AFTER THE SUN set, he sat, nauseous, in his vehicle and watched the brunette woman’s little ranch house, waiting for the last two lights to go out.
He recalled how rude and impatient she had been with him and his breath hitched. He thought of the little schoolgirls when he was a boy—and how merciless they’d been with him, too. He hadn’t fit in and they had taken it upon themselves to make sure he didn’t forget it . . . not even for a second.
The memories flooded his head so quickly it felt like it was going to explode. Hateful kids who made him feel inferior, ugly, awkward, uncomfortable, inconsequential, and alienated. Year after year, over and over, it had been the same thing. He’d hated them all, but mostly the girls.
They were the ones who hurt him most.
The disgust he’d learned to feel for himself was overwhelming. He was different and he didn’t want to be. He felt inferior and that infuriated him.
Realizing he had the steering wheel in a death grip, he forced himself to think of something less anxiety provoking . . . and found himself wondering about the brunette’s son. About what type of life he lived. If the boy had ever experienced anything like he had in school. Also, if there was a father in the picture.
The kid had appeared pretty normal in the supermarket. But he knew from experience that even the sickest of people could appear normal.
After contemplating the boy for a little while, he sank back into his seat and thought about his own family.
He’d come from a fine family by today’s standards. He’d never been molested or been a victim of incest. He’d never been chronically ridiculed by an authority figure. He had lived in the same house until he was nine and always felt a certain degree of stability, he supposed.
And life had gotten even better once his father left and he was alone with his mom. When his father had lived with them, the man had always been a distraction, so he barely got to even talk to his mom. Instead, she had been so focused on keeping her husband at home, happy, and somewhat involved with the family that her son’s needs often fell to the wayside, even though her husband had rarely been emotionally available to either of them.
He couldn’t remember suffering any significant childhood trauma at home, outside of a few spankings from his father. But those had been few and far between—and were of no consequence to him, long term. He never much cared for his father anyway. In fact, as hard as he’d tried when he was younger, he’d never seen even one redeeming quality in the man.
He closed his eyes. What had been of consequence, he knew, had been the emotional (and sometimes physical) beatings from his classmates at school. Words that inevitably shaped his own opinion of himself. Opinions that he’d tried unsuccessfully to shed throughout his life. But still, his experiences were nothing unique. Kids got picked on all over the world. Some kids had low esteem and naturally believed the worst about themselves. So on most accounts, his childhood was pretty normal.
But he’d come to realize at a very young age that there was something different about him . . . something terribly wrong. Maybe the other kids had sensed it before he did, and that’s why they’d treated him so badly.
He continued to watch the woman’s house. At exactly 11:30 p.m., the last of the lights went out and the house was bathed in darkness.
Throwing his vehicle into gear, he drove to a secluded area three blocks away to park. Then he got out of the car and walked toward the house.
CHAPTER 20
THE INSIDE OF the brunette’s house smelled of household cleaner and cheap perfume.
Aside from the dull glow of a lamp on an end table and a wall-mounted night-light in the hallway, all the lights had been switched off.
He trained his flashlight around the room. Fresh vacuum tracks were etched into the living-room carpet, and the air held the subtle burnt odor of an old vacuum cleaner. The woman had cleaned before going to bed.
Little blonde Hope could learn some things from her.
Keeping his flashlight low, he slinked through the living room and into the hallway, grasping his hunting knife.
A bedroom door to his right was ajar. He peered in and saw the outline of someone lying in a bed. His grip tightened on the knife and he slowly entered. It was the preteen boy’s room. The kid lay on his back, his comforter a puddle at the end of his bed, his mouth wide open in sleep. He watched the boy’s chest and its rhythmic rise and fall. Music whispered from a laptop on a desk. He recognized the upbeat song: “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry.
Fitting.
The boy stirred, then licked his lips and turned onto his side. The man watched until he was certain the boy was sound asleep again; then he left the room and gently closed the door.
The next room was an office, with a desk covered with files and a flat-screen computer monitor. In the corner was a tall, metal filing cabinet. There was also a chest of drawers and a rocking chair. Photos on the walls revealed happy times between the mother and child. He trained his flashlight on everything, trying to get a sense of who this woman was.
As he moved his light to the other side of the room, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. A dog sat silently on the floor, just inches away, staring up at him.
Jesus!
He tightened his grip on the knife and readied himself. But the dog just stared at him and, strangely, continued to do nothing.
He blinked in the darkness—and suddenly realized the dog was behaving oddly . . . sitting too still.
He took a step forward and, again, the dog did nothing.
It wasn’t real.
It was stuffed.
He wiped more sweat from his brow and took a couple of minutes to calm down. Then he returned to the hallway and checked out the next room.