Cooked Goose

Margie, what do you do if you see anything at all suspicious?”
    “Turn around and go back into the store,” she replied, all of her cockiness temporarily on hold. “Ask security to walk me out or call a cop.”
    “Good girl.”
    Margie beamed, and it occurred to Savannah that the girl must not receive a lot of adult praise or validation. No wonder she was such a brat.
    “And once you’re at the car?” Savannah continued.
    “Look in the back floorboard before you even open the door, and make sure that sonofabitch isn’t waiting for you,” said Denise, the previously prim and proper librarian.
    Savannah smiled. “You’re darned right. And once you’re inside the car?”
    “Lock the doors right away,” Margie supplied. “And don’t waste any time getting going.”
    “I think you’ve got it! Use what you’ve learned... not just now but all the time. Be careful and be safe until we meet again. And, in spite of all this, try to enjoy the holidays.”
    As Savannah watched her vigilant students file out to their cars, employing all of her suggestions, she should have felt good. At least, they were better informed, less likely to fall prey to the predator.
    But she didn’t feel good.
    And she wasn’t sure why.
    Tammy walked up to Savannah and slid her arm through hers. “What’s wrong?”
    “Don’t know.”
    Savannah didn’t take her eyes off the lot, watching each woman as, one by one, they got into their cars and pulled away. Finally, the last one drove off, leaving only half-a-dozen empty cars in the lot.
    “I’ve just got a creepy feeling,” she said, searching the shadows.
    “How creepy?”
    “Very.”
    “Maybe it’s nothing.”
    “Maybe.”
    She walked Tammy to her car, and Tammy waited until Savannah was inside her Camaro before the two women drove away from the lot together.
    “Maybe Tammy’s right; maybe it’s nothing,” Savannah whispered to the empty darkness around her as she headed home.
    But inside, deep in her psyche, where Savannah stored things like feminine intuition and gut-level instincts, she knew damned well... it wasn’t nothing. It was something. She just didn’t know what or who.

    He had been sitting in one of the “empty” cars in the library parking lot, watching the women exit the building. Slouched low in the seat, his window rolled down a crack, he had been able to hear some of what had been said.
    Their comments amused him. Their caution was so misplaced.
    Because he had changed his m.o.
    So what if the average criminal followed the same pattern, crime after crime, until he was caught? He wasn’t your average criminal. Not by a long shot.
    He was smart—at least in his own, not-particularly-humble opinion. He was flexible. He knew when it was time to shift some things around. No problem.
    The end result would be the same. He’d still wind up in an orange grove with the woman of his choice. And then... party, party!
    This time he had chosen a bit more carefully. He watched his quarry as she stood and chatted with the others, unaware that he was watching, unaware of the role he would play in her life very soon.
    Yes, this time he intended to do a number of things differently.
    He would study his victim more thoroughly. He would stalk her a little longer, savoring the hunt. And when the time came, he would fulfill some of his darkest fantasies, dreams that, until now, had only been in his mind. But he would bring them into reality. Live every moment in the flesh.
    This time, he was going to rape her, beat her, hurt her, as he had before.
    But this time, she was going to die. The ultimate fantasy fulfilled.
    “You’ve got twenty-four hours,” he whispered, as he watched her drive away, out of sight, but only for the moment. He didn’t care where she was going now; he knew exactly where to find her when he wanted her. This time he had really done his homework.
    “That’s right, baby, twenty-four hours...” he repeated, then added, “...more or less.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

    December 12 — 7:04 pm.

    C harlene Yardley had drifted off to sleep long ago, but Savannah continued to sit in the chair beside her hospital bed, reading from the worn fairy-tale book she had brought from home. Although Savannah’s own mother had spent more evenings carousing in honky-tonks than reading to her children, Savannah had gone to sleep many nights with the sound of her Granny Reid’s gentle voice in her ears.
    Although child psychiatrists might have objected to