by Alex Kava
He managed another smile, his face void of the pain that had to be shooting up his arm. He started walking toward her. Maggie pulled back the hammer and squeezed the trigger again. This time the bullet ripped into his left kneecap, knocking him to the floor. He stared at his knee in disbelief, but he didn’t wince or cry out in pain.
“You like this, don’t you? Have you ever felt such power before, Maggie?”
His voice began to unnerve her. What was he doing? If she wasn’t mistaken, he was the one taunting her. He wanted her to continue.
“It’s over, Stucky. This is where it ends.” But she heard the quiver in her voice. Then a new fear rushed through her when she realized that he had heard it, too. Damn it! This wasn’t working.
He crawled back to his feet. Suddenly her previous plan seemed ridiculous. How could she incapacitate him enough to bring him down, let alone bring him in? Was it possible to harness someone as evil as Stucky? As he started toward her again, she wondered if it was possible to even destroy him. He barely limped from his shattered kneecap, and now she could see that he had retrieved the scalpel while he had been down on the floor. How many bullets did she have left in the chamber? Had she fired twice or three times? Why the hell could she suddenly not remember?
He held up the scalpel for her to see, flipping it around and getting a better grip on it in his good hand.
“I was hoping to leave your good friend Gwen’s heart on your doorstep. Seemed kind of poetic, don’t you think? But now I guess I’ll have to settle for taking out yours instead.”
“Put it down, Stucky. It’s over,” but even she wasn’t convinced by her words. How could she be with her hands shaking like this?
“The game ends only when I say it ends,” he hissed at her.
She took aim, trying to steady her hands, concentrating on her target—that space between his eyes. Her finger twitched as she kept it pressed against the trigger. He wouldn’t win this time. She forced herself to stare into his black eyes, the evil holding her there, pinning her against the wall. She couldn’t let it dismantle her. But as he continued slowly toward her, she felt the wall of fear blocking her, the raw hysteria strangling her and blurring her vision. Before she could squeeze the trigger, the door to the room flew open.
“Agent O’Dell,” Cunningham yelled, rushing in with his revolver drawn.
He stopped when he saw the two of them, stunned, hesitating. Maggie was startled, looking away for a split second. Just long enough for Stucky to dive at her, the scalpel plunging down. Gunfire exploded in the small bedroom, in rapid succession—the echoes bouncing off the walls.
Finally, the sound stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Albert Stucky lay slumped over Maggie’s knees, his body jerking, blood spraying her. She wasn’t sure whether or not some of it was hers. The scalpel stuck into the wall, so close she felt it against her side, so close it had ripped the side of her shirt open. She couldn’t move. Was he dead? Her heart and lungs slammed against each other, making it difficult to breathe. Her hand shook uncontrollably as she still gripped the warm revolver. She knew without checking that its cylinder was empty.
Cunningham shoved Stucky’s body off her, a thud with no sound of life. Suddenly Maggie grabbed Stucky’s shoulder, desperate to see his face. She rolled him over. Bullets riddled his body. His lifeless eyes stared up at her, but she wanted to cry out in relief. With all the holes in his body, there was not a single one between his eyes.
CHAPTER 76
Tess leaned against the glass. Now she realized she should have taken the wheelchair that the Nurse Ratched look-alike had recommended. Her feet burned and the stitches pinched and pulled with little provocation. Her chest ached, and it was still difficult to breathe. She had been wrong about the ribs, two cracked, two bruised. The other cuts and bruises would heal. In time she would forget about the madman they called Albert Stucky. She would forget his cold, black eyes pinning her to the table like the leather shackles that had held her wrists and ankles. She would forget his hot breath on her face, his hands and body violating her in ways she thought were not possible.
She gathered the front of the thin robe in her fist, warding off the shiver, the icy fingers that could still strangle her whenever she thought about him. Why fool herself? She knew she would never forget. It was one more chapter to try to erase. She was so very tired of rewriting her past in order to survive her future. Now she struggled to find a reason why she should even bother. Perhaps that was what had brought her here.
She looked past her battered reflection in the window and watched the wrinkled red faces. Little chunky fists batted at the air. She listened to the newborns’ persistent cries and coos. Tess smiled. What a cliché to come here looking for the answers.
“Girlfriend, what are you doing out of bed?”
