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A serial killer is on the loose, moving up the East Coast, leaving bodies & notes. Planting roses in his victims. Leonardo Gibraldi, Baltimore’s sexy Assistant DA, is tracking the fiend who’s responsible for the grisly murder of his ex-girlfriend. Leo’s out for revenge — so is the killer. Between hunting the madman, and fighting off beautiful women, Leo’s got his hands full. There's one break in the case: An eye witness who says, “It doesn’t look human.”
Excerpt:
The
cold rain in the bloated sky promised Atlanta an early frost. Fallen
leaves mixed with runoff gathered in gutters, in some areas flooding
the pavement where congested storm drains regurgitated heavy
downpours. There was no morning wind to freshen the dampness, so the
air around town was burdened with a mixture of traffic exhaust and
decomposing leaves. Lawns were soggy with puddles, and bordering
sidewalks reeked like the damp fur of scraggly dogs.
On the way to work the
evening before, the girl's wipers wore out and quit just as she had
entered the parking lot. Her night shift finally ended at seven a.m.,
but the rain did not. Stubborn torrents continued to fall in periodic
intervals. She couldn't drive without wipers; she'd have to put in
some involuntary overtime while she waited for the weather to clear.
Her boss wasn't happy about it, but since he wasn't about to drive
her home, and neither would spring for a cab, the cranky man approved
the OT.
The girl, Tonya Miller,
worked the graveyard shift at an industrial medical complex not far
from her home on the outskirts of the city. Quality control shared
the ground floor of the factory where humans and machines
manufactured everything from bedpans to heating pads, sick room
needs, even some heavy duty hospital equipment.
Tonya was part of the
quality control team. After a long night on the assembly line,
inspecting every tenth item, she was tired but her hands kept moving
as her eyes darted repeatedly across the enormous warehouse to the
windowed walls, checking for a break in the weather. After the storm
subsided she'd go home, catch a few hours sleep, then take her sedan
over to the shop where her brother worked. He'd fix her wipers for
free.
†
The vehicle was tucked
into a space near the exit of the employee parking lot. Rain was the
only thing ever to wash grime off the dark paint, but it did nothing
to remove muddy boot prints and candy wrappers that were stuck to the
interior floors. Alert, sitting on the high front seat, a figure was
dressed in a black trench coat with matching hat, and an intense
stare alternating between the driving rain and the dashboard clock
that moved as slow as the driver's bowels.
This was a mission that
required concentration and strength, fundamentals that had been
depleted during the four hundred mile journey to this new and
interesting place. The place where the driver had hunted. Hunted and
watched. Watched for the perfect one. And she was here. Inside the
building. The building with concrete walls, dark paned windows. Steel
doors that opened and closed for others, but not for her. She
remained within the safety of the building, where rain doused the six
story roof, coursed through furrows and drain pipes, cascading to the
ground like dozens of waterfalls, cleansing the parking lot.
Elevating tension.
Damn rain made it
difficult to peer through windblown sheaths, dropping like daggers,
pelting the windshield. Agitation crept in, dissolving anticipation
as quickly as the grime off the vehicle. If it lasted much longer,
nothing could happen today. Fuck. Routine could not be broken.
Errors could then occur, which in turn would ruin the plan. Serious
errors that could disrupt the inevitable flow. Like the casual flow
of bodily fluids, such as saliva, vaginal secretions, semen, blood,
and the inevitable death of many.
Pointless to wait any
longer. There will be another time. Maybe not this particular one,
but another would have to do. The engine sputtered then composed,
peaceful but for the tap of a sticking lifter that would never be
repaired; the rhythmic sound was company, and matched the beat of
anxious fingers poised on the wheel. The front tires aimed for the
exit, and the vehicle began to ease toward the driveway. The wipers
clunked and sloshed, disappointment and depression.
Like mankind, unexpected
rain could be a bitch — or a bastard.
As the vehicle crept, a
cloud moved aside. A stream of dull light cut surprisingly through
the windshield. Eyes that had studied the dash clock shifted to
analyze the building's exit door. Hopefully, the vehicle halted. Sure
enough, there she was, wrapped in a green windbreaker, tan shoulder
bag swinging with hurrying footsteps across the parking lot.
Her dark hair looked
coarse and seemed to repel a lingering drizzle that shimmered like a
beaded crown encircling her head. In movements swift and deliberate,
as a hand shifting gears, she unlocked the door, threw in her bag,
slipped behind the wheel, and started her car. For a moment she sat,
checking her reflection in the rearview mirror. She rubbed a lash
from her eye, sighed, then tuned the radio to the daily news.
"No, Mr.
Weatherman," she groaned. "I already know what's gonna
happen today. From the look of those storm clouds, today's gonna be
as bad as my night."
