Stalked

by Louise Krieg

  There have been others since. Oh yeah, I’ve found his latest kills. It’s a matter of matching up the little things, like the torn dresses, a body that gets moved from the scene only to be found months or years later, the way he…does things to them before he kills them. Two of the current victims haven’t been found yet, either. Just like my sister. But I know it’s him. My instincts like this are never wrong. All of these women were killed by Kirk Danes. I know what he likes.

  I know everything about the man. Except where he was right now at this moment.

  I threw my pen down at the tabletop only to have it bounce off the pages in the folder and land on the floor on the opposite side. Whatever. I obviously wasn’t going to get anywhere with the folders again today. The paycheck for taking in Martin Cassuk had been deposited earlier in the day and I was flush again. Maybe it was time to go out and do something. Have some fun. Take my mind off the impossible.

  As if that would ever happen. I can’t forget my sister. I will never forget what was done to her, and I will bring Kirk to justice.

  Just not tonight. If I couldn’t nail Kirk to the nearest wall tonight, then I might as well go out and do something. The night is young, and so am I. There’s a nightclub down the street that I like to hang out in sometimes. The music is loud and innocuous, but there’s always groups of women there who are looking for a man to spend time with and forget their own troubles. My last hookup from there was Jennifer. Now that had been a night where I nearly forgot about my sister. Jennifer had a way of making a man forget anything except her. If she was there again tonight that would so make it worth my while to go out…

  My hands hesitated as they put together the piles of paperwork together. This one page. I’ve looked at this one-page dozens of times and I could probably recite all the information on it by heart. So why had I never noticed this before?

  One of Kirk’s known associates was a woman by the name of Erika Barton. She had a history of being in and out of court-ordered drug rehabs. Which meant she got arrested for drug crimes a lot. Want to find a drug addict who gets arrested a lot, you talk to the police. If I want to know where Kirk Danes might be now, I need to find Erika Barton and make her talk. If I can make that happen I can come at him sideways.

  I know just the guy to help me find her.

  Granted it’s late. After eleven o’clock, actually, but the law enforcement profession is a twenty-four-hour business. And yes, a guy in my line of work has contacts in the police. You need to if you’re going to keep two steps ahead of the bad guys. Actually, the police are usually one step behind the criminals, but add in my intelligence and skillset and that puts me ahead of the curve. The police come to me when they can’t find someone, after all.

  The phone rings three times before my friend Barney answers. Barney’s a sergeant with the state police. All business, usually, until you take the man out for a beer or two and get him talking. Then he’ll tell you every little detail of his life. Or enough of it to let out some sensitive information he’d rather not have anyone else know. I promised never to tell, as long as I get a favor or two from time to time.

  In other words, he owes me.

  “What in the hell do you want?” is how he answers the phone.

  “Now is that any way to treat an old friend?” I say with a smile. Even though he can’t see it, he’ll still hear it in my voice. “I need a favor. I need to know where a girl by the name of Erika Barton is right now.”

  I have him Barton’s information, her date of birth and her soc number and everything else I could, and then listened to him swear at me about how he was going to get his ass in a sling for helping me. I knew he wasn’t, and he knew he wasn’t, but it made Barney feel better to complain about it, so I let him complain.

  A few dozen keystrokes and five minutes later, he had the information for me that I needed about where to find Erika. I thanked him and was about to hang up when he told me there was more.

  “Got a body today.”

  “Good for you,” I quipped. “She your type?”

  “Ha, ha. This body might interest you, actually.”

  “No, thanks. I’m already in a relationship.”

  “You’ll make an exception.” He waited for someone on his end of the line to move away before he added, “This body was killed in the same way the others were.”

  “Where?” I said immediately, nearly diving over the table to collect the pen I’d tossed away before. I needed this address. There’s one more detail about the Kirk Danes murders that I’ve never told anyone. This piece of information I’ve saved for myself.

  Whenever he kills, he always returns to the scene of the murder within twenty-four hours. It’s his way of getting his kicks. Of showing the police that he’s better than they are. Untouchable. Unstoppable. Like he’s giving them the finger.

  Or maybe he just likes to jack off where he kills the girls.

  Whatever his reason, he’ll be back at the scene of this newest murder soon. I’ll be there to stop him.

  Chapter Three

  Abandoned warehouses are kind of like weeds on your lawn. You never notice them until you go looking, and then they’re everywhere.

  The one I’m in was used by a Chinese wholesale food store in its past life. Now it’s just big empty rooms with a catwalk hanging on the side of the wall halfway up to the ceiling, looking down over everything. Makes for the perfect perch to watch, and wait.

  The police tape is still up around a square spot on the cement floor down below. The body has been removed, of course. This is the way Kirk Danes likes it. The police are out busy looking for him. Now he’s going to be here where he can enjoy the aftermath of his handiwork without being disturbed.

  Not that the man isn’t disturbed enough as it is.

