“No. There were just a few things moved. Some of the flower vases were in different places. And Georgia asked me if I’d been looking at her clothes. Sometimes we borrowed each other’s things, she said some of the things in her closet had been rearranged, but I told her I hadn’t touched a thing.”
That was probably the answer to how the killer knew Georgia’s dress size.
Whitney sobbed. “I was the one who suggested online dating. It was my idea and now because she listened to me she’s gone. It’s the Fairytale Killer, isn’t it? I saw it on the news. He killed another woman and now he has Georgia. He’s going to kill her and it’s all my fault.”
Rylla wrapped an arm around the woman and patted her back as she wept. There was nothing she could say to comfort Whitney right now. In all likelihood, the Fairytale Killerwasgoing to kill Georgia unless they found her first.
Right now, the best that they could hope for was that Georgia kept herself alive and that the killer stuck to his usual pattern of keeping his victims for several weeks before killing them.
They would do what they could. They would continue to try to track him through the website, and in the meantime, they would take Georgia’s computer and search through her conversations with the killer, looking for similarities between what he told her and what he told his other victims, hoping that those consistencies might point to things that were real rather than made up to impress and connect with his victims. But when he killed them seemed to depend on when the women did something that disappointed or upset him.
Georgia seemed to be smart, hopefully she could take her cues from the man and do her best to play along and do whatever she could to keep on his good side until they found her.
Theywouldfind her, that wasn't in question. The only question was whether they would find her dead or alive.
* * * * *
11:47 A.M.
Georgia was bored.
Should she be bored when she had been abducted and was being held prisoner?
It didn't seem appropriate, but it was what it was.
She hadn’t seen her kidnapper once since she’d been here. She had paced backward and forward across the room for hours, searching for a way to escape, and trying to work off her nervous energy.
As well as pacing, she had tried screaming for help. She had yelled at the top of her lungs, begging for help, until her throat was raw and aching. No one came. She hadn’t expected anyone to come and yet at the same time it had been a blow.
What if no one was even looking for her?
What if he’d managed to trick her family and friends into thinking she had voluntarily gone away with him?
After all, he had tricked her into thinking he was the man she wanted to marry.
So, she paced some more. Rechecked every inch of every wall in case she had missed something useful. Called for help again and again until she had virtually no voice left. And done some more pacing.
Then her bladder had started calling out to her.
For some reason she hadn’t wanted to use the bathroom. It was like admitting that this little home he had created here for her was real. That she was really living here. That she really might never walk out that door again.
Despite her resistance to using the opulent bathroom, in the end, her body had other ideas and when her bladder was so full she thought it would burst, she had relented and gone running to use the bathroom. Since she had already caved and made use of the facilities Georgia decided she may as well have a shower.
When she was done, she’d had two choices. Number one, she could put back on the dress he’d put her in while she’d been passed out on sleeping pills, or number, two she could choose something from the closet. Neither choice had been particularly appealing. What she wanted was her own clothes, not these fancy ones he’s had made for her.
In the end, she had gone with something she could at least choose for herself, so she had put on a long white cotton nightgown. That was the plainest item of clothing here, so it seemed like the best choice.
After that she had paced some more.
There were no windows here in her prison, so she couldn’t tell what time it was, but she was sure she must have been here for hours by the time she was so exhausted she couldn’t hold her eyes open a second long. She collapsed on the bed, not bothering to climb under the covers, and promptly fell asleep.
When she awoke a tray containing a glass of apple juice, a salad sandwich, and a small bowl of fruit salad was waiting for her. All her favorites. He knew they were her favorites because she had told him.
It hit her all of a sudden. He had known she was asleep and that it was safe to sneak in the food without having to speak with her.
Georgia knew what that meant.
It meant that he was watching her.