The Fifth Victim. BEVERLY BARTON

      BEVERLY BARTON

      THE FIFTH

      VICTIM

      Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

      The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      AVON

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in the U.S.A by Kensington Publishing Corp.

      New York, NY, 2003

      Copyright © Beverly Barton 2003

      Beverly Barton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9781847560636

       Ebook Edition © May 2012 ISBN: 9780007287413 Version: 2018-05-29

      To my precious niece, Ja’ Net Horton, who is as beautiful inside as she is outside. I remember the first time I saw her when she was a little beauty of eight and I was dating her uncle. I knew then that I wanted a little girl who looked like her – blond curls, blue eyes, and a sweet smile.

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Prologue

       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

       Epilogue

       Read on for an exclusive extract of Beverly’s Silent Killer, out now.

       About the Author

       By the same author

       About the Publisher

      Prologue

      Dark. Cold. Predawn quiet. Wind whipped through the tall, ancient trees in the forest. Soon the sun would ascend over Scotsman’s Bluff. He was prepared, ready to strike the moment the morning light hit the altar. Once the deed was done, once he had sacrificed the first victim, the ritual would begin anew. As soon as he tasted her sweet life’s blood, he would no longer feel the winter’s cold. Her blood would warm him, empower him, prepare him for the others who would lead him to the most important transposition of his life. All these years he had diligently searched for perfection, for the most powerful, all the while building his strength, bit by bit, with lesser mortals.

      He gazed down at the naked girl tied to the wooden altar, her long blond hair flowing about her