Stalked by Brian Freeman

Author:Brian Freeman [Freeman, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

blob of light was obviously the camera flash

firing, but he could also make out something

else, which looked like brown spots and

wavy dark lines.

"What's that?" Stride asked.

Craig looked closer. "I'm not sure."

"I think it's wood."

"Too smooth for that."

"Wood paneling, I mean. Cheap stuff." Stride

looked around the apartment. There was no

wood paneling anywhere. He checked the

bedroom and the bathroom and didn't find

any panels there that matched the photo.

"Do you put wood paneling inside your

vans?" he asked.

Craig shook his head.

"So where was this taken?" Stride asked, but

he was talking to himself. To the air.

Thinking that wherever the wood paneling

was, Serena was there now. This was Deed's

hidey-hole.

While he was running down a mental list of

places that had fake wood siding, Guppo

called back.

"Tell me you got him," Stride said.

"Yeah, but there's a problem."

"What?"

"The match is perfect," Guppo told him.

"He's got records in Arizona, Texas, and

Alabama. Drugs, murder, extortion, and two

rape charges that were dropped when the

women got cold feet."

"Sounds like our guy," Stride said. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is, he's dead."

"Say what?"

"The Alabama authorities claim he's dead.

He was a witness in a narcotics trial, and

two officers were escorting him back to the

state CF in Holman. They ran square into a

hurricane, and all three died."

"Did you say a hurricane?" Stride asked,

hoping that Guppo had made a mistake and

knowing that he hadn't.

"Yeah."

The dread he was feeling mutated and

multiplied. Stride knew where this was

going. He was there when Serena got the

call last fall from the Alabama police and

remembered the look of relief on her face.

She felt liberated. Free.

"They found the two cops," Guppo said. "The car, too, which was a wreck. No sign of foul

play, though. They figured the prisoner

washed out to sea."

That was the logical conclusion, and it was

wrong. He didn't wash out to sea. He

escaped and headed north like a laser beam.

Stride remembered how Serena described

the dead man who had tortured her past.

Brilliant, ruthless, charming, scheming.

Exactly the kind of spider who would love to

play games with his prey and then eat them.

A drug dealer. A blackmailer. A rapist. A

killer.

"What was his name?" Stride asked, but he

already knew.

"Take your pick," Guppo told him. "William Deed, alias Billy Deed, alias B. D. Henry,

alias Billy 'Dog' Ketcher, alias Blue Dog."

51

She was wrong. Terribly wrong. It wasn't

Tommy Luck standing over her. It wasn't

anyone from her days in Las Vegas at all.

This was worse. This was a ghost from years

ago, from her childhood, a ghost straight

from hell.

"You're dead," Serena gasped.

Blue Dog grinned. "Yeah, I'm like the

invisible man. I don't exist."

"The Alabama police called me," she

insisted, although the evidence was in front

of her eyes. "They said you were killed in a

storm."

"You don't know the prison system down

South. They've got so many bodies crammed

into a cell that one less inside is a reason to

celebrate. I'm sure they figured the storm

did them a favor."

Serena was flooded by memories. Images

she had locked away long ago in a dark

corner of her brain broke free like rats

bolting from their cages. She was in Blue

Dog's apartment in Phoenix again. Fifteen

years old. The summer heat was an inferno,

her skin so chapped it bled when she

scratched it.

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