Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to calm down. He replayed a well-worn memory. The memory of his first hunt . . .
The eleventh grade. A chilly October evening close to dinnertime. The sun was low in the sky. He was walking home along a fairly populated bike path when a girl whizzed by on a pink ten-speed, then took a tumble on a tree branch that was stretched across the asphalt. He remembered it like it was yesterday . . . how she flew over the handlebars, landed with a thud, and skidded to a stop. When he walked over to her, he realized who she was. Kimberly Ribby. Pretty . . . popular. As he studied her features up close, his hands became fists. A year earlier she had helped a friend humiliate him.
He offered to walk her home. He walked with her bike as she hobbled beside him for several feet before they cut through the woods to get to her house.
He remembered how he’d began to sweat once they entered the woods. How alone they suddenly were. Without much conscious thought at all, he threw the bike down and grabbed her by the throat. Then he dragged her deeper into the woods and strangled her with his bare hands.
For seven years after that evening he felt a little more certain of himself. A little less impotent. He even became a fairly productive adult, one who most people seemed to like well enough. For once it wasn’t so difficult to fit in.
During those seven years, the anger still came and went, but it was finally manageable. And for the most part, he felt normal. He thought for sure he’d been healed. That the rest of his life would be a piece of cake. But around the seven-year mark, the itch started. The itch to do it again . . .
Snapping back to the present, he realized that the memory no longer soothed him like it once had. In fact it only made him angrier.
He had to do something.
Suddenly a light went on in his head. He’d pay the teenage girl a visit.
He weighed the idea, knowing it would be risky. Last time he’d almost gotten caught. The girl had awoken and, in the darkness, had called out to him, thinking he was the old lady. It had been a very close call. But he was willing to do it again.
For the first time in his life he was getting sloppy. It was almost as though a part of him, one he didn’t have access to, wanted to get caught.
And that seriously disturbed him.
It was two o’clock in the morning when he eased the young girl’s door open.
He was sweating profusely and he itched all over.
He was desperate for relief.
He had tried to stay away from the teenager but had failed. She was much different than Hope. Different than the brunette. Terribly different than any of them. She didn’t just remind him of the type of girl who’d scorned him when he was a boy, she was the spitting image of her. The spitting image of the type who had humiliated him. While other boys were busy fantasizing about luring this type of girl into bed, he only fantasized about hurting her.
But there was something more about this girl. Something that made it equally as tempting to be close to her. To discover exactly how she affected him.
Sweat beading on his upper lip, he let his eyes adjust before stepping closer to the bed. Then, staring down at her, he studied her features.
Her long, dark hair was splayed neatly across her pillow. Her face was relaxed. She looked even younger while she was sleeping, and so vulnerable with her mouth slightly parted, covers drawn up to her chin. Absolutely gorgeous.
As he watched, a slender, sun-browned leg slipped out from beneath the covers to rest on the fitted sheet.
He was surprised that being so close to her didn’t make him angry.
At least, not yet.
Straightening his spine, he vowed not to hurt her—not intentionally anyway, although sometimes he certainly didn’t seem to be the one in control.
No. This one, he had special plans for. His pulse raced just thinking about them. He watched the girl for a little while longer, until she grunted and rolled over.
By the time she settled again, he was gone, more frustrated than when he’d arrived.
CHAPTER 18
DESPERATE, HE RETURNED to Sherwood Foods. He scanned women for hours, but no one came close to interesting him.
Until the beautiful brunette with the Pathfinder returned.
The one with the young son.
He was standing in his usual place, nauseous and itching all over, when she hurried her son into the store. But when she rushed past, completely ignoring him, he realized he needed to take matters into his own hands.
He entered the supermarket and watched her and the boy at a distance as they shopped. She only threw a few items in her basket before dashing to a checkout line, so he knew his window of opportunity was going to be small. He wasn’t certain what to do. He just knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to make something happen.
So he left the supermarket and walked to her vehicle. Once he reached it, he whirled around and headed slowly back toward the supermarket doors.
Perfect timing. The woman and kid were just exiting the automatic doors. He walked toward them, trying to keep his breathing in check. To look normal.
When they were just a few feet away, his eyes met hers. He grinned and stopped. “Cheryl? Cheryl Robicheaux?”
He purposely stood in the woman’s path. Annoyed, she stopped and frowned. “No. Wrong person.”
Through his nausea, he smiled as widely as he could. “No? C’mon! But you’re the spitting image of her.”
The woman stared at him.
“C’mon, Mom,” the boy said.
“Excuse me. We’re in a hurry,” the woman said. She grabbed her son’s hand.
So much for smiles being infectious. His own slipped off his face. “Oh, well, sorry to have bothered you,” he said, stepping out of the woman’s way.
She and the boy continued to the vehicle.
Wiping his damp brow, he tried to think quickly. He needed somehow to make the woman smile.
Desperate, he spun around. “Miss?”
The woman turned, her eyes flashing. “Yes?”
