Her Dying Breath Read Online Free Page B

Amelia.
    Brenda thanked the woman and headed to her car. If the story had upset Amelia, maybe she’d remembered something. Maybe she could name others involved in the experiment.
    She started the engine, then turned her car back toward Slaughter Creek; perhaps Amelia might have gone back to the Nettleton farm.
    Rather the studio—the farmhouse had been burned down in an attempt to kill Sadie. But Amelia might go back to the guesthouse.
    When Brenda found her, she’d persuade her to talk. She wanted the inside scoop on Amelia, to get inside her head.
    Just like you want to know the real story about your own past.
    What would she find if she searched for the truth? Something terrible? Was her mother a criminal, or maybe she just had babies and sold them to make a living?
    Was that the reason the Banks had kept her adoption a secret?

    Nick contemplated the note his father had received as he drove through the winding roads of Slaughter Creek. Odd, how tourists saw only beauty in the rolling valleys and hills, yet for him they just awakened memories of survival exercises and running from monsters in the woods. Human monsters like his father,who’d knowingly forced predators on him when he was a child, just to see if he was tough enough to survive.
    He had to forget about his past and focus on the case. He assumed the victims wanted help, that they might even testify against his father, but so far no one had come forward.
    Brenda Banks wanted their personal stories.
    What if the subjects’ stories triggered a need for revenge, as the Commander had suggested? Not that he cared if one of them came after his father, but he was concerned that the psychopaths created by the experiment might harm innocents on the streets.
    How could he protect any of them, if he had no idea who else was involved?
    A breeze stirred the leaves in the trees on the mountain, the fluttering noise filling the chilly spring air, echoing in a domino effect. The sea of green blended into the dark, the ridges enfolding the town of Slaughter Creek like a mother’s arms, protecting the residents from outsiders. Yet innocent children had suffered, while the town remained oblivious.
    Even Nick and Jake hadn’t known.
    Nick passed the road leading to Jake’s, and was tempted to drop by. But he still felt like an outsider.
    In spite of his father’s abuse, Jake had turned out to be a loving father to his daughter. Ayla attended kindergarten at the same school he and his brother had attended years ago. Jake obviously had fond memories of growing up in Slaughter Creek, or he wouldn’t have brought his daughter here.
    Nick’s memories weren’t so pleasant.
    He drove to the homestead where he and Jake had grown up, but the place had been destroyed long ago. Still, he parked and climbed out, his shoes crunching dry, brittle grass as he crossed to the giant live oak he’d climbed as a kid. A few fond memories flashed back. He and Jake building a fort at the edge of the woods near the property. The two of them fishing in Slaughter Creek as boys. The campouts that had started out fun when theywere young—hikes in the woods, catching frogs at the edge of the creek, roasting hot dogs on sticks.
    But as they’d grown older, those campouts turned into strenuous hiking sessions—basic wilderness training. Days of being left alone in the woods with no food or water, to teach them how to live off the land. Nights of sleeping in whatever cave they could find to protect them from the frigid mountain temperatures and mountain lions when winter set in.
    And then the times when the Commander took Nick out alone. His father always saved the worst tests, the harshest conditions—the beatings—for times when Jake wasn’t around.
    Nick’s shoulder throbbed as he crossed the field to the edge of the creek that ran through the property, and the images he’d tried to banish for years bombarded him. Suddenly he was launched back in time, as if he were eight again, reliving one