Her gamble hadn’t paid off.
She had chosen trying to escape over playing along and hoping someone found her, and now she was about to die. Just days ago, she had been so excited to have a first date with her Prince Charming, and now he was about to kill her.
“You want to be cut, I can happily accommodate your wishes.”
He took one of her hands and put it under his knee so he could hold it in place, then gripped her other hand in one of his. With his free hand he pressed the razor into her cheek and dragged it down to her jaw.
An ugly smile warped his face as he watched her blood flow. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “Princesses don’t try to trick their prince. I gave you everything. A beautiful place to live, exquisite clothes, I would have taken care of you. All I asked in return was that you follow the rules. You are the most ungrateful whore I've ever met. You think you can use your womanly assets to beguile men but that won't work with me. I want a pure woman. A good woman. A woman who understands her place. I was wrong about you.”
How ironic was that? He thought he was wrong about her, but she couldn’t have been more wrong about him.
“You're just like all the others.” He moved the razor blade to her breast and sliced through it. “You think you can use these. And this,” he put the razor between her legs, “to bewitch men into giving up their rightful position as leaders over women. Well not me.”
Leo cut her again and she cried out, not so much in pain but in anguish. She didn't want to die like this.
“I will not be tricked,” he shouted as he sliced at her manically. Her legs, her arms, her face, he didn't stop.
She was sobbing, and thrashing, trying pointlessly to maneuver his sizeable weight off her body. She couldn’t give up though. If she was going to die, if he was going to kill her, then he would have to look her in the eye while he did it. She wanted to make sure that for the rest of his miserable, pathetic life he would remember the look in her eyes as her life ebbed away.
Georgia fixed her gaze on Leo’s.
Apparently, that angered him. He released his grip on her wrist and instead held onto her face so hard she squawked in protest. “I told you that you don’t look me in the eye. If you won't learn to submit, then I’ll make you learn.”
Two quick slices and her vision was gone.
A slice to her neck, and a moment later the world dissolved into nothingness.
July 26th
4:24 A.M.
The first thing she noticed was the hole.
It seemed to glow in the light of their torches.
Rylla shuddered, it was creepy. She didn't want to look at it a second longer. Instead, she focused her gaze on the face. Not that that was a whole lot better.
“He really did a number on her,” Matthew said quietly.
“More than the others,” she agreed. Other than the faint restraint marks on Tillie Schueman’s wrists, he had killed her cleanly with the heel of the glass slipper through the eye. The only marks on Jeannie Jones were from the bears who had mauled her to death. So far, the killer hadn’t been hands on.
Until now.
Georgia Lars’ body was covered in gashes. Quite literally. They were everywhere. And she could see that they were everywhere because unlike with his previous victims the killer hadn’t left Georgia dressed in a beautiful old fashioned ball gown. He had left her naked.
“Something was different about her,” Rylla said.
“He only kept her for two days. That’s alotshorter than either of the previous women.”
“He kept Tillie for a shorter period of time than he kept Jeannie, perhaps he’s just escalating,” she suggested.
Her partner shook his head. “This feels different than him just escalating.”
Rylla agreed, she just didn't like it. It was obvious from the scene before them that Georgia had been different. Her body read like a map of the killer’s rage. He wasn't getting what he wanted from the women he was abducting and each time he failed he got angrier. He was becoming more dangerous. The only upside to that was that the angrier he became the more reckless he would become, that would lead to mistakes, and mistakes would help them find him.
“He killed her because she did something to antagonize him,” she said.
“The blade he used was small,” Tracey inserted.