The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

So far, there had been nothing in the news about any unusual murders in his area. Feeling a bit ghoulish, she had gone online and checked the local obituaries, but they were generally useless. Most of them were maddeningly vague in regards to the cause of death. Phrases like “passed peacefully in her sleep” or “accepted into the arms of the Lord” provided no useful information, and were particularly unhelpful when the person was well under fifty. One listing did sadden her, though. It was an entry for a colleague that she worked with a few companies back and mostly lost contact with. The cause, Sabrina surmised based on the request at the end of the listing, must have been from some kind of cancer.

Sinking back in her chair, Sabrina felt an even deeper sense of melancholy and frustration now. If he was out there murdering people—and, so far, there was no conclusive evidence that he truly was—she had absolutely no idea how he might be doing it. She doubted that it would be anything violent: a knife attack or shooting.

What then? she wondered, feeling like she should know the answer. And who?

She glanced at the chat list on the screen and saw that Samantha was still offline.

Probably with a client . . .

Sabrina found that only mildly frustrating, as she doubted that Samantha had any more insight than she did right then.

Still, she wished, it’d be nice to have someone to talk to.

She stared down at her phone again, resisting the urge to toss it against a bulkhead.

Why the hell won’t he answer me?

Turning to look out the porthole, she wondered what she would say to him if he did.

HEY, WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO WITH THOSE GYM BAGS?

YOU KNOW WHAT.

She jumped, the phone nearly tumbling to the deck when it vibrated in her hand. Looking down at it, she forced herself to breathe, to take slow and steady breaths.

That would have been just eight sorts of creepy . . .

It was, in fact, a message from one of her work colleagues in California. He was asking her if she would be so kind as to check her work e-mail as he was, once again, having issues with the team based out of Taiwan.

Sabrina sighed, and then paused.

California.

Chewing lightly on her lower lip, Sabrina considered the idea further. Bringing another person into this would mean having to divulge some of the background. In this case, she was convinced that a little knowledge might truly be a dangerous thing.

Checking her work messages would distract her, for certain. It would also be equally likely to enrage her—not a particularly conducive frame of mind for what she was dealing with on the other front.

Still . . .

She was in the process of switching computers when Samantha popped up online. It took nearly all of Sabrina’s control not to pounce the moment her chat window became active. Then, she waited. After nearly three minutes during which Samantha did not contact her, Sabrina’s fingers began to itch. She held them poised above the keyboard, hesitating only because “Where the hell have you been?” seemed like an impolite way to open a conversation—even with Samantha.

ANY NEWS?

Sabrina sighed. Even knowing that it was unrealistic to expect that Samantha might have discovered something before she did, Sabrina still felt a deep twinge of disappointment.

NOTHING. HE’S STILL NOT ANSWERING MY TEXTS.

A long delay followed before Samantha’s response appeared on the screen. It showed that she was typing, but Sabrina suspected she kept editing, or kept delaying on sending, her reply.

IS IT TIME TO CALL THE POLICE?

Sabrina sagged at her desk. She had been wondering the same thing, but also recognized that she was deeply in denial about it—for several reasons.

AND TELL THEM WHAT?

She stared at the words, hoping that they did not come across as sarcastic as they appeared. They, in fact, represented her heartfelt, agonized plea for help, for advice—for any guidance of what to do next.

Samantha response came quickly. Sabrina relaxed slightly as she read it, relieved that her tone had not been misinterpreted.

I DON’T KNOW. STILL.

CAN I CALL YOU?

A moment passed before Samantha answered.

SURE.

Sabrina clicked on the camera symbol in the chat window. The modulating trill of the connection being established sounded from the speakers. Her screen flickered and Samantha’s face appeared. Even given the uneven quality of the image, it looked like Samantha had slept as badly she had.

“Hi,” Sabriina said, feeling that her usual bright “Good morning!” seemed out of place here.

“Hi,” Samantha replied flatly.

Her expression was similar to ones that Sabrina had often seen on individuals who suffered from migraines. As far as Sabrina could remember, Samantha did not.

“You look like shit,” Sabrina said, unable to stop the thought before she voiced it aloud.

“I feel like it,” Samantha replied drily. “It’s a matched set.”

“Didn’t sleep?”

“Not really.”

Sabrina frowned. She had managed a few hours of mostly fitful sleep. Although she had awakened reasonably, she knew that she would pay for it later in the afternoon.

“So,” Sabrina said, going back to their original subject, deciding that she really had nothing useful to add to the current one. “What are we going to do?”

Samantha visibly sighed. “You know what Alex thinks.”

Sabrina stared back at her numbly. Despite what Samantha’s partner had said, she could not see them going to the police without facing ridicule.

We have no evidence—no proof . . . of anything.

“We need to find him,” she said, with a certainty that told her that every part of her being believed it.

Samantha stared back at her for several long moments. Finally, she nodded wearily.

“Do you even know where to begin to look?”

“No,” Sabrina admitted, but feeling more hopeful than she had during the past few days. “But I know someone who might be able to help us out.”

#

John awoke to the shrill cadence of his alarm. That it had switched to that tone told him that he had managed to sleep through its first cycle. He turned and looked at the clock, blinking several times in order to get his eyes to focus. His mind was slow in doing the math, but it finally determined that he had slept nearly fourteen hours.

Damn, he thought tiredly.

He had more than three hours before he needed to report to his next shift at work. That was plenty of time to eat, shower, and dress. Despite the events of the day before, the company had made no change in his work schedule. Tempted as he was to turn over and try to go back to sleep, he roused himself, reminding himself that he had the next day off.

You can sleep all day if you want to, he told himself. And then, with less confidence, added: You just need to make it through the day.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

“This is now officially a crime scene,” the sergeant said tightly. “Call it in.” He turned toward Sabello. “And then,” he added, his eyes turning to John, “take this man into custody for questioning.”

John’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to protest, but the sergeant cut him off.

“You have the right to remain silent . . .” he warned John.

John closed his mouth. It was not as if he had anything potentially incriminating to say; he knew that he was innocent of anything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Shit, he thought silently. Not even that. I’m supposed to be here. It’s my job!

“Called in, sir,” Sabello said. “Team’s on their way.”

The sergeant nodded and then gestured toward John. “Take him down to the car,” he said. “I‘ll be right there.”

Sabello reached toward her cuffs, but hesitated. She looked questioningly toward the sergeant. The sergeant looked at John with a fiercely pointed expression. John lifted his hands slowly away from the vicinity of his belt, but made no move to place them behind him.

The sergeant shook his head slightly the Sabello. Her hand moved away from her cuffs and gestured John toward the front door. John glanced at the sergeant, who returned his look with an iron stare, and headed for the door.

He tried to look casual as he made his way down the stairs.

After all, he told himself, there’s nothing all that unusual about a security officer being seen with a police officer.

He was, however, uncomfortably aware of the female officer close at his back. He also knew that the charade would only last until they shut him into the backseat of the patrol car. Someone might think that they were just giving him a lift somewhere, but it was unlikely that was the conclusion that most people would come to.

I could lose my fucking job for this, he realized. And I didn’t do anything!

He tried to imagine explaining it to his supervisor.

Shit, he realized. I should call it in.

Waiting next to the patrol car for Sabello to open the door for him, he wondered whether he should dare ask her for permission to report in. He partly hoped that, if he did, she would not grant it, for he could not figure out any way to explain it that sounded even remotely rational.

“Um,” John said. Sabello turned to him, questioningly. “My car,” he said, nodding in the direction where it was illegally parked in front of the trash dumpster. “My supervisor will get pretty pissed if it gets towed.”

The female officer’s face broke into a smile. John saw that she was even prettier than he had originally thought.

“I’ll take care of it,” she told him. “You have the keys?”

John nodded.

He waited, for some reason expecting her to remove them from his belt herself. The prospect of having her be that close to him was definitely appealing. Instead, she held out her hand. Masking his disappointment, he reached down and unfastened the keys from his belt. He dropped them carefully onto her open palm.

#

Neither officer spoke to him during the drive to the main police station. John noticed that they did not say much to each other, either. He wondered if that was typical, or the result of him being in the backseat. John suspected, though, the sergeant was probably not particularly chatty even on the best of days.

After parking the patrol car near the entrance—a perk, John guessed, of bringing in a passenger. They escorted him into the building, earning him a few curious glances. Had he been cuffed and not in uniform, John wondered whether he would have been the subject of more or fewer looks.

“Run his records,” the sergeant told Sabello. John wondered why they had not requested that while they were en route, so that they would be waiting when they arrived. “I’ll join you shortly.”

Sabello gestured down a hallway to their left. John saw a series of enclosed booths on each side. The doors to most of them were closed, but light leaked out from only a few.

“Eight,” Sabello said.

John checked the signs mounted next to each doorway. With white letters etched into plastic wood grain surface, many of them were cracked or chipped. John suspected that they had probably been installed when the building was first completed. Room Eight was the second booth from the end of the corridor on the right.

Sabello reached inside it and checked the lights. They flickered on. At least one of the tubes continued to pulse erratically even after it had warmed up. Sabello paused in the doorway, preventing John from entering it.

“Are you sure you don’t want an attorney present?”

John hesitated. He knew that he had done nothing wrong—and that he was in no way involved in these strange murders. Being completely innocent of any wrongdoing here, he could not see how he could say anything that might incriminate him. That thought, though, brought forth a not wholly unexpected wave of resentment toward the sergeant.

Why didn’t he just ask me there? John wondered angrily. Why go through all this official crap?

“We’ll see,” he told Sabello.

Sabello nodded. “I understand.”

