?” Seth challenged. “What kind of man kills children to prove a point?”

Leo shifted his hold on his shotgun to a batter’s stance and swung the gun at Seth’s head. The tip caught Seth’s cheekbone before he could whip his face out of the way. The crunch sickened his stomach and pain burned along his cheek. Blood dripped onto his shirt.

He ground his eyes shut, the pain reverberating through his skull.

Don’t taunt the killer.

Leo got close to his face. “My father created a work of art with the bodies of those women decades ago. It was damned beautiful. Like a white flower. I never got it out of my head.” He reached out with a finger and jabbed at Seth’s cheekbone. Fire shot though his face and his tears mixed with his blood.

“How?” asked Seth. “How were you able to get those girls to trust and follow you?”

The man kept his face close to Seth’s, grinning as he studied his handiwork below Seth’s eye. “That was easy. Every girl wants to know she’s beautiful. I found some through Jason’s Facebook account, and that led to others. Teen girls post pictures of themselves everywhere. It was easy to find the look I wanted. I’d set up a professional page through Facebook months before, showcasing some of the work I’d done. It was so easy to get their attention; they all wanted the chance to look beautiful on film. Whores. Sluts, all of them.”

They were children. People’s daughters.

“Now. Drink this.” Leo slid a flask out of his back pocket and shook it before unscrewing the cap. Seth didn’t think he was sharing a companionable shot of whiskey.

“What’s that?”

“Something to make you sleep.”

Phenobarbital. What he’d found in the girls’ stomachs.

He turned his face away.

“Hold his head! Plug his nose!” Leo ordered.

Seth’s head was grabbed and braced against Abbadelli’s stomach. Leo snagged Seth’s chin with one hand and pushed the metal against his lips, cutting the soft flesh and scraping his teeth. He thrashed his head back and forth. Someone’s finger dug into his ripped flesh over his cheekbone and he screamed. Leo sloshed the liquid in his mouth. Seth spit and thrashed some more, but some liquid slid down his throat. He tried to gag, envisioning every nasty stench that’d ever crossed his table. He was unsuccessful.

“That’s enough,” Leo snapped. He stood back, panting, his eyes flashing in anger. Behind Seth, Abbadelli panted harder. “I’ll just have to convince him to have a nice long drink.” He set the flask on the railing. “Ready for a show that’ll make you beg me to let you drink?” Leo looked at his father. “Watch him,” he ordered. He turned and dashed down the porch steps into the dark night.

He’s getting Victoria.

Seth wondered if he should have drank.

“Open it,” Jason told Victoria. One-handed, she inserted the key into the lock and unhooked the industrial-sized padlock from the door. She handed the key back to the boy and debated making a run for it. One swift kick to the balls, and she and Trinity could take off. Jason handled the gun like he couldn’t bear to touch it. She doubted he would shoot them.

Leo she had no doubts about. She’d seen the killer in his eyes.

Her wrist and arm screamed every time she took a rough step. Running would make her pass out from the pain. Besides, where would they run? Back to the cabin to the two men with shotguns? And she couldn’t leave without Seth.

Jason gestured for Trinity to slide open the shed door. A faint light spilled out. Victoria looked inside and caught her breath. Trinity made a small sound in the back of her throat. On a filthy mattress at the back of the small shed lay a woman. Her hair was long and black. With streaks of gray.

Isabel.

Victoria glanced at Jason. He looked as confused as Trinity. The boy didn’t know why the woman was there. “Do you know her?” she asked him. Jason gave a brief shake of his head.

The woman moaned and shifted on the mattress. Victoria stepped up into the shed and darted to the woman, kneeling on the floor next to her. She brushed the long hair out of the woman’s face, and Isabel’s eyes opened. A split second of fear shone from her eyes until she focused on Victoria. She relaxed and her lids fell shut. Victoria’s hand stroked through a wet mass in her hair. Blood. She could feel the wound starting to crust on the woman’s scalp.

Someone had hit her in the head. Leo?

“Is she all right?” Trinity asked. She hovered over Victoria’s shoulder.

“I don’t know. She’s been hit in the head. She woke and saw me but fell back asleep.”

She shook the woman’s shoulder. “Isabel? Isabel? Wake up.”