The Perfect Prey (11 page)

He sipped a bottle of water and was glancing out at the near-empty dance floor when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw the smiling face of pretty Holly.

He used his tongue to check the inside of his mouth. His fangs were ready for the hunt. He smiled, feeling the surge of wildness pulse through his body.

Even if it was nearly nine o’clock at night, John Stallings had analysts at the sheriff’s office running Donnie Eliot’s name through every possible criminal index. While they waited for information on their first suspect, they talked to waitresses and bartenders in the spacious administrative offices of the club. Photos of Allie Marsh and the three unidentified men who had talked to her sat on the table. Credit card receipts were laid out next to the photos to help anyone with a cloudy memory.

The father in Stallings had a nagging feeling that there was more to Allie’s death than a simple overdose. He couldn’t explain it, but maybe it had to do with the connection he felt with her mother. Diane Marsh had elected to stay in town, at least for a few days, while information
was still being sorted out by the detectives. Stallings knew he was hooked and couldn’t let things drop now.

The door to the office opened, and a lean, muscular man of about thirty poked his head in.

Stallings looked down at a sheet of paper and said, “Larry Kinard?”

“Yes, sir.”

Stallings motioned the bartender in and to a seat. “Thanks for taking a break to talk to us.”

“I’m not on break, I’m off today.”

“Why were you in the building?”

“Picking up my check and seeing if anything was happening. You know how it is. Work at night, you can never just sit at home.”

Stallings knew exactly what he meant. He looked at the younger man and said, “We’re hoping you might be able to identify a couple of photos for us from the other night.”

The lean man nodded his head and smiled at Patty. “I heard it had to do with a girl who died.”

“That’s right. From an overdose of X. You see much of that in the club?”

“I see signs of it, you know, the sweating and heavy water use. The flaky behavior. But truthfully this place hops so hard that I’m usually just slinging drinks and collecting money.”

Stallings set down Allie Marsh’s photograph. “Recognize her?”

The bartender nodded. “Yeah. Real cutie. I saw her a couple times recently. Probably in the last week.”

Stallings nodded and laid down the first photograph of one of the men Allie had chatted with.

The bartender studied it carefully. “He was at the bar. I served him. He’s been here before. Not a flat breaker.”

“A what?”

“A spring break student who’s flat broke and orders three cheap beers for the whole night.” The bartender looked at the photo again and said, “More likely a break runner.”

“Excuse me?”

“Break runner. A guy who slips into spring break crowds and tries to hook up with younger students. See ‘em all the time. Not too old. Fit and with more cash than the students. Girls love these kind of guys.”

“So they’d go for an older guy?”

“Like a Cajun for crawfish.”

Stallings smiled, then said, “If you saw the credit card receipts could you remember his name?” He slid over a stack of receipts.

Larry the bartender started at the top and within a minute pulled a slip and said, “This is him. Chad Palmer. I remember because he tipped me twenty bucks on a fifty-five-dollar tab. See.” He pointed to the tip line.

Patty said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Stallings shoved the next photo of a fit, dark-haired man in his early thirties. The photo wasn’t that clear.

“Oh, I know him.” Larry the bartender looked up at the two detectives. “What is this, a test?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because this guy is a cop.”

Holly’s bright smile accentuated her beautiful and nodding blond head when she agreed to leave the deli with him. It had happened so fast he had to plan things on the fly. First of all she wanted to leave her car there and ride with him. That’d be too much of a hint to anyone looking for her. He told her the little Toyota wouldn’t be safe there and had her follow him to a parking garage near the Modis Tower. Then she jumped in with him as he considered all the places they could go to be alone. So far his predatory instincts had been perfect. No one had noticed them together. She’d told him about her wild experiences with other drugs, so he knew that she wouldn’t turn her nose up at the X when he offered it to her. All that was left was the location.

The thrill he knew so well rushed through him like a drug. Like some kind of super Viagra that kept him hard and dangerous as a predator should be.