  In black clothes and a long black coat, I have myself huddled into a corner and watching everything with a pair of night-vision goggles. It’s already one in the morning, and my time frame for Kirk showing up to marvel at his handiwork is running out. I hope I haven’t missed him. If he got here before I did and he’s already gone again—

  There. Down there in the moonlight coming in from the only window in this room. The dust motes stirred as a shadow slipped past. There’s my guy. Serial killer Kirk Danes. The man who killed my sister.

  From under my coat, I take the long-barreled pistol I use for this kind of work. There’s no silencer on it. Doesn’t need to be, when the gun fires tranq darts. Let the guy sleep his way to a jail cell. I’m good with that.

  What I want to do is tear him apart limb from limb but that won’t get my sister justice. I have to remember my goal here. Capture and interrogation. I want to know why he did this to my sister.

  I level the gun out on the railing, aiming down at the shadow that I can still see moving thanks to my night-vision goggles. Hard to make out any specifics in the gloom. Tall, maybe. Thin, but he’s wearing a coat sort of like mine that disguises him pretty well.

  There. He’s stopped. Every criminal as sick as this guy has to admire their work. It’s like some damned law of nature. So just stand there, you son-of-a-bitch, and take your medicine.

  A bright flash centered on the guy below me lights up my goggles and momentarily blinds me. It’s only my razor-quick reflexes that make me react by throwing myself backward, flat against the catwalk, making myself as small a target as I can.

  Good thing, too. Around me, the cement wall sparks and chips as multiple bullets strike one after the other. That’s the sound of an automatic weapon. All speed, no accuracy, even in the hands of an expert. Kirk knew enough to flash a light and blind me before opening fire. That’s the mark of a pro.

  Guess when you kill a dozen women or more over your serial killer career you learn a certain skill set of your own.

  Crawling along the catwalk, trying to get out of the range of the bullets as they follow me, I have two different thoughts run through my mind. One, I can’t underestimate Kirk Danes again. No more considering him just
a psychopathic maniac. This guy’s dangerous.

  Two, I really wish I’d brought something other than a tranq gun with me.

  The catwalk came to an abrupt end at a corner and when I tried to make the turn a hail of bullets rained down against the wall and careened off the metal of the walkway. I was trapped, and I was dead if I didn’t come up with something.

  In desperation, I pointed the tranq gun and fired off the entire clip of ten shots. They’re ballistically propelled which means each one sounds like a gunshot. All the bang, none of the lethal impact.

  When the gun clicked empty I sat there, waiting to die.

  Silence met me, mixing with the oily stink of my own fear. I dared a glance over the railing.

  The room was empty. Kirk Danes was gone.

  In the darkness, I swore very loudly, and very descriptively. This was my chance. Maybe my one and only chance to grab this guy and I blew it. There was nothing for me to do except pack up, go home, and regroup.

  Well. I still had the address of his known associate. And hey, it was a brand new day. I haven’t gotten any sleep and I haven’t had anything to eat in the last fifteen hours, but why stop now?

  I know this much. I’m getting my gun before I go any further.

  My car is parked a few blocks over from the warehouse. Five minutes of walking gets me there, and the engine purrs under the hood as I pull out and head for the next intersection. It’s going to take me twenty minutes or better to get to Erika Barton’s apartment but on the plus side, she won’t be expecting me there at this hour. I’ll have the element of surprise on my side, just like I thought I’d have it back in the warehouse.

  As I’m driving I take out my forty-caliber Desert Eagle from my glove compartment. The weight of it feels good in my hand. Holding it up to examine it in the light from the guy behind me I make sure the safety’s off. This time, I mean business.

  The lights from the car following me get closer. I can see them reflecting brighter off the burnished metal sides of my semi-automatic.

  A second before my brain registers what that means, I hear the rev of an engine. The car behind me isn’t just following. It’s trying to catch up.

  It’s bumper tags mine, and I accelerate to keep distance between us.

  “Bastard,” I mutter. “You run out of bullets or what?”

  Kirk Danes is behind me. He’s trying to kill me. Again.

  My car doesn’t look like much but it has as much horsepower and torque as anything on the road. Those are the two things that measure the power of a vehicle. It’s what allows me to take a turn against the light at a nearly ninety-degree angle and then keep going as Kirk’s car squeals straight through the intersection, unable to stop in time.

  Take that, you bastard.

  Thankfully, it’s late enough at night that there aren’t that many police patrols around. Not that much traffic either, at least not in this section of town. In the empty street, with nothing but the neon from closed businesses to see me, I brake hard and twist the wheel and spin one-hundred-eighty degrees so that I’m facing back the way I just came. Smoke rolls off my tires. The noise echoes down the alleyways.

  Kirk’s car backs slowly up into the intersection and then turns to face me. He revs his engine a few times. I do the same.

  That’s macho talk for come and get me.

  With a shriek of burning rubber, Kirk’s car races at me. I can only see his shadow behind the wheel but that’s all I need.

  In medieval times knights used to joust each other with long pointed sticks. They would ride at each other just as fast as they could and try to land a blow against the other knight first. Well. I don’t have a pointed stick. I do have a Desert Eagle.

