Apex Predator Read Free Page A

her.
    He already knew what he would take, those eyes, those sparkling blue eyes now looking at him in sheer horror. After he applied the injection, Tracy’s eyes took on a faraway look and she stopped struggling.
    Gently, he picked her up from the van and placed her on the bed where he cuffed her hands and feet. Tracy would indeed be the seventh, and although she didn’t know it yet, she would leave this world in a haze of horror and fear that a six-year-old mind would not be mature enough to comprehend.
    Trinity walked over to the van, lifted her from the floor and placed her on the operating table, whispering, “It will all be over soon and you are being so good. I hope you know how much you are helping me, helping us, really,” and with that he started an IV line on her.
     
    To anyone who knew him, Donald Riche had been as average a child as there could be. He never picked on other kids and he never did anything that might cause his mother to be angry with him.
    Had anyone been paying close attention, they might have noticed that young Donald was too average. He never showed interest in toys or comic books like other boys his age. What Donald did have an intense interest in was small animals. He would catch them and then, as best he could, he would take them apart using tools he found or knives from the kitchen. He didn’t torture them, he simply wanted to see how they worked.
    Donald knew he was not like the other kids, knew he didn’t think the same way. He knew of adults who took children and did things to them, but rather than fear, such thoughts engendered curiosity in the young boy.
    His mother had been decent enough, but she’d met a man, had left Donald with relatives when he was nine and had never returned for him.
    His relatives gave him as much love and support as they could, but never as much as they gave their own children. Still, they encouraged him and showed him they were proud of his small accomplishments. His childhood should have been filled with happy memories of holidays and school events where he was treated like the other children in the family, but it wasn’t.
    Even in his early childhood, he’d understood that his interests were not normal for his age and that some of the things he did might attract unwanted attention; therefore, he was always cautious and meticulous in everything he did. As he became an adolescent and a young adult, his interests grew in intensity and he found that he had to be even more careful now that he was an adult.
    Through high school, he participated in some student organization, never in a leadership role, but just as a member, a fly on the wall. He began to recognize that the more he adhered to the rules and the more he did what was expected, the less attention he was likely to draw to himself.
    When he went away to college, he took his required course work, but he also always took electives in physiology, anatomy, biology and anything else that could assist him in his activities.
    He began to dress better and take better care in his appearance. He bought stylish clothes and glasses and began grooming himself with more care. He also began to realize that there were people out there who had nothing and no one to care for them or to even know they were alive.
    He trolled neighborhoods where he found such people simply lying on the street or against a doorway. It had not been too difficult for him to lure them with the promise of a meal or more alcohol. He was, as always, very careful not to go to the same place more than once, and he never did anything near where he lived.
    Never curious about religion, he was nevertheless interested in the concept of the Holy Trinity. One individual, but three entities, he found it fascinating and decided that he too was a Trinity, one made up of intelligence, purpose and destiny.
    By the time he graduated from Wisconsin University, Donald Riche had made more than 18 people disappear. He was never considered a suspect nor even