by Tess Diamond
“You’ve come to see me again,” Wells said.
“For the last time,” Abby said.
He clucked. “You didn’t bring Agent Harrison with you.”
“He doesn’t need to see you,” Abby said. She admired that about Paul. That he didn’t need this validation. That he didn’t need to stand there and face him.
But Abby did.
“I had no idea I was so important to you.”
“I found him,” Abby said.
“I figured.” Wells gestured to the mess of purple and green on her face. “Is that his handiwork?”
“You should see him,” Abby said, a mean smile playing across her face.
Robin’s blow to Patten’s head had fractured his skull. It had taken a week for him to regain consciousness because of brain swelling. By then, the FBI had dismantled his entire home, finding trophies and items from not just the seven missing girls that Zooey had identified, but five other girls in Oregon whose remains were still unknown. Cadaver-sniffing dogs had gone through as much of Patten’s property as they could, but who knew where they were buried. Who knew how many more stone Xs were hidden in the forest?
Cass hadn’t been his first, but she’d been his most important—the kill that he kept trying to emulate over and over again. Abby had watched as he had waxed poetical about Cass, downplaying her athleticism and competitive spirit, going on and on about her femininity, how proud he’d been when she’d stopped playing softball. A girl shouldn’t try to be like the boys, he’d told Agent Grace Sinclair, who had flown in specially to interview him before taking him to prison. Cass came to understand that. I taught her that.
The profiler’s lip had curled, unable to hide her disgust as she concluded the interview.
“I hope you didn’t hurt him too badly,” Wells said. “Wouldn’t that make you just like us?”
Abby snorted. That smile was back on her face. “I’m nothing like you two,” she said. “I’m smarter.”
Wells chuckled. “Quite the claim.”
“I figured it out,” Abby said. “Why you finally let me see you. Why you set this all in motion.”
“It was time someone put him in his place,” Wells said.
“It wasn’t that at all,” Abby said. She leaned forward. “You missed him,” she said. “Your son. You wanted to see him. In order to do that, you had to expose him.”
A smile curled across his face. “That would require quite a lot of sentiment on my part. Do you think I’m capable of such things, Abigail?”
“I think that for people like him, people like you? Exerting power over others is the closest thing you can get to love. You and him? You show each other you care by hurting each other. By taunting each other. By killing for each other. But now . . .” She trailed off.
Something flickered in Wells’s eyes. “What did you do?” he asked.
“I won,” Abby said. “I got justice for Cass. And I’ll get justice for all his victims. But this?” She gestured to the empty room, to the loneliness that was awaiting him. “This is a favor to the other girls. The ones that you killed. The girls that you carved Xs into and stole their breath and their lives like you were entitled to them. For those girls, I give this gift: You will never, ever get what you most want. Your son will rot in prison on the other side of the state, and you will never see him again. Never talk to him again. We figured out how you were communicating. Those little letters of yours won’t reach him again.”
Wells was white as a sheet, staring transfixed at her.
“You vicious little thing,” he said.
“I warned you before,” Abby said. “Predators who mess with farm girls? We’ll get you. Every time. You should have listened.”
She walked out of the room without even looking back, feeling like a part of her was finally free. As she made her way out of the prison and to the parking lot, it felt as if a weight was finally lifted from her shoulders.
She loved Cass. She would always love her. Growing up as a girl was hard enough without a best friend, and she was glad Cass had been hers. Cass had been a good friend and a bad friend, and Abby had been the same in turn. They had made mistakes and they had made good choices and bad ones, because they were human and they had just been getting started.
Bert Patten had taken Cass away before she was able to soar. Abby would always hate him. It would always be a wound in her heart that Cass never got to grow up, to become who she was supposed to become. Now that wound was as healed as it ever was.
Abby had to let go. Finally lay Cass to rest. Leave behind the bad, cherish the good, and get past all the pain.
Abby walked into the prison parking lot. Paul was leaning against her truck, waiting.
She walked over to him, a soft smile on her face.
“You okay?” he asked, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her close.
She shook her head. “But I will be,” she said.
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, tracing the line of freckles that lined the edge of her jaw. She looked at him, feeling settled in a way she never had experienced before.
“I love you, you know,” he said.
She tilted her head up and they kissed, a slow, sweet kiss that she felt to the tips of her toes. The kind of kiss that started a forever.
They broke apart, just barely, her forehead still pressed to his, their chests brushing, her fingers winding in his hair and his in hers.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
He smiled. “So . . . what are we going to do about that?”
She beamed. For a moment, she couldn’t quite believe the boy next door and the girl across the meadow were finally standing in the same place, at the same time, their hearts finally free to truly love each other. But it was real and their time was here. Their future was forever.
Cass would have wanted them to seize it.
And so they would.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Nancy Fischer and Beth Atwood for their ninja word skills and Shailyn Tavella for her enthusiasm. Huge thanks to Elle Keck and Tessa Woodward for their continued support.
More Romantic Suspense from Tess Diamond
Don’t miss any of Tess Diamond’s riveting romantic suspense novels!
DANGEROUS GAMES
In Tess Diamond’s gripping debut, when an elite negotiator and a security expert team up to solve a kidnapping, the only thing higher than the tension is the heat . . .
Maggie Kincaid left the FBI two years ago and didn’t look back . . . until now. A senator’s daughter has been abducted, and the nightmare set in motion isn’t just familiar to Maggie, it’s personal. She’ll need all the help she can get to bring Kayla Thebes home alive—even if that help comes from a hot-as-hell ex-soldier who plays by his own rules . . .
For Jake O’Connor, negotiation equals weakness. But he’s immediately drawn to the sexy former agent who epitomizes strength. It isn’t long before he and Maggie are working together 24–7, learning to read each other’s signals and wanting much more.
But for Maggie and Jake, letting their guard down—even around each other—may be dangerous. Now, as they close in on a kidnapper with nothing to lose, their first mistake could shatter a young girl’s last chance . . .
SUCH A PRETTY GIRL
In Grace Sinclair’s bestselling crime novels, the good guys win and the bad guys always get caught. As the FBI’s top profiler, she knows that real life is rarely so straightforward. But her new case isn’t just brutal—it’s also personal. The victims look like Grace. And the FBI recruit assigned to her team is trouble of another kind.
This isn’t how Special Agent Gavin Walker imagined running into Grace again. Two years ago they shared one earth-shattering night, then she vanished from his life. She’s brilliant, fiercely independent, and in mortal danger from a killer masterminding a twisted game . . .
The body count is rising. Entangled in the case and in each other, Gavin and Grace are running out of time and ch
ances. And as Grace puts the pieces together, she knows she’ll have to confront her own deepest secrets before the final, fatal move is played.
About the Author
TESS DIAMOND is a romantic suspense addict with a taste for danger—and chocolate cake. She lives in Colorado Springs with her law enforcement husband, two kids, and a ferocious Jack Russell guard dog. She always dreamed of being an FBI agent, and now she almost is—if watching 24 reruns and plotting her next novel count.
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By Tess Diamond
Be a Good Girl
Such a Pretty Girl
Dangerous Games
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
be a good girl. Copyright © 2018 by Supernova, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
first editon
Cover design by Nadine Badalaty
Cover photograph © Mark Owen/Arcangel
Digital Edition APRIL 2018 sISBN: 978-0-06-265585-1
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-265584-4
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