All the Pretty Faces by Rita Herron Read Free Book Online

checked their text history while Ward examined the female’s phone. “Thanks,” he said as he handed it back to her.
    She headed back toward the motel room at the end where Dane had smelled bleach. Dane returned the other men’s cells to them while the lieutenant scrolled through the cameraman’s phone. Satisfied, he returned it and then waited to speak until the team had stepped away.
    “I told you it wasn’t one of mine,” Lieutenant Ward said.
    Dane’s gut tightened. He’d been afraid of that. That the text had come from the killer. Now the lab had to trace it so they could track down the bastard.

    Coming back to Graveyard Falls triggered memories of the past in Dr. Silas Grimley’s mind, a past that he’d tried to overcome.
    The movie that was being filmed in town had attracted many of his masterpieces. He couldn’t help but want to see how far they’d come after he’d made them pretty.
    Would they become the stars in this film? Would he become famous for his cosmetic work?
    Although he didn’t want the fame. He understood the pain of being scarred. Of being laughed at and shunned because of his looks.
    Very few knew about those scars. Or how he’d gotten them.
    Hand trembling, he climbed from his car and walked through the woods. The scent of animals and blood and raw fear filled the air, taking him back to his childhood.
    He knelt by the dirt grave where his father’s bones lay and traced a finger over the oval stone he’d put there to mark the spot.
    Not that he would ever forget any detail about his father—or his life with the mountain man who’d claimed he was one with the birds.
    With a fine sculpting tool, Silas had carved the falcon talons on the rock. He wished he could have carved them into his old man’s face.
    But it was too late for that.
    Only one other person in the world knew that his father’s bones lay rotting in this ground.
    No one else would ever know.
    It was their secret.
    Yes, this dirt hole in the middle of nowhere was a fitting place for a monster.
    Silas arranged the tiny bones he’d collected from his last kill on top of the stone, shaping them like the claws of a raptor. He had a collection of bones at home, small trophies he kept to remember the animals they’d come from, and how he had exerted control over them.
    Thunder rumbled above, lightning zigzagging across the mountaintops. It had stormed the night he’d been locked inside the cage with the starving birds.
    He closed his eyes, rocking himself back and forth, desperate to drown out the hideous screeches. That was impossible.
    The birds squawked and flapped their wings, circling him, then diving down to tear at his skin with their piercing sharp talons.
    Instinctively, he rubbed his cheek where the ugly marks had once been. Plastic surgery had erased the visible scars, but his fingers brushed pocked and mutilated skin.
    Or at least it felt that way to him.
    The pain that had seared his nerve endings throbbed relentlessly, making his jaw numb. He welcomed the numbness, except then his cheek sagged and his eye twitched. Then he looked less than human.
    Like the monster he’d seen in the mirror after the attack.
    Another crack of thunder launched him back in time. He’d screamed and cried to be saved. The click of the lock on the cage echoed in the dark. The flapping of wings followed. Then the screech of the birds as they swooped down for their prey.
    For him.
    Needle-like talons tore at his flesh. He fought and batted at the birds, but his feeble attempts only angered them. They wanted carrion, and he was it. Tears and blood mingled. His voice grew hoarse from screaming.
    Seconds floated into minutes. The world spun. The darkness sucked him in. He closed his eyes and prayed to die.
    Hours later sunlight blinded him as he stirred back to life.
    Sticky blood pooled on his fingers and trickled down his hand as he lifted his fingers away.
    A pop of lightning striking a nearby tree jarred him back to the