  Pushing the automatic down button on my window I take my gun in my left hand, my off hand, and fire ten rounds straight into Kirk’s windshield. His car veers off to jump the curb and crash through a bus stop shelter.

  Then he’s veering back at me and shooting through the blown out windshield with his full auto machine pistol.

  One of the bullets zips across my right shoulder as I turn the wheel frantically, trying to save my life. He was still alive. How was he still alive?

  I raced down the street, taking turns at random, trying to lose the maniac driving up my tailpipe. It was painfully obvious that Kirk had no regard for his own life. People who wanted to live didn’t risk their own lives to kill someone else. My car jolted and rocked as he rammed my bumper again and again. I barely kept it on the road when he sped up to hit me in an alley I’d ducked down to use as an escape path. My passenger side careened against the brick wall of a business and then we were out the other side and I could hear the disturbing sounds of a flat tire as my car began listing to the right.

  When you’re being pursued by another vehicle, you have two choices if you can’t get away. One is to take the chase into a well-populated area. Unfortunately, that means getting civilians involved and possible killed. Not an option for me.

  The other is to terminate the pursuit and deal with the consequences.

  Like this.

  Slamming on the brakes just as hard as I could, bracing myself for what would come next, I intentionally crashed the backend of my car into the speeding front end of Kirk’s. It made a horrendous noise, and his car was vaulted up on top of mine. The impact sent me bouncing forward and my head cracked against the steering wheel. Darkness threatened to overtake me as our mangled cars came to a combined stop. I knew if I gave in, I’d be dead.

  If anyone was going to die today it was going to be Kirk. Not me.

  Forcing myself to move, I got my door open as far as the warped metal would go, and then made sure my gun was still in my hand as I walked back to where Kirk’s door stood already open. His car was empty. A blood trail led off down the street, and as I looked around I could see where we were, and my fuzzy, muddled brain suddenly clued into exactly where Kirk was going.

  We were very close to where Erika Barton’s apartment was.

  The sirens were already coming. I wasn’t going to be in a position to answer questions until I had Kirk in hand, in custody, as the punchline to anything I was going to say.

  So I ran. This was getting real. I was marked for death by a serial killer but if I wasn’t going to live to see daybreak, then neither was he.

  Chapter Four

  In the apartment hallway, I moved one step at a time, staying close to the wall. This was a grimy, rundown apartment building. The third floor here looked just like every other hall and if it wasn’t for the numbers tacked with small nails to each door I would never have known which one was apartment twelve.

  When I got to it, I made myself stand there for several long moments and listen. Inside I could hear voices. They were low and muffled but there was definitely two of them. Guess even a creep like Kirk needs someone to help him sometimes.

  My shoulder hurt, and my head was still throbbing, and there was this ache in my ribs I couldn’t quite remember getting but I know it hurt. I didn’t care. This was for my sister. I wasn’t going to give up, no matter what.

  I couldn’t just crash through this door with my boot. With Kirk right on the other side, I needed stealth. Everyone in the trade worth their salt carries a lock pick set with them. Mine is made from stainless steel. The torsion wrench slid in silently, while the rake made soft clicking noises as it went into the plug. A steady hand and experience had the single lock on the door open in less than sixty seconds. Then all I had to do was ease the door open and slip inside.

  The short entryway led to a wide open living room, kitchen, and dining room combined. Clothes were thrown everywhere. Half-empty Chinese food cartons were tipped over on the coffee table and piled up high in the garbage can. I swept my gun left, and then right, and found no one. There were doors leading off these rooms. Kirk must have gone into one of those. For now, I had the element of surprise.

  One of these doors was a bathroom. One of them was a bedroom. Maybe even a closet. Damn. I hat
e doors.

  My initial idea is to stay right here, where I can see all the doors at once. Eventually, Kirk and his friend Erika are going to have to come out of whatever hiding place they’ve slid into. When they came out, here I’d be, waiting.

  There’s the door to the left. The one in front of me. The one to the right…

  When the door in front of me began blowing apart to the sound of distant thunder it was too late. Bullets, raining down sideways at me with the speed of thought. One struck my leg and shoved it out from under me. I fell flat on my face, my gun hand hitting hard and stinging. It was a miracle I managed to hold onto the weapon.

  It was another miracle none of the other bullets hit me. The one that was now lodged in the muscle of my thigh had saved my life by knocking me to the floor. I got my breath again and aimed at the door. I couldn’t take the shot. There was someone else in this apartment because I’d heard another voice and it was probably Erika and I couldn’t just shoot. If I killed her at the same time I’d have a hell of a time explaining it to the police after.

  One last bullet made a hole in the door. Then it started to open.

  I got to my knees. Then I got to my feet, keeping the weight off my injured leg, and leveled the gun at the person emerging from the darkness beyond the door. My finger tensed on the trigger.

  It was a woman. Someone I’d never seen before. She was thin and leggy and her long black hair was tied up at the back of her neck. Her eyes were wide with fear. The necklace at her throat caught the light.

  No. It wasn’t a necklace. I saw it better as she stepped out more. It was a knife. The blade of it was pointed in toward her skin, held in the fist of the person behind her.