Eyes of the Predator (36 page)

Looking over at the girl turned
from him, and huddled as far away as possible, he marveled that she sensed how
to prolong what little was left of her short life. He had thought, momentarily,
to squeeze it from her when they had taken their pit stop earlier. Normally, he
would have and left the fragile shell of her body in the pinewoods for the
loggers to find or the raccoons, or both. But her feeble effort at resistance
had caused him to pause and think of the pleasure it would bring to break her
shell of resistance away piece by piece and watch it fall as her fear rose. The
girl the night before had been good, but this one would be extraordinary. He
would savor her in every way.

Reaching out his hand, Lylee felt
the muscles in her thigh tense. The grin plastered itself across his face.

Although she saw only her own dim
reflection in the window glass of the passenger door,  Lyn knew that the
sick grin was there. She fought to control the quivering muscles in her leg.

The miles riding in the dark had
been numbing. She was aware that they had left the interstate, although she had
no idea in what direction they were traveling. The car had passed through some
small towns and around one larger one, and then they had entered a world that
was black on the other side of the window. The light from a farmhouse or
country store would flicker by occasionally, and then the darkness would wrap
itself around the car again.

She was relieved that he had not
touched her or spoken to her since leaving the convenience store in Columbia. In
the silence, she had drifted away. She did not know where she had drifted to,
just somewhere away from here. Away from the car, away from her father, away
from Pickham. Somewhere away, that was all. It was dark there and quiet. There
was no sensation and no awareness. Maybe she had slept. She didn’t know. But as
she fought back the revulsion at his touch, she tried to force herself back to
that someplace, away.

The door clattered open again and
Clay looked up from his chair to the newcomer entering the room. Thickly built
but lean, he appeared to be in his early forties. He wore a short jacket,
jeans, and boots. He looked like a tradesman or trucker. There was a vague
familiarity about him that Clay could not quite place.

Trooper Collins looked up
curiously and the newcomer spoke.

“George Mackey, deputy from down
in Pickham County. Supposed to meet Shaklee and Price here.”

“Oh. Right. First door to the
right down that hall,” Collins said, motioning with his head towards the door
that Sharon Price had entered a few minutes before.

George looked down and exchanged
a mutually curious glance with Clay as he walked by. He noted that the look
from the young man was not nervous or anxious.

As the door closed behind,
Shaklee and Price looked up from the table.

“Glad you could make it, George,”
Shaklee said with a slight smile.

“Got here as quick as I could.”
He looked at Price, knowing that she would have been the one to do the initial
interview. “So what do you think?”

“I think he’s telling the truth,”
Price replied with a shrug. “Held out his hand and shook. Hand was dry and the
grip was normal. Gentle like most men shake hands with a girl. But not
nervous.”

“That it?”

“No. He is anxious about the
girl. Met her earlier in the day and offered her a ride, but she was
hitchhiking, so they dropped her at the AcrossAmerica Truck Stop outside
Savannah. Not sure if they have a relationship, but there’s something there.”

For the next several minutes,
Sharon Price recounted Clay’s story of the day, including the voice mail and
the information Clay had obtained at the truck stop.

Playing the voice mail for them,
she was stunned by a look that could only be described as pain that played
across George Mackey’s thick face. After replaying the voice mail for them
three times, she flipped the phone shut.

Shaklee and Price watched George
closely as he struggled visibly to compose himself.

Finally, Sharon Price spoke. “You
okay, George?”

“Yeah. I’m okay,” the deputy
managed softly. “Just didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect to hear that voice.
She sounded young. She could have been the girl…”

“She wasn’t, George,” Price
interjected abruptly. “That was not the girl found in the weeds on Ridley Road.
You understand that, right?”

“Yeah, I know. But maybe if I had
done something last night she wouldn’t be…”

“There are no maybe’s, George.
You know that.” Bob Shaklee leaned forward and looked in the deputy’s eyes. “No
maybe’s. Understand. What matters is now, what happens now. We need you on this
case with us and you need to get past whatever baggage you are carrying around.
Push it down, George. You want to help her? Then focus!”

The sharpness of Shaklee’s words
had a sobering effect and caused George visibly to square his shoulders.

“You’re right.” And the deep
breath he took seemed to clear away the guilt, at least for the moment. “So
what now? The boy isn’t involved, so where do we go from here?”

They sat quietly, each staring at
the table thinking until Bob Shaklee spoke.

“All right. We have a bit more in
the way of a description of the perp. And we know that he has another possible
victim with him.”

Mackey and Price both started to
speak, but Price was first.

 “Not a possible victim,
Bob. That girl will be the next victim, if she isn’t already. You know it as
well as we do.”

“Okay, right, he has another
definite victim.” He thought for a moment before continuing. “So what will he
do? How long do we have before he kills the girl? Where will he go?”

There was silence again for
several seconds as they considered those three important questions. This time
George spoke first.

“I think she is probably still
alive…for now.”

“Why is that, George?” Price
asked.

“Well, I’m not sure he intended
to kill the old man, Mr. Sims. He had the girl with him, and Sims just happened
to come along. He enjoyed it, killing him. Took pleasure in making it as
painful as possible, but it was a fluke, a chance thing. He was there in the
dark at the church with the girl to do to her whatever it was he was going to
do.”

“Right. So…?”

“Well, then he takes her to the
StarLite and during the night, he does kill her.”

“We know all of this, George.
What are you getting at?” Shaklee said trying to urge him on and hoping he
would hurry.

