Framed Read Online Free Page A

had only been a week. Overall, it was a tie: three boys and three girls, if you counted the two previous PC members who'd been taken out a couple of weeks earlier. Accusing PC fingers continued to point my way, at least for the murders of the men. They hadn't tried to tag the women on me yet, but I was certain that would only be a matter of time.
    For each woman that was murdered, I had a similar graphic vision of what was happening, but with each incidence they intensified. I could hear the attacker's thoughts more clearly, feel his emotions more succinctly, but never could tell exactly what he was after, or why he chose those victims. “Revenge” was the only thing he ever said. With all the connection I seemed to have to him, the only thing that was clear to me was that he wasn't playing with a full bag of marbles.
    “Did you read the paper?” Cooper asked hesitantly.
    “No point...I already know what the front page news is,” I replied, trying to keep the sourness out of my voice. “Do they have any leads?”
    “Doesn't say. You'd probably have to know someone on the force to get information like that though, and I don't think you need to go around looking too interested in these murders. The PC is already starting to think you look good for them, you don't need the humans on your ass too.”
    “You been talking to Sean again?”
    He shrugged and dropped his gaze back to the article he was reading about the most recent murder. I really didn't need to read it; it was already playing on a loop in my mind.
    She was an out-of-towner, meeting a friend for dinner; she never made it. He'd found her parked in an isolated area downtown, scrolling through websites on her iPhone to get directions to where she was going. She begged for her life, pleading on behalf of her two small children and her husband back in Maine. It fell on deaf ears. The mention of family only seemed to enrage him further.
    He ended his torture more quickly than he had for the others. Perhaps her failed attempt at saving herself still earned her a mercy of sorts in the end; that was how I chose to look at it. Cheryl James was the name I saw on her driver's license. She was thirty-nine. I caught a glimpse of it as he ransacked her purse, looking for something after he'd eviscerated her atop her car.
    I brought my attention back to Cooper, who was staring at me while I replayed the vision from the previous night over in my head. He reached across the island and wiped the tear that had sprung loose and rolled down my cheek.
    “They're getting worse, aren't they?” he asked solemnly. I nodded silently. “Is it time to tell Sean about it?”
    “Not until I figure some things out first,” I replied. “I want to know why I'm having them...why I have this bizarre connection to this guy. I've never seen him before in my life, Coop. Why is he tormenting me?”
    “I don't know, Ruby,” he said softly. “But I don't like it. Something is wrong about this. Very, very wrong. Sean may have some answers about—”
    “Sean may tell me I'm the spawn of the devil and then BAM …off with my head,” I snapped with more hostility than necessary. “Confiding in him only makes so many things worse, Cooper. He's in a tight enough spot as it is with the brothers being murdered. If I throw this at him, he may find something out that he can't overlook this time. He's always maintained that he'd kill me if he had to. I have no doubt about the veracity of that promise.”
    “Nor do I, Ruby, but the reality is that he knows things and we don't. You're not the one killing these women, and he'll believe you. I think you need to tell him.”
    I cringed at the thought.
    “I will,” I sighed. “ If it comes to that. Why don't problems like this just disappear as quickly as they came?”
    “Because it's a nightmare, not a fairy tale you're living” he said soberingly.
    “Don't I know it.”
    I was jarred out of my acknowledgment by my front door. Knocking would have