Split Second

From the first time Maggie met Gwen, she had admired the woman’s vibrancy, her keen intellect and her dry sense of humor. Gwen refused to think inside the box and didn’t hesitate to break any of the rules while still appearing to be respectful of authority. Maggie had seen her win over diplomats as well as criminals with her sophisticated but charming ma

The doorbell chimed again, and Maggie’s hand reached back and grabbed her revolver before she could stop herself. She glanced up the stairs to see if Gwen had witnessed her knee-jerk reaction. She smoothed her shirttail over her jeans and checked the portico from the side window before she disarmed the alarm system. She stopped and looked out the peephole, examining the fish-eye view of the street, then she opened the door.

“Large pizza for O’Dell.” The young girl handed Maggie the warm box. Already she could smell the Romano cheese and Italian sausage.

“It smells wonderful.”

The girl gri

“It comes to $18.59, please.”

Maggie handed her a twenty and a five. “Keep the change.”

“Gee, thanks.”

The girl bounced down the circular drive, her blond ponytail waving out the back of her blue baseball cap.

Maggie set the pizza down in the middle of the living room. She returned to the door to reset the security system just as Gwen came rushing down the steps.

“Maggie, what the hell happened?” she asked, holding up the dripping T-shirt, splattered with blood.

“What is this? Did you hurt yourself?” Gwen demanded.

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, oh that. What the hell happened?”

Maggie quickly cupped a hand under the dripping T-shirt and grabbed it away, racing up the stairs to drop it back into the sink. She drained the red, murky water, tossed in more detergent and ran fresh water over the fabric. When she looked up in the mirror, Gwen was standing behind her, watching.

“If you’re hurt, please don’t try to take care of it yourself,” Gwen said in a soft but stern voice.

Maggie met her friend’s eyes in the mirror and knew that she was referring to the cut Albert Stucky had sliced into her abdomen. Maggie had slipped away into the night, after all the commotion had ended, and tried to discreetly dress her own wound. But an infection had landed her in the emergency room a few days later.

“It’s nothing, Gwen. My neighbor’s dog was injured. I helped take it to the vet. This is the dog’s blood. Not mine.”

“You’re kidding.” It took a minute for relief to wash over Gwen’s face. “Jesus, Maggie, you just can’t keep your nose out of anything that involves blood, can you?”

Maggie smiled. “I’ll tell you about it later. We need to eat, because I am starving.”

“That’s new and different.”

Maggie grabbed a towel, wiped her hands and led the way back downstairs.

“You know,” Gwen said from behind her, “you need to put on some weight. Do you ever eat regular meals anymore?”

“I hope this isn’t going to be a lecture on nutrition.”

She heard Gwen sigh, but knew she wouldn’t push it. They went into the kitchen, and Maggie pulled out paper plates and napkins from a carton on the counter. Each grabbed a cold bottle of beer and returned to the living-room floor. Already Gwen had kicked out of her expensive black pumps and thrown her suit jacket over the arm of the recliner. Maggie scooped up pizza as she noticed Gwen examining the open carton next to the rolltop desk.

“This is Stucky’s, isn’t it?”

“Are you going to rat me out to Cu

“Of course not. You know me better than that. But I am concerned about you obsessing over him.”

“I’m not obsessing.”

“Really? Then what would you call it?”

Maggie took a bite of pizza. She didn’t want to think about Stucky, or her appetite would be ruined again. Yet that was one of the reasons Gwen was here.

“I simply want him caught,” Maggie finally said. She could feel Gwen’s eyes examining her, looking for signs, watching for underlying tones. Maggie hated it when her friend tried psychoanalyzing her, but she knew it was a simple instinct with Gwen.

“And only you can catch him? Is that it?”

“I know him best.”

Gwen stared at her a few more moments then picked up her bottle by its neck and twisted off the cap. She took a sip and put the drink aside.

“I did some checking.” She reached for a slice of pizza, and Maggie tried not to show her eagerness. She had asked Gwen to use her co

Gwen took her time chewing. Another sip while Maggie waited. She wondered if Gwen had called Cu

“And?” She couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Cu

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because he has nothing, Maggie. It’s been, what? Over five months? There’s no sign of Albert Stucky. It’s like he’s fallen off the face of the earth.”

“I know. I’ve been checking VICAP almost weekly.” Initiated by the FBI, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program recorded violent crimes across the country, categorizing them by distinguishing features. Nothing close to Stucky’s M.O. had shown up. “What about in Europe? Stucky has enough money stashed. He could go anywhere.”

“I checked my sources at Interpol.” Gwen paused for another sip. “There’s been nothing that looks like Stucky.”

“Maybe he’s changed his M.O.”

“Maybe he’s stopped, Maggie. Sometimes serial killers do that. They just stop. No one can explain it, but you know it happens.”

“Not Stucky.”

“Don’t you think he’d be in touch with you? Try to start his sick game all over again? After all, you’re the one who got him thrown in jail. If nothing else, he’d be mad as hell.”

Maggie had been the one who had finally identified the madman the FBI had nicknamed The Collector. Her profile, and a lucky discovery of an almost indistinguishable set of fingerprints—arrogantly and recklessly left behind at a crime scene—were what led to the unveiling of The Collector as a man named Albert Stucky, a self-made millionaire from Massachusetts.

Like most serial killers, Stucky seemed pleased by the exposure, enjoying the attention and wanting to take the credit. When his obsession turned to Maggie, no one was really surprised. But the game that followed was anything but ordinary. A game that included clues to catch him, only the clues came as personal notes with a token finger, a dissected birthmark, and once, a severed nipple slipped into an envelope.

That was about eight or nine months ago. Almost a year had passed and Maggie still struggled to remember what her life had been like before the game. She couldn’t remember sleep without nightmares. She couldn’t remember not feeling the constant need to look over her shoulder. She had nearly lost her life capturing Albert Stucky, and he had escaped before she could remember what feeling safe felt like.

Gwen reached over and pulled a stack of crime scene photos from the box. She laid them out while she continued eating her pizza. She was one of the few people Maggie knew who wasn’t a member of the FBI and who was able to eat and look at crime scene photos at the same time. Without looking up, she said, “You need to let this go, Maggie. He’s chopping away pieces of you, and he isn’t even around.”

The images from the scattered photos stared out at Maggie, just as horrific in black and white as they had been in color. There were close-ups of slashed throats, chewed-off nipples, mutilated vaginas and an assortment of extracted organs. Earlier, with only a glance, she had discovered how many of the reports she still knew by heart. God, that was a