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Chapter Thirty One
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Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Two
CHAPTER THIRTY TWOThe Horror of Love“Daddy, this is Eddie. I love him, and he loves me, and he is strong enough to handle anything that needs handling, and you’d better listen carefully because now I’m going to be Mrs. Warshouski. That’s W-a-r-s-h-o-u-s-k-i. Warshouski. Now let’s get everybody together because we really would like to get married soon, please.”Bryony threw herself onto her aging father, who cried happy tears for his little girl. And Eddie reached out to shake his hand, but he was drawn into the hug, as well, and Stop kept saying: “Bless you, my boy.”Eyes were wet and smiles were genuine and Eddie looked around the house and deemed Bryony’s childhood home to be absolutely lovely and worthy of her.Then he turned and looked out of the windowtowardthedesert.“It has always been this way,” Bryony offered by way of explanation, and Eddie had to go and sit down for a minute because his heart threatened to stop and his legs tried to give out.“How can you live
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Three
CHAPTER THIRTY THREEAre You Alive? Here Are Some MuffinsDetective Bridger stood outside the door for a second before knocking. He felt rather silly holding a basket of warm muffins, but his wife had insisted. The detective cleared his throat and tried to look extra official.Rikki-Tikki answered the door. “Yes?”The detective’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”“Good to see you again, Detective Bridger. How’s our homicidal home invader?”Detective Bridger smiled slightly. “I think that particular man is scared straight for a good long while. He didn’t want to confess to any of the other crimes until we threatened to put him in a locked room with Syrina. Suddenly he had a lot to say.”“She’ll be pleased to hear that. What can I do for you, detective?”Detective Bridger straightened. “I was looking for Miss Adams. I was going to . . . my wife . . . these muffins,” he said awkwardly, and held them out to Rikki-Tikki.“She isn’t home right now.”“When will she be back?”
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Four
CHAPTER THIRTY FOURPain and PeaceToday was a beautiful day as far as Mrs. Warshouski was concerned. Her darling Eddie was getting married, and what could possibly be better than that? Why, nothing. Nothing. Soon their house would be full of tiny Edwards and . . . what was her name again? A poisonous flower. Oleander? Baneberry? Goodness, that can’t be it. No mother in her right mind would ever name her daughter Baneberry.Mrs. Warshouski could just see it now . . .“Why, hello, new mother. I am your nurse. You have a tiny baby girl.”“Oh, do I? How utterly delightful. I am ever so happy.”“As am I. What a pleasure to assist in the labor and delivery. And what, pray tell, are you going to name your little bundle of goodness and light?”“I shall call her Baneberry.”“ . . . Shall you? Oh my.”“Yes. I wish to give my daughter a rather conflicting name, you see, and I felt that being called after a poisonous flower would do just that. First I thought of Elephant Ear, but you can
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Five
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVEIf You Had Never Met MeThe phone was ringing back at Stop’s home. It rang for several minutes, silenced itself long enough to take a breath, and then rang again. Stop hobbled into the house, cheeks still glowing from the wedding. Bryony and Eddie were close behind.“Hello?” Stop said into the phone. His voice was merry and young, and it reminded Bryony of when she was a child. Stop used to rollerskate with her. He taught her how to climb trees. “Yes, he’s right here. Hold on a second.”He handed the phone to Eddie. Eddie grinned at him.“Yeah?” he said.He didn’t speak for a long time after that, just listened. His face went paler and paler until he rivaled Bryony herself. She pulled a chair over to him and he sat down.That’s when she knew.Stop must have realized it, too, because he put his arms around his daughter, smoothing her hair. “It’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s not your fault.” His newfound youthfulness was a lie, a dreadful deceit, for he wa
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Six
CHAPTER THIRTY SIXHe Has a NameThe murderer was thrilled to see Bryony back on the trail. It had been a few days, not so long, as he was beginning to despair of ever seeing her again, but long enough that he had killed twice more in her absence. Nobody spectacular or even very special; just some random people he deemed suitable. But now she was back and ready to play.Only . . . only there was something different about her, and he couldn’t quite figure it out. Something about the way she held herself, something about the shape of her mouth.Ah, yes. Grief.How unusual. She was a woman born of grief, and yet somehow she was breaking under the weight of it. It was a lovely thing to see, actually, like the branches of a tree snapping under an ice storm, a sort of beauty in the pale horror of the event, but at the same time, he didn’t enjoy seeing her suffer. She moved him in a way he hadn’t often been moved. It was like watching a ghost fade away after you had just grown accustomed
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Seven
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVENIn Which the Murderer Becomes a HeroThis is what Peter the Murderer thought:“Wow, what horrible, painful screams. It reminds me of the good old days. That is certainly a woman who wants to survive. Mmm, how lovely.”He thought, “How unusual for somebody else to be on my turf. I certainly don’t like it. I just might need to hunt this other person down and have a frank, yet gentlemanly discussion, on what one does and doesn’t do when an active serial killer has laid claim to a specific area.”He thought, “The girl.”And once that brief thought ghosted over his mind, he could think no more. “The girl.” The girl he hunted, the girl he had gifted, the lonely girl from the stars whose very countenance had been frosted over by death before he even met her, and now?And now somebody was beating him to her.That galvanized him. That got his legs moving. He burst out of the blackberry bushes, heedless of the scratches, and pelted down the trail as fast as his legs
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Eight
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHTSorrow and Stars and LightEddie Warshouski was getting tired of Detective Bridger.“So your old girlfriend and your mother were both murdered, and now your new wife is attacked, as well? You’re sort of the Typhoid Mary of killers, aren’t you?”Well, ouch, Eddie thought. This man pulls no punches.“I told you I wasn’t in town for my mother’s murder. I was getting married. And a man in my girlfriend’s building killed her. He was a whack job. And this guy that attacked Bryony—”He couldn’t finish. He was furious. The idea that some sadistic killer would step out on a popular running trail and try to drag his wife off to do who knows what was beyond him. What a horrible and distasteful affair. How absolutely hurtful and unforgivable, whatever he had planned.Well, he knew what. He knew exactly what this creep had planned to do, and he could hardly think straight. Bryony was still in the hospital, cut and bruised and shaken, but otherwise whole, although they wo
Pretty Little Dead Girls Chapter Thirty Nine
CHAPTER THIRTY NINEStunning in its HorrorThey finally released Bryony from the hospital, and Eddie couldn’t help himself: He scooped her up and carried her to the car like an invalid.“Eddie, I’m all right, I’m all right!” she exclaimed, but she was happy, and kissed Eddie on the cheek, and patted his shoulders, head, and arms with her bandaged hands.“I invited the man who saved you over for dinner this weekend. His name is Peter Culpert, and he seems nice. I’m happy he was there, Bryony.”“I’m happy, too,” she said, and they held hands and climbed the rickety stairs up to Eddie’s old apartment, which was now Bryony’s new apartment. As soon as they stepped inside Eddie knew something was wrong. His eyes darted around the room as he took everything in.Jasmine the Guitar was lying two inches farther to the right than he had left her. He knew this because he always lined her up exactly with the vertical stripes on the awful wallpaper. He was a bit obsessive in this way.The gla
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