“It’s a beautiful day. Surely you have something to smile about, right?” he asked, trying to sound light amid the rage bubbling in his belly. “Something, right? Anything?”
The woman scowled at him. Right before she turned to get into her vehicle, though, she threw him a strained smile. A sarcastic one.
Charity.
But it was enough. He was desperate.
Hurrying to his vehicle, he caught up with her as she left the shopping center and sped south. He was still following her, not five minutes later, as she pulled the Pathfinder into her driveway.
CHAPTER 19
AFTER THE SUN set, he sat, nauseous, in his vehicle and watched the brunette woman’s little ranch house, waiting for the last two lights to go out.
He recalled how rude and impatient she had been with him and his breath hitched. He thought of the little schoolgirls when he was a boy—and how merciless they’d been with him, too. He hadn’t fit in and they had taken it upon themselves to make sure he didn’t forget it . . . not even for a second.
The memories flooded his head so quickly it felt like it was going to explode. Hateful kids who made him feel inferior, ugly, awkward, uncomfortable, inconsequential, and alienated. Year after year, over and over, it had been the same thing. He’d hated them all, but mostly the girls.
They were the ones who hurt him most.
The disgust he’d learned to feel for himself was overwhelming. He was different and he didn’t want to be. He felt inferior and that infuriated him.
Realizing he had the steering wheel in a death grip, he forced himself to think of something less anxiety provoking . . . and found himself wondering about the brunette’s son. About what type of life he lived. If the boy had ever experienced anything like he had in school. Also, if there was a father in the picture.
The kid had appeared pretty normal in the supermarket. But he knew from experience that even the sickest of people could appear normal.<
br />
After contemplating the boy for a little while, he sank back into his seat and thought about his own family.
He’d come from a fine family by today’s standards. He’d never been molested or been a victim of incest. He’d never been chronically ridiculed by an authority figure. He had lived in the same house until he was nine and always felt a certain degree of stability, he supposed.
And life had gotten even better once his father left and he was alone with his mom. When his father had lived with them, the man had always been a distraction, so he barely got to even talk to his mom. Instead, she had been so focused on keeping her husband at home, happy, and somewhat involved with the family that her son’s needs often fell to the wayside, even though her husband had rarely been emotionally available to either of them.
He couldn’t remember suffering any significant childhood trauma at home, outside of a few spankings from his father. But those had been few and far between—and were of no consequence to him, long term. He never much cared for his father anyway. In fact, as hard as he’d tried when he was younger, he’d never seen even one redeeming quality in the man.
He closed his eyes. What had been of consequence, he knew, had been the emotional (and sometimes physical) beatings from his classmates at school. Words that inevitably shaped his own opinion of himself. Opinions that he’d tried unsuccessfully to shed throughout his life. But still, his experiences were nothing unique. Kids got picked on all over the world. Some kids had low esteem and naturally believed the worst about themselves. So on most accounts, his childhood was pretty normal.
But he’d come to realize at a very young age that there was something different about him . . . something terribly wrong. Maybe the other kids had sensed it before he did, and that’s why they’d treated him so badly.
He continued to watch the woman’s house. At exactly 11:30 p.m., the last of the lights went out and the house was bathed in darkness.
Throwing his vehicle into gear, he drove to a secluded area three blocks away to park. Then he got out of the car and walked toward the house.
CHAPTER 20
THE INSIDE OF the brunette’s house smelled of household cleaner and cheap perfume.
Aside from the dull glow of a lamp on an end table and a wall-mounted night-light in the hallway, all the lights had been switched off.
He trained his flashlight around the room. Fresh vacuum tracks were etched into the living-room carpet, and the air held the subtle burnt odor of an old vacuum cleaner. The woman had cleaned before going to bed.
Little blonde Hope could learn some things from her.
Keeping his flashlight low, he slinked through the living room and into the hallway, grasping his hunting knife.
A bedroom door to his right was ajar. He peered in and saw the outline of someone lying in a bed. His grip tightened on the knife and he slowly entered. It was the preteen boy’s room. The kid lay on his back, his comforter a puddle at the end of his bed, his mouth wide open in sleep. He watched the boy’s chest and its rhythmic rise and fall. Music whispered from a laptop on a desk. He recognized the upbeat song: “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry.
Fitting.
The boy stirred, then licked his lips and turned onto his side. The man watched until he was certain the boy was sound asleep again; then he left the room and gently closed the door.
The next room was an office, with a desk covered with files and a flat-screen computer monitor. In the corner was a tall, metal filing cabinet. There was also a chest of drawers and a rocking chair. Photos on the walls revealed happy times between the mother and child. He trained his flashlight on everything, trying to get a sense of who this woman was.
As he moved his light to the other side of the room, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. A dog sat silently on the floor, just inches away, staring up at him.
Jesus!
He tightened his grip on the knife and readied himself. But the dog just stared at him and, strangely, continued to do nothing.
