“Why south?” Miles demanded. “Sum it up.”
“He’s out of his element, using off-brand motels, shit-can vehicles, and he hasn’t had a kill since South Carolina. I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “That sounds callous.”
“It sounds realistic,” Lydia disagreed. “Morgan’s part of the resort family. And more,” she added with a glance toward Miles. “Mick and I have done some reading on him, and on his type. He needs the rush of the kill. He rarely, if ever, rapes. The kill is his release and his power.”
“That’s it, Grand, exactly. They figure he knows they’re close, too close for him to risk that kill. Too close for him to risk what he really wants.”
“Morgan,” Drea murmured.
“Morgan. But if he can throw them off—and that’s part of the rush for him, too—he can regroup. And south, the exact opposite, is how they see it. He likes the sun, and they’ve had a hell of a lot of rain along this trail. So they’re going to look in Nevada, Arizona, California. They calculate he’ll get cocky if he thinks he’s put one over on them. More important to those of us sitting here, they don’t believe he’s headed this way. Yet.”
“We’ll put resort Security on alert.”
“Yeah. And trust me, Miles, Westridge police already are.”
“It’s a lot of area to cover,” Liam pointed out. “Nevada, Arizona, California. You could add New Mexico, Utah.”
“It is, and I wish I could tell you something more definite. But if they’re right, or even if they’re wrong and he’s trying for Canada, he’s not here.”
“He’ll change his look again,” Nell said.
“Likely already has. But he’s put on weight. About twenty pounds, and they’ve got him on a mini-mart camera. They sent me the feed, and I can tell you, it’s wearing on him. And that’s one of the things, the mini-mart. He didn’t have to go in, just bought some junk food, and they tracked him back to the motel he left. Vending machines right there. He’d know about the camera, went in anyway, didn’t try to avoid it.”
“He wanted them to see him,” Miles concluded.
“That’s how it reads to them, and it reads to me, too.”
“We appreciate you coming to tell us, Jake. You’re going to go talk to Morgan and her family now?”
“Yes, sir,” he said to Mick.
“Go.” Drea put a hand on Miles’s arm. “Go. You should be there. We’ll finish up here, feed Howl.”
“I will. Thanks. I’ll ride with you, Jake.”
“Come by my place later, Jake?” Nell asked him.
“I’ll do that.”
Miles said nothing until they’d gotten in Jake’s car. “Are you leaving anything out?”
“Nothing, except what I could read between the lines. They think he’ll kill first chance he gets when he feels he’s shaken them off. And he’s got a head start.”
When no one answered the door, Miles felt his nerves start to fray. Their cars, all three, sat in the drive, but no one answered the door.
“Let’s walk around back,” Jake suggested. “It’s a nice evening. They could be sitting outside and didn’t hear the bell.”
“It would send an alert to their phones.”
They’d barely gone halfway around when he heard the laughter. Giddy, female laughter. And the weight in his gut dropped away so fast he might’ve staggered.
And there they were, all three of them, with a pizza box on the table, cocktail glasses. If he wasn’t mistaken, all three were just a little bit drunk.
“Ladies,” Jake began.
Audrey let out a squeal that turned into more laughter. “Oh my God, you scared ten years off me.”
“Rang the bell. I guess you didn’t hear it. Or have your phones handy.”
“No, we…” Her laughter died, and she closed a hand over Morgan’s arm. “Baby.”
“Say it fast,” Morgan said. “Please.”
“They don’t have him yet, but he hasn’t killed anyone else they know of. I do have an update.”
“Okay. Okay.” Morgan rubbed her hands over her face. “Sorry. I guess we all left our phones inside. We’ve been drinking. Fall specialty drinks. Quite a lot, really.”
“Pull up some chairs,” Olivia invited. “We can all handle our liquor when we have to. Information’s power, Morgan. We have the power here.”