It was five minutes past ten p.m. when he looked at the desk clock. His wife and daughter were asleep, had been asleep for almost an hour now. The antihistamine he had slipped into his wife's glass of wine and his daughter's glass of tea had been very effective tonight. Sometimes it took longer to work than this, but by nine they had been hauling their asses up the stairs, too tired to watch the movie he had picked out for family night.
He had kissed Grace good night and told her to stop apologizing for missing the movie. The interaction with his wife had been more stilted. She had pulled her hair out of her bun and kicked off her shoes by the door. This had irritated him. Why couldn't she undress in her own space like other women? He had given her a quick peck on the forehead before shooing her upstairs. He despised the woman. He only stayed because of Grace, but Grace was getting older now. She'd be moving out of the house before long, going off to college to follow in the footsteps of her parents.
Within minutes of both ladies disappearing from view, he had heard gentle snoring coming down the stairs. It floated to him and made his heart beat faster. That deed was done; it was time to go hunting.
His first stop was the restaurant where he had enjoyed a slice of pizza with his daughter and her friends the night before. Henry watched for almost twenty minutes and never saw the waitress. It was obvious that she wasn't working tonight. This gave her a temporary reprieve. He would find her another night.
He wound down the road, blindly wandering the streets. He saw several police cars. Few took notice of him, they were used to his midnight wanderings. He'd been doing it long before the murders began, usually when he had a tough case on his slab.
Henry was lost in his own thoughts when he saw US Marshal Aislinn Cain. She was standing outside her hotel room. The door was propped open with a chair and she was arguing with Dr. Xavier Reece. Smoke swirled around her head from the lit cigarette she held. He watched with fascination as Dr. Reece took the cigarette and crushed it out. She lit another one in clear defiance of him. He threw his hands in the air and shook his head.
She was dressed in pajamas. Oddly male in style, they were pin-striped red, black, and grey, including a matching robe and slippers. The robe was tightly cinched around her waist. The pants and sleeves showed creases from being ironed or pressed. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, not a single hair out of place. Henry wondered how much hairspray it required to get her hair like that.
He drove past without them noticing him. Watching her interact with Dr. Reece had infuriated him. How dare she talk down to someone as accomplished as him? However, Aislinn Cain couldn't be on his menu tonight. Maybe later, but not now. Now her death would be suspicious and he'd be at risk of getting caught. Someone might hear her.
There was someone else though. He had discovered her some time ago and had put her on the list for a later date. Her name was Ginny. She lived alone and taught fifth grade. But she was one of those teachers that students didn't like. He knew because she had taught Grace in fifth grade and Grace had hated her.
Carefully, he drove past her house. The street was dark. Everyone tucked safely into houses against the night and him. That last made him smile. If only they realized they could never be safe from him.
He parked in the driveway. Miss Ginny Jacobs didn't have many visitors, his car might be noticed, but it was unlikely. She was thirty-six, never married, no children. Henry crept around to the back of the house. He knew she hid a key back here in a potted plant. Reconnaissance was everything. He found the key and slipped in through the backdoor. As carefully as he could, he relocked the door.
Quietly he moved to the front door and unlocked it. He would go out that way. The hallway was filled with framed portraits of smiling people. If they knew his plans, it didn't show on their faces. They smiled with serene happiness eternally frozen on their faces. It made him mad to look at those faces. But he had a secret, the pictures would smile for eternity, but the people in them would not. Come tomorrow or the next day, they would huddle in groups and weep. They would curse and ask the important question: why her?
He could hear her in the bedroom. She also snored. Light and quiet, almost high pitched, as if it was coming out of her nose and not her mouth. Even in the darkness he could feel her, feel her life. The hole of bitterness in him opened wider, sucked him down even further into misery and despair.
Carefully, he switched on the small flashlight he had brought with him. He was careful not to turn it on her face, knowing the sudden stab of light would wake her. She lay nude in the bed, the sight transfixed him. It wasn't her nudity, but her beauty that caused him to pause. All his victims were beautiful while they slept. Their skin glowing under the beam of light, their hair let down for the night, they looked so innocent as they dreamed. It was these moments that made him catch his breath and just wait.
Finally, she moved, just rolling over, but enough to break his trance. Gently he placed the flashlight in his mouth and moved towards her. He was on her, his hands firmly placed over her mouth before she woke up. She kicked and fought against him. Her fingers dug into the fabric, trying to tear at his skin. She moved, trying to dig into his hands, but the leather gloves prevented it. The terror in her eyes filled him with joy. He loved that she was afraid of him. Slowly, she stopped fighting.
