Have You Seen Her? Read Free Page A

They’d raised a slut
and
an idiot.
    He closed his eyes and brought the image of another to mind. He could see
her
face in his mind. So incredibly beautiful, so . . . pure. He’d have her someday. Soon. But until then...He looked down at the huddled form at his feet. Until then, this one would have to do.
    Thunder rolled again. He needed to make up his mind. Either hurry up and finish before the rain closed in or pack her up and store her until the storm passed through. Either way he was taking a chance being out here in the rain. A hard rain would leave the ground soft. Soft ground left footprints and tire prints and cops were pretty good about tracking those kind of clues these days. Damn forensics. No matter. He was as smart as they were. Smarter.
    Hell, a baboon was smarter than the cops. If he’d waited until the cops had discovered little Lorraine’s body on their own, there wouldn’t have been enough left of it to identify.
    And he wanted little Lorraine’s body identified. He wanted everyone to know.
To fear.
    Fear me. Your daughters aren’t safe even in their own beds. Fear me.
    He’d wait, he decided. He’d rushed the last one and it was over too fast. Like an amusement park ride you stand in line for two hours to ride and the damn ride only lasts three and a half minutes. He’d gone longer than three and a half minutes with the last one, for sure. But it was still over too fast. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. It had been his only mistake, he thought, rushing the grand finale. Everything else he’d done to perfection. Not a single thread of evidence left behind. No surprise there. He was thinking much more clearly now.
    Carefully he sheathed his blade and slipped it under the front seat of his car, popping the trunk latch on his way back to where she lay, eyes still wide with terror.
    “C’mon, sugar,” he drawled, scooping her up and tossing her over his shoulder. “Let’s go for a ride.” He dropped her in the trunk with a loud thud, then patted her bare butt fondly. She whimpered and he nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll come back tomorrow. Until then, sit tight and entertain yourself. You could think about me,” he suggested brightly. “You
do
know who I am.” She shook her newly bald head hard, denying the inevitable, and he laughed. “Oh, come
on,
Samantha. You
have
to know who I am. Don’t you watch the news?” He leaned a little closer and whispered, “Don’t you have a good imagination?”
    Her eyes shut tight, she pulled her nude body into a fetal position, shaking like a leaf. Two tears seeped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
    He nodded again and slammed down the trunk. “Good girl. I guess you do.”

T HREE
    Friday, September 30, 12:30 P.M.
    T WENTY - SEVEN DOWN , THREE TO GO . And Brad Thatcher’s would be one of the three.
    You’re a coward,
Jenna Marshall told herself. Afraid of a sheet of paper. Actually five sheets of paper stapled precisely in the upper left corner. Times the three students whose tests she’d yet to grade. She stared hard at the purple folder containing the ungraded organic chemistry tests.
    You’re a coward and a procrastinator,
she told herself, then sighed quietly. She looked across the scarred old table that dominated the faculty lounge, a wall of haphazardly stacked folders meeting her eye. Casey Ryan was back there somewhere, behind the folders, busily grading the junior English class’s thoughtful analyses of Dostoyevsky. Jenna shuddered. Poor kids. Not only did they have to read
Crime and Punishment,
but they had to write a theme on it, too. She rolled her eyes.
    Get to work, Jen. Stop procrastinating and grade Brad’s test.
She picked up her red pen, stared hard at the purple folder, thought about Brad Thatcher and the test he’d more than likely failed, then desperately looked around for anything else to do. The only other occupant of the faculty lounge was Lucas Bondioli, guidance counselor by day, pro golfer in his