Cavanaugh Justice: Deadly Chase
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Marie Ferrarella
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Prologue
It was back.
That itch, that need, that unshakable, overwhelming desire that always began small—sometimes no bigger than a tiny pinprick.
Hardly noticeable at all, he thought with a self-satisfied smile.
But that desire would continue to grow, consuming him until it was all he could think about. Morning, noon and night, it became his constant companion, demanding attention, demanding satisfaction, until that itch, that desire to watch a beautiful face begin to fade as the light slowly went out of that woman’s eyes, was all there was.
A light that was extinguished because he had been the one to put it out.
Well, technically, he corrected himself, the women were the ones who put that light out, because eventually when they were able to move again, they began to struggle. And when they did, they weren’t able to keep their legs up in a position that didn’t cause the thin rope he had artfully tied them up with to be pulled.
When that happened, they would wind up strangling themselves, no matter how hard they tried not to.
In some cases, it was a slow, drawn-out process accompanied by tears when the women he had chosen for this demise realized that there was no way out.
Usually, however, the end process was quick, because the woman who thrashed about thought if she moved with enough force, she could break the string.
The string never broke.
The last time around had wound up being so fast, he barely had enough time to make himself comfortable as he began to watch the young woman squirming about.
He felt cheated, like a boxing patron who had paid the high price of a ticket to watch an exclusive match only to have the match over in a matter of moments due to a well-placed knockout punch.
It had barely satisfied his need to exercise dominance over this holier-than-thou woman who enjoyed looking down her nose at him, acting as if he was less than the lint that accumulated on her clothing because of a faulty dryer.
Not one of these women whom he had ended had the brains of a canary, while he was the superior being, the one with not one science degree, but several. He was the one who could not only dispense the medication that some third-rate physician prescribed, but he actually knew how to mix the different ingredients together to create those medications if necessary.
The women who became his victims thought that because they were lucky enough, through no effort of their own, to have been gifted with great faces and fantastic bodies, that made them his superior. That gave them the right to look right past him as if he didn’t even exist.
They changed their minds quickly enough in their final hours, he thought with an almost gleeful smile.
After a moment, the smile turned dark.
They deserved what he did to them. Each and every one of them deserved to be on the receiving end of his wrath.
Except for one.
That had been a truly personal act, even though the woman had no idea who he was.
But her husband did.
What he had done was a warning to the man to get him to back off, that he was getting too close, although, now that he thought about it, the cat-and-mouse game between them did invigorate him.
Too bad the messenger had to be sacrificed, but that was the way it went sometimes.
Besides, he hadn’t gotten anything out of that particular kill. Killing that woman hadn’t satisfied the fire in his belly. If anything, it just made it grow larger.
He needed to feed that hunger.
Because he had a superior intellect, he knew when things were threatening to close in on him. So he had changed his hunting grounds.
He chuckled to himself. Just when those morons on the police force thought he was in one place, he had moved his location to another part of Southern California. It would take them weeks to make the connection.
Maybe longer.
Those simpletons never communicated with one another, he thought in satisfaction. Even in this high-tech world, so many things didn’t register or wound up falling through the cracks, and those morons on the police force just went stumbling off into the dark.
All except for one.
And now, it seemed that Cortland was back in the game.
And he was ready to play, he thought. Oh, so ready.
He felt the hunger in the pit of his stomach growing.
It had nothing to do with food.
It was time to leave the confines of his new quarters and start patrolling the streets, looking for the next woman who needed to be made to pay.
It was time to play the game again.
He couldn’t wait.