John knew that he could stop at any time during the questioning and ask for one. It would probably annoy the sergeant, he knew, but he suspected that the older officer was a stickler for protocol. As it was, John could only think of two attorneys that he knew—and neither of them came cheap. He was not even sure that one of them had not finally retired. The last he had heard, his daughter had taken over his business—and was charging even more.

Sabello allowed him to pass and gestured toward the table. It looked to be about the same original vintage as the door signs. Four metal, mismatched chairs were also present in the small room. Two of them were positioned on one side of the table, with a single one on the opposite side. The fourth chair was shoved into a corner. The room was cold and smelled faintly of lightly oiled metal.

John entered and moved to the single chair at the table. He pulled it out and sat down, but did not slide it back so that he was actually seated at the table. Sabello remained at the doorway, occasionally glancing up and down the corridor, apparently looking for signs of the sergeant’s return. John could see the change in her expression when she spied him. Her dark eyes lost a little of their shine and her expression transformed into something more guarded.

The sergeant appeared in the doorway carrying a short stack of folders and loose papers. He entered, placed the stack on the table, and then sat down. Sabello closed the door, but, to John’s surprise, remained standing, positioned next to it.

“It looks like you have a little bit of a history, Mr. Reiter,” the sergeant said, opening one of the folders. “Illegal possession of a firearm . . . illegal possession of a controlled substance . . .”

John’s cheeks begin to burn. His stomach twisted into a knot tight enough that he nearly winced. He felt a drained, leaving him suddenly hollow inside. He knew about the charges, of course, but they were years in the past—one when he was still a minor. Still, he could see that it would not help redeem him in the eyes of the sergeant. He began to reconsider the option of having an attorney present . . .

“That was—” he began.

“Some time ago,” the sergeant interrupted him. “Yes.”

John had to look away from the older officer’s piercing gaze. Looking to Sabello, he found not comfort there. She refused to meet his eyes.

So much for any chance of a date there now.

The movement of the sergeant’s chair brought John back to the moment. He sat up straight up in the chair, staring hard to John.

“I have reports here that place you at the scenes of four other unusual deaths,” he tapped the stack of folders on the table in front of him.

John looked down at the folders, finding it hard to swallow.

“I had nothing to do with it!” he protested, his voice rising more loudly than he intended. Taking a quick breath, he tried again. “I don’t make my schedule,” he explained. “My supervisor does.”

The sergeant eyed him skeptically.

“Honest!”

The sergeant exchanged a glance with Sabello.

“Check it out,” he told her.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and quickly left out of the room.

The sergeant turned back to stare at John. He felt suddenly very vulnerable alone in the small room with officer. He did not believe that the sergeant would deliberately rough him up; the veteran officer seemed too honorable for that. Yet, John had seen that dark anger in the man’s eyes back at the apartment after he had opened the gym bag.

And accidents happen . . .

“There’s a certain amount of truth,” the sergeant began, “to the saying that criminals return to the scene of their crimes.”

He spoke carefully, almost like he was presenting a preamble to a classroom lecture. John watched him warily. He had heard the saying, of course. Some of the textbooks from his Administration of Justice courses even suggested that it might be true—although there was much debate on the matter, depending on the type of crime involved. Serial killers, for example, were among those who often did.

“So you can see how I might be more than just a tad suspicious that you have been on the scene of, according the records now, five of these deaths.”

“Those can’t be the only deaths in the entire county,” John argued.

This outburst earned him a sardonic look from the sergeant that clearly said, “Thou doth clearly protest too much”.

“I didn’t even know those people,” he offered weakly.

It was true. Even now, he did know the name of the dead woman in the parking garage or the man in the expensive house. Their names were probably in the official records, but he had never bothered to learn them.

The sergeant said nothing, but continued to stare at her.

Great, John thought. He thinks I’m some kind of random serial killer.

John shut up. Not because he had anything to hide, but because he could not think of a damned thing to say that might convince the sergeant of his innocence. He just stared in the direction of the sergeant, but avoided looking at him directly. The sergeant read through the folders again, his eyes occasionally glancing up at John. Something in his expression, though, told John that the sergeant was not finding what he was looking for in the files.

The silence between them was interrupted by Sabello’s return. John did not know how long she had been gone, but he was certain that it was much less time than it had felt like. She entered the room and handed the sergeant a short stack of printouts. He read through them quickly and then looked up at Sabello for an explanation.

“He’s telling the truth,” she said. “As far as I can tell.”

She closed the door and leaned against the frame. Her gaze, when it went to John, had lost some of its earlier harshness.

“Their system is semi-automated,” she went on. “Officers without regular assignments are automatically assigned to open patrols based on seniority and a few other factors. The supervisors can manually override it, but I don’t see any of those for his recent assignments.”

The sergeant read over the report again. His expression told John that he was forced to believe Sabello’s explanation.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he responded tightly. “Not this many of them.”

He rose from the table, paced for a moment along the far wall of the room, and then turned back to John.

“And you swear that you knew none of the victims?”

“None of them,” John replied. “I’d never even been to some of those sites before.”

“A frame up?” Sabello offered. “Could someone be trying to set you up?”

John looked up at up, startled by the idea. Before he could reason it out, though, the sergeant interrupted him.

“It’s too complex,” the sergeant said. “And there’s nothing other than his presence to implicate him in any of the deaths.”

He turned and studied John again. He was silent for several long moments. It went on long enough that both John and Sabello began to grow uneasy.

“There’s got to be a connection here,” he said, “between you and these deaths.”

He had that look, John thought, of someone who has the word they want on the tip of their tongue, but cannot quite remember it.

Sabello looked dubious, but apparently had enough respect for the sergeant not to voice her opinion aloud.

Or least, John decided, not in front of a civilian.

While he wore a uniform, John knew that he was not truly part of that community. He saw in the sergeant’s eyes a mixture of frustration and determination. How much of it was directed at him, John was not sure.

The sergeant dropped the sheets on top of the folders already stacked on the table.

“Release him,” he told Sabello. “Give him a ride back to his car. Clear him with his company.”

“Yes, sir.”

She looked relieved, John thought. Stepping back, she opened the door and waited for him to get up from behind the table. As he stood, John became aware of heavily he had been perspiring, despite the relative chill of the small room. He flashed Sabello a grateful smile as he passed her on his way through the doorway. She either did not notice it, or chose to ignore it.

John took a quick glance back at the sergeant. He remained standing there, his fingers tapping slowly against the stack of folders. He did not look up as John and Sabello left.

The drive back to his car was nearly as silent as his trip to the station had been. Sabello did not seem interested in having a conversation, and John did not know how to start one. There was one key difference this time, though. He was seated in the front passenger seat rather than in the back. That, at least, allowed him to distract himself by studying the various controls and devices mounted inside the vehicle. He was sorely tempted to touch one or two of them, but had a strong mental image of Sabello slapping his hand back if he tried to.

He pulled out his phone, chiefly to verify the time, to discover more than a dozen messages waiting for him. Most were from personal contacts; a few were some his supervisor and co-workers wanting to know just what the hell was going on.

I wish I knew.

The sergeant had not told him that he could not discuss the cases with anyone, but he suspected that he probably should not—particularly if there was still the possibility that someone was trying to implicate him in them. It gave him a strange chill to consider that. His days of dealing with anyone who might adopt a serious vendetta against him were over—as far as he knew.

Besides, he considered. It makes no sense. I don’t know any of those people. They’re just . . . random.

That, he knew, was often the sign of a seriously disturbed serial killer. But, like the sergeant, he had trouble completely dismissing as pure coincidence that he had been present at five different sites where mysterious deaths had taken place.

Well, he corrected himself wryly. Maybe not mysterious . . ., he decided, but definitely unusual.

There was not, as far as he knew, any obvious connections between the victims. Each had died in an entirely different way. (He was still not convinced that the woman in the office complex construction zone was not some kind of freak accident.) Granted, he had not had access to the police reports, but he doubted that their investigation had gotten that far.

Not if that sergeant felt the need to haul my ass in for questioning . . .

The patrol car lurched slightly and came to a stop. John looked out the window to discover that they were back in the apartment complex. His patrol car was still parked where he had left it. He was relieved to see that it had not been ticketed or, worse yet, towed.

Of course not, he chided himself. She wouldn’t have brought me back otherwise. Would she?

He reached over and opened the door. Starting to climb out of the car, he paused and turned to Sabello.

“Thank you.”

She smiled at him. Something fluttered inside his John’s stomach.

“No problem,” she told him. “I told your supervisor we needed you to come down to the station to file an official report on what you saw here. They’re paying out the O.T.”

John blinked in surprise. He glanced at the dashboard clock and realized just how much time had passed since he had first pulled into the parking lot to check out a bunch of flashing emergency lights.

“Thanks,” he said, realizing that he was probably grinning like an idiot.

She kept watching him and John had the absurd notion that she was waiting for a good-bye kiss or something.

“Stay out of trouble. Okay?” she told him, still smiling. Her eyes twinkled in the reflected light.

“I’ll . . . try,” he managed to get out.

Turning, he closed the car door. He stepped back and, after a moment, she pulled away. He could not tell for certain, but he thought he saw her watching him from the rear view. Even if she was not, he decided, what difference did it make?

He approached his car, checkly surveying it for any signs of tampering, but found none. Starting to reach for the door, he froze.

Oh, shit.

He had given the keys to Sabello so that she could move it into an actual parking space. The sergeant had interrupted her before she could so, but . . . she still had the keys.

Great. Just . . . great.

Now he was going to have to call Dispatch and have someone bring him an extra set of keys.

“As if today hadn’t sucked enough,” he murmured, reaching for the volume control on his radio.

He did so without looking, so was surprised when his hand brushed against something that jingled. Looking down, he saw his keys hanging from their clip on his belt.

When the hell did she do that?

