Dying Scream Read Online Free PDF

one of his employees.”
    He’d been on a mission to solve this case and he believed Craig was the key. “That’s right.”
    “You could have saved yourself a trip. I don’t know much about my husband’s business. He doesn’t talk about it and I don’t ask questions.”
    Gage reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a photograph of Rhonda Minor. “Do me a favor, take a look at her picture.”
    She didn’t touch the photo, or move closer to him, but glanced down. She studied the image. “I knew her. We met at a couple of office parties. I said hi but we never really talked.”
    “Take another look. Think. She’s twenty-three. An artist. Wants to be a painter. Was there anything that she said or your husband said that would have seemed off to you?”
    Adrianna glanced down a second time. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything. Honestly.”
    “Do you know Jill Lable?”
    She shook her head. “No. And I’m not in the mood for a guessing game. Who is she?”
    “She went to high school with Craig. She’s been missing for twelve years.”
    “What are you saying, Gage?”
    Gage chose his words carefully. “Just following leads on two women who were acquainted with your husband and are now missing. I was hoping he might have said something. Men tell their wives all kinds of things.”
    “Like murder?”
    He shrugged.
    “Craig had his share of faults, but he was no murderer.”
    “I’m not so sure.”
    Adrianna’s eyes flashed. Too much class kept her from telling him to fuck off but her expression communicated the sentiment. “I don’t know anything. Now please leave.”
     
    After that all leads had dried up. And then he’d read the legal notice in the Richmond Times-Dispatch announcing the removal of the Thornton family graves. He’d been given a second chance.
    Gage maneuvered around more a slow-moving van.
    Vega rested his arm on his car door and tapped his thumb. “You think Rhonda Minor is dead?”
    “Yes. I think she was dead before Craig Thornton’s accident. But I’ve never proven it. I never found that other woman. But I promised myself I’d never stop looking.” Uncertainty could tear a family in two. “Rhonda’s brother still calls me about once a month to check and see if there is any new evidence.” Last time Fred Minor’s voice had cracked with anguish. September second would have been Rhonda’s twenty-sixth birthday.
    “Your turn is coming up,” Vega said.
    Gage glanced at the green road sign ahead that read: HONOR. “Right.”
    He took the next left and wound deeper down the country road. Unlike the west end of Henrico, the east end was relatively undeveloped and rural.
    Gage slowed as he drove through Honor. Dried up and forgotten, Honor wasn’t more than a collection of antique stores and novelty shops. A gas station. These days it was a bedroom community to the city of Richmond.
    Following the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit, he passed through town and down Route 60. Two miles beyond the town limits, he spotted the long dirt driveway marked by twin white pillars. The sign out front read: THE COLONIES.
    “Imagine, being rich enough to have your own graveyard,” Vega quipped. “Man, that’s living.”
    Gage reminded himself to take in air. To relax. “We can all hope to aspire.”
    Vega surveyed the wooded terrain. “Makes sense that if Thornton killed those women he’d bury them here. It’s remote and would have been his home turf.”
    “Yeah.”
    The car bumped and rocked when he turned down the furrowed road that led them through tall oaks. When they hit a clearing, it was easy to spot the collection of pickup trucks and the yellow backhoe, which sat silent by the cemetery shaded by an old tree.
    Gage put the car in PARK and shut off the engine. As he got out of the car, tension knotted his gut like it had before a big game in college. He fastened his collar, tightened his tie, and shrugged on his suit jacket as he scanned the crowd. No sign of Adrianna.