As he navigated the straight streets of downtown Jacksonville, Holly turned in her seat and said, “Let’s go to my old sorority house. It’s quiet and we can be alone.”

“What about your sorority sisters?”

“Oh, we don’t use it anymore. It got condemned. But it’s really cool.”

He smiled and said, “Sounds like a plan.”

It was hard to describe what she was feeling right now. Almost like electricity making the tiny hairs on her arm stand on end. She’d searched for a long time for someone just like him. It’d taken a while for her to learn exactly what she was supposed to look for, but he had it. The most obvious thing was his looks and athletic ability, but there was something deeper–or nothing deeper, depending on how you look at. He had a cocky, self-confident manner that was difficult to fake. He really did feel as if he was the king of Jacksonville and she was just one of his subjects. She knew that was the perfect attitude.

She had to do something to make up for her last effort to find a man. Billy was his name, and he was a little young at the time, fifteen, but he had a tight, muscular body and a sweet face. She’d taken him to the same empty house and done things the young man had never imagined possible. But in the end he hadn’t handled it well and his immaturity came through. It turned out to be embarrassing, with a lot of crying and begging.

She hadn’t liked the role of older, more experienced lover. She liked this role of bookworm much better. It was almost as if she was an actress in a role, wearing her reading glasses even if she didn’t need them, putting her hair up in a ponytail. She just liked the idea of being someone she really wasn’t. She liked hiding her muscular arms and covering her washboard abs under heavy clothing only to surprise someone later. She
doubted she’d surprise him much because the first time he saw her she was at the beach, but it was still a fun façade. Sweet, smart, and safe.

She was pretty confident she’d lulled him into a false sense of security and his expectations were low. He’d be in for the surprise of his life once he knew the real her.

Suddenly she was so excited her lungs couldn’t keep up with the oxygen her body needed.

This was gonna be one wild, fun night.

Since her marriage had broken up and the life she loved had completely ceased to exist, Yvonne Zuni had viewed the detectives who worked for her as her family. Sometimes family members clicked and laughed and all was well. Sometimes family members fought. She knew enough about the history of crimes/persons to know that Tony Mazzetti was the star homicide investigator and viewed John Stallings as a threat. This was something that could be a problem or something she might be able to use for motivation.

At times like this, all alone in her three-bedroom house, in the evening, she sometimes felt a panic at facing the long night alone and being so many hours from going back to the office. She remembered when her evenings were busy with feedings and cleaning, sharing a TV show or quiet conversation with her husband. Back then she had considered giving up her career to spend more time with her family. She really had it all.

She looked down at the roasted chicken she picked at while she read over a few reports, making corrections and suggestions in the margins. Her TV had not been on for anything other than the local news in at least three months, and the house seemed unnaturally quiet
with the thick carpet and insulated walls. A sliding glass door allowed the cool night air into the house, but there was no sound from outside.

It was in this silence that the sound of her phone beeping made her jump. She grabbed it off the table in front of her.

“Sergeant Zuni.”

“Sarge, we got a shooting near the stadium.”

It was a JSO dispatcher.

The sergeant said, “Who’s rolling?”

“Mazzetti and Hogrebe.”

“Good. Tell them I’m on my way.”

She closed the phone and smiled. At least she could avoid spending this night alone.

“This is an old sorority house?”

She nodded from the front seat of his Jeep.

“Isn’t it kinda far from the UNF campus?”

She hesitated, then said, “The sorority had to draw from other local schools too, like the University of Jacksonville.”

“I thought sororities and fraternities all came from the same school.”

She just shrugged those cute shoulders.

He parked the car in the rear of the giant old house, then followed Holly’s instructions to pull it into a carport so it’d be safe. The old carport appeared unused, but the idea of a safe, deserted house where he could spend some time with innocent little Holly excited him to the point of explosion. His hunter’s instincts came out as he scanned for other people.

