Birdy Waterman 01 - The Bone Box

you parked?” she said.
    “Over there,” he said. “I’m Jeremy, by the way. Jeremy Howell.”
    So sure he was about what he was about to do that he didn’t think twice about using his own name.
    Lisa glanced over at the burnished orange Honda Element, a boxy mini-SUV that was destined to be the VW Bus of the new millennium.
    “Fun car,” she said.
    He shrugged, although with crutches under each arm, shrugging was hard to do. “Good for outdoors stuff. If you go hiking and get mud in the car you can literally hose it out.”
    “I guess that’s good. You like to hike?”
    “I do. Sometimes I like to drive out to the middle of nowhere, pull off the road and just find something cool to look at. A lake. A forest. Someplace where no one goes to.”
    “I’m Lisa, by the way. What are you taking?” she asked, moving the heavy back pack to her other shoulder
    “Biology. Pre-med,” he said, though it was a lie. Inside his backpack were the A, B, and C volumes of old, outdated encyclopedias from his mother’s basement recreation room.
    He’s looking even more handsome , she thought.
    When they got to his car, he directed her to the passenger side.
    “Can you put my books there?” Jeremy asked. “Easier to get to later.”
    She nodded and smiled.
    Jeremy pushed the electronic door lock button on his key fob and Lisa swung open the door.
    “Did some other good Samaritan take a nap in here?” she said, setting the backpack on a seat that had been completely reclined to form a bed.
    Jeremy didn’t answer and Lisa turned to look over her shoulder.
    The young man was standing without crutches, framed by a lamp partially blocked by an oak hanging on to the last of its crinkly, brown leaves. Braided shadows crisscrossed his face like a spiderweb. He was holding one of the crutches like a baseball bat.
    “What the—” she started to say, but her words cut were cut short.
    He’d filled the aluminum tube of the crutch with his grandfather’s lead fishing weights, thinking that a little more heft would be helpful when he swung it at his victim’s head.
    Which he did.
    And it was.
    Lisa’s shoulder bag fell into the gutter and her cell phone cartwheeled on the pavement and broke into pieces. The college student offered no final scream. No real sound but the slumping of her body against the doorjamb of the Element. In a moment marked by a blur of swift movements and a gasp of air from the victim’s lungs, Jeremy had her inside.
    He looked at her through the passenger window, satisfied and excited. He fixed the image in his memory like a photograph that he’d retrieve later.
    Lisa Lancaster was so beautiful. Sleeping. Like a doll with a swirl of pretty dark hair and perfect little features. Jeremy owned her right then, and a broad and unexpected smile came to his face. Not fear. Not a thumping heart sequestered behind a rib cage somewhere in his body. None of that.
    At that moment, Jeremy Howell understood something about the power of the hunt that had eluded him as he’d planned and stalked his first kill. The rush. The excitement of doing something few dared to do.
    And doing it better than the father he’d admired, though never known. He climbed behind the wheel and twisted the key in the car’s ignition. He let out a little laugh at the pun that came to him just then.
    He really was in his element. In every way.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Throughout his career, Gregg Olsen has demonstrated an ability to create a detailed narrative that offers readers fascinating insights into the lives of people caught in extraordinary circumstances.
    A New York Times bestselling author, Olsen has written eight nonfiction books and five novels, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child.
    The award-winning author has been a guest on dozens of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, Learning Channel, and Discovery Channel. He has also appeared on Dateline NBC , William Shatner’s Aftermath , Deadly Women on Investigation Discovery, Good Morning America , The Early Show , The Today Show , FOX News; CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 , MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight , CBS 48 Hours , Oxygen’s Snapped , Court TV’s Catherine Crier Live , Inside Edition , Extra , Access Hollywood , and A&E’s Biography .
    In addition to television and radio appearances, he has been featured in Redbook , USA Today , People , Salon magazine, Seattle Times , Los Angeles Times , and