LET ME BREATHE by Kate Bold

Author:Kate Bold [Bold, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-10-19T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Ashley shivered as she perched on the edge of the folding chair in the lookout spot hidden between two white pines. Bundled inside a Kevlar vest and a black jacket, complete with a hood, it wasn’t the cold night air that had sent the chill down her spine. Her thoughts revolved around the horror she knew that Daphne had faced earlier in the afternoon. Had the woman survived the initial attack? Was the killer planning to end Daphne’s life here at the Sparks County Hazardous Waste Preprocessing Center?

Or was it already too late for Ashley and Wyatt to save her?

Peering through the lenses of her night-vision binoculars, Ashley scanned the front entrance of the facility. She’d been told that solid and liquid waste—both household and commercial—from all areas of the state ended up at the center. The workers on site analyzed, sorted, consolidated, and labelled the waste. Then the drums and sealed containers were stored at the center temporarily before being trucked to either the landfill or the waste treatment facility.

And now it seemed the killer had chosen the location to be Daphne’s temporary grave.

In an attempt to sooth her troubled thoughts, Ashley reminded herself that the killer had kept Hannah alive until he’d brought her to the landfill. The preprocessing center closed its doors at four o’clock each day. Unlike the treatment facility, neither the landfill nor the preprocessing center employed a night shift. The fact that the killer likely believed that he wouldn’t have to worry about the center’s workers—or anyone else—interrupting his plans, gave Ashley hope that maybe he hadn’t yet murdered Daphne.

Resting the binoculars on her knees, Ashley noticed Wyatt checking his watch.

“What time is it?” she whispered.

“Twelve fifty-seven.”

They’d set up camp around the perimeter of the thirty-acre facility at eight-thirty p.m. So far, all had remained quiet. After dumping Trina’s body, the man who they believed to be the killer had been spotted in the treatment facility’s parking lot just before one o’clock in the morning. They suspected that he’d keep a similar timetable with Daphne.

But would he choose to bring his victim into the center through the parking lot entrance? Or had he found another way inside? Dense forest lined the boundaries of the facility’s intake, sorting, and storage yard. It was possible that there might be a concealed breach in the chain-link fence that had gone unnoticed.

If that proved to be the case—if the killer had found or had cut an opening—it was possible that he could carry Daphne inside unseen.

Gaps riddled their dragnet. They’d needed the help of ten deputies to secure the perimeter of the preprocessing center. But searching for Daphne in the wide forest that surrounded her home had ranked equally as important. There was the still the possibility—however slight—that the deputies might pick up the abductor’s trail. So their troops had been split. Sheriff Perkins, along with half their planned stakeout team, now combed the woods on the outskirts of Tomlinson. Leaving Wyatt and Ashley with only five deputies to stand guard around the center.

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