Callie Everard had been obvious, maybe.But the gang connection he had found when he looked into her life had been, hethought, a good distraction. Something that might lead the cops in the wrongdirection.
Of course, he was reading now in thenews bulletins that it wasn’t the LAPD anymore. That it was the FBI now. Maybehe had gone too big, too soon. But what else could he have done?
And, oh, his third choice: NaomiKarling, the sweet little thing who turned out to be more of a tiger than JohnDowling, had turned out to be more of a threat. She hadn’t even had the tattooyet. They weren’t supposed to make that link, not so quickly.
They weren’t supposed to find him.
It was inevitable, most likely. He wasnot vain or egotistical enough to ignore that. One day, they were always goingto track him down and make him stop, one way or another. But he had just hoped,or imagined, that it would take them longer than this. That he would hit moreof them, take them out.
Maybe it was time to speed up. To goquicker. All of his careful planning and stalking, and they were already comingdown the trail after him. Maybe it was time to throw caution away and startmaking moves.
It was a relief to know that tonight, atleast, they had the Octopus in their grasp. They thought he was the one behindall of it, and they would waste time and resources investigating him. Whilethey were looking at the Octopus, they wouldn’t be looking for anyone else.
Killing tonight would mean they realizedthey had the wrong man in custody. Of course it would. No way the Octopus couldbe the killer if he was in a jail cell. But they would find out soon enoughthat it wasn’t him, and by then, the window of opportunity might be gone.
There was a voice in the back of hishead, as he watched an upstairs curtain sway in the breeze caused by a passingbody, that told him he should stop now. Give up and go underground, somehow, orlook for a way to put them off his scent.
But if that didn’t work—and it mightnot, because he was no FBI agent himself, and didn’t know quite how to outsmartall the tests and checks and measures they could do—then they would catch himanyway. His task would be left unfinished. Just three paltry souls freed fromthis earth, prevented from causing future harm. It was not a great many at all.
If he pushed on tonight, he could getone more. At least one more. And that was the point, wasn’t it? Every singleone of them he managed to eradicate from existence was a great win for hisside. If he managed a single one more, at least that was something.
Yes: his mind was made up. There was nostopping now. He had the next one in his sights, and that was where she wasgoing to stay until the job was done. He couldn’t let all of this othernonsense distract him.
She came out of the front door, ahandbag swinging on her shoulder, her keys a flash of metal in her hands as shelocked it behind her. She was in a rush as always, balancing a bundle of makeupin her hands, to be applied to her face on the way in to work. She was alwaysrunning behind. He had seen her more than a few times over these last weeks, inbetween checking out the others. She worked a later shift, and that made itconvenient to follow her movements, see what she was doing when the others werealready out at work.
Her twisting, curled hair blew aroundher face in the temporary puff of a spring breeze. She made it to her car, gotin, and dropped everything onto the passenger seat. She adjusted her mirrors ashe sunk into his seat, making sure he would not be seen. She pulled out andshot away, her foot heavy on the accelerator pedal as always.
Like all of them, she was a creature ofhabit. Like all humans. She got up at the same time, went out at the same time,took the same route. He smiled at that. She was like everyone else, at thesurface. It was only him who could see the great evil that lurked inside ofher.
And it was her humanity—her shroud ofpretense, her cloak of normalcy—that made her such a good target. She was thesame every day. And he would be back later on, when she came home, which shedid always at the same time. He would be there when she entered the house whereshe lived on her own, and kicked off her shoes at the door as she did everyday, and bustled her way into the kitchen to cook a meal. He would be therewhen the light went on, as it did every night. He would be there when she drewthe curtains and shut out the view.
He didn’t know what she did after sheclosed the curtains. He had never been able to see. But that didn’t matter.Because tonight would not be like all the other nights.
Tonight, she would do something that shehad never done before, a break in a routine habit that had made up all of thepieces of her life.
Tonight, she would die.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
“It is not him,” Zoe said, ignoring thepained look that Shelley shot her way. “I am telling you.”
“Why not?” Shelley groaned, shaking herhead. “Look, Z, I know you’re a perfectionist. You like to tie everything up ina neat little bow. But just give me time. I’m going to crack him. And even if Idon’t, we have enough evidence to at least put it before a judge.”
“You need more,” Zoe argued. “This isall circumstantial. The fact that he knew the three victims and also members ofthe Aryan Brotherhood