He let go. She was still breathing, not dead, but the lack of oxygen had caused her to pass out. Physically, he wasn't an imposing man. Yet, his build belied his strength. He looked around for a robe and found one in the small bathroom. He hated when they were nude. It was such a pain in his ass to have to dress them. He found socks in a drawer and forced them on her feet, anger starting to seethe in him again. Why did women sleep nude in Alaska? It seemed so impractical to him. And it meant that he would have to dress them to get them to the spot without them freezing to death. It was taking away from his time to enjoy them.
He roughly shoved her feet into slippers. She groaned. He had been prepared for this. Sometimes, they didn't stay out as long as he needed. He took a prefilled hypodermic neddled from his pocket and injected her with it. The sedative would need a few minutes to take effect. He waited until her breathing was steady again and her eyelids had stopped fluttering to continue.
Once her slippers were on, he searched around for a shirt. He found a dirty one in the hamper and with effort managed to get it on her. There were no sweats in the room. No lounge pants, no yoga pants, nothing to put on her lower half. He finally settled on a skirt he found in her closet and put it on her. Dressing the dead weight was tiring. He stopped after wrapping the robe around her and just sat on the bed getting his own breath back. He hit the button on his watch, it was nearly midnight. If he didn't hurry, he wouldn't be able to finish in time.
Worse, he wasn't sure how long the sedative would last on her. He hadn't given her much. It should wear off in an hour, but that was another hour he was losing. He hated to rush. He might not do the job as cleanly as he wanted.
After regaining his breath, he grabbed hold of Miss Ginny Jacobs and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. The photos still smiled at him as he passed. He slammed his fist into one that showed Ginny and two young children at a park, smiling. Breaking free of its hook, it crashed to the floor. In the dark, it gave the illusion of being thunderously loud. He looked out the windows.
It was a mistake to smash just the one photo. It would be noticed. Clumsily he tossed his prize onto the floor and began smashing the rest of the pictures in the house. To break one would be to show its importance. To break them all, would not reveal the secret.
The street was still dark. It seemed no one had moved since he had arrived. But it was late, his biggest dangers were teenagers up past their bed times and early morning workers on the way to their tedious jobs.
Yet no one was out. No lights shown in house windows. He opened the front door, locked it behind him, and slipped out onto the front porch with his prize. He tossed her into the backseat, ensuring that she was lying down.
He drove out of her neighborhood. A hint of satisfaction crossing over his face, he pulled into the hotel he had passed earlier. There were still lights on inside some of the rooms. He recognized that one of them probably belonged to Marshal Cain and the other Dr. Reece. If only they knew how close he was to them. They could walk out the door at this very minute and catch him in the act. Or look out their window and report a suspicious vehicle. The engine was still running. He turned and put handcuffs on Miss Ginny Jacobs. He shoved a rag into her mouth. Then he stared at the lighted rooms.
He'd done this before, sat outside FBI Special Agent in Charge Arons' home and waited for him to come out and notice the strange vehicle. He never had. But unlike the Marshals who appeared to be burning the midnight oil, Arons always seemed to be asleep.
The clock ticked past 12:30 to 12:31. He put the SUV in gear and pulled out. He had work to get done. There was a nice park not far from the hotel. He took the opportunity to use it. One more dig at the US Marshals. If he frustrated them enough, they would leave the case to the hopeless FBI Special Agent in Charge Arons and go to work another case. He'd have to pass on the infuriating Marshal Cain, no matter how much she pressed his buttons.
The park wasn't very big. It did hold enough trees to keep him from being seen from the roads. Even his car would be hidden.
Yes, this would get under their skin. His work found less than half a mile from their hotel. They would know that while they worked into the wee hours of the night, he had killed within walking distance of their hotel.
He pulled his prey from the car. She was starting to come to. Her head lolled side to side and she made small noises through the cloth. This was working out to be a good night after all.
Gently, he put down his tool bag. Inside was a blanket, he spread it out and placed her on it. Then he dug out a set of zip-ties and bound her feet. Next he took out a rubber mallet and a stake with an eye-hole. He pounded it into the frozen ground.
He went back to his bag and found the hook. He attached it to the rope and climbed the tree. He wrapped the rope over it, twice, and let the weight of the hook carry it to the ground. Holding tightly to the other end, he climbed back down and ran the rope through the eye-hole. He tied it off and went back to the bag. Inside was a miniature winch. He set the winch next to the blanket, untied the rope from the eye-hole and ran it to the winch. The winch whined for a moment and began to swallow the rope. Satisfied, he looked around.
It was time to create his masterpiece.