Checking his memory, he could find no moment she had returned his keys to him. Reflexively, he checked for his wallet. It was still in his back pocket. Laughing softly, he shook his head and lifted off the keys. Only once he had unlocked the door and seated once again in the driver’s seat did he relax. In that instant, the events of the day caught up with him.

He sat, his hands poised on the wheel, nearly shaking with exhaustion, anger, and confusion. If he had been home, he was sure that he would have crawled into bed and slept for most of a day. He really wanted to do that, but needed to return the patrol car first before he could head home.

Taking several deeps breaths, he managed to regain most of his control. He looked at the steering wheel and willed his hands to stop shaking. They obeyed him, but then he wondered how long it had been since he had eaten.

Way too long, he decided, remembering that he had eaten a light dinner before the start of his shift, with plans for something more substantial during his break—that break that would have happened had he not returned to the apartment complex to see what all of the excitement was about.

All of the excitement . . . he mused sourly. Oh yeah. Right.

He put the car into gear and drove forward, turning onto the street. There was a decent burger place on the way to the dispatch office. He could stop there on his way. The car was already hours late in being returned; they could wait a little longer.

#

Sabrina stared at her computer screen and then at her phone. It had been three days since anyone had heard from him. He had not returned any of her messages nor, as far as she could tell, had he even received them. Somehow, so far, he had managed to remain off the grid. Or, at least, he had from all of the simplest and easiest means of detection. That he had done so both frustrated and, secretly, delighted her.

I thought him about those tricks.

Frankly, she did not know how much she should worry. Working with Samantha, their list of possible victims was remarkably short. This either meant, she suspected, that he had no intention of using all thirteen of the gym bags or, more likely, they were gravely ignorant about the criteria he might use to select his possible victims.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

“This is now officially a crime scene,” the sergeant said tightly. “Call it in.” He turned toward Sabello. “And then,” he added, his eyes turning to John, “take this man into custody for questioning.”

John’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to protest, but the sergeant cut him off.

“You have the right to remain silent . . .” he warned John.

John closed his mouth. It was not as if he had anything potentially incriminating to say; he knew that he was innocent of anything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Shit, he thought silently. Not even that. I’m supposed to be here. It’s my job!

“Called in, sir,” Sabello said. “Team’s on their way.”

The sergeant nodded and then gestured toward John. “Take him down to the car,” he said. “I‘ll be right there.”

Sabello reached toward her cuffs, but hesitated. She looked questioningly toward the sergeant. The sergeant looked at John with a fiercely pointed expression. John lifted his hands slowly away from the vicinity of his belt, but made no move to place them behind him.

The sergeant shook his head slightly the Sabello. Her hand moved away from her cuffs and gestured John toward the front door. John glanced at the sergeant, who returned his look with an iron stare, and headed for the door.

He tried to look casual as he made his way down the stairs.

After all, he told himself, there’s nothing all that unusual about a security officer being seen with a police officer.

He was, however, uncomfortably aware of the female officer close at his back. He also knew that the charade would only last until they shut him into the backseat of the patrol car. Someone might think that they were just giving him a lift somewhere, but it was unlikely that was the conclusion that most people would come to.

I could lose my fucking job for this, he realized. And I didn’t do anything!

He tried to imagine explaining it to his supervisor.

Shit, he realized. I should call it in.

Waiting next to the patrol car for Sabello to open the door for him, he wondered whether he should dare ask her for permission to report in. He partly hoped that, if he did, she would not grant it, for he could not figure out any way to explain it that sounded even remotely rational.

“Um,” John said. Sabello turned to him, questioningly. “My car,” he said, nodding in the direction where it was illegally parked in front of the trash dumpster. “My supervisor will get pretty pissed if it gets towed.”

The female officer’s face broke into a smile. John saw that she was even prettier than he had originally thought.

“I’ll take care of it,” she told him. “You have the keys?”

John nodded.

He waited, for some reason expecting her to remove them from his belt herself. The prospect of having her be that close to him was definitely appealing. Instead, she held out her hand. Masking his disappointment, he reached down and unfastened the keys from his belt. He dropped them carefully onto her open palm.

#

Neither officer spoke to him during the drive to the main police station. John noticed that they did not say much to each other, either. He wondered if that was typical, or the result of him being in the backseat. John suspected, though, the sergeant was probably not particularly chatty even on the best of days.

After parking the patrol car near the entrance—a perk, John guessed, of bringing in a passenger. They escorted him into the building, earning him a few curious glances. Had he been cuffed and not in uniform, John wondered whether he would have been the subject of more or fewer looks.

“Run his records,” the sergeant told Sabello. John wondered why they had not requested that while they were en route, so that they would be waiting when they arrived. “I’ll join you shortly.”

Sabello gestured down a hallway to their left. John saw a series of enclosed booths on each side. The doors to most of them were closed, but light leaked out from only a few.

“Eight,” Sabello said.

John checked the signs mounted next to each doorway. With white letters etched into plastic wood grain surface, many of them were cracked or chipped. John suspected that they had probably been installed when the building was first completed. Room Eight was the second booth from the end of the corridor on the right.

Sabello reached inside it and checked the lights. They flickered on. At least one of the tubes continued to pulse erratically even after it had warmed up. Sabello paused in the doorway, preventing John from entering it.

“Are you sure you don’t want an attorney present?”

John hesitated. He knew that he had done nothing wrong—and that he was in no way involved in these strange murders. Being completely innocent of any wrongdoing here, he could not see how he could say anything that might incriminate him. That thought, though, brought forth a not wholly unexpected wave of resentment toward the sergeant.

Why didn’t he just ask me there? John wondered angrily. Why go through all this official crap?

“We’ll see,” he told Sabello.

Sabello nodded. “I understand.”

John knew that he could stop at any time during the questioning and ask for one. It would probably annoy the sergeant, he knew, but he suspected that the older officer was a stickler for protocol. As it was, John could only think of two attorneys that he knew—and neither of them came cheap. He was not even sure that one of them had not finally retired. The last he had heard, his daughter had taken over his business—and was charging even more.

Sabello allowed him to pass and gestured toward the table. It looked to be about the same original vintage as the door signs. Four metal, mismatched chairs were also present in the small room. Two of them were positioned on one side of the table, with a single one on the opposite side. The fourth chair was shoved into a corner. The room was cold and smelled faintly of lightly oiled metal.

John entered and moved to the single chair at the table. He pulled it out and sat down, but did not slide it back so that he was actually seated at the table. Sabello remained at the doorway, occasionally glancing up and down the corridor, apparently looking for signs of the sergeant’s return. John could see the change in her expression when she spied him. Her dark eyes lost a little of their shine and her expression transformed into something more guarded.

The sergeant appeared in the doorway carrying a short stack of folders and loose papers. He entered, placed the stack on the table, and then sat down. Sabello closed the door, but, to John’s surprise, remained standing, positioned next to it.

“It looks like you have a little bit of a history, Mr. Reiter,” the sergeant said, opening one of the folders. “Illegal possession of a firearm . . . illegal possession of a controlled substance . . .”

John’s cheeks begin to burn. His stomach twisted into a knot tight enough that he nearly winced. He felt a drained, leaving him suddenly hollow inside. He knew about the charges, of course, but they were years in the past—one when he was still a minor. Still, he could see that it would not help redeem him in the eyes of the sergeant. He began to reconsider the option of having an attorney present . . .

“That was—” he began.

“Some time ago,” the sergeant interrupted him. “Yes.”

John had to look away from the older officer’s piercing gaze. Looking to Sabello, he found not comfort there. She refused to meet his eyes.

So much for any chance of a date there now.

The movement of the sergeant’s chair brought John back to the moment. He sat up straight up in the chair, staring hard to John.

“I have reports here that place you at the scenes of four other unusual deaths,” he tapped the stack of folders on the table in front of him.

John looked down at the folders, finding it hard to swallow.

“I had nothing to do with it!” he protested, his voice rising more loudly than he intended. Taking a quick breath, he tried again. “I don’t make my schedule,” he explained. “My supervisor does.”

The sergeant eyed him skeptically.

“Honest!”

The sergeant exchanged a glance with Sabello.

“Check it out,” he told her.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and quickly left out of the room.

The sergeant turned back to stare at John. He felt suddenly very vulnerable alone in the small room with officer. He did not believe that the sergeant would deliberately rough him up; the veteran officer seemed too honorable for that. Yet, John had seen that dark anger in the man’s eyes back at the apartment after he had opened the gym bag.

And accidents happen . . .

“There’s a certain amount of truth,” the sergeant began, “to the saying that criminals return to the scene of their crimes.”

He spoke carefully, almost like he was presenting a preamble to a classroom lecture. John watched him warily. He had heard the saying, of course. Some of the textbooks from his Administration of Justice courses even suggested that it might be true—although there was much debate on the matter, depending on the type of crime involved. Serial killers, for example, were among those who often did.

“So you can see how I might be more than just a tad suspicious that you have been on the scene of, according the records now, five of these deaths.”

“Those can’t be the only deaths in the entire county,” John argued.

This outburst earned him a sardonic look from the sergeant that clearly said, “Thou doth clearly protest too much”.

“I didn’t even know those people,” he offered weakly.

It was true. Even now, he did know the name of the dead woman in the parking garage or the man in the expensive house. Their names were probably in the official records, but he had never bothered to learn them.

The sergeant said nothing, but continued to stare at her.

Great, John thought. He thinks I’m some kind of random serial killer.

John shut up. Not because he had anything to hide, but because he could not think of a damned thing to say that might convince the sergeant of his innocence. He just stared in the direction of the sergeant, but avoided looking at him directly. The sergeant read through the folders again, his eyes occasionally glancing up at John. Something in his expression, though, told John that the sergeant was not finding what he was looking for in the files.

