Nordstrom bag down by his chair.
Sipping his latte, he stared at the theater across the street. He couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed. Perhaps that was why he took a chance coming here. He would have been better off getting as far away from the theater as quickly as possible. But he needed to see people's reactions to what he'd done. From this front-row seat, he could see their shock and panic. Maybe then it would feel complete.
He heard sirens in the distance.
Across the street, the theater door flung open. He spotted the woman who had taken his ticket earlier. With a look of alarm, she paused at the threshold, a hand over her heart. She anxiously gazed up and down the sidewalk. The pale, stocky, baby-faced guy who worked the concessions stand trotted around from the other side of the building. Like his friend, he, too, was looking in every direction. 'Shit, I didn't see anybody!' the guy screamed to the ticket taker. 'Jesus, maybe he's still in the theater...'
The girl shook her head and started sobbing. She said something, but her words were drowned out by the sirens. The piercing wail grew even louder. Swirling beams of white and red lights from the approaching patrol cars already illuminated the street.
He noticed other people in the cafe. They'd stopped talking to their friends or typing on their laptops, and now they were looking toward the window.
He had to contain a smile.
He couldn't stay here much longer. If the police did their job right, within five minutes, they'd hold everyone in this cafe and question them about who they saw coming out of the theater. He didn't want to stick around for that. Slowly, he got to his feet.
Three police cars and an ambulance raced up the street and came to a halt in front of the theater. But he wasn't watching them. His eyes were on a middle-aged woman with a pea-coat, purple scarf, and a shopping bag. She headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Grabbing his Nordstrom bag and his latte, he hurried out the door, and caught up with the woman--so they were walking almost side by side.
'What do you suppose happened over there?' he asked her as they passed the ambulance and police cars.
She shrugged and shook her head. 'Drugs, probably. It's always something around here. This neighborhood has gone to hell in a handbasket--if you'll pardon my French.' She picked up her pace--almost as if to avoid him, then she turned down a side street.
His first instinct was to follow her home, maybe even kill her.
Perhaps that would have made him feel better, but he doubted it. He'd been elated for only a few moments tonight, a rush of excitement as he watched them die by his hand. He'd felt so powerful. But the elation hadn't lasted long.
Those girls--as much as they deserved to die--were just substitutes for someone else. He was thinking of that certain someone when he'd killed Molly and Erin tonight. He wondered if their deaths would affect her at all.
It would be a lot harder to get to her. It would take more planning. But he vowed he would make her suffer. He would wage a campaign of terror against her, inflicting so much pain and anguish that she would almost welcome her own execution.
He paused on the corner and watched the woman with the purple scarf disappear in the night's distance. He smiled.
He was thinking about the next time and how it would be better.
CHAPTER TWO
'So, sweetheart, I'm thinking of Tom, Bernie, and Pat for my groomsmen,' Jared said to Leah as they walked from his car toward one of their favorite haunts, Thai Paradise on Hawthorne. It was 8:40 on a cold Tuesday night in early December. Holiday lights and decorations adorned the storefronts, but right now the street was nearly deserted.
Jared had his arm around Leah's shoulder. They were an attractive couple. Jared, tall and lean with wavy blond hair, blue eyes, and perpetually pink cheeks, looked like a thirty-year-old version of Prince William. Leah was thin and pretty, with short chestnut hair. 'Waiflike' was how Jared's mother described her, and Leah wasn't entirely sure if that was meant to be flattering or not.
'You mentioned your cousin, Lonnie, as a candidate if I wanted someone from your side of the family as a groomsman,' Jared went on. 'But you guys aren't really that close. Maybe Lonnie could do a reading or something...'
Leah didn't say a word. She eyed the restaurant's red awning with green Christmas lights wrapped around the poles. She felt the knots in her stomach tightening.
'Are you pissed off?' Jared asked. 'If having Lonnie in the wedding party is really that important to you--'
'No, it--it's fine,' she said. But it wasn't fine at all. Everything was so screwed up. Jared didn't know it yet, but she couldn't go through with this wedding.
She needed to break up with him--tonight. That was why she still couldn't settle on a wedding date. Poor Jared--in a role usually reserved for the bride--became preoccupied with wedding plans, and she--like an apathetic groom--merely shrugged and said, 'That's fine,' every time he told her about some terrific caterer or a really cool place to hold the reception. Last week her mother came over and started talking about the wedding. Then Jared chimed in, and Leah had nuptial talk in stereo. It was all she could do to keep from running out of the room, screaming.
It wasn't fair to Jared, stringing him along like this. He was a terrific guy, who did very well at his accounting firm. Leah repeatedly told herself she was lucky to be his fiancee. Everybody else--her family, his family and all their friends--told her the same thing
But she didn't love Jared. Her infatuation with him had petered out two months ago. If she'd had any guts, she would have told him 'no' on Thanksgiving night when he'd surprised her with the seventeen-thousand-dollar engagement ring. Thank God he didn't have it engraved or anything. He could still get his money back.
She couldn't marry him. It was that simple.
Leah planned to tell him tonight over dinner in Thai Paradise. She figured he couldn't yell at her or cause a big scene in one of their favorite restaurants.
Jared held the door open for her. 'You feeling okay?' he asked. 'You're awfully quiet tonight.'
She shrugged. 'I--think maybe I'm just hungry.'
The restaurant felt almost steamy after the cold night outside. A blend of sweet and spicy aromas filled the place. The busboy who met them at the door wasn't much bigger than Leah. He was in his mid twenties, with long black bangs that fell over one eye. He had a sweet, handsome face, and he smiled a lot--perhaps to compensate for the fact that his English was horrible. That never stopped Jared from trying to strike up a conversation with him.
Tonight was no different. While the busboy led them past the empty counter area and around the huge tank full of tropical fish, Jared asked how he was, and how business was, and gosh, it sure didn't seem too busy tonight.
The busboy just nodded and smiled--until he sat them in a secluded booth against the wall in the windowless, dimly lit eating area. Leah used to think it was charming the way Jared was so friendly with waitpersons and salespeople. Now it just got on her nerves. It seemed phony and oversolicitous.
Slipping into the booth, Leah shed her coat and thanked the busboy as he handed her a menu.
'Looks like we're just about the only ones in here,' Jared said to their busboy. 'Hope we aren't screwing up your chances for an early quit tonight.'