Tess glanced over her shoulder to find Delores Heston in a bright red suit, lighting up the sterile white corridor as she marched toward her. She wrapped her arms around Tess, carefully and gently hugging her. When she pulled away, the hard-nosed business owner had tears in her eyes.
“Oh mercy, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.” Delores swiped at her eyes and the running mascara. “How are you feeling, Tess?”
“I’m fine,” she lied, and tried to smile. Her jaw hurt where he had punched her. She found herself checking over her teeth again with the tip of her tongue. It amazed her that none of them had been chipped or broken.
She realized Delores was studying her, examining for herself whether Tess was fine. She lifted Tess’s chin with her soft hand, taking a closer look at the bite marks on her neck. She didn’t want to see the horror and pity in Delores’s face so she looked away. Without a word, Delores wrapped her arms around her again, this time holding her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back.
“I’m making it my job to take care of you, Tess,” she said emphatically as she pulled away. “And I don’t want a single argument, you hear me?”
Tess had never had anyone make her such an offer. She wasn’t sure what the correct response was. But of all her choices, tears did not seem appropriate. Not now. Delores took out a tissue and dabbed at Tess’s cheeks, smiling at her like a mother preparing her child for school.
“You have a handsome visitor waiting for you in your room.”
Tess’s insides clenched. Oh God, she couldn’t handle facing Daniel. Not like this.
“Could you tell him I’ll call later and thank him for the roses?”
“Roses?” Delores looked confused. “Looked like a bunch of purple violets he was clutching. He’s squeezing those flowers so tight, they’re probably potpourri by now.”
“Violets?”
She looked over Delores’s shoulder, and Tess could see Will Finley, watching, hesitating at the end of the corridor. He looked incredibly handsome in dark trousers, a blue shirt and, if her blurred vision served her correctly, a bunch of violets in his left hand.
Maybe there were a few new chapters in her life that needed writing, after all.
EPILOGUE
One week later
Maggie wasn’t sure why she had come. Perhaps she simply needed to see him lowered into the ground. Maybe she needed to be certain that this time Albert Stucky would not escape.
She stood back, close to the trees, looking at the few mourners and recognizing most of them as reporters. The religious entourage from St. Patrick’s outnumbered the mourners. There were several priests and just as many altar boys carrying incense and candles. How could they justify sending off someone like Stucky with all the same ceremony given an ordinary sinner? It didn’t make sense. It certainly didn’t seem fair.
But it didn’t matter. She was finally free. And in more ways than one. Stucky had not won. And neither had her own shadow side. In a split second, she had chosen to defend herself, but had not given in to true evil.
Harvey nudged her hand, suddenly impatient and probably wondering what use it was to be out in the open if they were not going to
walk and enjoy it. She watched the procession make its way from the grave down the hill.
Albert Stucky was finally gone, soon to be buried six feet under like his victims.
Maggie petted Harvey’s soft fur and felt an incredible sense of relief. They could go home. She could feel safe again. The first thing she wanted to do was sleep.
* * * * *
Return to the world of criminal profiler Maggie O’Dell, in book 3 of the thrilling series by bestselling author Alex Kava.
In a secluded cabin six young men stage a deadly standoff with FBI agents. In a wooded area near the FDR Memorial in Washington, the body of a senator’s daughter is discovered.
For FBI Special Agent Maggie O’Dell, there is nothing routine about being called in to work these two cases. As an expert criminal profiler, Maggie provides psychological insight on cases that involve suspected serial killers. She can’t understand, then, why she has been assigned to two seemingly unrelated crimes.
But as Maggie and her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully, delve deeper into the cases, they discover there is a connection: Reverend Joseph Everett, the charismatic leader of a high-profile religious sect. The men holed up in the cabin were members of Everett’s church, and the murder of the young woman took place following one of Everett’s rallies.
Is Everett a psychotic madman who uses his power to perform heinous crimes? Or is he merely the scapegoat for a killer more cunning than he? Maggie realizes the only way to find out is by using her own mother, a member of Everett’s church, as a pawn in a deadly trap.
