Ann Voss Peterson
LETHAL
Love, sex, revenge, murder... welcome to Lake Loyal, Wisconsin.
Risa
Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife…
Slamming on the brakes, Risa Madsen threw open her car door. She clambered out and raced through the parking lot toward the looming perimeter fence of the Banesbridge Correctional Institution. Her heels pounded on the pavement in sync with the drumming of her pulse.
She had to stop this marriage from taking place. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let Nikki throw her life away. She had to save her little sister.
And she was running out of time.
…to have and to hold…
The early afternoon sun glinted off strands of razor wire lining the top of the fence. Risa shivered as she ran. If it wasn’t for her, Nikki never would have sought out Edward Dryden. She never would have transferred her exhausting need for male approval from her father to Dryden. She never would have become a willing victim.
…from this day forward…
Two guards stood at the gate. Stopping, Risa gulped air and struggled to subdue her panic. She focused on the bulky guard whose eyes held the look of a soul weary with confronting the evil of life. “Gordy. Am I too late?”
“They already started, Professor.” He opened the gate and pulled her inside. “What took you so long?”
“Got here as soon as I could.” If it hadn’t been for Gordy’s call, she wouldn’t have made it at all. She wouldn’t have even known about the wedding.
He motioned for her to follow. “Hurry.”
Risa ran up the steps behind him. He threw open the door and led her through a metal detector and into the wide entrance hall of the prison’s main building.
…for richer or for poorer…
While a female guard patted her down and checked the inside of her shoes and the bottoms of her feet, Risa inhaled breath after breath of stale air into her hungry lungs. There never seemed to be enough air inside these walls. Nor enough light.
The perfect place for a man like Ed Dryden to live out the rest of his days.
Of course that was a thought she could never voice. In light of her profession, she was supposed to be supportive of Dryden’s efforts toward rehabilitation. She was supposed to believe that through psychoanalysis he could overcome his horrible childhood and turn his life around. A part of her even wanted to believe it. But she couldn’t shake the cold feeling slithering over her skin every time she thought of his dead, black eyes, his artful smirk.
The feeling of impending doom.
Trent had planted that bias in her. When he’d profiled Dryden for the FBI. When he’d testified at Dryden’s trial. When he’d helped put Dryden in prison.
Everything always went back to Trent.
…for better or for worse…
Risa shook her head, trying to dislodge the litany of vows scrolling through her mind. She had to make it to the chapel in time. She had to stop those vows from crossing her sister’s lips. She had to prevent this travesty from taking place.
Security checks complete, she hurried after Gordy. Barred doors slid open in front of them and clanged shut behind. Risa’s heart slammed against her ribs. She wanted to push past Gordy and race for the chapel as fast as her feet would carry her. She wanted to grab Nikki and drag her out of this godforsaken place, kicking and screaming if need be.
Risa wished she could change the past. She wished she had never added Dryden to her list of case studies. More than anything, she wished Nikki wasn’t the needy, vulnerable girl she was. But wishing wouldn’t help anyone. Only getting Nikki out of this place, away from Dryden would do that.
…in sickness and in health…
Finally, Gordy stopped in front of a plain steel door marked Chapel. “Hope to God we aren’t too late.” He pushed the door open.
Risa squeezed past him and lunged inside.
Her eighteen-year-old sister stood in the corner of the chapel. Her bleached hair fell to her shoulders in platinum ringlets. At least fifty yards of lace and satin and frothy tulle flourished around her like French cream frosting. Her lipsticked mouth rounded. Her penciled brows arched in surprise. “Risa.”
Risa looked past Nikki and focused on the groom. The man was charming, almost boyish, with an endearing shyness and a down-home smile. Looking at him, one would imagine he was a kind and gentle man, a calming influence for a reckless girl like Nikki. But Risa knew differently.
Ed Dryden was a brutal serial killer.
Risa strode up the aisle toward her sister, toward Dryden. Her hands hardened into fists by her sides.
Dryden’s dark eyes met hers. A smirk slithered over his thin lips. “Hey, sis. You here to welcome me into the family?”
A cold finger traveled up her spine.
“No?” His smirk grew wider. “Why not? Don’t tell me you’re jealous of your little sister. Do you hear that, Nik? She’s jealous of you.”
Nikki gazed up at him, beaming as if he’d just given her the prize of a lifetime.
Nausea swirled in Risa’s stomach. She wanted to think all human beings were redeemable. Curable. But looking into Dryden’s emotionless eyes, she just couldn’t buy it. No, Trent was right. He’d always been right. A man like Dryden never changed. He manipulated. He terrorized. He killed. But he never changed.
And he’d found just the right ploy to control her sister.
Dryden leered down at Nikki as if she were a roasted leg of lamb seasoned just the way he liked. “Face it, sis. Nikki has triumphed where years of psychotherapy failed. Her love has made me a better person. A good person. She’s my soul mate. And you’re too late to change it now. We already said ‘I do.’”
The breath left Risa’s lungs in a whoosh.
Dryden raised his eyes to meet hers and lowered one eyelid in a profane wink. “Nikki is my wife—until death do us part.”
Eddie
June 1996, on a dark country road…
Eddie Dryden stabbed the shiv just below the ribs. The sharpened handle of a toothbrush, hours spent filing down the plastic to a point on the cold concrete floor of his cell, too thin and fragile to do more than pierce the skin.
So he drove it in harder.
The man groaned, breath rattling, still alive. Still feeling every goddamn bit of agony.
Nice.
If only Eddie had a real blade. Something sturdy. Strong. Something that could hold an edge. Then he’d field dress this asshole. Do it for practice. Just because it had been too long.
Dryden wiped his hands on his prison garb then started to undress, swapping his orange jumpsuit for a green one with the sanitation company’s logo on the back and the blood stain at the throat. He pulled out the plastic bottle of club soda he’d been saving just for this and poured it on the stain, dabbing it clean with the sanitation worker’s white wife beater before zipping up.
High fashion.
Eddie had paid enough for his ticket to stow away on the damn garbage truck. Should have gotten real clothing for that price. And a real blade, like his Buck knife back home. He was cheated.
People were idiots. Thought they had it over on Ed, but they never did.
Losers.
Eddie had been planning this for a long time. How he’d get out. How he’d convince the driver there was something wrong with his truck so he’d stop. How he’d take out the man and have his fun, before moving on to better things.