CHAPTER 8
He couldn’t remember pizza delivery girls being so cute back in his younger days when he had worked at the local pizza place. Hell, he couldn’t remember there being delivery girls back then.
He watched her hurry up the sidewalk, strands of long blond hair trailing behind her. She had her hair in a cute ponytail—sticking out the back of her blue baseball cap, a Chicago Cubs cap. He wondered if she was a fan. Or maybe her boyfriend was. Surely she had a boyfriend somewhere.
It was too dark now to depend on the streetlights. His eyes were already stinging and a bit blurred. He slipped on the night goggles and adjusted the magnification. Yes, this was good.
He saw her check her watch as she waited on the front porch. This time another man answered the door. Of course, the guy would give her that dumb-ass look of astonishment. The man fished bills out of the pockets of his blue jeans, jeans that sagged at his bulging waist. He was a slob, grimy with sweat stains under the armpits of his T-shirt and a tuft of hair sticking up out the neckline. And yet…yep, there it was, another wiseass remark about how cute she was or what he wouldn’t mind tipping her with. But again, she smiled politely, despite the color rising in her cheeks.
Just once he’d like to see her kick one of these idiots in the groin. Maybe that was a lesson he could teach her. If things worked out as he planned, he’d have plenty of time with her.
She hurried away along the winding sidewalk, and the cheap bastard who had tipped her only a dollar, watched her ass the whole trip back to her shiny little Dodge Dart. That sight alone was worth much more than a dollar. The cheap son of a bitch. How the hell was she supposed to put herself through college on dollar tips?
He decided that women were better tippers when it came to delivery services. Maybe they felt some odd sense of guilt for not having prepared the meal themselves. Who knew. Women were complicated, fascinating creatures, and he wouldn’t change that if he could.
He replaced the goggles with dark sunglasses, simply out of habit now, and because the oncoming headlights burned his eyes. He waited for the Dodge Dart to reach the intersection before he turned around and followed. She was finished with this batch. He recognized the route back to the pizza place, Mama Mia’s on Fifty-ninth and Archer Drive. The cozy joint took up the corner of a neighborhood strip mall. A Pump-N-Go occupied the other entrance. In between were a half-dozen smaller shops, including Mr. Magoo’s Videos and Shep’s Liquor Mart.
Newburgh Heights was such a friendly little suburb it gagged him. Not much of a challenge. Nor much challenge in the cute pizza delivery girl either. But this wasn’t about challenge, it was simply for show.
The girl parked behind the building, near the door, and gathered up the stack of red insulators. She’d be back in a few minutes with another load ready to deliver.
The neon sign for Mama Mia’s included a delivery number. He flipped open the cellular phone and dialed the number while he unfolded a real estate flyer. The description promised a four-bedroom colonial with a whirlpool bath and skylight in the master bedroom. How romantic, he mused, just as a woman barked in his ear.
“Mama Mia’s.”
“I’d like two large pepperoni pizzas delivered.”
“Phone number.”
“555-4545,” he read off the flyer.
“Name and address.”
“Heston,” he continued reading, “at 5349 Archer Drive.”
“Would you like some breadsticks and soda with that?”
“No, just the pizza.”
“It’ll be about twenty minutes, Mr. Heston.”
“Fine.” He snapped the phone shut. Twenty minutes would be plenty of time. He pulled on his black leather driving gloves, and then he wiped the phone with a corner of his shirt. As he drove by the Dumpster, he tossed the phone.
He headed south on Archer Drive, thinking about pizza, a moonlit bath and that cute delivery girl with the polite smile and the tight ass.
CHAPTER 9
Maggie’s eyes begged to close. Her shoulders slouched from exhaustion. It was almost midnight by the time Gwen left. Maggie knew she’d never be able to sleep. She had already checked every window latch twice, leaving only a choice few open to keep the wonderful chilly breeze flowing through the main floor. Likewise, she had double-checked the security system several times after Gwen’s departure. Now she paced, dreading the night hours, hating the dark and vowing to put up drapes and blinds tomorrow.
Finally she sat back down cross-legged in the middle of the pile created from the contents of Stucky’s personal box of horror. She pulled out the folder with newspaper clippings and articles she had downloaded. Ever since Stucky’s escape five months ago, she had watched newspaper headlines across the country by using the Internet.
She still couldn’t believe how easily Albert Stucky had escaped. On his way to a maximum-security facility—a simple trip that should have taken a couple of hours—Stucky killed two transport guards. Then he disappeared into the Florida Everglades, never to be seen again.
Anyone else may not have been able to survive, having become a nifty snack for some alligator. But knowing Stucky, Maggie imagined him emerging from the Everglades in a three-piece suit and a briefcase made of alligator skin. Yes, Albert Stucky was intelligent and crafty and savvy enough to charm an alligator out of its own skin, and then reward it by slicing it up and feeding it to the other alligators.
She sorted through the most recent articles. Last week, the
The articles that frightened Maggie more than the ones with missing body parts were the ones of women who had disappeared. Women like her missing neighbor, Rachel Endicott. Intelligent, successful women, some with families, all attractive, and all described as women who would not suddenly leave their lives without telling a soul. Maggie couldn’t help wondering if any of them had become part of Stucky’s collection. By now he had surely found somewhere isolated, somewhere to start all over again. He had the money and the means. All he needed was time.
She knew Cunningham and his defunct task force, and now his new profiler, were waiting for a body. But if, and when, the bodies did start showing up, they were the ones Stucky killed only for fun. No, the ones they should be looking for were the women he collected. These were the women he tortured—who ended up in remote graves deep in the woods, only after he was completely finished playing his sick games with them. Games that would drag on for days, maybe weeks. The women Stucky chose were never young or naive. No, Stucky enjoyed a challenge. He carefully chose intelligent, mature women. Women who would fight back, not those easily broken. Women he could torture psychologically as well as physically.
Maggie rubbed her eyes. She wanted another Scotch. The two earlier, added to the beer, were already making her head buzz and her vision blur. Though she had brewed a pot of coffee earlier for Gwen, she hated the stuff and stayed away from it. Now she wished she had something to help her stay alert. Something like the Scotch, which she knew was becoming a dangerous anesthetic.
She lifted another file folder and a page fell out. Seeing his handwriting still sent chills down her spine. She picked it up by its corner as though its evil would contaminate her. It had been the first of many notes in the sick game Albert Stucky had played with her. He had written in careful script:
