by Rita Herron
He slid out, pausing to adjust his vision to the murky darkness, then moved stealthily through the trees toward the house. The whisper of his own movements beat like a drum in his ear, reminding him that a surprise attack was the only way to catch this killer.
Let the predator become the prey. Stalk him, then swoop in for the kill, a human imitation of the raptors.
Darkness shrouded the farmhouse, the towering ridges casting ominous shadows above the land. He scanned the neighboring woods, searching for signs of someone lurking nearby, and spotted a wild dog digging in the carpet of ankle-deep snow. Ice and twigs snapped below his feet, crackling in the tension-laden air as he inched closer.
Piercing eyes watched him. The scent of an animal’s bloodlust filled the air.
His body tight, he pivoted and searched the outer perimeter of the house from the front. Nothing. He circled to the right, slipping in between the brush and inching his way around to the side of the house, then back.
Then that bizarre screeching sound split the night.
The brush at the edge of the woods parted, and a shadowy silhouette disappeared into the woods.
He wanted to chase it. But what if Sonya or Katie were hurt?
And what if he was wrong and the shadow had just been a deer? Perhaps the killer had created a trap to lure him away….
He quickly circled the remaining footage around the yard, studying the back of the house. Muddy bird-like prints marked the white paint. A low branch had broken from where the intruder had climbed up to the window. The glass was cracked.
Furious, he hurried to the front door. His blood froze at the sight.
A note written in blood was stuck to the door.
You are mine, Sonya,
The others are only a substitute
until we can be together.
Rage tore at his composure. He pounded on the door.
“Sonya, it’s me!”
Seconds later, Sonya peered through the sheer curtain, her face pale with fear. Katie latched her arms around Sonya’s neck in a death grip. Sonya unlocked the door, and he stepped inside. “Oh, God, Brack…” She fell against him, shaking all over.
He pressed her and Katie into his arms and held them tight.
SONYA RELAXED into Brack’s embrace, heaving with relief at the sight of him. The minutes between her phone call to him and his arrival had seemed like an eternity. The wind had beat the frame, and she swore she’d heard the moaning of a tortured soul wailing her name. Then she’d been certain the mutant was going to burst through the walls.
Katie shivered in her arms. “Shh, Katie, it’s all right now. The monster’s gone.”
Brack coaxed them both into the den to the sofa, then wrapped a homemade afghan around her and Katie, tucking them into the blanket as if to secure them.
As her fear slowly subsided, anger took root. She didn’t want to be victimized anymore. She had to regain control of her own life.
“What happened?” Brack asked.
Katie rubbed at her eyes. “I wokes up and the m-monster was tapping at my w-window!”
Sonya hugged Katie closer, hating the tremor in her daughter’s voice.
“Did you see his face?” Brack asked.
Katie shook her head, tugging at the afghan. “Just his eyes. They was beady.”
Brack patted Katie’s arm. “How about you, Sonya?”
“It was so dark, he was just a bunch of big, blurry shadows,” Sonya whispered.
Her fear for Katie almost paralyzed her as she replayed the scene in her head. She had to take her daughter away from Tin City until Brack and the police caught this maniac. She couldn’t endanger her daughter any longer.
She considered phoning Margaret again. No. She didn’t want to endanger the sweet woman, either, especially with her granddaughter visiting.
But she had to do something.
Her mother’s face flashed into her mind, and Sonya’s throat closed. She hadn’t seen her in more than four years. Their parting words had been bitter.
But her pride no longer mattered. Nothing did except keeping her daughter safe and catching this killer before he hurt someone else.
FURY BLAZED through Brack. He itched to wrap his hands around the sick coward’s neck for terrorizing Sonya and her daughter.
And the teenager’s death needed to be avenged.
He stood and walked to the kitchen, retrieved a plastic bag then gathered the note from the front door.
Sonya paled and sank onto the sofa in shock when she read it. “That girl died because of me.”
“Shh. Don’t go there, Sonya,” Brack said gruffly. “This is not your fault.”
She was shaking with cold and fear. He had to warm her. Calm his own raging emotions. Sonya was all right for now. And he damn well wouldn’t leave her alone again.
Knowing neither one of them would sleep anytime soon, he built a fire in her fireplace, made coffee, then poured himself a cup and brought Sonya a mug. Sonya rocked Katie back and forth in her arms, singing softly. She sounded like an angel.
His heart twisted. She didn’t deserve this horror. He had to convince her to go into hiding.
Needing to do something concrete on the investigation, he decided to check the whereabouts of the men on the list she’d given him. He phoned the hospital and asked to speak with Dr. Waverman.
“I’m sorry but he’s not here,” the nurse said. “He left around 4:00 a.m.”
Brack glanced at the grandfather clock in Sonya’s foyer. Five-fifteen. Waverman could easily have driven from the hospital to Sonya’s place.
The vet and his assistant were also listed. He had trusted Dr. Priestly with the injured birds, but the man was intense. Quiet. And Priestly had a special interest in the raptors, had written a thesis paper on them for a master’s degree before he’d been admitted to vet school.