Holly said, “We still get to use the house and no one will be around. We’ll have this grand old place all to
ourselves.” She spread her arms like a display model at a car show.

Her smile alone was enough to attract predators, but that cute, athletic body, blond hair, and blue eyes were irresistible to him. He followed her up the cement steps in the back of the house into a dark kitchen. She produced a flashlight from a kitchen cabinet.

“What happened to the lights?”

“We haven’t paid the bill in a while, so we keep the flashlights handy.”

He wondered why she brought him to an empty, abandoned house, but those thoughts faded as she took his hand and led him into the wide living room. There were three couches and a table that made it feel like the main lobby to a sorority house. She pulled him to the longest of the three couches and shoved him playfully, then plopped into his lap and started to kiss him. She wasn’t as innocent as she played.

He decided to let this go on for a while before figuring out how to claim this kill. He could just picture the surprised expression on her face as he did whatever he was going to do. He had a knife with him, but he could also try something new. It was secluded here and quiet. Now might be a good time to be innovative.

His first two questions were the same that everyone else who’d ever visited the house had. The first was, “What about your sorority sisters?” The second was about the lights. Both were easily explained, and if she played it right it could be more exciting. She stopped in front of the back door and made a show out of adjusting her glasses and pulling her blouse tight, then held her hands up like a model to show off the house. Just
like everyone else, all he did was shrug and willingly walk inside. This always reminded her of the old Dracula movies in which the ancient vampire instructed people, “Enter freely, of your own will.” Everyone came in. As he stepped through the door and into the kitchen her excitement grew to the point she had to pause to grab hold of one of the old wooden chairs left in the kitchen. He didn’t notice. He seemed distracted as if he was thinking about what was going to happen instead of what was happening now. She never understood why guys idealized sex before it happened but discounted the woman after it happened. It seemed like he was working on a scientific formula in his head, considering all the variables and outcomes. She stepped up behind him after she recovered her senses and placed her hand on his broad shoulder.

She gently led him into the living room with its two comfortable couches. She’d worked hard not to come on too strong yet. She wanted this to last. She wished she could bottle this feeling and save it whenever she was down. If it could last all night it still wouldn’t be long enough. She didn’t want tonight’s adventure to end up like Billy, the teenager. Abrupt and awkward. She’d liked the way his fresh young skin felt under her hands and how he looked as he quivered. Somehow she didn’t get the sense that this guy would quiver much. She saw him more as a strutting, football-star type. He’d think that no matter what he did, women loved it. He was probably right. Holly was already thrilled at the idea of him inside her.

She smiled as she thought about the first time she’d brought someone to the old abandoned house. Had it only been two years ago? It seemed as if she’d been doing it for a lifetime. That guy was a little older, maybe
thirty-eight, and it hadn’t been that much fun. He was drunk and sluggish and tended to doze off. He didn’t appreciate her natural ability. He never realized she was playing a role. That time she was the dull-witted barista who turned into a sexual tiger. But the drunken idiot didn’t catch the subtleties and change of personality. He’d been damn near catatonic through the rest of the night. She had high hopes for tonight

John Stallings secretly enjoyed pissing off any of the detectives from Internal Affairs–most cops did. The hell of it was that IA really didn’t go after cops all the time; they cleared them of allegations too. It was just a deep-seated, almost police-DNA-level distrust that kept Stallings taking the extra steps to annoy some of the investigators in the unit.

These prima donnas were used to fairly steady hours, usually dayshift Monday through Friday. That’s why tonight, at ten, he had called the emergency contact for IA to get one of them down to the office to let him look through some personnel files. During the day, Stallings would have had to deal with some sour, civilian personnel manager, but now, after hours, a sworn IA investigator had to come down to the PMB and let him have access to the records. Stallings had certified it was an emergency over the phone and now waited just outside the personnel office to see which IA detective had gotten the call at home.