She was just about to step through when her cell phone rang. Involuntarily, she jumped back and leveled her pistol at the doorway to fire. Then her mind caught up with her body and she pulled the phone out of her pocket and her pulse ticked up a notch when she saw it was Jackson. She hoped her service would hold long enough for him to talk.

“This is Shaye,” she said, trying to stand very still so that she maintained reception.

“We found Ron Duhon.”

Relief rushed through Shaye and she felt her body relax. “That’s great!”

“I wish that were the case. He’s dead. And he’s been dead for at least a day.”

Confusion coursed through her. “That’s not possible. He killed the paramedic last night and attacked that patient…”

“It couldn’t have been him. Shaye, the stalker is still out there, and Emma’s not answering her phone.”

Shaye struggled not to panic. She had to think. “Emma went back to her house to get some things. The police were still there.”

“The last of the forensics team left ten minutes ago to come here and process the motel where we found Ron.”

“You’ve got to get to her house. Make sure she’s safe— Holy shit!”

Something banged at the back of the house and Shaye nearly dropped the phone.

“What’s wrong?” Jackson asked. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the shack David lived in,” she whispered. “Something else is here with me. Hold on.”

“Wait—”

She slipped the phone in her pocket and brought her pistol back up to the ready position as she inched toward the doorway. The room she stepped into was smaller than the front room and contained three sets of twin mattresses, shoved next to each other in a corner. Like the couch, the stuffing had been pulled out and used to house God knows what. Her heart pounded in her chest, beating so loudly it sounded like a drum inside her head, breaking the absolute silence. A door stood on the left wall of the room, and she crept toward it, gun leveled and ready to fire.

She was completely unprepared for what was inside.

The woman whose arm was chained to the bed was nothing more than skin and bones with tattered rags draped over her wrinkled skin. Scars from cuts covered every square inch of her body that Shaye could see, the red and purple slits practically glowing against the stark white flesh. Her head was slumped to the side, eyes closed and her tongue partially protruding from her dried white lips. But the worst part was the eyes, or what was left of them. They’d been carved out while she was still alive, a trail of dried blood falling from the sockets to her chest. Even though her face was haggard and bruised, Shaye recognized the jawline and cheekbones.

It was Helen Bourg.

A chunk of the ceiling lay on the floor at the end of the bed, dust still rising from tin sheets. That was the source of the noise Shaye had heard, but she had no explanation for the woman.

Decomposition hadn’t yet begun, so she couldn’t have been dead long, but the real question was how long she’d been shackled to her own bed and more importantly, who had done it? Had Jonathon returned home to “take care” of the person who’d shaped him into what he was?

A nightstand next to the bed had tipped over and the drawer had slid out. Shaye could see aged yellow paper and photos inside. She hesitated before inching toward the nightstand, then bent over and picked up two of the photos. The first was one of Helen Bourg holding her babies.

Her three babies!

Shaye’s pulse quickened. The photo was cracked and yellowed, but there was no mistaking the three babies with blue blankets. Sissy had never mentioned a third child. Shaye blew out a breath. Think. This was a poor woman and probably a home birth. One of the babies probably didn’t survive.

She reached down to pick up another photo and gasped. The three boys standing in front of the shack were at least ten years old. One was a couple inches shorter than the other two, but there was no doubt they were siblings. All three wore cutoff blue jeans and nothing else. Although their arms and legs were bruised and they were clearly malnourished, none of them appeared disabled. So why wasn’t anyone in Port Sulphur, including the school district, aware of the third child?

A live sibling was a game changer. It would explain why Emma saw her husband even after she knew she’d killed him. It would explain why the stalker had intimate knowledge of her life. Jonathon must have been in touch with him.

She turned to leave and a bony hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. She screamed and jumped back from the bed as the woman she’d thought was a corpse came alive. Helen jerked up into a sitting position, her face contorted in rage, her empty sockets seeming to glare at Shaye.

“Get out of my house, whore! I smell the stench of lotion on you.” Froth came out of Helen’s mouth and bubbled up on her lips. She lunged at Shaye, swinging her free arm wildly to get hold of her again, but the chain on her other arm prevented her from reaching. Her bony fingers looked more like a cadaver than a live human being. Her fingernails were yellow and curled in circles under her fingers.

Disgust, fear, and panic coursed through Shaye as she stepped backward, unable to take her eyes off the monstrosity in front of her. “Are you Helen Bourg? Who did this to you?”

“It said this was payback because of what I done to it. But I didn’t do nothing. I couldn’t turn it loose. It was evil. Just like you.”

“Me?”

“You women, always conniving, always sneaking around, stealing someone’s man, pretending you got rights you don’t. You’re all the same. And I wasn’t going to have that evil living here. It had to change. But it was wily, that one. It didn’t listen, so I had to chain it. I had to, don’t you see? I had to until it learned its place. Until it learned how to be right.”

Shaye stared at the woman, her stomach rolling, her mind racing. It sounded like nonsense, but it had to mean something. “Did your son do this?”

“It was never my son!” Helen screamed, spit flying from her mouth. “It was a monster and it had to be cleansed but now it’s loose. It’s out there and I can’t protect the world from it any longer.” The woman collapsed back on the bed, her eyeless sockets pointed at the ceiling.

Shaye clenched her hands, desperately trying to make sense of the woman’s words. She lifted one hand and ran it across the top of her head. What the hell did she do now? Call the police, certainly, and an ambulance. It was clear the woman needed medical help, but Shaye needed to know how to find that third son. The one that must be the stalker.

She shifted her pistol to her left hand and pulled her phone out of her pocket. When she dropped her gaze down to look at the phone, she saw it. A business card stuck between two floor planks, behind one of the bed frame legs. She put the phone back in her pocket and inched forward, keeping a careful eye on Helen. Without vision, the woman’s hearing had become more acute, and the last thing Shaye wanted was to feel the woman’s skeletal fingers on her skin again. Keeping watch on Helen, she leaned over and picked up the card.

Patty Hebert

Serving all your real estate needs.

Suddenly, it all made sense. Awful, horrifying sense.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Shaye ran out of the shack, pulling her phone from her pocket as she ran. No service. Shit! She leaped into her SUV and reversed as quickly as possible down the narrow path. At the end, she threw the SUV into drive and it slid in the dust before lurching forward. She tossed the phone in her cup holder, and gripping the steering wheel with both hands, she pressed the accelerator down and concentrated on staying in the center of the narrow road.