DD Warren 00 - The 7th Month

first muffled scream, caught in the latex-covered palm of your hand . . .
    Sound and scent will become snapshots, frozen forever in your mind. A slide show of sensory indulgence, her panting breath, matching the equal racing of your heart, her kicking struggles, the corresponding flex of muscle and power in your own limbs. Her sheer, desperate need to escape. Your own equally compulsive, biological imperative to kill.
    You will feel stronger, hear better, smell sharper, taste finer, and see crisper than ever before. As long as you stay in control. No panic, no frenzy, no mistakes. Ride the ride to her last, gasping, gurgling breath. Killing is about power, but it is also about self-control.
    Mentally prepare for the physiological overload. This is step four.

Chapter 4
    D.D. was out of the director’s chair before she could stop herself. She wasn’t thinking about the fact that she was a very pregnant woman who should probably sit on the sidelines, hands folded primly over rounded middle. Instead, she saw danger and she responded as a cop. Out of her chair, moving across the hard-packed ground, registering the tang of chemical fog upon her tongue, the sound of a genuinely panicked scream in her ears.
    Gun out, hustling her awkward bulk around video village, beyond the glow of the klieg lights and into the dim shadows of the vast cemetery, where she would be out of the killer’s sight, while he would be fully illuminated in hers.
    Perhaps one second had passed, with the blond actress screaming, and camera crew still filming, while others around the set straightened up from texting, talking, loitering, and started to eye the scene uneasily.
    “No, no, no,” the stand-in wailed, hands up, defensively, twisting away from the looming figure.
    “Cut,” the director yelled. “I need to see her face. Again, but this time, turn toward the camera!”
    Except Natalie was now garbling hysterically in some foreign language, while the white-faced man brought the ax down hard, just missing the blonde’s head as he sliced off a chunk of foam tombstone.
    D.D. looped out far right, trying to line up a shot. But a hundred and four crewmen seemed to translate to a hundred and four obstacles. Cameras, lights, dollies, equipment, tombstones . . . Couldn’t get a shot, couldn’t get a shot, couldn’t get a shot.
    “Cut, cut,
cut
!” the director yelled. “Hey, why’s he attacking my tombstone?”
    Natalie was staggering to her feet, hands still over her head as she screamed more words D.D. didn’t understand. The blonde seemed to have recovered slightly. Less hysteria, more rage as she faced off against her attacker.
    Then, a fresh wave of fog rolled over the scene. Natalie disappeared, the white-faced figure along with her.
    To D.D.’s left, charming stand-in Joe Talte suddenly materialized, vaulting over tombstones, hurtling himself straight toward the cloud bank. D.D. mentally calculated his trajectory and put herself on an opposing course, the second arm of the vice, now closing in on the ax man.
    Her gun was useless given the crowd, so she kept it low to her side as she hustled her bulky form around the tombstones, approaching from behind. She was counting on Joe to get to the scene first. If he could get the ax man down, then D.D. could cover him with her weapon.
    A fresh gust of wind. The fog cleared just in time to show Natalie staggering back while her attacker turned and fled toward the rear of the cemetery, Joe in hot pursuit. The ax man ducked behind a large oak tree, dodging left, then appeared again straight in front of D.D.
    Gun up. Acrid taste of fake fog. Damp smell of fresh-turned earth. Shocked expression of one white-faced fleeing man, suddenly confronting a very large, pregnant woman with a flapping black overcoat and rock-steady Glock 9.
    “Halt, Boston Police.”
    “Wh—wh—wh—oomph!”
    Joe Talte had arrived. He leapt through the air, wrapped his arms around the ax man’s shoulders and took him down. Both men fell hard. Joe got up first.
    The stand-in drew his sidearm. At the last second, he seemed to remember it was only a prop. Hastily, he holstered it again, then glanced around to see if anyone had seen him.
    “I got him,” D.D. spoke up, voice loud, authoritative.
    Joe glanced behind for the first time, spotting her. He nodded once, curt acknowledgment, then stood aside, given her official capacity and, better yet, her real handgun.
    She noticed that his breathing had already settled,