The silence between them was interrupted by Sabello’s return. John did not know how long she had been gone, but he was certain that it was much less time than it had felt like. She entered the room and handed the sergeant a short stack of printouts. He read through them quickly and then looked up at Sabello for an explanation.

“He’s telling the truth,” she said. “As far as I can tell.”

She closed the door and leaned against the frame. Her gaze, when it went to John, had lost some of its earlier harshness.

“Their system is semi-automated,” she went on. “Officers without regular assignments are automatically assigned to open patrols based on seniority and a few other factors. The supervisors can manually override it, but I don’t see any of those for his recent assignments.”

The sergeant read over the report again. His expression told John that he was forced to believe Sabello’s explanation.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he responded tightly. “Not this many of them.”

He rose from the table, paced for a moment along the far wall of the room, and then turned back to John.

“And you swear that you knew none of the victims?”

“None of them,” John replied. “I’d never even been to some of those sites before.”

“A frame up?” Sabello offered. “Could someone be trying to set you up?”

John looked up at up, startled by the idea. Before he could reason it out, though, the sergeant interrupted him.

“It’s too complex,” the sergeant said. “And there’s nothing other than his presence to implicate him in any of the deaths.”

He turned and studied John again. He was silent for several long moments. It went on long enough that both John and Sabello began to grow uneasy.

“There’s got to be a connection here,” he said, “between you and these deaths.”

He had that look, John thought, of someone who has the word they want on the tip of their tongue, but cannot quite remember it.

Sabello looked dubious, but apparently had enough respect for the sergeant not to voice her opinion aloud.

Or least, John decided, not in front of a civilian.

While he wore a uniform, John knew that he was not truly part of that community. He saw in the sergeant’s eyes a mixture of frustration and determination. How much of it was directed at him, John was not sure.

The sergeant dropped the sheets on top of the folders already stacked on the table.

“Release him,” he told Sabello. “Give him a ride back to his car. Clear him with his company.”

“Yes, sir.”

She looked relieved, John thought. Stepping back, she opened the door and waited for him to get up from behind the table. As he stood, John became aware of heavily he had been perspiring, despite the relative chill of the small room. He flashed Sabello a grateful smile as he passed her on his way through the doorway. She either did not notice it, or chose to ignore it.

John took a quick glance back at the sergeant. He remained standing there, his fingers tapping slowly against the stack of folders. He did not look up as John and Sabello left.

The drive back to his car was nearly as silent as his trip to the station had been. Sabello did not seem interested in having a conversation, and John did not know how to start one. There was one key difference this time, though. He was seated in the front passenger seat rather than in the back. That, at least, allowed him to distract himself by studying the various controls and devices mounted inside the vehicle. He was sorely tempted to touch one or two of them, but had a strong mental image of Sabello slapping his hand back if he tried to.

He pulled out his phone, chiefly to verify the time, to discover more than a dozen messages waiting for him. Most were from personal contacts; a few were some his supervisor and co-workers wanting to know just what the hell was going on.

I wish I knew.

The sergeant had not told him that he could not discuss the cases with anyone, but he suspected that he probably should not—particularly if there was still the possibility that someone was trying to implicate him in them. It gave him a strange chill to consider that. His days of dealing with anyone who might adopt a serious vendetta against him were over—as far as he knew.

Besides, he considered. It makes no sense. I don’t know any of those people. They’re just . . . random.

That, he knew, was often the sign of a seriously disturbed serial killer. But, like the sergeant, he had trouble completely dismissing as pure coincidence that he had been present at five different sites where mysterious deaths had taken place.

Well, he corrected himself wryly. Maybe not mysterious . . ., he decided, but definitely unusual.

There was not, as far as he knew, any obvious connections between the victims. Each had died in an entirely different way. (He was still not convinced that the woman in the office complex construction zone was not some kind of freak accident.) Granted, he had not had access to the police reports, but he doubted that their investigation had gotten that far.

Not if that sergeant felt the need to haul my ass in for questioning . . .

The patrol car lurched slightly and came to a stop. John looked out the window to discover that they were back in the apartment complex. His patrol car was still parked where he had left it. He was relieved to see that it had not been ticketed or, worse yet, towed.

Of course not, he chided himself. She wouldn’t have brought me back otherwise. Would she?

He reached over and opened the door. Starting to climb out of the car, he paused and turned to Sabello.

“Thank you.”

She smiled at him. Something fluttered inside his John’s stomach.

“No problem,” she told him. “I told your supervisor we needed you to come down to the station to file an official report on what you saw here. They’re paying out the O.T.”

John blinked in surprise. He glanced at the dashboard clock and realized just how much time had passed since he had first pulled into the parking lot to check out a bunch of flashing emergency lights.

“Thanks,” he said, realizing that he was probably grinning like an idiot.

She kept watching him and John had the absurd notion that she was waiting for a good-bye kiss or something.

“Stay out of trouble. Okay?” she told him, still smiling. Her eyes twinkled in the reflected light.

“I’ll . . . try,” he managed to get out.

Turning, he closed the car door. He stepped back and, after a moment, she pulled away. He could not tell for certain, but he thought he saw her watching him from the rear view. Even if she was not, he decided, what difference did it make?

He approached his car, checkly surveying it for any signs of tampering, but found none. Starting to reach for the door, he froze.

Oh, shit.

He had given the keys to Sabello so that she could move it into an actual parking space. The sergeant had interrupted her before she could so, but . . . she still had the keys.

Great. Just . . . great.

Now he was going to have to call Dispatch and have someone bring him an extra set of keys.

“As if today hadn’t sucked enough,” he murmured, reaching for the volume control on his radio.

He did so without looking, so was surprised when his hand brushed against something that jingled. Looking down, he saw his keys hanging from their clip on his belt.

When the hell did she do that?

Checking his memory, he could find no moment she had returned his keys to him. Reflexively, he checked for his wallet. It was still in his back pocket. Laughing softly, he shook his head and lifted off the keys. Only once he had unlocked the door and seated once again in the driver’s seat did he relax. In that instant, the events of the day caught up with him.

He sat, his hands poised on the wheel, nearly shaking with exhaustion, anger, and confusion. If he had been home, he was sure that he would have crawled into bed and slept for most of a day. He really wanted to do that, but needed to return the patrol car first before he could head home.

Taking several deeps breaths, he managed to regain most of his control. He looked at the steering wheel and willed his hands to stop shaking. They obeyed him, but then he wondered how long it had been since he had eaten.

Way too long, he decided, remembering that he had eaten a light dinner before the start of his shift, with plans for something more substantial during his break—that break that would have happened had he not returned to the apartment complex to see what all of the excitement was about.

All of the excitement . . . he mused sourly. Oh yeah. Right.

He put the car into gear and drove forward, turning onto the street. There was a decent burger place on the way to the dispatch office. He could stop there on his way. The car was already hours late in being returned; they could wait a little longer.

#

Sabrina stared at her computer screen and then at her phone. It had been three days since anyone had heard from him. He had not returned any of her messages nor, as far as she could tell, had he even received them. Somehow, so far, he had managed to remain off the grid. Or, at least, he had from all of the simplest and easiest means of detection. That he had done so both frustrated and, secretly, delighted her.

I thought him about those tricks.

Frankly, she did not know how much she should worry. Working with Samantha, their list of possible victims was remarkably short. This either meant, she suspected, that he had no intention of using all thirteen of the gym bags or, more likely, they were gravely ignorant about the criteria he might use to select his possible victims.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

A noise in the living room behind him interrupted John’s thoughts. He turned his head to see the female officer guiding the young woman in the bathrobe toward the sofa. John wondered why she was not in a hurry to follow the ambulance to the hospital to be with who he assumed was the young man’s boyfriend. She seemed distraught to the level that it seemed to be that kind of relationship, but John got the feeling that there was someone more to it. He could not pin down what it was, and watching the young woman closely for several additional moments did not help to provide him with an answer.

The radio on the sergeant’s belt crackled with a burst of codes and updates that went too fast for John to follow. He had been paying attention from the beginning, he was certain that he could have pieced them together. The sergeant reached up and silenced the radio in mid-report, following the remainder of it privately. He listened intently, nodding almost imperceptibly, his expression slowly becoming even more of a mask than it seemed to John that it normally was.

His hand dropped slowly from his earpiece and he turned back toward the doorway. He glanced for only a moment at John, but there something like steel in it that sent a chill down John’s spine. The sergeant moved back toward the living room, apparently not caring whether John followed him or not. John assumed that he should.

The sergeant stopped at the doorway. The female officer, still seated on the couch with sniffling young woman, looked up, studying the sergeant’s expression. The sergeant shook his head slightly, silently, but sending a clear message to his partner.

The female officer’s mouth formed a tight, grim line. She turned back to the young woman, but, before she could speak, the young woman broke into a renewed bout of sobbing. The sergeant watched her for only a moment before he half-turned toward John.

“Come with me,” he said. His tone contained no doubt that he expected to be obeyed.

John followed the sergeant through the living room and back toward the kitchen. They entered it fully this time. The sergeant paused when he stood in what was approximately its center. He turned his head slowly, examining each item and surface in the room.

John tried to follow the direction of the sergeant’s gaze as it swept across the room. It was, as his brief glimpse had told him, neat and tidy, with all of the small appliances and containers of large cooking utensils all tucked into what seemed to be their designated places. The surfaces appeared to have been recently cleaned, but the air lacked that sharp antiseptic tang of someone overly fastidious about it. John could see that seemed unusual or strangely out of place in a normal kitchen.

The sergeant took two short steps forward, taking a better look inside the sink.

Looking for signs of body parts shoved down the garbage disposal?

John had heard stories of such things being done, but he typically dismissed them as grisly urban legends. It was not that he could not envision some psychopath doing it, but it seemed like an awful lot of work.

