Lisa Miscione - Angel Fire

Jeffrey paused and looked down at his notes. “Also, someone should start going through records of local arrests over the last two years. We are looking for sex crimes, domestic violence, pedophilia, animal mutilation. Keep the profile in mind, though. And remember also that we are looking for someone with a medical background.

“One of your people should get online with VICAP and plug in the elements of this case, see if anyone turns up. Though it’s highly unlikely, we could have a traveler. Remember Johansen?’’

“Yeah,’’ Lydia replied, shaking her head and speaking up for the first time. “The traveling salesman who liked to pick up women in bars. He was an attractive guy. When a woman checked him out, he took her back to her apartment, strangled her, gouged her eyes out, and cut off her breasts. Seven victims, all found in different poses across the country. We finally figured out that he was positioning the bodies in the shape of letters. By the end, he’d spelled out ‘FUCK YOU.’’’

“That’s the one,’’ Jeffrey said, and the local officers groaned.

“Someone else,’’ Jeffrey continued, “needs to start going over the crime-scene notes and photographs. Go back to the locations and poke around, get the feel of them, make sure nothing was missed. Then start going to places like the bar, the restaurant where Maria worked, the church. Observe, ask questions, start making people uncomfortable.

“Does anybody have any questions?’’

When no one spoke, Morrow stood up. “Okay. Let’s get to work,’’ he said, as he starting handing out assignments to different officers at the table. In pairs the officers filed out, each with their tasks before them, looking a little overwhelmed, Lydia thought.

“Is there anything else you think I should do, Jeff?’’ Morrow asked when he was finished.

“Chief, you are the hub of this whole operation. You probably have a better overall picture of this community and its crime activity than anyone does. Spend time thinking back on anything over the last few months or even as long as a year that has struck a chord with you.’’

“You got it,’’ Morrow said, with alacrity. He walked away feeling like the clumsy kid finally chosen to play on the softball team.

Jeffrey looked around the room for Lydia, then caught sight of her through the window, leaning against her car, smoking and staring off into space. She was waiting for him. He walked out of the station house and approached the car. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until this is over. And don’t even think of pulling another stunt like you pulled this afternoon.’’

“Yes sir,’’ she answered sarcastically.

“Lydia, I’m serious. There’s no reason for you to be a renegade. What were you hoping to prove by going there alone?’’

“Nothing,’’ she said, shrugging. “I just didn’t want to wait for you to get back.’’

“But you’re not going to do anything like that again, right?’’

“Right.’’

“I want to drive,’’ he said, nudging her aside playfully with his shoulder and reaching for the driver’s-side door.

It was late evening before Jeffrey and Lydia returned to her house. They stopped at the bottom of the drive and picked up the mail, which Lydia sorted through as they pulled into her garage.

“Any letters from the president?’’ asked Jeffrey, after noticing a prison seal on one of the envelopes.

“The president?’’

“The president of your fan club?’’

Most of the letters that arrived from her fan club of the world’s most sick and twisted Lydia threw away unopened, the way they had been forwarded from her publisher’s office, particularly those that came from correctional facilities across the country. Initially she had been interested enough in what these people had to say to her to open them. A lot of them were the incoherent ramblings of damaged minds; some were from families of murder victims. Some were from people who claimed to be serial killers on the loose and she forwarded those to the FBI. But there was a person who had written to her every month since the publication of With a Vengeance.

When she received the first letter, in a way, she wasn’t even surprised.

Dear Bitch,

I fucked your mother and then I killed her. She was very satisfying.

I liked your book. You really put your finger on it. You really got into my head. But you know that, don’t you.

You like being inside my head? It makes you feel like you understand? Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. Maybe I can make you understand a whole lot better one day.

I take great satisfaction in you, too. I made you what you are today. Don’t forget it.

Fuck you,

Jed McIntyre

After the first letter, Jeffrey called the publisher’s office and insisted that her mail be screened from that point forward. Lydia’s editor, appalled by the incident, agreed. But Lydia called her back and asked that they continue to forward her mail unopened.

She wanted his letters. She needed them.

She never opened them. They just sat in a locked drawer in her desk, whispering profanity. But as long as she kept getting those letters with the prison stamp on them, she knew where he was. Locked away, forever. They reminded her that he was a mentally ill man and not a demon. Not a demon with supernatural powers who could reach through the earth from the depths of hell and snatch her away.

Jeffrey never stopped nagging her about the letters. But, as usual, Lydia could not be swayed. And Jeffrey had long since given up, feeling rage rise in his chest whenever he thought about the first letter.

But as they walked in the front door and he caught sight of the letter in her hand – indeed a letter from Jed McIntyre – with the rest of the mail she collected from the box, he felt his throat constrict with anger. He slipped it from the pile when she dropped it on the kitchen table.

“Jesus, Lydia, what the fuck do you do with these?’’

“At least I know where he is.’’

“By not returning these, you’re allowing him to perpetuate whatever fantasies he’s having about you.’’

“Jeffrey, don’t we have enough to deal with right now without rehashing this?’’

He handed the letter back to her without a word and opened the refrigerator, looking for a beer. She stared at his profile cast in the light. She could see the anger in his set jaw. She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Don’t be angry. Try to understand.’’

He placed his arms over hers and leaned back into her. “It makes me crazy to think of him even thinking of you.’’

“I know but it’s all right. He can’t hurt me,’’ she said, turning him around.

“Okay,’’ he said, and gave her a sad smile.

She left him and walked up the stairs to her bedroom. As she flipped on the light, she stopped cold in the door frame. Her lingerie drawer stood open and its contents had been cast to the floor. On the full-length mirror that stood beside the dresser was a message written in red lipstick.

O Righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.

Jeffrey came up behind her. “Lydia, did you leave the back door unlocked?’’ he asked.

“No,’’ she answered, turning to him, her face flushed. A moment passed as she heard him inhale sharply and felt him stiffen as he registered the message on the mirror.

Instinctively, he reached for the.38 he’d been carrying. “Stay right where you are. Don’t touch anything,’’ he called as he left the room and began searching the house.

But she knew even as she heard Jeffrey slamming open doors, that the killer was gone. Somehow, somewhere, he had seen her, been close enough to her to want her. He knew enough to know when she would not be here. And he wanted her to know that he had been here. She smiled, in spite of the fear twisting in her belly. The desire to find him, to finish him, was more powerful than her desire to breathe. She leaned against the doorjamb, shaking with an adrenaline rush. I am not a victim, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let some backwater psycho turn me into one.