The Vanishing Girls Callie Browning (interesting books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Callie Browning
Book online «The Vanishing Girls Callie Browning (interesting books to read .TXT) đ». Author Callie Browning
âSo are people describing you as âtwitchyâ?â asked Eileen.
He bristled. âTwitchy? I work in governmentâs maintenance department, and I go to different buildings to fix things. I drive my own car so I can nip out and do a little taxi work in between. But I ainât supposed to be doing another job on the governmentâs time and I ainât got no hackney license.â
Holden frowned. âSo thatâs why you didnât come forward?â
Jerry nodded. âI canât explain what I was doing there unless I admit that Iâm breaking the law.â He shrugged. âThings hard and I got bills to pay.â
Eileen raised an eyebrow. âMaryâs bills or yours?â
Jerryâs lips peeled back over his teeth. âBills is bills, darling.â
âBut why did Anna call you in the first place? Where were you taking her?â Eileen wondered aloud.
Jerry rubbed the back of his neck. âShe got my number from another girl that I take around sometimes. Anna had an appointment on the west coast. She would gotta catch three buses to get there and she didnât want to be late. I waited for a while, but she didnât show up.â
âWhere was she?â
Jerry cast his eyes downward. âWellâŠtruth is that I was here with Mary longer than I planned so I got to Annaâs apartment late. I knocked and then waited in the car for a while. When Anna didnât come outside, I told myself that she caught the bus instead.â
Eileen caught Holdenâs eye. Jerry sounded genuine. To Eileenâs mind, his biggest problem seemed to be his addiction to Mary. Which meant they were back to the drawing board. They thanked Jerry and left.
âThis is another dead end,â groused Holden as they retraced their steps through Lord Town. âBut you know what? My father always used to say that âthe more you look, the less you seeâ.â Holden said. âWhen we least expect it, something will shine a light on this mystery.â
Eileen chewed on her nails, a habit she had developed when she realized that she slept in the same bed as one of the Cane Slasherâs victims. She was feeling similarly defeated, but she was desperate to find the killer before he found her.
* * *
HAVING DEPOSITED HOLDEN AT HIS HOUSE, Eileen drove home. She parked the car, took a deep breath and craned her neck, squinting at the shadows by the stairs before she ran across the gravel patch and up to her first-floor apartment. She slammed the door behind her and pressed her hand to her thudding heart.
Sheâd never liked the dark, a slight phobia that had started during her childhood, but as she had grown, her distrust had morphed into a mild inconvenience. In the past few months, her fears had resurfaced. She caught her breath, felt her lungs expand with the stale air trapped inside her apartment and fell sideways into the chair next to the door. That nightly dash was mentally and physically exhausting.
When Eileen fell asleep, she dreamed. At first, the vision was relaxing: the room was cool, the way it always is after heavy rains wash away the heat of the day and gentle breezes caress your skin like freshly washed fingertips. A faceless man, tall and broad with muscled forearms grabbed her by the neck, dragged her from the bed and threw her over his shoulder. His clothes smelled of soil and grass, and were slick with the blood of women he had killed. She felt it seeping through her nightgown and onto her skin, leaving bloody streaks on her chest and legs. He carried her across the road into the cane ground, his heavy boots thudding an ominous rhythm as he walked. He tossed her among the young green plants and raised a knife high above his head, his features obscured by the moon behind him. Eileen saw the curve of the new moon in the night sky. She felt the rush of wind as the knife came down. She heard herself scream as her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright in bed.
She clutched her chest and looked down. In the light that filtered through the thin bedsheet at the window, her nightgown clung to her flesh, but it was soaked with sweat and not someone elseâs blood. Her heart beat so fast that it hurt to breathe and a shuddering sob escaped her throat as she put her head between her knees.
Adrenaline filled through her veins like drugs, leaving Eileen too wired to go back to sleep. She glanced around the apartment, searching for a distraction to soothe her anxiety. She hadnât been to the library so she had no new books. The lone TV station had finished the nightâs broadcast. Rainbow-coloured bars stretched across the screen to accompany a tonal pitch that droned through the TV speaker. Her heart pounded again, filling her with terror as she contemplated reliving every dark, bloody moment of that dream if she couldnât find a way to pass the time until morning.
Eileenâs eyes landed on the dark corner and she decided that moment was as good as any to face at least one of her fears. She picked up the bottle next to her bed, downed a mouthful of brown rum and flicked the light switch.
When Eileen had first viewed the apartment, that gloomy little alcove set into the east-facing wall had reminded her of the cupboard under the stairs in her childhood home. It was used as a larder and lined with shelves where Christmas black cake mix, biscuits and canned goods were stored, but there were also times when she heard grunts and deep groans coming from behind the closed doors. Those noises had terrified her, forcing her to return to bed and wet herself more times than she cared to remember. It was only after Eileen reached adulthood that she theorized that those sounds were more sexual than sinister. The lady who raised her had a teenaged niece who sometimes came to babysit Eileen. When the lady
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