Have You Seen Her?

Hell, a baboon was smarter than the cops. If he'd waited until the cops had discovered little Lorraine's body on their own, there wouldn't have been enough left of it to identify.

And he wanted little Lorraine's body identified. He wanted everyone to know. To fear.

Fear me. Your daughters aren't safe even in their own beds. Fear me.

He'd wait, he decided. He'd rushed the last one and it was over too fast. Like an amusement park ride you stand in line for two hours to ride and the damn ride only lasts three and a half minutes. He'd gone longer than three and a half minutes with the last one, for sure. But it was still over too fast. He wouldn't make the same mistake again. It had been his only mistake, he thought, rushing the grand finale. Everything else he'd done to perfection. Not a single thread of evidence left behind. No surprise there. He was thinking much more clearly now.

Carefully he sheathed his blade and slipped it under the front seat of his car, popping the trunk latch on his way back to where she lay, eyes still wide with terror.

"C'mon, sugar," he drawled, scooping her up and tossing her over his shoulder. "Let's go for a ride." He dropped her in the trunk with a loud thud, then patted her bare butt fondly. She whimpered and he nodded. "Don't worry, we'll come back tomorrow. Until then, sit tight and entertain yourself. You could think about me," he suggested brightly. "You do know who I am." She shook her newly bald head hard, denying the inevitable, and he laughed. "Oh, come on, Samantha. You have to know who I am. Don't you watch the news?" He leaned a little closer and whispered, "Don't you have a good imagination?"

Her eyes shut tight, she pulled her nude body into a fetal position, shaking like a leaf. Two tears seeped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

He nodded again and slammed down the trunk. "Good girl. I guess you do."

Chapter Three

Friday, September 30, 12:30 P.M.

Twenty-seven down, three to go. And Brad Thatcher's would be one of the three.

You're a coward, Je

You're a coward and a procrastinator, she told herself, then sighed quietly. She looked across the scarred old table that dominated the faculty lounge, a wall of haphazardly stacked folders meeting her eye. Casey Ryan was back there somewhere, behind the folders, busily grading the junior English class's thoughtful analyses of Dostoyevsky. Je

Get to work, Jen. Stop procrastinating and grade Brad's test. She picked up her red pen, stared hard at the purple folder, thought about Brad Thatcher and the test he'd more than likely failed, then desperately looked around for anything else to do. The only other occupant of the faculty lounge was Lucas Bondioli, guidance counselor by day, pro golfer in his dreams. Lucas was intensely focused on sinking a putt into an overturned plastic cup. Lucas tended to become very unhappy when his putting was disturbed so Je

Casey's hand appeared over the top of the leaning stacks of folders and grabbed another theme paper, sending the stack swaying. Standing, Je

"Don't even think about it," Casey snapped, not even looking up from her grading.

"Dammit!" Lucas bit out.

"Just put them back and nobody gets hurt," Casey continued, as if Lucas hadn't spoken.

Je

"It's okay," Lucas responded glumly. "I wasn't going to make it anyway."

"What about me?" Casey demanded from behind the wall of folders.

"I didn't do anything to you," Je

"And you are a procrastinator," Lucas said mildly, sitting down next to Je

Casey's hand appeared to grab another theme. "Why are you procrastinating, Jen? That's not like you."

Lucas slid down in his chair. "Because she doesn't want to grade Brad Thatcher's chemistry test, because she knows he probably failed it, and she knows contacting his father about his sudden personality changes is the right thing to do, but she's scared to call any more parents because Rudy Lutz's father cussed her out on Wednesday"-he drew a deep breath- "for failing Rudy in remedial science and getting him suspended from the football team," he finished. And exhaled.

Je

Lucas gri

Casey's chair scraped against the tile floor and her blond head poked up from behind the paper wall. Five feet tall on her tiptoes, she was only visible from the chin up. "Brad Thatcher failed his chemistry test?" Her brows scrunched, making her look like a profoundly perplexed disembodied elf. "Are we talking about the Brad Thatcher, Wonderboy?"

Je

"Je

So Je

"I didn't think I'd ever put an F on anything Brad Thatcher did," Je

Lucas picked up Brad's test and flipped through the pages, her concern mirrored in his dark eyes. "I don't know, Jen. Sometimes kids have problems with girlfriends. Sometimes their problems are at home. But you're right. 1 never would have expected Brad to change like this."

"You think he's into drugs?" Casey asked soberly, voicing their collective fear.

"We all know it can happen to kids from good homes," Je

Casey came around the table and half sat against the edge closest to Je

Je