Page 9

CHAPTER 8

S talker

Death becomes you.

They were words I’d said to a couple of my victims in the early days. I chuckled from the thought haphazardly entering my mind.

I scanned the library Drew had set up. The door had a lock on it, the room located in the back of the house. To the naked eye, the area would appear as nothing more than a place where the man came to relax and unwind at the end of a long, hard day.

But I knew how perverts acted and how they hid their proclivities from the rest of the world. I easily found his collection of pornography located in a not so safe metal box somewhat hidden behind his collection of classic books.

As if the bastard was really fooling anyone.

Even worse, I also found a collection of snuff films. Within ten seconds of starting one, I’d been ready to cut the freak’s dick off. It took everything I had not to follow through. They were old ones, but obviously used to entice his penchant for torture.

The laptop sitting on the man’s desk continued to call to me. Leaning over, I pressed the space bar and the system hummed to life. Only as expected, the computer was password protected. After a few seconds of searching to see if the son of a bitch had been reckless enough to leave a sticky note for himself and failing, I was rewarded with his moan.

There’d been no need to muffle his cries. Why bother? This was his house and this room was joyfully soundproofed. From what I’d seen, he’d filmed a few of his artful, repulsive creations from this very spot.

What I wanted to learn was how he’d selected his victims. I’d made a call to a pseudo buddy of mine in the police department. Against the rules, he’d mentioned the victims Drew supposedly raped and slaughtered had had nothing in common. Not age. Not ethnicity. Not religion. Not a single thing, which was one of the reasons why until the incident in the park, they hadn’t been able to arrest him.

How had the fucker selected his victims?

I felt as if discovering the answer was the key to the kingdom.

“Did you enjoy your nap, Drew?” I asked casually without looking down at him. I had shackled his arms and legs. I was wearing a mask, the ghost face a recent addition to my collection.

He immediately struggled, even cursing under his breath.

I laughed and finally turned towards him. “I guess you should have laid off those Twinkies. Huh? If you had, you might have a chance in hell of escaping, but alas, that simply won’t be the case.”

“Who… are you?”

“My goodness,” I chortled as I placed my hand over my heart. “That’s a very good question. Why don’t I get down to your level so I can provide an answer for you.” I dropped to my knee, unsheathing my favorite knife. As I twisted and turned the polished steel in the light, I could feel him panicking.

His shriek was met with the point of my blade being shoved under his chin. It would be so easy to slit his throat, but since finding the treats in his vault, I’d developed an entirely different plan.

“Let me clear this up for you, Drew. I’m the Stalker.”

“What the fuck?” His eyes were open. Wide with fear.

“That’s what I’ve said about you on a few occasions. What the fuck? Then I realized what I was looking at. Nothing but a cockroach scurrying through trash and feces. Disgusting.”

I was certainly no crusader, but his death would cause red flags to be raised, questions tossed in my direction and right now, the risk wasn’t worth the reward.

Besides, I’d accepted there were joys in all aspects of life, including ruining someone’s life by using a pen or an anonymous tip. I wasn’t surprised the fucker didn’t recognize me given the task he’d been trying to accomplish on that cold morning and the fact I’d caught him from behind.

“I’ve done nothing,” he breathed. “I swear to God.”

“I wish I could believe you, but nah. You’re a disgusting piece of trash. While Daddy is doing everything in his power to get you off with a slap on your wrist for your horrible crimes, I think I’ll allow the world to know the kind of actions you enjoy when you’re home all alone. Oh, wait, you aren’t alone usually, are you? What happened? Did you lose interest in how you were attracting your victims, or did they finally get too smart for you?”

I was burning inside with rage.

“No. No! You’ve got it wrong. They weren’t my victims.”

My laugh sounded hollow. The fuckers always lied.

I’d cared for one foster sibling in my years because she’d looked out for me when everyone else in the system had turned their backs on the demon child. Little did they know how well suited the nickname had turned out to be.

She’d been so sweet, so caring, even arguing with her father over my care. I would never forget her kindness.

“Why the fuck are you doing this?” He was panting, my favorite part of every brutal event. “Please don’t hurt me. I have money. I’ll get you anything you want.”

There we were. Right at the pathetic moment where they all thought begging for their lives would matter to me in the least. It never had and never would.

“To your point of money, I have billions, and I’m not interested in selling my soul to your devil. As to the why…” I rubbed my chin and pricked his neck just enough to draw a few drops of blood. “You see, I had a bad childhood, really bad in comparison to the opulent lifestyle you grew up in, but I digress. There was one person in my life that mattered to me. One. And she was taken from me.”

I remembered the incident as if it had occurred yesterday. I would never forget finding her bloodied and broken body, her fragile bones shattered and her mind fractured beyond repair. What had been done to her was much worse than the revenge I’d exacted on the four men who’d defiled her. She’d lost her will to live, dying only hours later.

The image of her vacant eyes almost pushed me over the edge. Controlling my breathing was often the only way I could curtail my need to indulge in violence.

