***
AS they started off, hands linked, he watched them from the shadows. He smiled to himself, enjoying the music of quiet female voices drifting away. It was best, he realized, that she had come with the other one. He might have felt compelled to move to the next stage if Jo Ellen had wandered so neatly into him alone.
And he wasn’t ready, not nearly ready, to move from anticipation to reality. There was still so much to prepare, so much to enjoy.
But, oh, how he wanted her. To taste that sexy, top-heavy mouth, to spread those long thighs, to close his hands around that pretty white throat.
He closed his eyes and let the image of it roll through his brain. The frozen image of Annabelle, so still and so perfect, shifted into hot life and became his. Became Jo.
A portion of the journal he carried with him played through his head.
Murder fascinates us all. Some would deny it, but they are liars. Man is helplessly drawn to the mirror of his own mortality. Animals kill to survive—for food, for territory, for sex. Nature kills without emotion.
But man also kills for pleasure. It has always been so. We alone among the animals know that the taking of a life is the essence of control and power.
Soon I’ll experience the perfection of that. And capture it. My own immortality.
He shuddered in pleasure.
Anticipation, he mused as he turned on his light again to guide his way. Yes, he was a huge fan of anticipation.
NINE
THE cheerful whistling woke Nathan. As he drifted in that nether-world just under full consciousness, he dreamed of a bird chirping happily on the near branch of the maple tree outside his window. There had been one in his youth, a mockingbird that sang its morning song every day for a full summer, greeting him so reliably that he had named it Bud.
Hazy, hot days filled with the important business of bike riding and ball playing and Popsicle licking.
The insistent wake-up call caused Nathan to greet every morning with a grin and a quick salute to Bud. He’d been devastated when Bud deserted him in late August, but Nathan’s mother said that Bud had probably gone off early for his winter vacation.
Nathan rolled over and thought how odd it was that Bud should know how to whistle “Ring of Fire.” In the half dream the bird hopped onto the windowsill, a cartoon bird now, a Disney character with sleek black feathers and Johnny Cash’s weathered, been-there-done-that face.
When the bird began executing some sharp choreography that included high kicks and fancy spins, Nathan jerked himself awake. He stared at the window, half expecting to see a richly animated cartoon extravaganza.
“Jesus.” He ran his hands over his face. “No more canned chili at midnight, Delaney.”
He rolled over facedown on the pillow. Then he realized that while the bird wasn’t there, the whistling was.
Grunting, he crawled out of bed and stepped into the cutoffs he’d stepped out of the night before. Brain bleary, he blinked at the clock, winced, then stumbled out of the room to find out who the hell was so cheerful at six-fifteen.
He followed the whistling—it was “San Antonio Rose” now—out the screened porch, down the steps. A shiny red pickup was parked behind his Jeep in the short drive. Its owner was under the house, standing on a stepladder and doing something to the ductwork while whistling his heart out. The ropy muscles rippling outside and under the thin blue T-shirt had Nathan readjusting his thoughts of quick murder.
Maybe he could take Whistling Boy, he considered. They looked to be close to the same height. He couldn’t see the face, but the gimme cap, the snug jeans, and scruffy work boots said youth to Nathan.
He’d think about killing him after coffee, he decided.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Whistling Boy turned his head, shot a quick, cheerful grin from under the bill of his cap. “Morning. You got some leaks here. Gotta get it up and running right before AC weather hits.”
“You’re air-conditioning repair?”
“Hell, I’m everything repair.” He stepped off the ladder, swiping a hand clean on the seat of his jeans before holding it out to Nathan. “I’m Giff Verdon. I fix anything.”
Nathan studied the friendly brown eyes, the crooked incisor, dimples, the shaggy mess of sun-streaked hair spilling out of the cap, and gave up. “You fix coffee? Decent coffee?”
“You got the makings, I can fix it.”
“They got some sort of cone thing with a ...” Nathan illustrated vaguely with his hands. “Pot.”
