All The Devil's Creatures

ALL THE DEVIL’S CREATURES A JACK MCDERMOTT SERIAL KILLER THRILLER OLIVIA BROOKWOOD Copyright © 2023 by Olivia Brookwood. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS Description Also By Olivia Brookwood Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 About the Author Also By Olivia Brookwood DESCRIPTION Jack McDermott wrote a bestselling book on serial killers… and now a madman is using it as a how-to guide for murder. Jack led an easy-going life as a college professor until FBI agent Andrea Valenti walked into his classroom. She has evidence that a serial killer is not only a fan of Jack’s book… but that he’s using it as inspiration for his grisly crimes. Now the two of them are plunged into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a psychopath whose twisted plan involves something even more horrible than the murders he’s committed. Jack must confront dark secrets from his past involving a serial killer in his own family… Before he becomes part of the madman’s final masterpiece. A heart-stopping psychological thriller in the vein of Mary Stone’s Winter Black series and James Patterson’s novels, ALL THE DEVIL’S CREATURES will kill keep you reading frantically until the very last page. ALSO BY OLIVIA BROOKWOOD All The Devil’s Creatures All The Devil’s Monsters (coming soon) 1 The killer watched the girl through his binoculars as she returned home from class. Meredith Housel, 21. Senior. Business major at the University of Georgia. Lived in downtown Athens on Mommy and Daddy’s dime in an apartment on the 4th floor… All alone. That last part was key. After he had CHOSEN her, the killer had spied on her for weeks to establish her comings and goings. To find her rhythm. So he could decide on the absolute best time to DO IT. He finally figured it out: 3:14 PM on a Monday or Wednesday, 24 minutes after she finished her final class for the day. Today was Monday, and she was walking home from the northern part of campus where the business school was located. Downtown Athens was really only about eight blocks of shops – clothing boutiques, fast food restaurants, and LOTS of bars – along with an assortment of apartment buildings that had sprung up in the last few years. She’d stopped in a Starbucks on her way home, as usual, and drank her coffee while she walked home. Pedestrian traffic was light at this time of day. At night, the bars were packed and spilling out onto the streets – even on a Monday. More potential witnesses. Another reason to do it NOW. This is it! he thought with giddy excitement. THIS IS IT! He knew the rest of her routine like clockwork. She would go upstairs… Dump her bookbag by the front door… And then peel off her clothes and slip naked into a terrycloth robe as she made a snack for herself before jumping in the shower 7 to 10 minutes later. She never showered in the morning before class. She always wore sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt during the day, then showered when she got home. He’d tracked eight other women before this one but had given up on them when logistics proved too difficult. The first time he’d seen Meredith Housel shower after she got home, he knew she was the one. He felt it in his bones. Seeing her do it another half-dozen times only confirmed it. The downstairs neighbor wouldn’t get home until 6. No one to hear the body hit the floor. The neighbors to the left were a young couple with day jobs. They wouldn’t be back until 7. The neighbor to the right was a college boy, but he played video games with headphones on whenever he was home, so the killer didn’t expect too much of a problem there. And the 4th floor was the top floor. Nobody above the girl’s apartment. No one to hear. Perfect. Time to go. The killer ripped the sheets of newsprint off the windows and dropped them onto the bare concrete floor. He’d taped the paper to the glass two weeks ago and waited to see if someone would notice. If they had, they never investigated. The building was in the final stages of construction, but something had stalled. Maybe money problems with the developers. Who knew. But there had been no workers around – making the building the perfect sniper’s nest these last two weeks. It was simple enough to get inside if you knew how to pick a lock, which he did. The killer had never been in the apartment without latex gloves on, so he wasn’t worried about fingerprints. And the killer wanted them to find the newspapers. In particular, wanted HIM to find the newspapers. It would be the perfect clue. Enough to make HIM think that HE was onto something. That HE had the killer all figured out. Wouldn’t HE be surprised when HE finally realized that, no, it was the other way around. The killer exited the building, his white KN-95 mask and baseball cap in place. People had long ago given up on COVID-19 protections – and Georgia had been one of the states to take them the least seriously to begin