Oh, he’d love to make that FBI agent pay. Maybe he would.
He kept to the tree line and the shadows, finding her house. The woman who was waiting for him so patiently. He paused, listening for any life in the freezing night. There was none. Ducking to make himself smaller, he ran across the road to the side of her house, leaping over her small fence to the backyard, where trees hid him from the neighbors.
Then he took his time, still angry but now beginning to become excited. The sweet thrill of anticipation tasted like sugar on his tongue. He angled toward the back deck and a window that opened to a storage room in the basement. One she apparently never checked. It was unlocked, just like the last time he’d explored her home.
He nudged it open and went in headfirst, just for the challenge. Even with one arm hurting like a sore tooth, he walked his hands down the concrete wall, one by one, until he reached the floor, doing a perfect handstand, even with his injury. Then he flipped over, his boots landing a little too loudly. He stopped cold, listening.
Nothing.
Good.
Adjusting his pack, he strode past boxes of holiday decorations and opened the door, seeing only darkness. He’d memorized the layout of the home but still moved slowly, just in case she’d rearranged the furniture.
It was all the same as last time, when he’d taken a necklace and a pair of her panties. A pretty pair with pink flowers on them.
He moved around stacked lawn furniture to the stairs leading up from the basement and took them two at a time, putting his feet where they wouldn’t make a sound. It had taken him a long time to memorize those stairs a week ago, but it was worth it. He emerged into the kitchen, where a small light over the sink illuminated the area.
An open bottle of wine sat about half full on the counter next to an empty wine glass with residue in the bottom. His mouth watered, but he wouldn’t take a drink. He was much too smart to leave his DNA. These gloves were new and wouldn’t leave a clue as to his identity.
He took a moment to enjoy being in her space without her knowing. There was so much power in the secrets he held. The kitchen smelled like something spicy with a hint of garlic. He frowned. Garlic stank.
Hopefully she slept in the nude. It was so much more fun to drag them out into the snow if they were already naked. It had to happen in the snow.
He crept past the kitchen to the master bedroom, where he could hear her lightly snoring. A small fan on her bed table created white noise by her head, turned toward the window. She slept on her side, her hair messy around her face. For a while, maybe too long, he watched her sleep. Watched her eyes flicker behind her eyelids.
All prey had instincts.
She frowned in her sleep and her feet moved beneath the covers. Then she slowly opened her eyes.
He struck, covering her mouth with his gloved hand.
Nobody heard her scream.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Laurel hesitated and then stopped inside Walter’s hospital room. “Hi.”
He was sitting up with tubes crisscrossing all over his body and liquids dripping into a port at his vein. A nasal canula was strung over his ears, and his coloring was that of just-laid cement. “Hi.” His hair was mussed and his breathing labored. “I’m so sorry, Laurel.”
She put the plant her mother had insisted she bring on the counter. “Just get better. None of this is your fault.” It was the killer’s fault, and she’d find him.
“What happened to your arm?” Walter’s hands trembled on the blanket covering most of his body.
“Colles fracture.” At his frown, she moved closer to the bed. “Broken wrist. Huck and I were shot at last night and the truck flipped over.” She wanted to look at her phone to see if the lab had any results, but good manners dictated she concentrate on Walter. “The doctor said you’re going to be all right.”
“Yeah. This is a wakeup call.” Walter looked down at his bulging belly. “If I’d been in decent shape—”
Laurel reached for his wrist, patting it. “You still would’ve been shot three times. This could’ve happened to any of us.” She lowered her head, surprised by how painful it was to stretch her neck. She’d been ignoring her health as well. “I failed to predict how desperate this guy was to shoot an FBI agent and kidnap a suspect from her home in the middle of the day, even with an FBI agent covering her.” Christine’s kidnapping and murder was on Laurel.
Walter snorted. “Profiling isn’t psychic knowledge. This was out of character for the guy, as far as we knew.” He wiggled on the bed and then groaned, all the color leeching from his face. “Everything still hurts.” Then his gaze caught on her cast again. “You think it was the same guy?”
“We should know shortly,” she said. “The techs were able to retrieve several bullets from the truck, and we have the ones removed from your body, so they’re making a comparison.” She was certain it was the same guy. “He’s already proven that shooting people is acceptable to him.”
“You think it’s a new part of his MO? Using a gun?”
Laurel paused, remembering his movements toward her as he fired. “No. I think we’re in the way of what he wants, of what he needs, and it’s that simple. We’re obstacles that have to be removed and shooting us is the easiest way to do it.” She couldn’t see the killer gaining any satisfaction or fulfilling his psychotic needs with a gun. The kills had been personal to him. The shootings weren’t.
Walter swallowed. “Maybe he’s after you now. You fit the profile.”