While he was pondering that, the sergeant stepped back again. For a moment, John thought he might start going through each of the cabinets. Looking for what, though, John could not imagine. He realized, then, that he had no real idea what was going on. Someone, presumably the young woman in the other room, had called 9-1-1. Something had happened evidentially to whoever had been rushed out on the stretcher—something involving large amounts of blood and other, more unpleasant, body fluids.

Some kind of accident? He slipped in the shower? Alcohol poisoning? . . . The Plague?

Nothing from what he could piece together from the sergeant’s radio call gave him a clue. If the sergeant knew—and John guessed that he probably did—he was not talking about it.

Finally, John surrendered to his curiosity.

What’s he going to do? Arrest me for asking? I am a registered security guard and I do have a right to be here. It’s on my published patrol schedule.

“Officer . . . sir?” he managed to get out, trying not to cringe for how his voice quavered. “What are we looking for?”

At first, he thought the sergeant either had not heard him, or was choosing to ignore him. Then, the officer turned slowly to face him. The sergeant’s eyes fixed on his, seeming to bore into him.

“Poisoned.”

John tried not the flinch. Something in the sergeant’s gaze made John wonder if the officer thought that he might somehow be involved. John knew that he was not, other than through the coincidence of happening to be present on yet another site where a death had occurred when the sergeant also happened to be present.

John glanced toward the archway, in the direction of the living room.

The girl?

The sergeant shook his head, evidently reading his expression.

“She didn’t do it,” he declared confidently, although his voice never rose.

John stared at him, wondering how he could be so certain. It was clear, though, that he was.

“An accident?” John murmured aloud, not feeling convinced enough to ask the question outright.

“Perhaps,” the sergeant replied, surveying the kitchen again. John could tell that he did not believe it.

If not the girl, then who? And why?

They both turned at the sound of someone else entering the room. Even before he saw her, John knew that it had to be the female officer from the sound of her boots on the linoleum. The young woman had been dressed in slippers.

“What did you find out?” the sergeant asked her, looking past her into the living room.

“Not much,” the female officer said, pulling out her tablet.

Josh could see now that her name tag read “Sabello”. From the color of her hair and complexion, he could be certain sure whether its origin was Italian or, possibly, Spanish.

“They had a party,” she reported, as if this was an expected fact. “Lots of drinking,” she went on. “And apparently some marijuana, but I haven’t checked the apartment for any yet.”

She glanced up at the sergeant, checking to see how he would respond to that. He merely nodded slightly, but John thought he saw the line of his mouth tighten just a little. The female officer must have noticed it too, he decided, because she hesitated slightly before continuing.

“She said they all ate pretty much the same things.” She consulted her list. “Chips, popcorn, cheese dip . . . and the alcohol.”

“Did she say what he had been drinking?”

Sabello looked down at her notes again. “Just rum and Coke, she said.” Looking up, her eyes surveyed the kitchen. “She said empties were still in the kitchen.”

Josh looked around, but failed to locate any empty bottles. His eyes then turned toward the cabinet under the sink.

Probably there, he decided. It was the most common place for people to store garbage and recyclables out of sight if they did not want them out in the open.

“She wasn’t sure if anyone else had any of the rum or not,” Sabello went on. “She said she wasn’t the one making the drinks.”

The sergeant nodded.

“Did she say anything else?”

Sabello flipped through her notes, pausing a moment later. “When I asked her if she had noticed anything unusual, she did say that they had received a package earlier today.” She checked her notes again. “Brownies. She said the box is still here in the kitchen: dark brown, with gold lettering.”

John surveyed the kitchen again, his eyes settling on a short rectangular box resting on the counter next to the refrigerator. The sergeant moved toward it, but did not touch it.

“Have the lab check it out.”

“Yes, sir,” the female officer responded promptly.

“Where’s the box it came in.”

Sabello checked her notes again. “She said she’d already thrown it out—in the community dumpster.”

“Find out which one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else?”

The female officer scanned through her notes one more time before answering. “No, sir,” she finally replied. “Nothing else relevant.”

Her last comment earned her a curious look from the sergeant. To John’s surprise, he said nothing. Instead, he took another look around the kitchen.

“Bag the box and empties for the lab,” he told her. “I want to talk to her.”

The female nodded. “Yes, sir.”

She seemed uneasy about the sergeant questioning the young woman. John thought her understood why. The older officer did not have much going for him in the way of people skills or a bedside manner.

“Stay with me,” he told John, startling him slightly by addressing him.

John did not get a chance to respond before the sergeant back toward the living room. Josh followed him quickly. Once they were through the archway, the female officer moved a little faster, apparently wanting to reach for young woman first, before the sergeant started in on her. John respected that; he might have done the same thing.

“Rachel,” the female officer said softly, seating herself next to the young woman. “I know I already took your report, but the sergeant has a few questions for you.”

Rachel lifted her head and looked up the sergeant. Her eyes red and swollen, Rose-colored splotches dotted her cheeks. Her reddish-tinted hair hung in long snarls across her shoulders. John wondered if she was pretty under better conditions.

“Sure,” she replied. Her voice sounded breathless and hoarse.

The sergeant glanced over at Sabello, who waited grimly.

“Officer Sabello told me that you already threw out the box the brownies came in,” the sergeant stated, watching the young woman’s face.

Rachel nodded. “Out in the dumpster.”

“Do you remember where the package came from?”

The young woman stared up at him, giving the matter a great deal more thought than John felt was necessary, even under the circumstances.

“No,” she answered finally. Her voice sounded weak and tired. “We never figured it out.”

Sabello exchanged a surprised and concerned look with the sergeant.

“Which dumpster?” she prompted the young woman, seeing the renewed importance of locating it now.

Rachel’s eyes flicked toward the front door. “The closest one,” she said. “To the right.”

John saw another look pass between the two police officers. He could tell that it would fall to Sabello to dig through the garbage to locate the box.

“Was there anything else in the box?”

Rachel seemed confused by the question for a moment. After a moment, she seemed to remember something.

“Yeah,” she said, brightening slightly. “There was. A bag—kind of a like a small gym bag,” she explained. Her expression took on a look of puzzlement. “It was a kind of weird. The box with the brownies came inside it.”

Even as she said it, John felt an invisible hand tighten around his stomach. He saw a similar reaction on the sergeant’s face.

“Where’s the bag now?” the sergeant asked, almost urgently.

“In the bedroom,” Rachel said, her eyes turning toward the bedroom door. “I was going to use for the gym.”

“Where there anything else in the bag?” the sergeant asked.

“I don’t think so,” Rachel said, sounding tired again. She slumped slightly. “I didn’t look.”

The sergeant’s lips formed a grim line. “Did you see it?”

It took a moment before John realized that the sergeant was addressing him. John stared back at him for several long moments before nodding dumbly.

“Bring it,” the sergeant ordered him.

John remained frozen in place, and then broke into a run, clearing the short distance from the sofa to the bedroom in well under three seconds.

Behind him, he heard the sergeant ask the young woman, “Are you sure you don’t remember where it came from?”

“No,” she replied quietly. “I mean, we couldn’t read the label. It was all scraped up.”

“We need to find that box,” the sergeant said, presumably to Sabello.

If the female officer said anything, John did not hear her response as he entered the bedroom.

It took him a moment to reorient himself. He turned on one heel, trying to remember where he had seen that stack of workout clothes. His eyes located it quickly, a few feet from the bed, piled next to what was certainly at least a second-hand dresser. He strode over and reached for it, stopping suddenly when his fingers were only a hairsbreadth from the handle.

“Idiot”, he murmured, straightening to survey the room for something he could use for makeshift gloves.

His eyes paused on a pair of socks crumpled and laying on the floor just a short distance from the workout clothes. It was possible that there might be a pair of latex cleaning gloves in the bathroom, he realized, but the thought of having to going in there to search for them made the back of his throat burn.

The socks’ll do, he decided, and picked them up.

As he slid them over his hands, he tried not to think about the condition of the feet that had occupied them before. The notion, while unpleasant, was several orders of magnitude preferable to facing what he would encounter in the small bathroom.

John gripped the handles carefully, holding the bag away from his body. It felt empty. Nonetheless, he tried very hard not to think of snakes as he carried the bag gingerly into the living room.

Everyone looked in his direction when he reentered the living room. John stopped, waiting, several feet away from where everyone was either situated near the sofa.

“Is that the one?” the sergeant asked Rachel.

She nodded and then looked away from the bag.

“Over there,” the sergeant ordered John, pointing to the far corner of the room.

John looked and then went over to where the sergeant had indicated, still dangling the bag as far away from his body as he could manage. He could see the sergeant’s reasoning. There was large empty space between that corner and any of the furniture in the room. Should there be any kind of reptile contained within the bag, they would theoretically have enough time to react before they were in immediate danger from it.

Slowly and carefully, John lowered the bag onto the carpet. Releasing his hold on it, he stepped cautiously back, breathing a soft sigh of relief when nothing in its shape shifted of its own accord. He waited there, and then turned his head to face the sergeant and Sabello. The sergeant and Sabello exchanged a long look and whispered something between them that John could not hear. Sabello nodded, looking grave, and rose from the sofa. Her hand, John noticed, now rested on her weapon.

The sergeant strode toward John, and then kept going, heading for the bag. “Let’s do this,” he said as he passed, not bothering to wait for a response.

John watched the sergeant’s back as the officer approached the bag.

He can’t be serious!

He suspected, though, that the sergeant was always serious—at least while on duty. John wondered whether he was one of those officers who never truly went off duty.

The sergeant crouched before the bag. John stood two hesitant steps forward and then waited. He felt woefully underequipped to deal with this situation. Not his taser, pepper spray, or baton would be of much use, he suspected, against a venomous snake.

