Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) by Deirdre Dore Read Free Book Online Page B

the words sent a shiver down her spine tonight.
    Freckles—Agent Helmer—stood up and paced in front of her. “Ms. Pascal, we know you’re not as ignorant as you seem. You have contacts in both the Atlanta PD and the local sheriff’s office. You work with other police departments regularly in your private mission to find missing children. The evidence shows that you have a direct connection to this person, even implies that you could be helping him.”
    Chris was about to get huffy about the “ignorant” comment when his insinuation hit. “Helping him? How?”
    The two Feds looked at each other, frustration coloring their expressions. “You’re creating him.”

9

    “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I’m creating him?”
    Helmer scowled. “Those are his words.”
    “Whose?”
    “The unsub’s.”
    “You’re in contact with him?”
    “Not directly. We believe he’s been posting messages on a blog called The Mysteries of Fate. Have you heard of it?”
    Disgust tugged down the corners of Christina’s mouth. She’d heard of it. Boy, had she heard of it. Ten years ago, when TV shows about witches and vampires and the undead had just started to become popular, an ex-stockbroker named George Mills had retired to Fate and started a website about the local legends, including the witches, the crop circles, the ghosts, the unexplained deaths of an entire family in 1926, the Cherokee legends, the Civil War stories, and the unexplained missing. He called himself FateFriend101. Give me a break, she thought sourly.
    Chris didn’t actually have a problem with stories about the town legends; she did have a problem with George Mills, who was not a big believer in fact-checking. He’d been the one to name Chris, Tavey, and Raquel the “Mistresses of Fate” for their mission to find the missing, and he tried to interview her about Summer every year, even indicating that the reason she didn’t want to talk was because she’d killed Summer herself. Still, he was slightly famous. His stepson, Brent Burns, was an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, and actually seemed to have some affection for the old turd, mentioning that his stepfather’s obsession with local legends was what led him into filmmaking. So the blog drew tourists, which drew money, which kept everyone in their tiny town employed, even the farmers, who had taken to selling their goods at a farmers’ market in the main circle every weekend.
    Chris didn’t understand why a serial killer would post to the site, though. There were certainly more direct ways to get a point across. She knew that not all serial killers were the antisocial freaks portrayed in movies, but many were attention-seeking egomaniacs. So why post messages about insane proclivities on a random blog about the town? Had he even killed anyone from Fate? Chris was sure she would have heard of it if he had. Their town had maybe three thousand people in it on a regular basis. So why Fate? Why her, for that matter? Chris was pretty disappointed in the Feds, if they believed a serial killer over her. She’d been helping them catch predators and recover missing children for years. Why would she be involved with a serial killer?
    Agent Helmer—he was definitely Agent Helmer now and not Ryan, even though he was kind of hot—stopped pacing and loomed over her. Chris tugged her knee a little tighter to her chest. His eyes were a little wild and he seemed pretty riled up for a seasoned FBI agent; you had to be careful of the crazy ones, you never knew when they were going to do something nuts, like accuse you of being involved with serial killers.
    “Ms. Pascal”—he seemed to be struggling for patience—“we’ve been tracking this unsub throughout several counties in northwest Georgia, gathering evidence from various local agencies.”
    “Which there isn’t much of,” Agent Midaugh chimed in.
    Agent Helmer glared at him. “We received a tip that you may be involved. On further investigation, we