Kill For Me Read Free Page A

Sandee to feel good for once. Pain, confusion, depression, and regret are all temporary conditions for many. Sandee was smart; she knew this. She had been stressed lately. Ever since being brutally raped, beaten, and held hostage a little over a year ago by a guy she had worked with, a guy she had trusted and considered a friend, Sandee had dealt with the trauma in various ways. She liked to go off the deep end every once in a while, one source said, and get drunk. It had helped her forget that forty-eight-hour ordeal that changed her life. Of course, gone were the days of going out to the clubs all night and partying with friends until the wee hours of the morning. Sure, Sandee liked to tie one on now and then. But these days it was more to forget rather than to dance the night away. During one of those nights not too long ago, however, Sandee had gotten popped for a DUI. She had a court date for the DUI and another court date set to face her rapist. Both were coming up in a matter of weeks.
    Heading off Route 275, Sandee drove down onto the 694/Park Boulevard. Then she took a sharp right onto the 693, Sixty-sixth Street. Passing the busy intersection, as if on autopilot, her car headed straight toward the Park Townhomes complex on her left, a rather exclusive, new condominium compound where Sandee had lived with Tony Ponicall, the guy she didn’t know what to do with, for the past few months.
    At this time of the night—somewhere near eleven—there was generally no one around. Outside the townhome, as Sandee pulled in, she didn’t see anyone.
    Yet, only a few car lengths behind, Sandee’s killer loomed, following each one of Sandee’s steps toward her home.
    Admittedly, Sandee’s stalker had been to the townhome a number of times already. “Roughly,” the killer said later, “a half-dozen times.”
    On two of those occasions, the killer said, the Svengali on the other end of the line came along for the ride, pointing things out.
    “You stop here. You run toward the garage there. You grab her [pocketbook] to make it look like a robbery. Don’t let her shut off her car….”
    The killer had, in fact, called the Svengali on the way.
    “Get out at a stoplight,” he had said, “and just shoot her!” The killer could hear the hate and anger and frustration in his voice. The sheer depths of evil. Nothing else mattered but the death of this woman, Sandee Rozzo.
    The killer wasn’t comfortable with that. No way.
    As Sandee slowly maneuvered her BMW into the small opening of the garage, her killer pulled up in front of the neighbor’s townhome and turned off the lights on the car. For a fleeting moment, the killer thought, Don’t do this…. Turn the car on and leave. Run away. But then as quickly as that thought emerged, another came, You don’t want to face him if you don’t follow through.
    Sandee believed her live-in partner, Tony Ponicall, was sleeping upstairs, as he usually was when she got home from the bar.
    The killer, meanwhile, watching Sandee pull in, forgot about those voices, looked in all directions, and realized the coast was clear.
    Sandee’s back brake lights went from a bright to a dull red as Sandee took her foot off the brake shoe and put the car in park. She was inside the garage now, ready to shut off the car, collect her things, and head inside.
    For the killer, it was do-or-die time. There was about a twenty-second window of opportunity before Sandee got out and walked into the home through the inside garage door, or closed the garage door.
    The killer pulled up a few feet more and parked at the end of Sandee’s driveway. Got out quickly. Ran up to the garage.
    Sandee was gathering her pocketbook and clothes to step out of the car when she spotted someone dressed in a bizarre disguise. She was startled, of course, but she must have known as the killer came up to the driver’s-side window and brandished that .22 pistol, this was it.
    The end.
    The killer “butted” the window, trying