Jo Robertson - The Avenger

This was it then. He was going to kill her.

Seconds before she heard the growl at her ear, she smelled his hot breath. "You can go now, you little whore," he taunted, "but I'll be back. You remember that I'm just as far away as your next nightmare."

A few moments later, she heard the slamming of the car door and the soft whirring of an electric window. Olivia didn't move for long minutes, certain he'd return and finish what he threatened. When her wrists lost feeling and her shins burned, she stumbled to her feet. Working the blindfold with her bound hands, she gradually loosened the fabric until it dangled around her neck. When she glanced down at her flimsy clothes and bare feet, she burst into frustrated tears.

At last the weeping segued into deep breaths and then subsided into hiccups. When she gained control of her emotions, she glanced around to get her bearings.

Bill had driven her to the dark underbelly of the freeway, where concrete roads and supporting beams criss-crossed above her. She could hear the roar of traffic above her head. So close, but so far from where she stood in the muddied tangle of debris hidden beneath the overpass. She tugged at her wrist bindings for some minutes, but finally realized they only tightened with the struggle. With determination, she turned toward the freeway and awkwardly climbed up the incline toward the freeway. Her feet made slippery purchase on the moist dirt, and with her hands tied, she lost her balance and slid to the bottom.

The rushing of vehicles thundered at warp speed all around her.

"Hold still, sweetheart," Ted Burrows said, even though he knew the pretty blonde coed was too far gone to hear him.

He slipped behind the armoire and adjusted the camera. Then he lighted the red tapers and placed them around the room. The candles weren't necessary in the daylight, but he thought they enhanced the seduction scene. "A few more minutes. We want everything to be just right."

He smiled down at the petite blonde. She wasn't nearly as attractive as the redhead who was the star of his film escapade last night, but Buffy's surgical augmentation made up the difference. What kind of mother saddled her daughter with a name like Buffy, anyway? He grinned. Two women in less than twenty-four hours was a spectacular record.

The woman lay partially clothed on the bed, her legs artfully arranged for maximum sensuality. Her bikini panties wrapped around one ankle, and her bra pushed up to reveal the fake fleshy breasts with their dainty areolas. Her head rolled to one side, her mouth open unbecomingly.

Ted frowned, walked around the bed, and pushed the slack jaw shut. "There, that's better." He smirked and readjusted the angle of the camera. His erection bulged against his pants. "Much, much better."

When he was satisfied with the artistry of his production, he returned to the bed and gazed down at the semi-conscious girl. "What was it you said, Buffy? Oh, right, you wanted to have a good time. I think you said, 'A night to remember.' The night's long gone, but I find a little afternoon delight just as memorable."

He unbuttoned his shirt. "Did you know the phrase 'a night to remember' was the title of a book? About the sinking of the Titanic? No, probably not."

He tossed the shirt on the floor. "It's the story of an unsinkable ocean liner that hit an iceberg and plummeted to the bottom of the ocean." He looked down at himself and laughed. "I'm quite unsinkable, too, don't you think?" He unsnapped his jeans and chuckled quietly. "I don't know how much you'll remember, but this delight will be an unforgettable experience for me."

He smiled and trailed his hand up her thigh.

Removing the last of his clothing, he knelt between the girl's outstretched legs, positioning himself comfortably between her thighs. He brushed the tangled hair from her face. "You're going to really enjoy this, sweetheart. Even if you don't remember a thing."

Fully aroused, he began a frenzied suckling of her breast, his engorged erection pressed against her bare flesh.

Suddenly a thunderous crash resounded from below, and he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps tromping up the stairs.

Oh, fuck!

Jack's visions were careening out of control.

Usually his visions channeled through the eyes of the man he hunted, but sometimes the victim or a third person provided the conduit. Whose head had he been inside in this latest vision? The killer? His victim? Or someone watching the killer?

He didn't know if his overloaded brain circuits or the transposed sensory images caused the confusion. But he was certain of one thing – he'd seen a red-haired girl, not a brunette, with her attacker. The killer?

Last night, he believed, not this afternoon, but he couldn't be sure. Not Olivia, he thought, not with the hideous hair color. His pulse raced with dread that he might be wrong. Pray God, not Olivia.

While Jack waited for the reverse address information to come on his laptop, Slater knocked on the guest house door. Jack waved him into the kitchen, eyed him thoughtfully, and thought it was time to come clean with the man who'd once been like a brother to him.

Slater was a man driven by reason rather than instinct. A man of rational thought would have a hard time believing someone could change physically like Jack had in such a short time. Even with the explanation of the special designer drugs pumped into his body, Slater would scoff at the idea.

"I need to talk to you about… about what happened when I left," Jack began. By the time he finished fifteen minutes later, Slater was pacing the living room, looking agitated and horrified. "Damn it, Jack! We all thought you were dead. I heard your foster parents got a death certificate from Texas."

He threw himself into a kitchen chair. "I can't… I don't understand it."

"You were meant to think I was out of your life. Permanently. They didn't want anyone to come looking for me."

"Shit," Slater said, jumped up and began his pacing. "Shit, shit."

"Invictus held me in isolation three months, used me as their own private guinea pig, told me I was unique."

Jack remembered the white-walled, clinical cell and the endless questions and interviews, the blood draws, the x-rays, and the recently developed Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the MRI. The incessant psychological and endurance tests.

"When they finished with me, I understood who I was, what I had to do, where my future lay. I couldn't go back."

A pregnant pause dominated the kitchen for long moments.

Finally Slater said, "That story's too damn bizarre to be made up."

Jack felt dizzy with relief. Olivia had believed him. Slater believed him now.

He took a few minutes to explain his unexpected "lead" and offered the name that'd just come through from the reverse directory. A man named Theodore Burrows had just jumped to the top of the suspect list.

Slater frowned. "You want to explain how you came up with this lead?"

"Nope," Jack said calmly. "You probably don't want to know."

"Figures."

As they walked to his truck, Slater glanced across the top of the truck and spoke without inflection. "Jack, if you hurt her again, I'll kill you."

Jack didn't answer. What would he say to that? After a moment he spoke quietly. "I'd like you to have a deputy check at her house. Can you do that?"

"I guess you're not explaining that either."

"Just a gut feeling. I'm probably wrong."

Slater used his shoulder mike to order Waylon Harris to drive to Olivia's house.

They arrived at the Sacramento address of Burrows thirty minutes after the call to Harris. Slater had a judge who owed him a favor and agreed to a no-knock wire warrant. Jack wouldn't have followed protocol even without the warrant. Not when he couldn't be sure Olivia was safe.