He blinked in the darkness—and suddenly realized the dog was behaving oddly . . . sitting too still.
He took a step forward and, again, the dog did nothing.
It wasn’t real.
It was stuffed.
He wiped more sweat from his brow and took a couple of minutes to calm down. Then he returned to the hallway and checked out the next room.
This room was twice as big. It was the master bedroom. The woman’s room. His synapses fired with extra intensity as he crossed the doorway.
Hunting was what he truly lived for . . . it was what kept him from exploding daily in uncontrolled environments. It’s what helped him maintain a mask of normalcy in his daily life. Hunting was truly the only thing he ever looked forward to. He hungered for it like others hungered for food.
Hunting made him who he wished he was . . . for a while.
Who he pretended to be.
It was the only thing that made him feel truly alive.
He moved deeper into the room and found the woman sleeping on top of her covers. He stepped closer and inhaled her scent. Catching a hint of a flowery lotion, he bent closer and tried to decipher the odor beneath it. To know what her skin smelled like beneath all of the fake flowers. But the lotion was too strong.
Tilting his head, he watched her for a long while as she breathed. Excitement building, he considered clamping his hand against her mouth. To immobilize her and—
No . . . not now.
After all, he was already feeling more relaxed. He felt exhilarated, but calm. Just knowing that killing her was within his power had brought him a little relief, albeit temporary—just as it had with Hope.
The thought popped into his mind again. Maybe, just maybe, he really had evolved over the years and he could get by with just stalking them this time. Medicating himself solely with the thrill of anticipation. Hunting them, then letting them go. Like fisherman did with fish: catch and release.
Maybe, just maybe, he could feed his addiction without risking losing HER.
Could it really be possible?
Maybe, he thought, deciding to be cautiously optimistic.
Blinking rapidly, he watched the woman sleep for several minutes and vowed to try. He bent down close to her again until he was just a few inches from her skin and committed her scent to memory.
Then he forced himself to leave the room.
CHAPTER 21
THE SUN HAD only been up a couple of hours when Allie wandered into the kitchen to the scent of coffee brewing and Miss Bitty, Big Joe, and Louis talking at the table. When they noticed her, they fell silent.
That morning she’d chosen one of her new shorts outfits and had spent some time French braiding her hair. She’d also applied the makeup Miss Bitty had bought her and was careful to tone it down because the old woman had told her that the way she wore it made her look cheap. Instead of her usual cherry-red lipstick, she’d chosen an understated lip gloss. Instead of slathering on the black eyeliner like she usually did, she only used a little brown.
The old woman said she saw good in her. And that gave Allie hope. She still didn’t trust Miss Bitty completely, but she was trying to. After all, the woman could be planning to use her as an indentured servant and it still wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the life Allie had lived. As a thank-you to the old woman for forgiving her and letting her stay, Allie had dressed more conservatively. And she must’ve succeeded because she saw a glint of approval in Miss Bitty’s eyes.
“You get a makeover?” Big Joe asked. “You look . . . fantastic.”
Well, not exactly fantastic, but better, maybe, she thought.
“Yes, you look very lovely,” Miss Bitty agreed.
Miss Bitty finally stood and grabbed a pitcher. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come, sit.”
Her face burning beneath everyone’s still-appraising eyes, Allie sat where Miss Bitty had been sitting and concentrated on the juice pouring into her glass.
“Freshly squeezed spinach
, celery, apple. Soon to be one of your morning chores.” Bitty winked.
Chores. She’d never had chores before. The previous evening, Miss Bitty had explained what was going to be expected of her. On top of being responsible for a number of daily chores, Allie was going to help Bitty with client paperwork. The old woman had even found her a job: cashiering at a supermarket, two shifts a week.
Allie had never had a job before either—at least, not a legitimate one that came with a paycheck. The idea made her both anxious and excited.
She was also going to be homeschooled. “You’ll start your tutoring with Louis this morning, girlie,” Miss Bitty said, setting a binder, three notebooks, and a box of pens in front of her.
Allie nodded, her eyes on the school supplies. Everything was colorful, brand-new.
“You like math, Allie?” Louis asked.
“Uh, I’m not sure.”
He grinned. “Well, I hope so because that’s where we’re going to start today.”
“Okay.” She tried to smile—something she hadn’t done for a long time. The effort made her face feel like it was splitting in two.
An hour later, Allie pushed a completed assessment test across the kitchen table.
She watched Louis, who was pacing in front of the window, alternately gazing into the yard and typing on his iPhone—and thought of how quickly things had changed.
Just hours ago, she’d been certain life was pointless, and just days ago she had tried to kill herself. Now, it seemed that things were looking up in a way she never could have imagined. It was as though she were living someone else’s life. It certainly didn’t seem like something that could happen to her.
But it was happening.
Well, wasn’t it?
Her mother had always told her to be suspicious of generosity, that nothing was truly ever free. But maybe she’d been wrong.
Louis looked up. “That was fast.”
Allie shrugged.
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