Page 12

Chapter

Five

It was getting harder and harder to wait between kills.

It had only been four days since he dumped the last body in the trash, and already he had sought out his next victim.

He knew the risks. The more often he killed, the more evidence he gave the cops.

As careful as he was to clean down each of his victims, there was always the chance that he would make a mistake and leave a piece of himself behind.

If he kept the number of kills to a minimum, then he decreased his risks.

But he was finding he could no longer do that.

There was something inside him compelling him to keep going. Each kill, each time he forced someone to see him, instead of feeling soothed like a balm had been smoothed over his anger, all he felt was the burning desire to do it again.

And again.

And again.

He was pretty sure it would never be enough.

Not that he cared. He liked killing, he liked taking his anger out on others, and he certainly had enough anger to parcel out every day for the rest of his life without relieving himself of his burden.

Because killing had become a compulsion, he was already here, standing outside the door of what would be victim number sixteen.

He was quite impressed with himself and how smoothly this had all gone.

For eighteen months now, he had been breaking into women’s homes, tying them up, and keeping them alive for forty-eight hours while he unloaded a lifetime’s worth of woe onto them.

Then he would strangle them, carve his message into their flesh, and dump them in dumpsters, and so far the cops didn't have a single thing to pin the crimes on him.

The more he killed, the more the pressure to keep killing with perfection.

How embarrassing would it be to wind up in prison for what he had done?

Already, he had narrowly avoided a jail cell more times than he could count. That happened when you had an anger problem, and you hated women.

Rapping on the door, he pasted on a bored expression and waited.

He found that early in the morning was the best time to get to his victims, they were usually still half asleep, and being startled awake by a knock at the door had them thinking the worst. While they opened the door expecting to see a cop standing there waiting to deliver bad news, they saw him instead and immediately dropped their guard. That was when he swooped.

He knocked again, harder this time, and waited.

Moments later he heard footsteps inside.

When the door was thrown open a pretty young woman in her mid-twenties stood there, wrapped in a fluffy pink robe, her long hair a wild mess around her face. Her eyes were wide with fear, but when she saw him, she immediately relaxed.

“Morning, ma’am,” he said in his well-practiced disinterested tone.

“Sorry to wake you so early, just letting you know that because of maintenance work in the building, we’re going to be turning off the electricity at six.

We’re letting everyone know so they can be prepared and have time to cook breakfast and get ready for work and school before we cut it. ”

“Thanks so much for letting me know, I’d never be able to do anything with this hair without my hairdryer and a lot of product,” she said with a giggle as she ran her fingers through her messy locks.

He gave her a small smile. “Would you please sign this to confirm that you’ve been notified,” he said as he held out the clipboard.

“Sure thing. You get a lot of people complaining and claiming they weren't informed?” she asked as she took the clipboard.

The second her attention was focused on scrawling her name on the sheet that looked like it had been signed by half the other residents in the building, he made his move.

His hand whipped out, his fingers curling around her throat because he knew that would immediately draw her attention to fear that her air supply would be cut off and stop her from screaming and drawing unwanted attention.

As his hand squeezed tightly enough to make her panic, he pushed backward, shoving her into the apartment.

Spinning her around so her body was tight up against his, he moved his hand to cover her mouth while his other wrapped across her chest, pinning her arms to her side and effectively preventing her from fighting.

He kicked the door closed and let out a sigh of relief that everything had gone smoothly once again.

Just as he was patting himself on the back for a job well done, he felt something sharp slice into his leg.

His attention diverted, he must have loosened his grip just a little because the woman let herself go limp, and when he went to adjust his hold on her she managed to fling herself forward and out of his grip.

“What did you do?” he growled, looking down to find blood trickling down his leg.

“Protected myself,” the woman said, a smug smile on her face as she ran for the door.

No way was she getting away.

No way.

Lunging toward her, he managed to reach her just as she got her hand on the doorknob and threw it open.

She opened her mouth, and he could see she was dragging in a breath ready to scream at the top of her lungs. If she did, everyone within earshot would be calling the cops and come running to see if there was anything they could do to help.

That wasn't happening.

Grabbing a handful of hair, he yanked backward, and she screeched and stumbled.

“You don’t get to leave,” he hissed as he threw her onto the floor and closed the door.

The woman was a fighter, and she was already crawling toward a table where he could see a cell phone.

Stepping forward, he kicked her in the side as hard as he could.

She gasped in pain and fell flat on her stomach, clutching at her ribs.

He followed up with another kick because he was annoyed that everything had been messed up.

He was bleeding, she’d gotten to the door and gotten it open so he couldn’t know for sure if anyone had seen or heard something that they shouldn’t, which meant this whole thing was ruined.

He had to call it off, that was the only sensible thing to do.

That didn't mean the woman got to live.

He’d meant what he said before, she didn't get to leave.

His foot pressed down on her back, and he shoved her into the carpet, pleased when she cried out in agony as he stomped on her no doubt broken ribs.

“You ruined everything, because of that you’re going to suffer before you die.

Women think they get to do whatever they want, they don’t care about the pain they cause, they don’t care about anyone but themselves.

All you do is poison everything you touch.

You should have stayed locked in the house cooking and cleaning, it’s all you’re good for. ”

Reaching down, he curled both hands into her robe and lifted her off the floor, throwing her across the room. He stalked over to where she had landed and kicked her again, this time in the face, before hefting her up and tossing her again.

Throwing another punch at her face, he was satisfied when he got her right in the mouth, wiping away her ability to ever again give a smug smile. He grabbed her shoulders, slamming her head into the floor over and over again, then curled his hands around her neck and squeezed.

By the time the woman was limp, the life choked out of her, he was breathing hard, his heart drumming in his chest, tears of anger and release blurring his vision.

His outburst had achieved what he’d wanted, but it had also been loud and messy.

There was no way he could stay here and clean everything up, and he wasn't prepared to take the body with him when he left, that meant he was just going to have to hope that any of his own blood and DNA that had been left behind would be buried under all of the woman’s blood.

Standing, he wiped her blood from his hands then realized he was now smeared in blood, he could hardly go back outside looking like this, but he didn't have time to hang around and clean up. If someone had heard the scuffle then the police could already be on the way here.

There was a black coat hanging on a hook by the door, it looked big, and he thought he might fit into it.

It was a woman’s jacket, but it was still early, and there shouldn’t be too many people about.

He only had to get to his car, and even if it drew attention it was better than walking away covered in blood.

Delivering one last kick to the dead woman lying at his feet, he grabbed the jacket, put it on, and then hurried through the building as quickly as he could.

7:10 A.M.

Anger.

When Florence walked into the room that was the first thing she thought.

There was blood smeared on two of the walls, and on several places on the carpet. The body of Jana Friedrick lay in an awkward position on her side, off to one side of the room.

About an hour ago, one of the neighbors in the building had been walking past on their way to work and noticed the door half open. He’d stopped and looked inside, and as soon as he’d seen the blood and the body, he’d immediately called 911.

Given the message on the wall, she and Jake had been called in.

Whoever had beaten Jana to death, had left behind a drawing of an eye, done in blood, on one of the apartment walls.

Given that the Dumpster Killer had been leaving a message about being nothing on his victims, and had been dumping the bodies in the pattern of an eye, they had come to the only logical conclusion that Jana was the killer’s sixteenth victim.

Only something had obviously gone wrong.

With every other victim, the killer had kept them alive for two days, as evidenced by the timeline of when they had last been seen and time of death, and the fact that there were red marks on their wrists and ankles indicative of being restrained for a period of time.

From the looks of things, Jana had been strangled, but only after she had been badly beaten.