Page 46 of Petty Deadly Gorgeous

“So he made her do stuff to him and when the movie was over, he threatened her not to tell or he’d come for her.” Maddie looked around and I reached over for a box of tissues, putting them on the table. “Then she saw him after school one day and he made this motion of watching her and drove off.”

“What a dick.” My jaw clenched in anger. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Oh, I know, Miss Anna.” She took her hand from mine so she could blow her nose. “So then when I saw that, I asked what happened, and she finally told me.”

“When did this happen?”

“Last year. And today she saw the car in town and she was sure it was him who came into the diner with Dom. I had her stay in back away from everyone with Uncle Dean. Then I used a glamor, and I did it just like you taught me to make myself look younger…” Her voice trailed off.

Bile rose in my throat and my voice came out gravelly. “Did he touch you? I don’t need details. I just need to know.”

Her head bobbed, and she broke down in body shaking sobs. I jumped from my chair and kneeled at her feet, pulling her into my arms.

The motherfucker is going to die.

I rocked her gently, and that’s where Jon found us when he returned. He said nothing as he joined up and wrapped us both in his arms, rocking with us.

Dominick

The city sign for Kilton welcomed me and during my drive, I thought of the many ways to inflict pain on a person.

Needles through tender areas, like his dick. A branding iron on his face. Disembowelment. Ripping off finger and toenails. Tearing his asshole wide open.

They were all good. And I hadn’t come up with one that I felt could be dismissed.

My anger flared every time I looked back at situations and wrote off his behavior. More than once I’d noticed him looking at women. I just never paid attention to the ages. Everyone looked at someone who looked good.

The bile in my throat rose, and I knew I couldn’t fight Chuck running the elevator up anymore. I pulled over to the side of the road and fumbled opening my car door, scrambling from the driver’s seat around my car to wretch on the side of the road. With each heave, I felt angrier.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

“Unh!” My abdomen tightened, pushing more up. “Ugh!” Again. “Ass!” I dropped to my knees in the gravel. “Hole!” My right hand slammed against the ground to hold my body up from face-planting in my vomit.

Five fucking years and I missed it.

I took two deep breaths and sat back on my heels, wiping my forehead with the back of my arm.

My head fell back, and I watched the clouds drift by before I tried standing up. My body shook from the violence of expelling everything I’d ever eaten in my whole forty-four years. I popped open my trunk and took out a bottle of water to rinse and spit, then I sipped some down.

I leaned back on my car and took in the scenery. Driving into Kilton, the back-way wasn’t as bad as guys at the station made it sound. Sure, the dense forest of trees looked spooky, kind of like they were moving. But overall, the scene took my breath away.

Once my body felt like it stopped quivering, I got back in my car, chucked the water bottle in the backseat to join the plastic bottle graveyard I had going in my car and followed my GPS to Hollie Callahan’s house.

The case we worked with the Callahan’s seemed to be a basic b and e. The burglars came in through her window and one held a knife to her throat while the other did a smash and grab while her parents weren’t home.

In each of the cases with young girls, if we divided and conquered, he took the child. His reasoning was since he had kids, he knew how to talk to them.

My stomach rolled again, and I half laughed. “Oh, no. There’s nothing left.”

The small city of Kilton couldn’t be bigger than ten blocks by ten blocks. As soon as I turned onto the street where their house sat, I recognized where I was. I pulled up in front of the blue and white ranch-style house complete with the manicured lawn, killed my engine and then dug a mint out of my center console to help my breath.

My hand ran through my dark hair and I took one last deep breath before exiting the vehicle. The walk up to the door felt like a prison sentence. Investigating my partner wasn’t supposed to be something I had to do.

Trust. We should be able to trust each other. But something deep in my gut told me what I would find.

I lifted my hand to knock, and the door flew open. “Detective Moody.” Eliza Callahan looked at me. “What brings you here?”

“I thought I would check in and see how your family’s doing and see how Hollie…” I stopped speaking because of the tears pouring from her eyes. “Missus Callahan?”

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