Ann Voss Peterson
FRANTIC
There’s no place to hide…
Eight months after Captive…
The Copycat Killer
Laundromats made good hunting grounds.
Alone, for now, he sat back to wait, listening to the empty rumble of the dryer and the tinny radio tuned to the blues. He liked a little blues on a hunting trip. The music was gritty and real and full of pain. Like the sweetness of a dying scream.
He’d never guessed how invincible killing could make him feel. The godlike power of holding life and death in his hands. It had taken a mentor to teach him. To guide him. Until he’d become brave. Until he’d become strong. Stronger than he’d ever imagined he could be.
But it had been too long since he’d tasted that strength. Eight months of fantasizing. Eight months of lying low, waiting for warm weather, waiting for the police and press to grow bored, waiting for word.
Now he was hungry to feel his power.
The glass door swung open and for a moment the rush of traffic outside eclipsed the low thunk of the bass guitar. The door closed and a dishwater blonde shouldering a duffel trudged past the vending machines and between rows of whirring washers.
He took a deep breath. The air smelled sweet with detergent and fabric softener. Not as sweet as her hair would smell. Not as sweet as the scent of her blood.
He’d never understand why women who would never walk down a dark street alone would brave a night like this to wash their laundry. Clean clothes were damn important to some people.
He smiled as she came closer.
She glanced at him with narrowed eyes.
He could see she was older than the ones he’d done last fall. Crow’s feet touched the outer corners of her eyes. Her mouth held the pinched look of a woman who had to work hard to make ends meet. She was probably in her mid-thirties, maybe close to forty. He didn’t like older women. They were warier, not as easily misled.
For a moment he considered walking out, checking a laundromat on the other side of town. The last thing he wanted was for her to figure him out and give his description to the police.
She opened one of the small top-loaders and sorted whites into it. Bras. Lacy panties.
He looked at her again, more closely this time. If her hair were a little lighter in color, if her lips were set in a cruel smile, she would look like his mother. Maybe he could even dress her in the slutty miniskirts his mother used to wear. And one of those oversize shirts with big shoulder pads that had gone out in the eighties.
He shifted in his chair. After eight long months, he’d fantasized enough. He wanted action.
Humming along with the radio, she plucked a small bottle of detergent from her duffel, measured it into the cap and poured it into the machine.
He stood up and crossed to one of the machines whose wash cycle had finished. Pulling out a few pairs of wet jeans, he mustered his most pitiful expression before throwing the clothes into a dryer near the woman. “Excuse me.”
She glanced up at him, offering a stranger’s smile, brief and insincere.
“My girlfriend says she doesn’t like the smell of my clothes. She told me to get some of those dryer sheets. If you don’t mind my asking, what kind do you use?”
She dipped a hand into her duffel and pulled out a pink box. “These smell the best and do a great job controlling static.”
Got to be fast. Can’t let her catch on. Not until I have her where I want her.
Reaching into his pocket, he tilted his head at the pink box, as if he really gave a damn about fabric softener. “Oh, I’ve seen commercials for that kind.”
“Want to try one?”
“Sure. Thanks.” He reached out as if he intended to take a sheet. Instead, he grabbed her arm.
Her eyes flew wide. She pulled back, trying to free herself, trying to fight.
He whipped his hand out of his pocket and stabbed the syringe into her arm. He held her as she fought.
Sleep. Fucking sleep, lady.
Finally she swayed and stumbled into him.
“Feels good, doesn’t it? Feels real good.” He’d never shot heroin himself, but that’s what people said.
Moving quickly, before anyone else wandered into the laundromat, he pulled his laundry bag over her head. When he’d tugged it down past her waist, he positioned her swaying body next to a laundry cart and flopped her over. Lifting her by the hips, he heaved her into the cart.
A tinge of pain shot through his back. They were always heavier when they were deadweight. Once he let her loose in the forest, once she was fighting for her life, he wouldn’t have to worry about back strain. Then the pain would all be hers.
He stuffed her feet into the oversized bag, pulled the drawstring closed, and tied it. Smiling to himself, he wheeled the cart to the exit and his waiting van.
Yes, laundromats were great for hunting. And he’d just bagged himself some prey.
Diana
Diana Gale had done everything she could think of to make her twin sister’s post-wedding gift-opening a memory to cherish. She’d decorated her apartment with purple irises and white streamers. She’d poured mimosas and coffee for Sylvie’s handful of out-of-town friends. And not much of a cook herself, she’d made brunch reservations at one of Madison’s best restaurants. But as Sylvie sat on the couch next to her groom and tore open the card attached to the last silver-and-white package, Diana could tell something was wrong.
Clutching at the gift, Sylvie looked to her new groom. “Bryce.”
“What is it?”
Sylvie spread the wedding card before Bryce Walker then looked up at Diana.
She didn’t have to say who the gift was from. Diana knew by the alarm shining in her sister’s blue eyes—eyes identical to hers.
Eyes identical to his.
A tremor crept up Diana’s spine, raising the hair on the back of her neck. She hadn’t spoken to their birth father in months, neither had Sylvie, but a day hadn’t passed that they didn’t both think about him. And Diana knew the door of communication she’d thrown open would never fully close.
“Who is it from?” One of Sylvie’s friends who’d traveled up from Chicago for the wedding last night eyed Sylvie with a curious smile.
Diana plastered a smile to her own lips. Lisa might have been one of Sylvie’s workmates from her previous life, but there was something about the woman that Diana didn’t trust. It was as if she were constantly on the prowl for a wisp of gossip to provide herself with excitement, even at someone else’s expense. The last thing either Sylvie or Diana needed was for any of these women to learn who had given this particular gift. “Just someone we know.”
Sylvie leaned the gift against an end table and pushed to her feet. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m not feeling so well.”
She darted from the room and down the hall toward Diana’s bathroom. Bryce handed the card to Diana and started after his bride.
Serial killer Ed Dryden.
A father should have the privilege of walking his daughter down the aisle. I miss my girls. I look forward to your visit.
A newspaper clipping lay between the folds inside the card. Several months old, the newspaper article was dated October of the previous year.