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(From Chapter One)

He had stalked her for a month, some days some nights. He knew her name was Jean Reynold, worked nights at the Havenor Bar and Grill as a waitress and part-time bar tender. Had been married, no children, and now divorced. She was a twenty-six year old slender blonde, blue eyes, hair swept back and held in place with a scrunchie. 

She lived with her father, a retired automobile mechanic, in a little house on Elm Street in a quiet lower income section of Arcadia. Dated a guy from Waldorf, who worked in a furniture store and smelled of furniture polish, but they only went out once or twice a week. If she were my girlfriend, the stalker thought, we’d spend more time together than a few days a week. He thought she was one hell of a looker.

Her father was badly crippled and wheelchair bound so she hated to leave him for long periods even though he had a cell phone to stay in contact. She had programmed her work number into the phone for him, as well as his doctor’s office and reminded him to use 911 if he felt the need. She knew, however, that he would only resort to 911 if he had a critical issue. He was so proud and independent that he rarely relied on anyone unless it was an absolute necessity. He had even balked when she wanted to program the cell phone. “I was a mechanic,” he reminded her. But he had no skills now in a high tech world and his fingers barely worked- he had arthritis and some of the joints were locked.

The man had a plan. He would find the safest location to confront her one night, and tell her why she had to die and then kill her. He’d use a knife, slowly pressing it into her belly until it punched through the skin and slid into the flesh. Right into the naval. It would be a slow, excruciating death or fast—it depended on where it made contact in the Portal vein and its tributaries just under the belly button. Her death would be quick or slow, depending on the travel of the sharp blade of the knife and her exact anatomical layout under that smooth warm skin. 

His father had given him the knife when he turned twelve. It was a hunting knife, rusty brown wood handle (he thought it was cool that the handle color matched his hair color) with a four inch blue steel blade that folded and locked into the handle.

“Happy birthday, son,” his daddy had said. Now standing in the rain, fourteen years later, he thought, yeah, happy birthday and thanks daddy. Randy never got a knife from their father. But screw him, he thought. He hated his brother.

Miss Reynold would be walking home in a bit, and cross the mouth of the alley where he waited like the predator he was, standing in the dark rain.

Often during the weeks of surveillance of the cute girl, he would sit in the bar and grill and watch her through his sunglasses. It didn’t matter he was inside, he wore the glasses all the time nowadays whether following her or just going about his daily, otherwise boring life. He caught her looking at him as she worked and wondered if she recognized him. Unlikely since she had been a snobbish cheerleader ten years ago and probably did not remember his face. He was overweight now as he had been then. Not much, but certainly chubby. But his hair had changed, still rusty brown but already receding at age twenty-seven. Fate had dealt him a bad hand; his hair had been his pride in high school.

Maybe, when she was his helpless prey, under his control, he would tell her how stuck-up she was in those days and how she had seen him as a face in a crowd of admirers a decade ago. Yes. He would tell her about his pain and longing to be popular as he pushed the knife slowly through her skin, soft tissue of her inner belly and finally deep inside her.

It was a beautiful knife and would serve him well. 

There. A form approaching, the dark rain-slick coat sending glimmers of reflected street light toward him as she walked. Little puffs of silver flashes as the raindrops exploded off the wet rubber coat. She stopped at the alley’s mouth and looked furtively into the darkness where he stood, but the deep shadows hid him. Was it nerves, paranoia that made her hesitate just a second, looking at him but not seeing him, or was it that subtle built-in alarm scientists had recently discovered, located at the top of the brain that somehow warns people of impending danger. 

Who gives a damn, he thought. She senses danger. He emitted a perfect, plaintive sound of a cat.

She stopped and stared into the alley again. “Kitty?” she whispered.

He made the sound again and she walked slowly into the darkness, whispering “kitty” and he reached out and pulled her to him. A cloth with chloroform was jammed tightly against her nose and mouth. He had learned, while studying the tools he intended to use when killing, that large amounts of chloroform could make one’s skin sore. Poor baby, he thought. What would a little soreness of the lower face matter when compared to the pain of his wonderful knife, which would soon be her last lover?

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