George sensed the impatience and
looked up. “Let me walk this through my head as we go here, Bob.” He looked
towards the dark window, took a breath, and continued. “So he leaves the
StarLite, and now he is leaving two bodies behind in Pickham County. That would
concern him. Any animal will try to avoid danger, and that’s what he did. We
know he headed north on the interstate, putting distance quickly between him
and Pickham County. But then he got sidetracked…”

George paused to think through
this part of the scenario. Price picked up the thread and spoke.

“So he stops at the truck stop,
fuels up, gets into a fight with a trucker…”

“Over the girl,” George added.
“He fought over the girl…his girl. He saw her there, and she became his. His
prey.”

“Okay. He gets into a fight over
the girl and then leaves with the girl,” Shaklee interjected. “Seems a little
rash doesn’t it? Considering what he had done just a few hours earlier?”

“He’s arrogant. Confident and
thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us,” Price contributed to the picture they
were sketching.

George nodded slowly and then continued,
speaking deliberately as if he were explaining the puzzle to himself. “Yes, and
something else. He’s got the taste.” The others looked at him questioningly and
he continued, “The taste of the kill. Like a cougar that leaves the swamp and
kills one dog in the backyard, and then kills the others just because he has
the taste and they are there, and he is pumped up on the rush of the kill. He
can’t control himself. He needs it. Yes, he is arrogant and confident, but most
of all he needs it. The taste of the kill.”

They sat contemplating this for a
moment before Shaklee spoke.

“So, this other girl, Lyn, is
probably dead. That what you are thinking, George?”

George shook his head. “No. Not
yet. He has her. That keeps the rush and the hunt alive for him, but he knows
he can’t expect to leave a third body this close and get away. I think he wants
to put some distance between us and him,” George said with certainty, and then
added a little less certainly, “And the girl is with him until he feels safe
enough to dump another body.”

Price spoke up with urgency.
“Okay, so the girl is alive with this asshole. How do we find her? We do not
have a lot of time.”

“Well, he’s trying to put
distance between himself and Pickham County. That means north or west, and the fastest
way is on the interstate.”

“Right, north or west,” George
agreed. “And I think he will get off of the interstate when he can.”

“Why?” Price asked.

“I don’t know really.” George
shrugged. “It’s what I would do. More options if I have to run. Small towns,
country roads, dirt lanes. Not as confined as the lanes of the interstate
heading in one direction. Just seems like what I would do if I had to get
away.”

“Okay,” Shaklee spoke, summing
up. “The asshole is trying to put some distance between himself and us. He is
probably heading north or west. We don’t know which direction, however. And he
probably still has his latest victim, the girl named Lyn, with him, but there
is no telling how long she will be alive. That about it?”

Price and Mackey nodded their
agreement with Shaklee’s summation.

“Okay. I propose that we split up
and position ourselves in the general direction of his probable routes of
escape. We may not be close, but we’ll be closer than we are now. And if we
catch a break, we can be on him a lot quicker than just sitting here.”

The others nodded agreement.

All right. I’ll go west along
I-20 and hold up at the Alabama line. Sharon, you and George head north.” He
turned towards George. “Any particular route you want to take since you think
he might be off of the interstate system?”

George stood up and crossed the
room to a map of Georgia and surrounding states covering one wall. He traced
his finger along the map for a minute and poked it.

“Right about here, I’d say.”

Price walked over to the map
peering at the highway and area where George’s finger lay. He had traced a
route north along U.S. 80 and the adjoining state highways leading from
Statesboro and then into the network of interstates and country roads spread
across northeast Georgia and the South Carolina state line. His finger came to
rest at Toccoa, not too far west of I-85 before it crossed from Georgia into
South Carolina.

“Looks about right to me,” Price
agreed.

“Good,” Shaklee said. “We have a
plan…sort of.”

“We have a plan,” Price said.
“What we need now is a break. We need some trooper or deputy to get lucky and
spot the car.”

“A break is definitely what we
need and what the girl needs.” Bob looked at the others before continuing. “We
can only stay on the hunt for another day or so unless we catch that break and
someone spots him. After that, the trail will be too cold, and the girl…” He
stopped in midsentence, not wanting to say what they all knew. “Well after
that, we will have to assume that we will probably not be able to save the girl
and will have to get back to following up on all of the leads we have. Go to
Texas. Check sex offender files. Cases in adjacent states. All the usual paths
of investigation. It won’t be a hunt and rescue anymore, just plain slogging
investigative work.” He stopped speaking and looked at the others to make sure
they understood his meaning. They had another day to save the girl, no more.

Sharon Price nodded solemnly in
understanding as she offered a silent prayer for that break.

George was quiet. The hunter in
him knew that patience was far more important than luck in bringing down big
game, and this was the biggest game there was. A beast in the form of a man. He
pushed the memory of the girl’s voice deep down inside. He had to have control.
Patience. It was likely they would only get one chance to save the girl, if
that.

Clay looked up from his seat when
the big deputy and two GBI agents walked from the office. They crossed the room
to the front door with purpose and Clay started to rise. The female agent,
Price, stopped and faced him.

“I want to thank you for your
help, Clay,” she said with the patient smile of someone with something else to
do. “Trooper Collins there will give you a receipt for your phone. Not sure
when you can have it back, but we’ll do our best to get it to you.” She paused
clearly not knowing what else to say but knowing what he wanted to hear. “I
have to be honest with you; we don’t know what is going to happen. You know
this isn’t good.”

Clay nodded.

“Well, we have every trooper and
deputy in the state looking for her, for Lyn. You know I won’t lie to you and
promise anything. You know I can’t do that.”

He could only nod again.

“Well then…” she paused not
knowing what else to say to the young man, but wishing there was something she
could
say, something positive.

“You did good, son.” George
Mackey spoke up in his slow, south Georgia drawl. “You’re from down in Pickham
aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well near as I can tell, this
girl is lucky she ran into you.”