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I do suppose that Addie will be safe with you dead. But to tell the truth, I have no idea where she is.”
    By the time the police arrived, Delaney, of course, was dead. She told them about the camera in the room and that she had no idea where it was. But a quick call to Fred on his way out of the country told them all they needed to know. She was left with a stain on her carpet and a relief so profound that she giggled. Of course, not until after they’d all left them alone. Addie really was safe, and Evie was happier than she’d been in a long time.
    ~~~
    Ellen moved around the house and decided while it wasn’t nearly as perfect as the one from before, she could play here. It sat far enough off the road that she could have as much fun as she wanted, and there was only one way onto the property with the fast moving river behind it. Ellen was so happy that she decided to let the woman showing her around the place live. At least for now.
    “I’ll take it. You say that I can rent it on a month to month lease until they sell?” The woman nodded and told her that as soon as it sold she’d have ninety days to move out, less if the new owners wanted to take it now. “I’ll bet it’s been on the market for a while, right?”
    “I’m sorry to say that it has been. Nearly four years. The market just isn’t what it used to be. Houses like this one, with all this property, usually get bought up by a big company and then ravaged to make room for condos. But there is very little appeal for a house in this area, even if it is cheap. And while I hate to mention this, there is very little in the way of cable or Internet services out here. Nothing to do for the young urbanites, I guess.”
    Ellen didn’t know what that meant, but nodded. She had missed a great deal being in a home for so long, and she’d had to be so good too. That meant that she’d not talked to a great many people, and those that she did, Ellen had to refrain from killing them by keeping her distance as much as she could. That was the hardest part. Not killing everything that breathed.
    The house was much smaller than she’d thought to live in. But everything else about the place appealed to her more than the size of the house. All she could think about was the other house, the one that she’d killed the two men in. It had everything, including the barn. Ellen loved barns. Her first bodies had been in a barn. Then her daddy had caught her, and that had been the end of that area for her.
    Setting up the home so that she could live there while she looked for some of her next victims, her mind kept going back to the other house. She was sure that the police had removed the other two men by now and cleaned up after her. Ellen thought that whoever had been in the barn, if there had been anyone, was long gone too. But the van pulling into the yard just as she was leaving had startled her enough that she’d left unfulfilled about the killings. She’d not been able to play with them. Something that had kept her sane for years was the thought of getting to play for as long as she wanted when she got out.
    This house had been recently cleaned, the realtor told her. The carpets had been steam cleaned and fresh paint was on the walls. Ellen missed the pink in the bathroom that she’d used the one time she’d been at the other house, and the small towels, while dusty, which had been hanging on the towel holder in the bath. The guys had complained about the appliances in the kitchen, but those too had given her a great joy. Ellen thought that she’d go back there just to play one more time, just to break the house in all by herself. Going up to the furnished bedroom, she lay down on the small bed.
    Ellen thought of the week she’d had before they locked her up. That had been the best time of her life. Even the small animals that she’d caught sometimes and killed had not given her the thrill that killing all those people did when she was a kid.
    Her parents had