The Serial Killer's Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

face again, much harder this time, shouting, “Reginald, goddamn it, tell me!”  
    But it was clear he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t, and before the phone vibrated a fourth time she pressed the TALK button.  
    Cain said, “Never fucking hang up on me again.”  
    She looked at the alarm clock.  
    1:36 ... 1:35 ... 1:34 ...  
    “Elizabeth, I’m not sure if it’s obvious to you yet or not, but I can detonate that collar whenever I wish.”  
    “Please, please, please,” sobbed Moore.  
    “All I have to do is press a button here on this remote switch and ... well, I’m sure you get the picture.”  
    Moore, rocking back and forth, staring up at her with tears in his eyes, begging, “Please, just help me, you’ve gotta help me ...”  
    Cain whispering in her ear with that dark robotic voice, “Elizabeth, you do get the picture, don’t you? Because I’m about to press the button right now.”  
    Elizabeth, holding the phone to her ear, slowly backing away from Reginald Moore, back toward the stairs.  
    “Ten seconds, Elizabeth.”  
    1:08 ... 1:07 ... 1:06 ...  
    “Seven seconds.”  
    “Please,” Moore sobbed, “ please! ”  
    No, she wanted to say, no it’s not fair, none of it’s fair, but then she heard Cain’s voice once again in her ear—“Five seconds”—and she turned her back on Reginald Moore and fled for the stairs.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 9

    S HE REACHED THE top of the stairs, slammed through the door, and ran only four paces before the collar exploded.  
    The house shook, a mini-earthquake, enough to knock her to the floor. She hit her chin against the carpet, bit her tongue, instantly tasted blood. She scrambled to her feet, her stomach churning even more, that bile in the back of her throat fighting to make an exit.  
    Down the hallway, through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and then out the back door and she jumped over the two steps, went sprawling into the backyard just as the bile forced its way out. At first the stream of vomit was healthy but then it dissipated and all Elizabeth could do was dry-heave.  
    How long she lay there in the grass and fallen leaves, tears in her eyes, vomit ringed around her mouth, she didn’t know. Ever since she had been young, the sight—even the thought—of blood had nauseated her. Her mother had worked as a dental assistant, and sometimes she would come home and there would be spots of blood on her uniform and little Elizabeth would become lightheaded. A few times she had even fainted. Once when she was twelve she had scraped her knees badly on the playground and had gotten blood on her hands and had screamed and screamed until she passed out.  
    She hadn’t seen any blood, but she could imagine it. Even now, lying here in the grass, she could still see Reginald Moore twisting and turning and bucking to get out of the chair, the bright red digits on the alarm clock counting down, nothing either he or she could do to stop them.  
    It’s not fair, she had thought there in the last few seconds of Reginald Moore’s life, and it was true. According to the clock, he should have been given another minute before the C-4 detonated. But no, Cain had decided to prove just how powerful he was, accelerating the man’s death even if it was just by sixty seconds.  
    Still, she wondered what might have happened in those sixty seconds. Would Reginald Moore have come to some kind of understanding for the life he’d led? Would he have made his peace with God if he hadn’t already?  
    She didn’t realize she was still holding her cell phone until it started vibrating again.  
    Elizabeth picked her head up off the grass, squinting at the phone in her hand. She hated the thing. She’d gotten it because it made no sense paying for a landline and now here it was, a device linking her to this madman.  
    Climbing to her feet, she answered the phone, listening for Cain’s voice but hearing a distortion instead.