Allison Brennan
The Prey
Predator – #1
To my mom
You always had faith in me
PROLOGUE
He studied her from afar. Objectively, as a scientist might contemplate an interesting germ. Even at this distance, she was a beautiful woman.
Long blonde hair pulled tightly back in a braid; aristocratic profile; small, sharp point for her nose. Her facial bones might be considered regal, though he thought them too angular. Her athletic body lean, quietly muscular. No one feature was soft.
Except her eyes.
They were covered behind dark John Lennon glasses, but he remembered they were the color of the sea, the blue-gray hue of the Atlantic Ocean on a clear day. Yes, her eyes were soft because they showed emotion, so she kept them hidden behind those hideous glasses. She wanted to be as hard as she appeared, but inside she was soft. Weak. Female.
He’d see those eyes again one last time in the moments before he killed her. They would fill with fear; she would know the truth. Heart pounding hard in his chest, he now heard the blood rush to his head. Yes, when she knew the truth, he would be set free. He smiled.
She thought he couldn’t touch her. Did she even think about him anymore? He didn’t know. But before the game played out, she would be thinking of him, fearing him, feeling his vengeance.
Killing her wasn’t the beginning, and it certainly wouldn’t be the end. Many others deserved to die.
But her death would be the most satisfying.
Watching her, he noticed her hesitate as she opened the door of her black Mercedes coupe and looked around. His heart skipped a beat in excitement. Did she feel him? She couldn’t see him, and even if she did, would she remember? His was an average face, the face of anybody. She knew madness, but he wasn’t mad. She knew terror, but he wasn’t terrifying. Not now. He skillfully concealed his excitement, his anger, his rage.
It was so much fun playing with her! A final look around; she stared right at him but couldn’t see him. She must have sensed something, though, because she quickly slid into her sporty car and started the ignition. Heart pounding, fists clenched, he envisioned seizing that long, slender neck and snapping it in two.
No, I won’t break her neck. Too easy, too fast.
Instead, I’ll squeeze it slowly. Put pressure on her windpipe. Watch as she turns blue. Then release it, give her a breath or two. Make her think she’s got a chance. That there’s hope.
Then tighten up again.
He would watch her eyes fill with recognition, fear, and faint hope with each breath he allowed. And finally, the awareness: no hope. Only death. And when those pale eyes looked into his own, she would know it was all her fault.
She should have died years ago.
He stared down the road long after her car disappeared from sight. Carefully, he put the binoculars back in their case.
She wasn’t going anywhere; there was plenty of time to kill her. Walking down to his car, he glanced once again at her house before heading to the airport. There was much to do in the next twenty-four hours, but he’d be back in time to see her face when she was told what had been done.
Time to begin.
CHAPTER 1
Rowan Smith learned about Doreen Rodriguez’s murder from the reporters camped out in her front yard Monday morning.
A car door slammed and she awoke with a start. Instinctively, she reached for the gun that was no longer under her pillow, searching the cool cotton sheet before remembering it was in her nightstand. Hesitating briefly, she retrieved the cold Glock. She couldn’t think of a good reason for needing her gun, but it felt right in her hand.
She’d slept in sweatpants and a T-shirt, an old habit of being ready for anything, and padded down the stairs in bare feet to look out her den window and see who was visiting so early in the morning. The grating sound of a sliding van door shutting told her she had more than one visitor. She used her index finger to bend down the blinds a mere inch to peer out.
She could tell from their rumpled attire and notepads they were print reporters. Television hounds were far more concerned with appearance. Three vans and two cars crammed the driveway of her leased beachfront home. She despised reporters. She’d had more than enough of them while working for the Bureau.
The doorbell echoed, startling her. Though she could see the driveway from her den, she couldn’t see the door. Presumably one of the bolder reporters had summoned the courage to ring her doorbell.
What did they want? She’d just given an interview about the premiere of Crime of Passion two days ago; surely they didn’t need a group session.
She started for the door, then remembered she was carrying her gun. She imagined the headline: Paranoid Former Agent Armed for Interview. She slid the gun into the top drawer of her desk and briskly walked to the front door, barely registering the coolness of the tile under her bare feet.
Her phone rang at the same time the doorbell repeated its obnoxious ding-dong. Great. Reporters coming at her from every direction. She’d dealt with them before; she’d have to again. It was only as she opened the door that she feared something bad had happened and that maybe she shouldn’t talk to them.
Too late.
“Do you have a comment on the murder of Doreen Rodriguez?”
“I don’t know Doreen Rodriguez,” she said automatically, even as alarm bells went off in the back of her head. The name was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. A sick feeling ate at her gut as she tried to connect the dots. As she was shutting the door, another question rang clear:
“You don’t know that a twenty-year-old woman named Doreen Rodriguez was killed in Denver Saturday night in the same manner as the character Doreen Rodriguez was murdered in your book Crime of Opportunity?”
Rowan slammed the door shut. She didn’t fear reporters walking in uninvited; she’d have them arrested for trespassing without a qualm. She simply wanted the resounding finality of her “no comment” to ring loud and clear.
The phone finally stopped ringing. Then, thirty seconds later, the incessant ring-ring started again. She ran back to her den and glanced at the caller ID: Annette. Her producer.
Picking up the receiver she said, “What in the hell is going on?” She heard yet another car screech to a halt in her driveway.
“You’ve heard.”
“I have a bunch of reporters on my doorstep, more arriving as we speak.” She peered out the blinds again. Television van. She pressed a hand to her stomach. Something was very wrong.
“I got the details from a reporter in Denver,” Annette said rapidly, emphasizing some of her words. “A twenty-year-old waitress named Doreen Rodriguez was killed Saturday night. They found her body yesterday in a Dumpster outside of, and I quote, ‘a small Italian café off South Broadway that could have been called quaint if not for the blood drying on the white brick façade.’ ”
Rowan listened to the words she’d penned years ago. Rubbing her temple, she craved a cigarette for the first time since she’d quit the FBI four years ago. “This is some kind of sick joke.”
“I’m so sorry, Rowan.”
“Dear God, I don’t believe this is happening.” She squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to absorb what Annette had told her. Her breath caught, and she placed a hand over her mouth. It had to be a coincidence. Some idiot reporter taking a violent crime and trying to sensationalize it by comparing it to one of her novels.
The image of Doreen Rodriguez’s bloody, dismembered body flashed in her mind. She opened her eyes immediately, her vision of the murder far too real because she had created it. It couldn’t have been a similar crime. Just the name was the same.