Unless I just want to piss it off . . .

That, to him, did not seem like the wisest goal.

He started to step back further, but then froze as the sergeant began to slowly open the bag. Somewhere, he had read that snakes were more likely to strike a moving target than one that remained completely still.

Or, he considered unhappily, that might just be one of those stupid things they say in the movies.

John tensed as the sergeant reached toward his waist. He relaxed slightly when he saw the officer draw his flashlight instead of his weapon. The sergeant had opened a small gap in the top of the bag. It was, John guessed, maybe three or four inches wide. The older officer lifted the flashlight and aimed its beam inside the bag. John held perfectly still, feeling the tension from the top of his shoulders all the way down his back.

Nothing leapt from the bag.

The sergeant reached down and opened the zippers the rest of the way. He then thrust his free hand into the bag. John held his breath until the sergeant’s hand rose, clear of the bag. Clutched within it was not a writhing length of poisonous serpent, but perhaps a half dozen sheets of regular white paper. Something seemed to be printed on them, but John was too far away to make out any of the text.

Still, the chill he had experienced earlier ran once more through his body.

Just like the other bags . . .

He had not made the connection until that very moment. All of the bags at the other scenes had also contained several sheets of paper. The sergeant was reading these. His expression turned hard. His eyes seemed to grow dark with rage.

“Sergeant?”

Sabello’s voice brought John back. He glanced at the female officer, seeing her look of puzzled concern, and then back at the sergeant.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

They slid the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, with one of the EMTs jumping in first to guide it into place. They were done within seconds. The second EMT slammed the door closed and then quickly entered the cab and started the engine. He backed the vehicle out of the driveway in a single smooth maneuver. John was still impressed, even knowing that it was a much smaller vehicle than the fire engine had been. Its amber lights flashed, but the siren did not sound until the ambulance reached the street.

John turned back toward the stairs, watching as two paramedics exited the apartment. One of them carried several cases of equipment; the other guided a young woman dressed in a thick pale bathrobe down the stairs. Her long hair, appearing to be some kind of darkish red in the weird lighting, was snarled and loose. She was sobbing, but trying to hold it in.

The police sergeant stared meaningfully at his partner, and then nodded toward the stairs. She nodded silently in return, straightened, and then moved toward the stairway. John watched her go, admiring the lines of her buttocks and lines as she walked. He then realized that the sergeant was looking at him. His cheeks burned with embarrassment and he looked away.

Probably time for a discrete exit, he decided. Not much I can do here.

He turned, prepared to leave, when he heard an authoritative voice sound from behind him.

“Hold up, son.”

Even before turning around, John knew it belonged to the police sergeant.

John turned around slowly, automatically careful not to have his hands anywhere near his weapons or his belt. Swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat, he addressed the officer.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m kind of surprised to see you here, son,” the sergeant said. John really wished he would stop using the word “son”.

“I, um,” he hesitated. “I get around, sir. Wherever they assign me.”

The sergeant studied him closely for a moment.

“So it seems . . .”

The sergeant’s eyes shifted for a moment to where his partner conversed quietly with the young woman, and then turned back to John. He studied John for several long seconds—a period that felt like minutes to John.

“Come with me,” the sergeant told John, gesturing ahead of him. “But touch nothing.”

John hesitated for an instant, his legs unwilling to move. After convincing himself that he had done nothing wrong, he headed toward the sergeant.

The officer began moving toward the apartment before John even reached him. John found that he nearly had to jog in order to keep up with the older man.

The sergeant paused next to his partner. He gave the young woman with her a momentary, if somewhat guarded, sympathetic glance. He then said something to the female officer in quiet tones that John could not quite make out, gesturing with his head up toward the apartment. The female officer nodded and then said something to the young woman. The young woman nodded slowly and the sergeant headed toward the stairs. John took long strides in an effort to catch up with him.

John found the interior of the apartment to be unremarkable. It was perhaps a bit tidier that he had expected, but it was also bit more empty. The main room contained only a single well-worn sofa and a long wide coffee table, clearly from an earlier decade of design. Several stacks of overlarge decorative pillows apparently served as additional seating. On the far side of the room was a narrow dining table that looked it could seat six people. Only three chairs, only two of which clearly matched the set, were positioned around it. John quickly surveyed the space but any additional ones, but did not find any.

The sergeant remained standing just ahead of him, also assessing the room. Everything in his posture and demeanor radiated a mild wariness, but nothing that put John on instant alert. His gaze paused occasionally as it swept the room. By the time John could focus on what it might have been that drawn the older officer’s attention, the sergeant’s eyes was moving again.

Apparently having completed his initial analysis of the situation, the sergeant strode toward the narrow open archway that presumably led to the kitchen. He only glanced inside before turning and heading toward what John presumed was the main bedroom. A second door to its left John guessed was either the bathroom or a second bedroom. The door to it was closed. The sergeant, John noticed, pretty much ignored it, giving it only a quick glance.

John followed him to the bedroom, nearly colliding with him when the officer stopped just inside the doorway. The sergeant studied the room with a fierce intensity that made John found unsettling. The room was in a state of major disarray.

Nothing surprising, John mused. Considering half a dozen emergency personnel just trampled through.

Small indications here and there throughout the room made him think that this space was probably not kept as tidy as the main area had been. He gotten only the briefest glimpse of the kitchen, but it too had looked to be generally well-organized and maintained. Trying to look past the older man, John tried to see what the sergeant might be finding of such interest.

Apparently sensing John’s close proximity, the sergeant took another step into the room and then paused again, looking around. John moved a little further inside, but tried not to crowd the officer again. He stopped, holding his breath suddenly, as he caught the whiff of something foul. He struggled not to cough, but was finally was forced to inhale. He did so cautiously, but it did not help. The odor made him think of a newborn’s diaper left out to ferment in the midsummer afternoon sun. He glanced at the sergeant, but, based on what John could see of his expression, it did not seem to affect him at all.

Probably lost his sense of smell years ago . . .

John fought back the urge to gag. Although the smell was not strong, it was powerful enough to trigger some basic physiological responses.

He followed the sergeant further into the room. Getting a quick glimpse into the attached bathroom, he wished that he had not. The visible surfaces were smeared with large patches of several dark fluids. John recognized some as being blood and feces; a few he guessed were from vomit. The rest . . . he did not want to even guess at their source.

What little control he had managed to regain over his primal nearly failed him completely. John felt bile burning the back of his throat. Somehow, and he was not sure exactly how, he prevented himself from revisiting the fast-food burritos that had been his dinner. Moving deeper into the bedroom, he positioned himself so that he would not accidentally get another peek.

The sergeant slowly walked through the room, pausing to take a closer look inside the bathroom. John noted that even he remained outside it.

Maybe even he has his limits, John considered.

He did wonder, though, about what kind of things the sergeant had witnessed during his years on the police force that might have inured him to a scene like this.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

He became aware of a voice; it sounded a lot like Rachel’s. His vision swirled and blurred. Not matter how hard he tried, he could not focus on any one thing. Cool dampness against his spine told him that he was sprawled across the floor. He did not remember falling, but reasoned dimly that he must have. Rachel seemed to be shouting . . . touching him. He wanted to respond, but nothing seemed to work. He might have managed to say something to her; he did not know.

His next memories were of blurs of motion and bright lights. There seemed to be several around him, clothed in a variety of bright and drab hues. He was being lifted, moved . . . or thought he was. He could not be certain. His mind seemed detached from his body.

I’m not dead, he thought, for he seemed to still dwell within it.

He felt distant stabs of pain throughout his body: his arm, his belly, his head, his spine . . .

Gray fog encroached on his awareness, masking the churning mass of the other muted colors. It enveloped them all in a swirling opaque haze. At the edges of his vision, the fog thickened, darkening to the color of angry storm clouds. He expected to hear rain. It became darker still. Joel felt his awareness slipping away.

Isn’t there supposed to be a light?

But there was only darkness.

And then nothing.

#

John heard the response to the 911 call and stopped the car. Checking the map on his GPS, he confirmed that the address was on the other side of the complex where he had just completed his schedule patrol.

That explains the sirens . . .

They had sounded, he had thought, as if they were coming from somewhere very nearby. Glancing up at the apartment buildings, he thought that perhaps he could see the reflections from the strobing red and blue lights. It could also be his overactive imagination, he realized.

He called Dispatch to let them know that he was going to check out the situation and would be delayed in reaching his next scheduled patrol schedule location. John thought he heard a hint of bemusement in the dispatcher’s tone as she acknowledged his report.

Turning the car around, he cut through the central parking lot instead of the taking his usual route along the perimeter. By the time he had completed the full diameter of the rough curve, there was no mistaking the source of the brightly flashing series of lights.

He pulled to a stop adjacent to one of the enormous garbage bins. There was a sign posted there that prohibited any parking there, but he doubted that there would be any garbage pickups at the hour. Even if there were, the truck would have a tough time making its way past the emergency vehicles that crowded the narrow roadway.

Grabbing his notebook from the passenger, he climbed out of the car and approached the collection of vehicles. There was probably little that he could do, he knew, except perhaps assist the police officers in keeping other residents of the apartment complex away from the scene. Still, it was likely to be more interesting than driving slowly through yet another dimly lit apartment complex.

The fire engine immediately caught his attention, chiefly due to its size. Also present was a police patrol sedan and a paramedic van. Just pulling up was dark blue ambulance.

Must have been a general 9-1-1 . . .

With the limited number of available units, the area dispatchers tried to send only the services that were required for a particular call, John knew. If the details were unknown or unclear, then a general dispatch call was made.

John approached the scene, receiving a quick, curious glance from one of the two police officers. She was a young woman, not much older than he was. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung down between the shoulders of her uniform. She regarded him for a moment and John felt himself blush in the chill of the autumn night.