Originally published in 2002
The Soul Catcher
Alex Kava
CONTENTS
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
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Epilogue
CHAPTER 1
WEDNESDAY
November 20
Suffolk County, Massachusetts,
on the Neponset River
Eric Pratt leaned his head against the cabin wall. Plaster crumbled. It trickled down his shirt collar, sticking to the sweat on the back of his neck like tiny insects attempting to crawl beneath his skin. Outside it had gotten quiet—too quiet—the silence grinding seconds into minutes and minutes into eternity. What the hell were they up to?
With the floodlights no longer blasting through the dirty windows, Eric had to squint to make out the hunched shadows of his comrades. They were scattered throughout the cabin. They were exhausted and tense but ready and waiting. In the twilight, he could barely see them, but he could smell them: the pungent odor of sweat mixed with what he had come to recognize as the scent of fear.
Freedom of speech. Freedom from fear.
Where was that freedom now? Bullshit! It was all bullshit! Why hadn’t he seen that long ago?
He relaxed his grip on the AR-15 assault rifle. In the last hour, the gun had grown heavier, yet, it remained the only thing that brought him a sense of security. He was embarrassed to admit that the gun gave him more comfort than any of David’s mumblings of prayer or Father’s radioed words of encouragement, both of which had stopped hours before.
What good were words, anyway, at a time like this? What power could they wield now as the six of them remained trapped in this one-room cabin? Now that they were surrounded by woods filled with FBI and ATF agents? With Satan’s warriors descending upon them, what words could protect them from the anticipated explosion of bullets? The enemy had come. It was just as Father had predicted, but they’d need more than words to stop them. Words were just plain bullshit! He didn’t care if God heard his thoughts. What more could God do to him now?
Eric brought the barrel of the gun to rest against his cheek, its cool metal soothing and reassuring.
Kill or be killed.
Yes, those were words he understood. Those words he could still believe in. He leaned his head back and let the plaster crumble into his hair, the pieces reminding him again of insects, of head lice burrowing into his greasy scalp. He closed his eyes and wished he could shut off his mind. Why was it so damned quiet? What the hell were they doing out there? He held his breath and listened.
Water dripped from the pump in the corner. Somewhere a clock ticked off the seconds. Outside a branch scraped against the roof. Above his head, a crisp fall breeze streamed in through the cracked window, bringing with it the scent of pine needles and the sound of dry leaves skittering across the ground like the rattle of bones in a cardboard box.
It’s all that’s left. Just a box of bones.
Bones and an old gray T-shirt, Justin’s T-shirt. That was all that was left of his brother. Father had given him the box and told him Justin hadn’t been strong enough. That his faith hadn’t been strong enough. That this is what happened when you didn’t believe.
Eric couldn’t shake the image of those white bones, picked clean by wild animals. He couldn’t stand the thought of it, bears or coyotes—or maybe both—growling and fighting over the ripped flesh. How could he endure the guilt? Why had he allowed it? Justin had come to the compound, attempting to save him, to convince him to leave, and what had Eric done in return? He should have never allowed Father’s initiation ritual to take place. He should have escaped while he and Justin had a chance. Now what chance was there? And all he had of his younger brother was a cardboard box of bones. The memory brought a shiver down his back. He jerked it off, opening his eyes to see if anyone had noticed, but found only darkness swallowing the insides of the cabin.
“What’s happening?” a voice screeched out.
Eric jumped to his feet, crouching low, swinging the rifle into position. In the shadows he could see the robotic jerks of the others, the panic clicking out in a metallic rhythm as they swung their own weapons into place.
“David, what’s going on?” the voice asked again, this time softer and accompanied by a crackle of static.
Eric allowed himself to breathe and slid back down the wall, while he watched David crawl to the two-way radio across the room.
“We’re still here,” David whispered. “They’ve got us—”
“No wait,” the voice interrupted. “Mary should be joining you in fifteen minutes.”
There was a pause. Eric wondered if any of the others found Father’s code words as absurd. Or for that matter, wouldn’t anyone listening in find the words strange and outrageous? Yet without hesitation, he heard David turn the knobs, changing the radio’s frequency to channel 15.
The room grew silent again. Eric could see the others positioning themselves closer to the radio, anxiously awaiting instructions or perhaps some divine intervention. David seemed to be waiting, too. Eric wished he could see David’s face. Was he as frightened as the rest of them? Or would he continue to play out his part as the brave leader of this botched mission?
“David,” the radio voice crackled, channel 15’s frequency not as clear.