He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not Read Free Page A

college student Carolyn O’Donnell?” the reporter asked.
    “Until the next of kin are notified, I can’t speak to the identity of the—”
    “Do you actually expect us to believe the dead woman isn’t O’Donnell?” the same reporter shouted.
    Richards pointed to another reporter, effectively dismissing the Journal reporter, leaving him red-faced and sputtering.
    Amanda couldn’t help but grin.
    “Yes, the body was discovered just off the main jogging trail in a remote section of the park,” Richards said in response to a question.
    “No, the jogger who found the victim isn’t a suspect in the slaying.”
    “I can’t confirm or deny sexual assault until the autopsy is completed.”
    “No, I can’t speak to the cause of death at this time.”
    For several minutes, the questions continued. When another reporter repeated the question about the victim’s identity, Chief Richards thanked everyone for their time and walked away, abruptly ending the press conference. Amanda smiled at his audacity.
    The angle of the camera shifted, focusing again on Tiffany Adams. Quoting unnamed sources, she callously confirmed that the nude body found in the park was the Florida State University sophomore who’d gone missing while home on summer break. She quoted an unnamed source and didn’t express a twinge of remorse that O’Donnell’s family might be watching the broadcast.
    The anchorwoman seemed to delight in going into more detail, telling the audience about the multiple stab wounds and speculating that the victim was strangled. Then she mentioned something Richards hadn’t: the victim was found clutching a long-stemmed, red rose.
    Amanda shivered and clasped her arms around her middle, barely feeling her fingernails biting into her skin through her thin, cotton tank.
    Was the stem smooth? Had the killer removed all of the thorns? All but one?
    The TV screen faded away and she was back in the cabin four years ago, lying on the hardwood floor in a puddle of her own blood, listening to the sound of Dana’s terrified sobs behind her.
    Amanda’s attacker straddled her stomach and held a red rose above her, its sweet perfume wafting down and mingling with the metallic scent of blood. He plucked one thorn from the stem. “He kills me.” He broke off another. “He kills me not.”
    His sickening version of the childhood chant continued as he snapped off each thorn to drop one by one onto her blood-smeared stomach. When only one thorn remained, his obsidian eyes shone through the holes of the hooded mask that covered his head and most of his face, but not the cruel slant of his lips as they curved up in a delighted smile.
    He leaned down, pressing his lips next to her ear, his hot breath washing over her bare skin. She shuddered in revulsion and his hand tightened in her hair, painfully twisting her head back. “He kills me,” he rasped.
    Dropping the rose, he reached behind his back and pulled out a long, jagged knife. Its wickedly sharp teeth winked in the dim light as he raised it above his head.
    With a muffled cry, Amanda tore herself away from the nightmare of her past, collapsing against the couch as she struggled to breathe and slow her racing heart. The TV gradually came back into focus. Channel Ten was still covering the gruesome discovery in the park. Adams speculated on a possible connection between this morning’s murder and Dana Branson’s murder years earlier. A picture of Dana at Florida State University filled the screen. Then the camera zoomed in on a closeup of her tombstone.
    When they showed a file photo of Amanda leaving the hospital, she flipped the TV off and dropped the remote to the floor. She reached up and ran a shaking finger down the rough edges of the long, puckered scar that zigzagged down the right side of her face, a scar that four painful surgeries had failed to completely erase, a scar that reminded her every day of the horrors she wanted so desperately to forget.
    But no matter how