Page 17 of The Hunted
Santino moved, abandoning his notes, Bates, and Martin. They were still discussing something that held little importance to him. He needed to get on the scene fast, worried there was a message there for him. If there was, he needed to be the one to find it. He wasn’t ready to be found out, especially not before he figured out who the Reaper was and why he had become their favorite target.
How was I already losing this game if it just started?
ChapterEight
The Reaper mingled in with the crowd of on-lookers since traffic was all but at a standstill. Everyone was out of their cars, trying to get a peek at what the holdup was. It wasn’t every day a dead body was purposely left on the side of the road. Local PD and their K-9 units were canvasing the area to see what else was left behind. They’d be searching for hours if they didn’t know where to look.
The body of an Elisa Myers was mostly intact, but her other body parts had been sent somewhere else with the second half of the note the police had found stapled to her skin. This search for more clues on Elisa Myers’ last moments was doing nothing but holding up people from getting to where they had to go, and it was entertaining watching people argue with each other and the cops. They were going to be even more angry when the FBI showed up, because they would definitely be here longer, though that was when the real show started for the Reaper.
“Where are you?” the Reaper whispered, in between popping gummy bears into their mouth. Surely they would have called this in—“Ahh, there you are.” A black sedan came barreling up the shoulder, lights flashing, and it was barely at a stop before Santino Alvarez was out of the car.
“Ohhh, someone looks pissed off,” the Reaper laughed, taking note of his bunched-up shoulders.
Santino scanned the area around him before addressing the police officer who had come up to meet him. He nodded once and repeated his scan of the area, no doubt looking for them.
“Not yet, Alvarez. When I’m ready, you’ll find me.” The Reaper slipped back into their car, watching him walk up to the sheet they had laying on the floor.
As much as the Reaper wanted an up-close-and-personal view of when Santino found the note stuffed in Elisa Myers’ hand, there was no way of doing that without causing another scene and showing their face. But they could bet it was going to be glorious to watch the look of anger morph into confusion before Santino settled into the killer that he was.
“There’s another gift for you. One is deep in the foliage, and the other is waiting where you least expect it. Come and play, Midnight Strangler. Show the world exactly who you are.”
Santino rushed over to the white sheet, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He could feel someone watching him, not just because people were out of their cars and trying to get a look at the crime scene. No, the Reaper was here, blending in amongst the crowd and probably laughing at him because he was losing their little game. A game that had just been taken up a notch.
“No identification on the body, and the vic is missing her right leg. It was sawed off, our guess, high up on the thigh, and she’s missing a middle finger on the left hand.” The cop rushed to keep up with his long strides.
He’d been given a run-down on the scene, someone had driven by and called in a body on the side of the road. But the voice had been a recording and had been kept short, just like before.
“You said there was a note?” Alvarez asked, wishing everyone would disappear so he could focus and kill the buzzing going on in his head. The gnawing in his gut had grown to an unbearable level, and his need to lash out at anyone was barely being restrained.
“Yes, but it’s not like a poem. It’s just a note.” The officer’s voice shook, and Alvarez wondered if this was the first dead body he’d ever seen.
Better get a stronger stomach, there’s going to be more.
“Show me.” He nodded toward another officer who was standing next to the body.
He bent down, pulling the sheet back with gloved hands, and Alvarez whistled.
The woman’s face was untouched, but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of her. She had been strangled, whether that was before she died or after, he couldn’t tell. She was missing her right leg and her stomach had been carved up like a pumpkin on Halloween. His gaze went to the piece of paper that looked like it had been stapled into her palm.
“This was fun. Maybe you should try it too.
There’s more than meets the eye but you won’t find it here.
It seems she’s run off on one leg with the second part to this game.”
What the hell did that mean? Santino got down on his haunches and looked over the body. There was nothing else here, no other markings that gave him a clue as to whether this was truly meant for him or if someone else out there was trying to mimic what the Reaper had started.
“This was fun. Maybe you should try it too,” he repeated the words on the note, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He wasn’t sure who this woman was, but she wasn’t on his list, at least not yet. Though had he stuck to his old patterns, she would have been the perfect mark for him. He used to have a thing for pretty blondes until it became predicable and the agency he worked for tried to deploy a decoy to trap him.
“Don’t become predictable, mijo. That’s exactly how they’ll trap you. I know it’s instinct to go after what you desire—down to a person’s real hair color—but that’s the quickest way to be caught. You have to be smarter.”
His guardian’s words rang in his skull with a flash of old memories he couldn’t quite make sense of. There had to be a significance to this body and this place if it was the Reaper. “There’s nothing else here?” he asked, standing up to his full height.
He scanned the area again, waiting for something to stand out to him, but all he saw was a sea of nameless faces and foliage. The gnawing in his stomach made him shift on his feet. He felt his pulse in his skull and his body temperature was through the roof even though there was a breeze to keep him cool. He shook out his hands to stop them from trembling. He needed coffee and a new mark quickly.
Mismatched eyes flared in his mind, and he had to fight the impulse to let the image develop into anything. He wasn’t sure which way his mind would go, would it show her death or getting her underneath him? He couldn’t fathom either option right now.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. He tried to shut down his surroundings and focus on the way his pulse beat, the way breath filled his body. He tried to focus on the scents around him and the smell that clung to him, but he couldn’t seem to find his anchor.