He punched in the vet’s number. The phone rang a half dozen times, then finally Priestly picked up. He sounded out of breath.
From what? Running from Sonya’s?
Brack scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. What was he going to do now—ask Priestly if he’d been stalking Sonya?
“It’s Falcon. You sound winded. Is something wrong?”
“I just returned from my morning run,” Priestly said. “Eight miles a day.”
“Didn’t know you were a jogger.”
“Have been since high school. Track team.”
Which meant he had speed. Enough to escape Brack in the woods the night of the girl’s attack.
“What’s up?” Priestly asked. “You didn’t call this early for a personal chat or to discuss my exercise regime.”
Brack paused, trying to remember Priestly’s home address. How far it was from Sonya’s. His clinic was close, a couple of miles. No distance for a seasoned runner.
“I wanted to check on that hawk.”
“He’s fine. You can pick him up today if you want.”
“Good. I’ll see you later.” Brack hung up and scowled. Priestly certainly had knowledge of the birds, and he would also know how to poison the small forest animals to trap the falcons. He could have fed a rabbit just enough to make it sick, just enough so when the bird preyed on the small creature, the bird would grow weak itself.
Weak enough to be attacked by a human.
BRACK HAD called the vet. And Aaron. Why? Did he suspect Dr. Waverman as the killer? Did he know something he wasn’t telling her?
Sonya eased her sleeping daughter onto the sofa and tucked the blanket around her, then went to Brack. “What did you find out?”
“Not much. Waverman had already left the hospital. And Priestly sounded out of breath from a morning jog. He runs eight miles.”
“His clinic is a couple of miles from here,” Sonya said, following his logic.
Brack nodded. “I’m going to follow up.”
Sonya bit down on her bottom lip, and Brack pulled her into his arms and held her. “You have to take Katie someplace safe. When you cal
led, you scared the hell out of me.”
His body shuddered against her, and she clenched his arms. “I’m sorry. You’re right, though. I thought about where to take Katie while I rocked her to sleep.”
She motioned him into the kitchen, then paced to the refrigerator, desperate for something to do with her hands. Being in Brack’s arms felt too good. Too right.
Too tempting.
So she cooked him breakfast. An odd feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she realized it was the second day in a row they had shared their morning meal. He accepted the plate of eggs and slathered butter and jam on one of her homemade biscuits. The situation seemed mundane, routine, but intimate with the fire blazing in the background and the snow lightly falling, as if they were cocooned in a cozy domestic family home.
But Brack wasn’t family. And she couldn’t harbor illusions that he and she shared anything more than the desire to stop this madman from killing again.
“I would offer my family’s help and twenty-four hour protection, but Deke is dealing with vandalism at the teen center, and Rex’s wife, Hailey, is expected to go into labor any minute.”
“I would never impose on your family,” Sonya said. Especially when I have one of my own. “I’ve decided to take Katie to my mother’s.”
He jerked his head up. “Does she live nearby?”
“In Denver.” Where Stan also lived. Where bad memories dogged her. But she was over Stan. She knew it now. And being free of him gave her the power and confidence to accept that he couldn’t hurt her any longer.
She wouldn’t let him hurt Katie, either.
“All right. I’ll drive you there after breakfast.” He polished off another biscuit. “You’ll both be safer, Sonya.”
“I’m not staying, Brack,” Sonya said. “I have to work tomorrow.”
Brack’s jaw tightened. “No. I want you away from Tin City.”
“I refuse to allow this psycho to run me out of my home.” She thumbed her fingers through her hair. “Besides, who’s to say he won’t follow me? And they need me at the hospital. We’re already short of paramedics.” She needed the money, too, but refrained from commenting. Stan had given her a decent settlement, but she’d spent part of it for the downpayment on the house and put the other in a savings fund for Katie’s college education. And Katie always had medical expenses, physical therapy…
Brack opened his mouth to argue but the doorbell rang, and they both froze.
She stood and Brack followed her into the living area, then to the door. When she glanced out the window, she was surprised to see two women and a little girl on the porch, bundled in coats and scarves, their arms loaded down with something that looked like homemade goodies.
“Hailey and Elsie, my sisters-in-law, and niece,” Brack said. He opened the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Us? What are you doing here so early?” The blonde teased.
Sonya blushed and realized how the situation might appear to an outsider. But their early morning rendezvous had been necessitated by danger, not romance.
Not that she hadn’t had a daydream or two since he’d arrived, looking and playing the part of her hero.
Brack introduced Hailey, Elsie and Elsie’s daughter, Allison.
“My mom says you have a little girl and a kitten.”
Sonya laughed. “Yes, Katie’s asleep on the couch with Snowball.”
“Mommy.” Katie looked up and rubbed her eyes, and Allison ran over. The girls quickly made friends, giggling as they played with the kitten.
“We were just having coffee and breakfast,” Sonya said.
Brack shrugged, suddenly restless. “Sonya had an intruder earlier.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Hailey exclaimed. “Rex mentioned the attack the other night. Are you all right?”
Sonya nodded. “Thanks to Brack. He saved me a second time.”
The women exchanged curious looks, and Brack shifted uncomfortably.
