The Tempest A.J. Scudiere (books to read in a lifetime .TXT) 📖

Blankenship put in his two cents. “Looks like the perp took a bat to the vic’s nut sack again.”

Only Blankenship didn’t wince.

Bean tapped a finger on the photo of the victim still on the wall at the crime scene. “The articles?”

“All legit. Even the police reports, from several different precincts around the country. The grudge ninja’s good.”

“He’s also a god damned serial killer.” Bean perused the photos again. “Evidence?”

“That’s where it gets shoddy sir.” Owen explained Nguyen’s mad rampage, and how the hairs they had found didn’t have consistent curling. When looked at all together, from the four scenes they’d pulled, the hair had all fallen off the head at the same time.

Bean rubbed his eyes, again looking like Owen felt. “So they weren’t shed at the scene.”

“No sir. The bends and kinks in the hair make it look pretty damn likely that the hair was wound into a brush at one time.” His breath escaped him. “It’s pretty smart, sir. It got the roots, and Nguyen swears he can tell when it’s been yanked. The grudge ninja fooled him up ‘til this one. The only thing we are certain now is that the hair doesn’t belong to the ninja. He used it to salt the scene.”

“Fibers?”

Owen and Blankenship both shook their heads.

“Blood?”

“Just the victim’s.”

“Anything?” Bean’s voice was softer.

“Footprints.” Blankenship grinned.

But Owen quelled that when Bean looked to him again. “The same shoes. Men’s Skechers, size 10, we know the three designs that use that tread. I’m guessing he only wears them at the scene, because these look identical‒identical‒to the last scene. There’s not even any wear on the treads, which would be expected given the length of time since he last struck.”

“What else?”

“Jack shit.”

Bean nodded and scooted the photos across his desk as though they offended his sensibilities. Still on his feet, Owen just reached out and gathered them.

Bean’s hands went down his face, and that meant a truly terrible thought had just passed beneath them, “So we’ve got a brilliant, ballsy, serial killer on our hands. Crap, this is another Dahmer.”

“No sir.” Owen had to step up at that. “I’m getting the stats on the victim, and my money says he was as dirty as the last one.”

“Doesn’t matter. When this goes national news–and sooner or later it will–we are all in deep shit.”

It was four months before Lee saw her again.

The Appalachian cabin was serving him well. There was no one within shooting distance. That meant no visitors, which was a good thing. It also meant no roads and no services, which was a good thing, too, if you just looked at it the right way. Lee did.

He’d taken down a crack house he read about at the edge of Nashville. He’d driven the clunker/kitty out to the place and camped out in motels that had way too many roach residents that weren’t paying for the room. But no maid service meant no one found the rifles or scopes, or the lead weight of ammo and guns. It also meant no driver’s license was required for entry. Lee hadn’t had his for about three years. The last thing he wanted was to be identified.

He staked out the house, and watched and waited. Then, when the place was as full as it could be, and the head guy had pulled up in a car that shouted ‘I’m in charge and too stupid to keep it to myself,’ Lee put his eye to the scope and started picking people off.

He didn’t get the women. Didn’t really have the heart for it. But he had no issues taking out Mr. White Pimp Jacket, who had kindly worn that bright shoot-me-here clothing. Lee obliged, and enjoyed the red stain that ruined the material as well as the wearer. The others looked up, and a few got away, but a handful lay dead, holes in the sides of their heads. One lucky guy took one right between the eyes. His intelligence at finding Lee’s location had only earned him the best looking death wound.

When the outside was silent, Lee left the rifle and pulled out the Hecklers. He went in firing. There were screams and blood, and none of it his. He was badder ass than any of these two-bit crime lords. Some were too high to get their guns lifted before he took them out. Most of the sober people had been outside and stupid.

He fired three rounds into a woman who came around a corner with a rifle trained on him and a scream like a banshee. But the scream warned him she was coming, which was the first bad move on her part. The second was being too uptight or scared, and missing him with the one shot she got off.

He did not hit the woman who cowered in the corner. Nor the man who put his hands up in the air at the first shot, the Magnum still clutched in his right hand. Lee had never considered himself stupid, and he made the guy kick the gun over before he turned his back. The second guy he did that to sat down too docilely and thus, a second after Lee had turned away, he took a quick second look and put a shot dead center in the man’s chest. It was a good shot since the dead hands were holding a 9mm almost directly in front of the target. It was aimed at Lee, but like most things it didn’t get to him.

In the back room he found a ratty looking girl and a baby. He couldn’t pick them up. That would be the end of him. But a beckoning hand made the girl jump up, grab at the half naked and dirty infant who was too scared to cry, and follow him.

If he’d had a heart that might have broken it – that the baby stayed quiet. To be that young and already know that crying did you no good. Or