Twisted by Francine Pascal Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Amanda Loring—older, taller. Holding a track trophy aloft while teammates cheered.
    Susan Creek—eyes more gray than blue, thinner than the rest. She looked so sad, it was almost as if she knew what was coming.
    Clarissa Richardson—very pretty but looking awfully uncomfortable in a tight, off-the-shoulder formal gown and a paper crown that proclaimed her queen of the junior prom.
    Paulina Dree—sitting on horseback, her father standing beside her, both smiling. She had a great smile.
    And finally, poor Carolyn Mosley, posing in cap and gown, a high school diploma rolled in her hand. Valedictorian of her class. Her family’s pride and joy .
    The youngest of them was fifteen, the oldest, twenty. They were six young women from three different states. None of them had known one another. Most but not all were good students. Most but not all had participated in some sort of organized athletics. They shared no common hobbies. They didn’t read the same books, or like the same music, or share the same dreams.
    They had nothing in common at all—nothing except a general similarity of features and the fact that they were all dead. And blond hair.
    Gaia’s hair, thought Tom Moore. He scrolled through the pictures again.
    If he looked closely, he could see a little of Gaia in each of the dead girls . It was far more than the hair. The dead girls weren’t identical, but they shared a similar bone structure—wide eyes, strong cheekbones, high forehead. Pretty girls, all of them. Of course, Tom was sure that none of them was as pretty as Gaia. But then again, Tom might be more than a little prejudiced—he thought his daughter was the most beautiful young woman in the world.
    Six dead girls who all looked a little like Gaia Moore.
    â€œWhat have they done?” Tom whispered to the empty room. He leaned back from the monitor and stared into the shadows. “What have
we
done?”
Warm-up Exercises
    IT NEVER GOT DARK IN THE CITY. Not really dark the way it had in other places. Like Connecticut
    He strolled down the sidewalk, careful never to touchanyone he passed. He didn’t like to touch people. He didn’t like to be touched .
    The sun was already going down, but the sky overhead only shifted from blue to a kind of dingy yellow as the lights came on. It wasn’t anything close to real darkness. After only three days in the city, he still thought the dirty, nearly starless sky seemed terribly odd.
    He craved the darkness.
    He moved off the sidewalk and headed down the curving path that led out under the trees. A handful of children were still indulging in a few last minutes of play, but there were parents on hand to watch and a policeman standing at the edge of the playground. A pair of street musicians were putting away their instruments and counting up handfuls of change and folded bills.
    They were scared. All of them were scared of the coming night.
    He could feel it, almost taste it . For a moment he had a desire to rush into the center of them, screaming and waving his arms, just so he could watch them scatter. He fought down that desire.
    No matter how fun it might be to see them run, it wasn’t his reason for being in the park. There was important work to be done—a higher purpose. Nothing could be allowed to get in the way of that purpose .
    He walked on, passing two more policemen on his way to the chess tables. Like the playground, the boards were almost deserted. Two men still squinted at a game in the failing light. At another table an old man slowly packed away his chess pieces.
    The old man looked up as he passed. “You wanting game?” he said. “I will play you.”
    â€œNo, thanks, Gramps.” The idea of playing this guy actually made him smile. The man was ridiculously ancient, with sun-spotted skin and flyaway tufts of white hair. Beating him at chess couldn’t possibly be a challenge.
    Killing him would be even easier.
    It