Two EMTs from the ambulance made their way noisily up the stairs with a stretcher. Everyone else present pretty much ignored them. The crew from the fire engine climbed back on board it, preparing to leave the scene.

No fire then, John concluded, watching as its driver expertly backed the enormous vehicle out of the parking lot and back onto the street.

He continued to move in closer until he stood a few yards away from the patrol car. From there, he could peer up the stairway toward the apartment into which the EMTs had disappeared. In the windows of many of the surrounding apartments, shadows watched the events outside them unfold.

John glanced at the two police officers, and then took a closer look. The one standing with the female officer looked familiar. At first, John thought it was a trick of the light. Then, he saw that it was, in fact, the sergeant from the parking garage. He did not seem to recognize John, although John attributed that as much to the mildly flurry of activity and the inconsistent lighting. John considered walking over and reintroducing himself, but thought better of it.

Although . . . , he considered thoughtfully. I might get her name and badge number out of it . . .

His musings on the dark-haired female officer were interrupted by a loud bustle and shouts from the apartment above. The EMTs appeared again, carrying the stretcher quickly down the stairs. John breathed an unexpected sigh of relief when they reached the bottom, in admiration of their expert maneuvering of the awkward contraption down the narrow stairway. He could only imagine how many hours of practice and experience that required.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

She had pulled her long hair, which fell to nearly the middle of her back, back into a loose ponytail. This did little to disguise its loose waves. She had dyed it a reddish rust color, highlighted with hints of copper. Joel did not like it. He did not understand why she did not just leave it at its natural dusty blonde shade and just add bright streaks to that when she felt like it. He really liked blondes.

Joel realized that he was staring and, for yet another time that evening, found himself growing aroused. Eyeing the smooth round curve of her buttocks, he wondered which panties she had on—or whether she was wearing any at all. She sometimes did that, for odd reasons that he did not quite understand. The thought that she might not be, though, was enough to arouse him even further.

Smiling to himself, he glided quietly out of the kitchen, mostly because he did not want her to hear him leave. If he stayed much longer, he knew, she would insist on him helping her dry the dishes. Instead, he had other plans for her.

When he reached the bedroom, he pulled off his sheet, tossing it in the general region of the hamper. The shirt missed landing inside it. Instead, it fell in a rumpled heap on the floor just in front of it. Joel’s socks joined it a few seconds later. As he unfastened his belt, and pulled down his jeans and then underwear, he was pleased to see that a few minutes delay had not substantially diminished his arousal. After balling up and lobbing the rest of his clothes across the room as well, he eased onto the bed. Idly touching himself, he waited for Rachel’s arrival.

She’s getting it so hard tonight . . .

A little over two hours later, Joel stretched, trying to get comfortable. Pain stabbed lightly along his lower back. He kept shifting positions, trying to find one where the discomfort did not return within a few minutes. He began to wonder if he had perhaps been a little too energetic when he had pounded Rachel.

She had been reluctant, being both tired and cranky, but had finally surrendered when he had made it clear that he was not going to stop poking at and pestering her until she gave in. He had gotten off twice; his second orgasm coming even more powerfully than the first one had. She had tolerated his attention, even moaning quietly a few times, but seemed relieved when he was done. Sighing deeply, she had rolled over and gone quickly to sleep.

At least she didn’t moan out California guy’s name instead.

Joel turned over again, still unable to settle into a comfortable position. As he lay there, the ache began to radiate outward around his abdomen. Wincing, he shot Rachel with a harsh glance as he tried to suffer his way through an intense cramp.

Stupid bitch probably poisoned us with that stupid cream cheese dip.

The wave of discomfort passed. Joel took several tentative breaths, feeling only mildly better. A fine layer of perspiration chilled his skin. He lay back onto the bed, feeling the sheets absorb some of the moisture. He was just beginning to relax again when the next spasm shot through his abdomen. Doubling over, clutching his arms around his middle, he tumbled from the bed, hunched over with pain as he stumbled his way toward the bathroom.

He collapsed before the toilet bowl, barely making it that far before he vomited. It seared his throat as it came back up. Gagging as his stomach forcibly expelled its contents, he raised a hand to wipe away the tears from his eyes, only to discover that it was smeared with the thick and sour fluid. He coughed, gasping as the air passed along his raw throat.

His head rested against the rim of the toilet bowl. Its porcelain surface felt cool and welcome against his forehead. Leaning weakly against it for support, he tried to remember how many drinks he had consumed that night.

Too many, I guess, he thought miserably.

He had only a moment to consider his folly before another wave of violent nausea overwhelmed him. Heaving once again, he banged his head against the rim of the toilet as he doubled over from the cramps. Reaching up blindly, he managed to flush the toilet. It took some of the smell away, but in the process also caused some of the noxious fluid at splash across his hair and forehead.

Sagging against the toilet bowl during the period of relative relief that followed, he caught a whiff of an unpleasant, but unfortunately all too identifiable odor. Before he even shifted his legs to investigate, the warm, sticky sensation between them confirmed what he thought had happened.

“Oh shit”, he cursed almost silently, not at all appreciating the humorous irony of the statement.

He was considered what to do next when the set of cramps, worse than any that had come before, hit him. He retched, surprised that there was anything left to come up. Thick, coppery-tasting fluid passed across his tongue. He recognized its taste a moment before he saw its color: blood. Another intense cramp overrode his alarm at seeing the dark red fluid in the bowl. He retched again, expelling several large gobbets of blood.

The pain subsided, but he felt as if someone torn his intestines apart from the inside. Leaning against the toilet, Joel tried to stand. His legs were rubbery and refused to obey him beyond simple twitches of movement. He sank back against the bowl, his hands slipping on its web and slick surface. He caught himself before his head hit the edge, but just barely in time.

“Rachel,” he called out.

His voice was a raspy whisper, barely audible. He was certain that she would not be able to hear it over her own quiet snoring.

He tried again.

“Rachel!”

His reward was a fit of coughing hard enough to make his stomach ache. He was afraid that he would throw up again, but somehow managed not to.

“Rach!”

A fit of coughing took him again, although not as bad as it had the first time. The effort, though, brought the fresh taste of blood to his mouth. Sagging against the toilet, barely able to support himself, Joel tried to call out again, but was unable to gather enough breath to do so. He managed to reach a small bottle on the floor near the sink. Gripping it, he flung it toward the doorway, hoping the noise of it hitting the door frame might be enough to stir Rachel.

He watched with weary frustration as it sailed silently through the doorway, to land almost silently on the carpeting on the other side. Feeling light-headed and dazed, he searched for something else he could use for another attempt. What few items he could find were all out of reach. He was not at all convinced that, if he let go of the toilet, he would be able to get back up again.

Resting his forehead against it again, he stared at the blank surface of the water tank. The seat, which he had managed to lift just barely in time, provided an oval frame in front of it, lacking only a picture for him to stare at while he waited. He wanted to shake his head, to clear it of that ridiculously random idea, but it seemed like too much effort. Eyeing the toilet seat, though, another idea came to him.

Reaching up, he pulled down on the toilet seat, releasing it just as it began to swing downward. It collided with the rim of the bowl with a loud clang. The sound made Joel’s head hurt and his ears ring. He tried to listen through for some kind sign that Rachel was stirring in the bedroom. When she did not appear in the doorway, he repeated the action, trying to slam it down harder this time. Before he could pause to listen, though, a new bout of agonizing nausea seized him.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

Nothing came to mind, and the label provided no clues as to its origin. The shipping address was scuffed and scraped, rendering it unreadable. The barcode looked like it was intact, or else it would not have been delivered. He turned the box over in his hands. Its ends and corners were mildly dented from handling, as he would have expected, but he discovered no markings on it—nothing at all, in fact—that that gave him any more of an idea of who might have sent it. It was, as far as he could tell, just a plain brown box.

Joel shook it experimentally, feeling something shift just slightly inside it. Whatever it was, he decided, it did not seem fragile. Nor, he determined, bouncing it lightly in his hands, was it particularly heavy—just about the weight he would have expected for a package that size. As he carried the package toward the table, he ran some possibilities of its contents through his mind.

Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the small multi-purpose pocket knife that he always carried with him. It was not a true “Swiss” army knife, but it usually got the job done. Its blade sliced easily through the transparent tape that sealed the top of the box. Placing the knife on the table, he tugged at the flaps. The box opened easily and he peered inside.

He leaned back slightly, puzzled. It looked like some kind of small duffel or gym bag—something that he would have ever purchased for himself. He glanced toward the kitchen, wondering for a moment if it was some kind of subtle clue from Rachel. This did not seem to be her style. She was rarely anything less than outspoken. It was part of why he liked her—and also annoyed the hell out of him sometimes.

Joel eyed the bag, of which only the handles and part of the top were visible.

Maybe it’s some kind of freebie or something.

That was possible, he realized. He had left his e-mail address and other information around at several booths at the recent gaming convention. Some of them might even have been for drawings, he reasoned. He was not surprised to find that his memories of the event were a bit on the vague side. He had spent very little of it not buzzed to some degree.

His curiosity winning out, he reached down and grabbed the handles of the bag. It stuck at first, seeming slightly too large for the box it came in. He then realized that it was heavier than he thought should be. He felt a small spark of excitement about what it might contain inside. Using both hands, he pulled the bag out of the box and then shoved the box aside. Lowering the box onto the table, he was certain now that it contained something inside.

He had just started to pull the zippers apart when Rachel’s voice came from behind him.

“Is that mine?”

