The Fifth Victim
A brutal serial killer targets a succession of five unsuspecting female victims in this new spine-tingling thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller author, Beverly Barton.One by one he kills them…With every kill, his strength increases. But this time is different. This time he has found his perfect fifth victim…Deep in Tennessee's Smoky Mountains, the victim lies, sacrificed on a makeshift altar - the gruesome work of a killer who has evaded the authorities across the country. FBI agent Dallas Sloan knows the scene all too well - just as he knows the killings won't stop. Not until there are four more bodies…Genny Madoc's 'sixth sense' has bought many of the town's residents to her isolated log cabin, looking for help. But now it's Genny who needs help from the disturbing visions she sees - images that are getting stronger and more violent each day …Dallas and Genny must band together, searching the town's darkest hidden secrets, before a twisted killer can complete a sinister plan that will destroy one of them once and for all.Prepared to be petrified in this dark and gripping thriller, for fans of Karen Rose and P.J. Tracy.
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BEVERLY BARTON
THE FIFTH
VICTIM
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in the U.S.A by Kensington Publishing Corp.
New York, NY, 2003
Copyright © Beverly Barton 2003
Beverly Barton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781847560636
Ebook Edition © May 2012 ISBN: 9780007287413 Version: 2018-05-29
To my precious niece, Ja’ Net Horton, who is as beautiful inside as she is outside. I remember the first time I saw her when she was a little beauty of eight and I was dating her uncle. I knew then that I wanted a little girl who looked like her – blond curls, blue eyes, and a sweet smile.
Prologue
Dark. Cold. Predawn quiet. Wind whipped through the tall, ancient trees in the forest. Soon the sun would ascend over Scotsman’s Bluff. He was prepared, ready to strike the moment the morning light hit the altar. Once the deed was done, once he had sacrificed the first victim, the ritual would begin anew. As soon as he tasted her sweet life’s blood, he would no longer feel the winter’s cold. Her blood would warm him, empower him, prepare him for the others who would lead him to the most important transposition of his life. All these years he had diligently searched for perfection, for the most powerful, all the while building his strength, bit by bit, with lesser mortals.
He gazed down at the naked girl tied to the wooden altar, her long blond hair flowing about her angelic face as the frigid wind caressed her luscious body. Her eyelids fluttered. Good. That meant the drug he’d given her was wearing off and she would be awake for the ceremony. He loved to see the look on their faces—the shock and horror—when they realized what was about to happen to them.
Flinging back his dark cape, he smiled. There was no need to hurry. He could take his time afterwards, savor the kill for as long as he liked. No one in their right mind would be out in the woods at dawn in January. Only he and the girl.
He laid the ornately carved wooden case atop the girl’s trembling body, opened it and removed the heavy sword, then placed the case on the ground. Gazing up at the sky, he waited.
She whimpered, but the gag in her mouth kept her from doing more. He glanced down at her, ran his hand over her naked breasts and lifted the sword toward the heavens.
A pale pink blush spread out over Scotsman’s Bluff, only a hint of color in the dark sky.
“Soon, my little lamb. Soon.”
Languidly, with tendrils of light reaching farther and farther into the sky, the sun welcomed the dawn of a new day. He jerked the gag from her mouth. She screamed. He brandished the sword and spoke the sacred words in an ancient tongue.
From the depths of hell, hear me and do my bidding. Let this sacrifice please thee. I bid thee to accomplish my will and desire.
He brought the sword down, down, down. From throat to navel, he split her open. Her sightless eyes stared up at the towering treetops overhead.
He wiped the sword with a soft cloth and returned the weapon to its bed, then stuffed the bloodstained cloth into a plastic bag and dumped the bag into the case. With her blood still warm, he lowered his head until his lips touched the gaping wound. He licked, then sucked, filling his mouth with her blood and energizing himself with her life force before it escaped.
Genevieve Madoc woke with a start, sweat drenching her body, soaking her flannel gown. Her heart beat at a dangerously accelerated pace as she shot straight up in bed.