After flipping to another
station, she tugged down her lower lids, "Wake up. Wake up. Wake
up," then rocked to the beat of music. "Get your ass in
gear, girl. Dumb ass wipers. . ."
Oblivious to morning
traffic, head bobbing, she drove along the main road, down a few side
streets. Tonya had no idea she was being followed. She parked her car
in the driveway separating her tract house from her neighbor's,
entered through the front door, grabbed a quick glass of orange juice
to drink down her vitamins, then headed off to the shower where she'd
shed her damp clothing.
"Oh, yeah, baby.
Waited all night for this." She lifted her face to the
refreshing spray, opening and closing her mouth, gargling on the
stream of water. Lyrics from the ride home stuck in her head, she
belted out the song:
"things can't get
much worse, no one called you to rehearse,
what does the world
expect, from everyday people like us. . .
doors to adversity
swing in your face, who wipes the blood from the human race?
oh they rip tears from
your eyes, set the rules without compromise
hopeless helpless
endless shame, pluck the buck pass the blame
anger feeds the
monster's fame, people like us die in this game."
Her small house was at
the dead end of a residential street that held an even row of houses
exactly the same as hers. The only difference was the shade of door
and trim paint, and her house sat on a wooded lot, protected by trees
and wetland where other tract houses would never be built.
Privacy. Rarely did
traffic, or people, or animals, pass by. That was why Tonya had
bought the house, just six months ago, when she realized her factory
job was secure, and learned the bank trusted her with a seventy-five
thousand dollar mortgage.
It was a nice area with
friendly people, some cats — no barking dogs, just a few kids at
the opposite end of the modest community. Nothing to disturb her. She
could prance around the backyard in her bikini and there were no
gawking glances, thanks to a shroud of trident maples with flaring
leaves, hickory trees, and cedars surrounding her yard. She was
fortunate. The other houses had the next street, and another row of
tract houses, almost in their backyards.
Tonya had her own urban
forest, congested with noisy birds, furious birds flitting and
hopping; flying boomerangs soaring from grove to grass and back, a
flocking wall, screeching in native tongues.
She could leave her
windows open, but then all she would hear were the birds. That's what
she hated most about the night shift; trying to sleep during
daylight, subjected to the chaos of overcharged, multilingual birds.
The birds were insane — she was insane for working the night shift.
†
Only a lunatic would
drive into a wetland, park inside the shelter of willow oaks, beech
and longleaf pines, slop through a muddy morning toward the back of
someone's house. Only a bull of a four wheel drive would have tires
wide and beefy enough to drag a heavy vehicle out again. And the
underground watershed would swallow any tire tracks like quicksand
ingested prehistoric creatures. Genius. Working with Mother
Nature made things easy. But Mother Nature could also be a bitch.
Dressed as a phantom, the
figure with the trench coat and matching hat made its way toward the
rear porch. Even though the boots deposited prints, it wouldn't
matter, because the oversized boots were worn over bulky socks and
filthy tennis shoes that bundled narrow feet. And the hardy pockets
of the coat carried ankle weights, so investigators would be looking
for a suspect at least four inches taller, over forty pounds heavier.
An amusing thought as gloved hands tested the back windows. No
crowbar needed. One was unlocked, open an attractive inch. The
killer's glance swept the outside area clean, slowly slid the window
until it met the stop, hoisted and climbed inside. Green florist tape
sticking to the boot detached, sank into a print.
The bathroom door was
closed, so the young woman didn't see a shadow slide across her
bedroom wall. And with the gushing shower, she didn't hear the
fiberboard sheathing creak beneath boots treading on lightweight
carpet.
Emerging in a towel,
Tonya left the bathroom door ajar. Plumes of steam licked the space,
drifted with a breeze blowing through the window she had neglected to
secure. First mistake. Her second was to drop into bed, pull a sheet
over her naked body and immediately fall asleep. In exhausted
slumber, she had no sense of the lurking figure, the stale breath, or
the gloved hand clutching the serrated knife that dug a trench across
her neck. Instantly, her lids snapped open registering shock, agony.
Her throat filled with blood, blocking air — stifling screams.
What felt like an
eternity was a glimpse into the brutal eyes of a killer, the
distorted face of a madman claiming the final moments she would take
to her grave.
Before rupturing internal
organs, the knife hammered furiously into the soft tissue of her
neck, pulverizing bone, then the blade plunged through her eye. By
then she was just another victim, lying in a bed soaked with her own
Type O negative blood. Before the killer left, the elegant stem of a
red rose was planted in the orbit, and a note was placed on the blood
soaked pillow: Stick a needle in your eye. You'll never make
anybody else cry. Sweet Dreams Darlin'.
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