Wrath White - Succulent Prey

"That part may have been real but I don't believe for a second that she doesn't remember who attacked her. She's protecting Joseph."

"Protecting him? But he's the scumbag who ate her titties off," Captain Marshal added, with his eyebrows raised quizzical y. He looked both exhausted and overwhelmed, as if he would fal over at any second.

"Ever hear of Stockholm syndrome?" A sea of blank stares looked back at him.

"It's when a prisoner begins to identify, even to sympathize and, in extreme cases, to fal in love with his or her captor. Who knows how long Joseph had her or what he told her. His is a pretty sympathetic tale if you look at it from his perspective. Here's a kid who was attacked by a serial kil er and horribly tortured and raped for hours. He survives only to grow up and discover that this serial kil er passed some disease on to him that's turning him into a kil er too and the only way he can cure himself is by murdering the man who gave him the disease."

"So you think she bought al this bul shit?"

"It may not be bul shit. As I said before, there is a possibility that such a disease could exist. That's what brought us out here. We just need to convince her that it's bul shit. That's the only way we're going to get her to cooperate."

Captain Marshal 's cel phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. When he hung up, his face was set in a hard line that told everyone in the room that the night was not yet over.

"You think this wil convince her? We just got a cal from a motel manager a few blocks away. There are two bodies down there torn to shreds."

Marshal walked briskly out of the hospital fol owed by Montgomery and the two professors.

"I guess you two eggheads had it right. He's on a rampage now. It's only been a few hours since he kil ed Trent and the Janitor."

"He didn't feed on them, Captain. He must have been hungry when he got home. Not to mention his disappointment when he found that his cure wasn't working," Professor Locke offered.

"Wel from what my officers are tel ing me, he should be pretty damn wel fed now."

They piled into two separate squad cars and raced the two miles to the motel where Joe had been just hours before.

They slipped past the barricades and police tape and into the room where the dismembered bodies lay strewn around the room like wet red confetti.

"Jesus!" the two professors cried out in unison.

"Oh my God! He did this? How could anyone do something like this?"

"You tel us, Doc. Does this hold with your little theory? You stil think you can cure him with a few little pil s?" The captain was feeling surly. He didn't like the idea of a serial kil er in his town and he liked it even less that these two had known he was coming and hadn't said anything. If they had thought to drop a warning there might be four people alive right now and one lunatic behind bars.

But instead they had tried to play heroes. It was al he could do to keep from knocking one of them down. He knew exactly which one it would be too.

"I'm even more sure of it now than ever," Professor Locke said, elevating his chin to look down his nose at the policeman.

"This escalating pattern of violence is consistent with the pattern of addiction. He's developing a tolerance for it so he needs more. More victims, and more violence. If we don't get him into treatment the victims wil just keep piling up.

"That is unless we shoot him down. Or lock his ass up.

"That would be one solution. At least to this problem. But what about al the other kil ers out there? This is bigger than one man and a handful of victims. We could possibly put an end to this type of sexual/rage kil ing forever."

"Get off your soapbox, Doc. I ain't buyin' it. Now wait in the car while we search this place. You're contaminating my crime scene."

The captain and Detective Montgomery cleared everyone else out of the room except for the CSI crew. They immediately went to work photographing, bagging, and tagging everything they found that looked even remotely like it might lead them to the kil er. There was more than enough physical evidence to tel them who the kil er was and even to practical y guarantee a conviction-his DNA and fingerprints were al over the place. But there was nothing here to suggest where he might have gone.

"What about the telephone?"

"This one?" the captain asked, lifting the receiver from a cradle that was tacky with blood.

"No. The one in the apartment he was renting. Let's get the phone records and find out who he was cal ing."

"That's no problem. There's a police liaison at the phone company who does traces for us."

They were both more than a little relieved to leave the murder scene.

"Where's that manager?" the captain asked one of the officers standing nearby.

He pointed to a short, paunchy, balding Mexican with guilty, fidgety eyes. The man stepped forward, looking from side to side as if frantical y trying to plan his escape. He had the look of an ex-con with the crude tattoos to match.

"Which one did Miles stay in?"

"Right next door… uh, sir."

"Wel, then open it up! We need to check it for evidence."

They paused in the doorway of the apartment, taking note of the handcuffs attached to the bed and the wide bloodstain that saturated the mattress and sheets. This is where Alicia had been held, where Joe had performed his radical mastectomy on her. The big burly police captain froze and turned to look at the young black detective with stunned, exhausted eyes.

"What the fuck are we up against here?"

"A man. Just a man."

The captain picked up the phone and dialed the operator. Minutes later they had their information. He set the phone back in the cradle and let out a sigh of relief.

"Wel, it looks like Joseph Miles is your problem again. The last number he dialed was back in the Bay Area.

Hayward, California. A Mr. Lionel Ray

Miles. He's going home to Daddy."

Lionel Ray Miles stood on his porch, cradling the Mossburg pistol-grip shotgun in his arms and peering out into the darkness. He knew he'd heard something out there. Maybe one of the neighbor kids was playing a trick on him, but he was sure he'd heard the sound of glass breaking. And it had sounded like it was coming from his garage. He crept around to the front of the garage and saw that two of the windows had been smashed and there was a huge dent in the aluminum, as if something big and heavy had crashed into it. He heard shuffling noises coming from inside.

Lionel Ray jacked a round into the chamber and crept around to the side service door. He didn't make a sound.

He was not about to give whoever had dared break into his property any warning. Lionel didn't want to scare them away. He wanted blood. He imagined himself creeping up on some teenaged crackhead or speed freak and opening up on them with the shotgun. One less junkie, sneak thief, shoplifter, burglar, purse snatcher for the overburdened court system to worry about.

The service door on the side of the garage had been smashed in too. It looked like someone had used a sledgehammer on it. That door had cost

Lionel Ray two hundred dol ars at the home-and-garden store. Not to mention the time it had taken him to instal it and paint it. That alone was enough to justify him blowing away the intruder.

There was a shadow in roughly the outline of a human body standing right beside Lionel Ray's prized '69 Lincoln

Continental. The Lincoln was Lionel

Ray's dream car. Not a Cadil ac or a

Mercedes, but a Lincoln with its sleek lines and suicide doors had always symbolized success to him. He'd purchased it on eBay with money from his 401K. Had it driven al the way from Texas. And that speed-freak intruder was using it as a shield.

The Lincoln had al its original chrome bought straight from the factory and shined to a high gloss. Brand-new black leather upholstery. White-wal ed tires. Lionel Ray had spent countless hours restoring the car to mint condition. It was his pride and joy and there was no way he was going to risk a shot in the dark that just might spray the old girl with buckshot and ruin the new eighthundred-dol ar paintjob he'd just put on it. If need be he'd just walk over there and throttle the bastard with his bare hands. Lionel Ray Miles was tal with thick muscles from years of hard labor rather than months in the gym. He had no fear of the intruder attacking him before he could squeeze off a shot.