“There’s a crazy guy on the loose,” Brack explained. “He’s already killed one teenage girl. You two don’t go out alone, and don’t let Allison in the woods until we catch him.”
He spun away, leaving the women in the kitchen. His words had hammered home the realization that he had only come to her house because of the intruder. Getting involved with him on a deeper level was impossible.
So why did she feel disappointed? Why did she still want him to pull her into his arms and hold her?
BRACK HAD the sudden urge for a hike into the woods. He needed air. Space. Needed to bond with the wild.
Be free like the birds.
The panicky feeling seized him as he watched Sonya with his two sisters-in-law. He liked both women, was happy for his brothers, but had no desire for their domestic lives. Already their marriages were interfering with the P.I. business. Rex had refused a job last week because he didn’t want to stray too far from Hailey during the last few weeks of her pregnancy. And his middle brother acted like a lovesick puppy. Instead of building cages now for their birds, he was building a playhouse for Allison. And now Sonya was talking to Hailey about her antiques store, about a new iron bed that would be perfect for Katie.
He didn’t need homemade, cozy breakfasts, toys on the floor, a pregnant woman and a regular job to tie him down. He needed to be on his own.
Katie’s small crutches made a thumping sound on the wooden floor as she struggled toward him. Allison stood beside her, holding the kitten.
“Mr. Bwack?” Katie said.
God, he wanted to flee this domestic scene, but Katie’s tiny voice twisted something deep inside him. He had connected with the munchkin ever since he’d first laid eyes on her. He recognized the fight in her and sympathized with her war against insensitive kids. Hadn’t he and his brothers suffered the cruelty of being different? Of being labeled the devil’s spawn because the other kids in town believed their father to be the Hatchet Killer?
“What is it, Katie?”
“Allison says she’s seen the monster ’afore.”
Brack frowned and the women’s chatter died abruptly.
“What do you mean, Allie?” Elsie stooped down to Allie’s eye level.
“The kids at school talk about him. He’s the Talon Terror.”
“You mean they’ve been talking about the attack on me and that teenage girl?” Sonya asked.
“No.” Allison stroked Snowball’s white fur. “There’s a Web site with this cartoon, you know, like Spider-Man, but he’s bad. The Talon Terror goes around attacking people. He’s half bird, half man, just like in Katie’s drawing.”
Brack turned to Sonya. “Do you have a computer?”
Sonya nodded and stepped aside to reveal a laptop on the small desk in the corner. He moved past her, took a seat at the table, then booted up the computer and went to the Google site.
Seconds later, his pulse raced as he studied the cartoon character. The creature was vile, black, coated in feathers, with a beaklike nose, beady, piercing eyes, and five-inch-long talons.
He quickly skimmed several story lines, his gut churning at the violent portrayal of the raptors. Using both human and animal skills, the Talon Terror stalked his victims, watching, waiting for the right moment; then when the prey was most vulnerable, he seized the moment, and viciously swooped down and attacked.
First the Talon Terror had started out killing small animals: squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks. The detailed, vulgar sketches showed the mutant creature slurping the blood from the dead prey, licking his talons as he finished. As the series progressed, the violence escalated, as did the animal’s progression. He became more animalistic and was losing his humanity all together.
In each of the last two story lines, an innocent woman had been killed, then left bloody and mauled for the vultures to finish.
HE STUDIED the array of photographs of the birds of prey on the wall, his mind vaulting back to childhood when he’d first become infatuated with the raptors. His obsession had begun after a local fi
eld trip when he’d spotted a sparrow hawk. The fact that the female had been larger than the male intrigued him, while the male condor was usually larger than the female, as in humans. He’d watched a hawk stalking its prey, his eyes intense as he formulated his attack plan, then swooped down, caught the animal in his talons, and ripped it apart.
With that attack, his first urge to taste the pleasure of the hunt had seized him.
So he studied the fabulous creatures, knowing he was connected to them in some way. The raptors weren’t the only meat-eating birds, but they were the only birds that combined all the characteristics of hunting for food, meat eating, and flying well. The birds’ lethal talons could snatch fish from the water, strike birds out of the air and rip open animal quarry. They were top predators, like lions and tigers, and although they hunted other creatures, nothing hunted them except for other raptors—and humans.
And they killed with their feet.
He had tried to imitate them. Had begun killing small animals himself, pouncing on the weaker, ripping them apart and watching the blood life flow onto the ground.
The more he attacked, the more he felt the animal’s blood in his veins. The hunt and kill had excited him, and his urges and need had grown more potent every day.
He wanted their power.
Of course, the vultures were the exception. They didn’t hunt for their food, but ate carrion—the remains of dead animals.
What fun was that? No thrill of the hunt to whet his appetite. He pitied them. They didn’t belong in the same class with the falcons.
He had left the girl for them the night before, but her body had been found before his friends had been able to feast.
The sight of the photographs stirred his animal instincts to life again. He wanted to soar above the sky as they did. Wanted their freedom, their keen senses, their hooked beaks. Wanted to watch the prey try to scamper to safety, only to realize they were trapped. That they could not escape the speed and flight of the falcon.