Her tone was more curious than accusatory, although not without a hint of annoyance. They had lived together for nearly three years and she had rarely had an issue with him opening any packages that came to the apartment. At least, not until she had met that guy from California online and he started to send her stuff occasionally. Joel remembered particularly when she had ripped into him the day that the little laptop computer had arrived. Although he had never caught her at it, he was partially convinced that she used it to Skype-sex with him.

Actually, he realized, she had not mentioned him in months. At least, not since he had caught her messaging the sexual things that she planned to do with him should they ever meet.

Writing a story together, my ass.

It had not helped that he had caught her moaning out the guy’s name—What was it? Shane? Sven? Something that started with an “S”—while masturbating alone in the bedroom.

He had actually not given the matter much thought lately. Rachel had stopped talking about him, and neither of them had seen him online in any of the games they sometimes played together.

Scared the stupid bastard off, Joel thought with a smug grin.

“No,” he replied curtly. “It’s mine. Somebody sent me . . . something.” He scowled at how lame that sounded aloud.

He heard her step closer, apparently trying to get a better look from where she stood behind the sofa. A moment later, she snickered loudly. Joel felt his cheeks grow hot.

“Someone who doesn’t know you,” she said. “Obviously.”

Joel heard her laugh quietly. He resisted the urge to turn around and slap her.

“Is dinner finally ready?” he snarled without turning around. He did not want her to see that she had managed to provoke him.

‘Yeah,” she replied. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

“It better be good,” he mumbled aloud, imagining her expression at the barely veiled threat in his tone.

Behind him, Rachel murmured something that might have been “Bite me”, “Fuck you”, or some other equally snappy retort. Grinning, he reached for the bag again. Partly because he wanted to know, and also because he knew that it would annoy Rachel now that the dinner he had been complaining about was ready, he slid open the zippers and looked inside it.

Within it rested another box, this one wrapped in dark brown, glossy paper, the color of rich chocolate. As he lifted it out of the bag, he saw that some of the shine was due to its clear cellophane wrapping. He read the name embossed in raised golden letters across the lid and grinned. It was an assortment of fudge brownies from a high-end confectioner.

“What is it?” Rachel asked from behind him.

“Dessert!” Joel replied triumphantly. “If you’re lucky, I might let you have some.”

Rachel reached down to take the box from him. Joel surrendered it reluctantly, knowing that she would insist on seeing it anyway.

“I can’t anyway,” she said, somewhat unhappily. “They have nuts.”

“Not all of them,” Joel contradicted her.

“All of them,” Rachel insisted. “Read the label,” she told him bluntly, handing the package back to Joel. “Who sent them?”

“Not a clue.” Even though she was behind him, Joel sensed her skeptical look. “If you don’t believe me,” he said. “The box is over there.” He waved in the general direction of the discarded box.

Rachel came from behind the couch and picked up the box. She examined the label for a moment and then turned the box over, checking it for any other clues as to its origin. Apparently finding none, she placed it back on the table. Joel tried not to look too smug.

“Whatever,” she mumbled, but loud enough for Joel to hear her. Then, with much more volume, “Dinner’s ready.”

She turned and headed back toward the kitchen. Joel sat, rubbing his fingertips along the crackling cellophane, wondering he should open it now. After a moment’s thought, he decided to wait, and tossed the box lightly back onto the table. She really was a good cook—and it did not pay to piss her off too much.

By the time they had finished dinner, Joel had almost forgotten about the box. Rachel insisted that he help clean up before the others arrived for a long night of tabletop gaming, until she finally got frustrated enough with his lack of any real assistance and sent him away to shower and put on some cleaner clothes. He did not allow her to see his small smile of triumph as he made his way toward the bedroom.

Settling back into the sofa next to Martin, his team partner, he took a long sip from his double rum and Coke. It was his second—no, third one of the evening. He was feeling pleasantly buzzed, but not so much so that it had prevented him and Martin from winning the first game. Rachel and Martin’s girlfriend, Suzy, had gone to the kitchen to put together some more snacks for everyone for the next round of games. Joel could not remember whether her full name was Suzanne and Susanna or something else entirely.

Those Asian chicks sometimes choose the weirdest damn names, he mused. Although I guess it’s better than trying to remember Quon Duck Ho or whatever . . .

Rachel returned carrying two large bowls of popcorn and placed them both down on the table. She glanced at Joel and then at the level of Joel’s drink. Her expression masked her chilly disapproval, but only just barely. Joel ignored it, forgetting about it even she turned to return to the kitchen.

“Nice ta-ta’s on that one,” Martin remarked, watching Rachel appreciatively as she walked away.

Joel grinned, snickering, and reached for his drink again. “I can probably get you piece of that.”

Martin laughed and settled back on the couch again. “Right . . .”

“No,” Joel said, swallowing and feeling the rum lightly burn its way down this throat. “Really.”

He turned his head to see whether Rachel was still in the room, not that it really mattered if she was.

“She likes getting ganged on sometimes,” Joel told Martin. “Seriously.”

Martin’s head turned and he looked toward the doorway that led to the kitchen. Joel could see that he looked interested—or was at least playing through some fantasies in his mind. He sipped from his drink, waiting to see what Martin would say or do.

In truth, he grudgingly admitted to himself, it had only been once. And they had both thoroughly drunk. He recalled that it had actually been Rachel’s idea, but whether that had been truly the case he did know. What he did remember was how it felt as he pounded into her while Gregg had filled her mouth. He had been surprised at how aroused he had been when Gregg had erupted all over her face and tits.

Joel shifted in his seat, suddenly aware that those memories were almost as provocative as they had been then. Stealing a quick glance at Martin, his companion seemed unaware of his sudden discomfort. His eyes then shifted toward the kitchen archway.

No way, he told himself. Rachel would never go for it.

He considered the idea for a moment longer.

Although you never know, he mused. Sometimes she goes off all kinky . . .

“What about Suzy?” Martin asked, clearly seriously at least thinking about the notion. “She’d never do it.”

Joel felt a small stab of disappointment. From what Martin had told him, his new Asian girlfriend was a total freak in bed. In addition to being noisier than hell during sex, she apparently knew a few things about bringing a guy to orgasm that Martin could barely even describe without growing flushed.

“Why does she need to know?”

Martin frowned at him, puzzled, and then caught on. “Oh!”

Joel nodded, grinning tightly, and took another deep swallow from his drink. It was almost gone. Looking at the nearly empty cup made him realize just how buzzed he was.

Better be careful, he warned himself. Or you won’t be starting anything, even if Rach, um, agrees.

The two young women returned from the kitchen, bringing more food and two bottles of liquor. Rachel glanced at Joel starting placing her items on the table, and then looked at him more carefully. Her eyes narrowed, whether with suspicion or anger, he could not tell.

Shit, he thought. She knows.

She continued to stare at him watchfully, but the eruption of anger that he expected did not come. He was not, however, foolish enough to interpret that as any sort of agreement or understanding on her part. She sat down across from him, just out of his arm’s reach. Picking her own drink up from the table, she sipped at it cautiously, continuously to glance at him from time to time. She was not smiling.

Almost four hours later, well past midnight, the small party broke up. At some point, Joel and Martin had added some marijuana to the mix. Suzy had politely declined, explaining that it aggravated her allergies. Rachel just looked pissed off and kept slowly drinking her flavored vodka concoctions. He did help Rachel carry some of the dishes into the kitchen, but let her worry about whether or not they needed to be washed before they went to bed.

The lingering effects of the marijuana, besides blunting the edge of annoyance with Rachel, also made him hungry. Although they had been snacking pretty much constantly all night, he wanted something more substantial then pretzels, chips, or popcorn. He glanced at Rachel, who was running hot water in preparation to washing the dishes.

I guess eggs and sausage are out of the question . . .

He poked around at the assortment of snack bags and boxes on the counter, looking for something that might satisfy his craving. Tucked on the counter next to the refrigerator, he discovered the box of brownies that had been delivered earlier that day.

Well, actually, yesterday, he recognized.

He tore the clear wrapping from the box, earning himself a dark glare from Rachel. He grinned back at her, rather pleased with himself for being able to generate such a dramatic response. Tossing the wrapper aside on the counter, he opened the box. Inside it were four brownies. Each was about two-and-a-half inches square and, according to the packaging, each was a different flavor. One was apparently chocolate mint; it was not one of his favorite combinations.

Identifying it by its location in the box, based on the diagram printed inside the lid, he held the box out toward Rachel. Her hands deep in hot, sudsy water, she glared at him and then shook her head.

“Nuts,” she said flatly. “Remember?”

He pulled the box back, feeling only the slightest twinge of embarrassment. The flare of anger was stronger.

God, she can be such a bitch sometimes.

He turned away and lifted one of the brownies from the box. If he had read the label correctly, it was mocha fudge. He bit into it, surprised to find it fresh and moist, rather than dense and dry as he had expected. After swallowing two bites from it, he was certain that one of the squares would probably be enough to satisfy his post-high hunger.

Sliding the lid back onto the box, he placed the box back where Rachel had stored it. He leaned against a counter to eat the rest of brownie while he watched Rachel finish washing the dishes. She had stripped down to a tank top, probably to avoid getting her sleeves and shirt wet. Joel admired her curves as she shifted and turned as she completed the task.

Marty’s right, he observed. She really does have nice tits.

This was not exactly a revelation for Joel. That was one of the first things he had ever noticed about her. They were also one of her trigger points. She knew that she was well-endowed in that area, and sometimes even took some pride in that, but she also wanted to be taken seriously for her intelligence.

“Most guys,” she had said more than once, “think my bra size is higher than my IQ. I hate that.’

He realized that he was staring and, for yet another time that evening, found himself growing aroused. Eyeing the smooth round curve of her buttocks, he wondered which panties she had on—or whether she was wearing any at all. She sometimes did that, for odd reasons that he did not quite understand. The thought, though, was enough to further arouse him.