He was whimpering, tears streaming down his face.

“Much like you took precious women from their families. Wives. Daughters. Friends. You didn’t give a shit, which is why I don’t give a crap about you. Now, you are going to do something for me. You’re going to provide me with your laptop’s password.”

“What?” He wasn’t bad with his acting skills, but no one could hide a lie from their eyes. They always told the truth.

“You heard me. Now, if you choose not to do so, then I guess I’ll find the joy in creating copious amounts of pain. The kind of agony that will have you begging for your death. But it’s up to you.” After placing the knife on the coffee table only a foot away from him, I headed for his bar, taking a look at his collection of liquor.

And his Cuban cigars.

If I was any other man, I’d take my time to indulge in another recreational pastime, but I had business to attend to in the morning.

When he shifted, I caught the slight noise and smiled. My reflexes were well honed, years of weapons training always coming to my benefit.

Before he had a chance to wrap his hand around the weapon, I unsheathed and tossed another knife. The blade was driven into the coffee table in between his flexed fingers.

His scream brought a wider smile to my face.

“Oops. I guess I missed,” I told him. “This time. There won’t be another and I could do this all night. What is the goddamn passcode?” My voice was now little more than a whisper.

It was funny what the thought of being stuck like a pig did to a man.

He rattled it off before he knew what he was doing.

“See? That wasn’t so hard.” After retrieving both knives, I sat down and typed in the code, instantly searching his system. Nothing jumped out at me. There were no lists, no little black books per se. However, when I searched his internet history, checking dates, a single website location was listed over and over again.

Sugar Babies.

I laughed softly as I’d heard of the site along with hundreds of others. Our research department kept up with the most favored locations, discovering trends, likes, and dislikes. We incorporated some of our research efforts into our video games.

You could never have too much information on the competition.

I realized within only a few minutes there was a distinct pattern to his search pattern.

“Well, you naughty boy, you,” I told Drew.

The bastard had selected his victims after indulging in their naughty videos.

While some of the women were either wearing masks or hiding their faces altogether from the cameras, others weren’t so shy.

He’d marked his favorites. My guess was after a simple few minutes of sleuthing and a warrant requiring the site to turn over their clients’ real names, they’d have the evidence needed to put Drew away for a very long time.

I took a few seconds, searching the latest ones he’d downloaded. There were four in the last six days, one only a couple of hours earlier. Why not find out about his latest prize? I turned it on, immediately drawn into the moment.

The woman in the video was beautiful, teasing the audience with her smile and vixen methods of seduction. I found myself mesmerized, enticing by the color of lingerie she’d selected for the night’s show.

Purple.

One of my favorite colors.

I could see very little of the room other than a portion of the bed, including what appeared to be a brass headboard.

Drew moaned from behind me, still begging me for his release.

“Shut the fuck up. I’m watching,” I barked, now unable to take my eyes off the sweet goddess of temptation.

My cock was already unsettled, making the way I was sitting entirely too painful. But it was worth it. I watched until the end, laughing softly as she signed off.

“I’m curious what you were going to do with the beautiful woman.” Of course, Drew didn’t answer. Why should he? He would only further incriminate himself.

On a whim, I sent the video to my account. Perhaps I was taking a souvenir.

When I was finished, I rose from the chair, moving so I was straddling his bound legs. I’d worn gloves so there was no point in worrying my detective friend or any other police officer would discover my identity.

Plus, this risk was worth the reward.

“I didn’t kill those women.” The asshole almost sounded sincere.

“Well, then who did?”

“I… I can’t tell you.”

My annoyance was growing. “Whatever, vermin. Explain that to the cops.”

I set the stage, leaving the various DVDs I’d found strewn about the room.

“Where are you going?” he asked, although Drew was coming damn close to demanding. “You motherfucker, you can’t leave me this way.”

That annoyed the hell out of me.

My reaction was swift and typical. I’d crouched down and had his hair fisted at the scalp, the blade ready to cut through his jugular with a single twitch of my wrist. I caught myself before doing what couldn’t be undone a mere two seconds before going through with it.

He squealed like the perverted pig he was, his breathing becoming shallower than before.

“I’m going to say this to you once, you fucker. This is your lucky day. You only get one, so I suggest you shut your fucking mouth. While I’m not going to kill you, I will be watching you. You’re going to plead guilty to all your miserable crimes. If your daddy gets you a reprieve and you aren’t locked away behind bars for the fucking rest of your life, I will be coming for you. And trust me, when and if I do, you’ll regret this single day more than any other you’ve had in your miserable life. Do I make myself clear?”

“Ye… Yes.”

“Not said with enough conviction.” I lifted my elbow on purpose, changing the angle and allowing him to see one swipe and he’d bleed to death.

“Yes. I swear to God.”

Huffing, I hesitated for a few seconds before pulling away.

I took another look at the fuckhead and the room before walking out. What happened to the good old days of slash and burn?

Maybe they needed to return.