“Wait.” He surged to his feet. “Where are you going?”
Well, that was a hell of a question, wasn’t it?
A pity she didn’t have an answer.
“Merry Christmas, Griffin,” she muttered.
She walked through the door, and then out of the house.
She’d figure out where she was going when she got to the airport.
Chapter Five
December 22, Kansas City
Hunter was invisible.
It was a trick he’d learned when he’d been very young.
He didn’t scream and demand attention like other kids. He didn’t stand out at school or in sports or the arts.
Instead, he would fade into background.
It allowed him to see the world from the eyes of a predator.
In the shadows he could detect the weaknesses of others. He peeked through windows. He listened at doors. And collected secrets like other boys collected girlie magazines.
Then he would strike.
Without warning. Without morals.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
Now he waited once again in the shadows, watching his prey as she stood in line to collect her keys for a rental car. The crowd ebbed and flowed around him, never giving him a second glance. Neither did the woman who shifted her small overnight bag from hand to hand, her expression one of weary impatience.
Excitement bubbled through him.
It wasn’t sexual. No. This was sweet anticipation.
She was close enough he could see the sheen of gold in her tumble of curls. And the soft curve of her breast beneath her sweater. It was too far to make out the clear blue of her eyes, or to see the dimples that dented her cheeks when she smiled, but he smothered his flare of frustration.
All good things come to those who wait.
Those were words his mother had whispered in his ear, never understanding what she was teaching him.
So he had waited. Years. And years.
His dark thoughts were interrupted as his phone suddenly vibrated. Keeping his gaze locked on his quarry, he pulled it out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear.
He already knew who was calling.
“What is it now?” he demanded, his voice edged with annoyance. His disciple, who’d taken the name Butcher, had called three times in the past two days.
It’d been his own idea to create secret names. Just like the killers from The Heart of a Predator. He not only liked the thought of being called Hunter, but it’d helped to solidify his hold over the others. He’d created them. Molded them out of lumps of meaningless clay into killers with a true purpose.
Now he controlled them.
“I found her,” a childish voice breathed. Butcher was in his twenties, but acted more like a boy just entering puberty.
Stunted. Both intellectually and emotionally.
His parents had thrown him away, but Hunter swiftly recognized a weapon when he saw one.
It had taken years to hone the fool into a suitable disciple, but now Butcher was loyal beyond question and willing to perform any task demanded of him.
No matter how depraved.
“Good for you,” he said, his voice low and soothing. Not for Butcher, but to keep any passerby from glancing in his direction.
Invisible.
Incapable of replicating Hunter’s Zen-like calm, Butcher was babbling with a hectic eagerness.
“She’s lovely,” he assured his mentor. “Not too tall, and soft in all the right places.”
“She’s blond?” Hunter asked. It was one of his three requirements.
Their prey must be young, white, and blond.
“Of course,” Butcher said, his voice edged with impatience. “When do I get to squeeze her?”
“Soon,” Hunter said, distracted as the woman completed her paperwork and took the keys that were handed across the narrow counter.
There was a buzzing silence in his ear before Butcher spoke the words that had presumably been hovering on the tip of his tongue.
“Executioner says we shouldn’t have to wait.”
Hunter’s jaw tightened. The older disciple had never been as easy to control as the others. They’d known each other from the beginning. From the days before he’d established the Kill Club, and he often resented taking orders. Thankfully, the man wouldn’t be a problem for much longer.
“Remind him what happens when people piss me off,” Hunter warned, casually strolling toward the nearest door as the woman headed for an exit on the other side of the rental desk.
Butcher sucked in a sharp breath, perhaps remembering the sight of Hunter casually putting a bullet through the head of the thug who’d tried to carjack him in Memphis. It’d all been over in less than a split second, with the young man crumpling onto the road with half his skull missing. Hunter had even run over the limp body as he drove away. More as a lesson for the men in his car.
Don’t screw with him.
“It’s hard to wait,” Butcher at last whined.
Hunter stepped into the frigid morning air, quickly crossing to the short-term parking lot. The cost was nothing less than criminal, but the placement allowed him quick access to his car.
“You could spend the next fifty years waiting in a jail cell if we’re not careful,” he reminded the younger man, shivering as he reached his boring tan sedan and slipped inside.
He switched on the engine, his gaze focused on the woman who was climbing into a shuttle bus that would take her to the car she’d just rented.
There was a crackling on the cell phone, as if Butcher was pacing from room to room.
“When are you coming to Baltimore?” the younger man asked.
Hunter smiled. He’d actually been on his way to join his disciples when the hacker he’d blackmailed into keeping electronic track of his private muse had contacted him with the information that she had just purchased airline tickets to Kansas City. He’d been instantly intrigued.
Was it possible she’d discovered that one of the kills had taken place in this area?
It seemed unlikely, but then again, what other reason could there be for her to fly to Kansas City?
The desire to toy with his prey in person was too tempting to pass up, so he’d made a swift U-turn and headed straight for this airport north of town.
“Soon,” he said in soothing tones, putting his car in gear and driving to the exit of the parking lot. Once in position he watched the shuttle as it came to a halt and the woman stepped out. “First I have to make sure our last party is cleaned up and the garbage buried deep enough it will never be found.”
There was another pause. “Is Assassin with you?”
A smile twisted Hunter’s lips. It had been a sweet relief to press his gun to the side of Assassin’s head and pull the trigger. The disciple had been weak. A fool who craved the thrill of the hunt without the spine to accomplish the final deed.
But like all his followers, he’d served his purpose.
If the authorities managed to locate the abandoned farmhouse in the middle of Kansas, they would discover the bodies of the five prostitutes tossed into the basement and Assassin in an upstairs bedroom with a bullet in his head. Any cop would assume that he was responsible for the deaths and had taken his own life out of guilt.
Murder/suicide.
A convenient way to close the case.
“No.” He laced his voice with surprise. “He isn’t in Baltimore?”
“No one has seen him since we left Kansas City,” Butcher said.
“Odd. I’m sure he’ll show up,” Hunter said, anticipation curling through the pit of his stomach as he watched the woman climb into a white SUV. “He might have decided to spend Christmas with his family.”
“I suppose,” Butcher said slowly, as if not entirely convinced.
“I have to go.” Hunter ended the call and tossed his phone on the seat beside him.
His prey was backing out of the parking place and heading toward the exit.
The hunt was on.
*