The Spawning

The Spawning

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 2

© copyright by Kaitlyn O’Connor, July 2008

Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright July 2008

ISBN 978-1-60394-144-0

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 3

Chapter One

Vibrations from the bass were already working their way up through the

pavement, penetrating the soles of Detective Miranda ‘Randy’ Hart’s impractical but sexy high-heel sandals and rattling into her system before she had covered three quarters of the distance between her car and the popular nightspot that was her target for the night.

Her heart thrummed in time to the beat, or at least it seemed to, pumping the blood more rapidly through her, producing a heightened awareness of everything around her, a level of excitement that seemed almost equal parts nerves and anticipation. Flicking a practiced ‘casual’ glance at the smattering of other cars parked in the back of the rear parking lot, at the deep shadows created by the lone security light near the building, she wondered a little wryly if the music itself had set off the adrenaline rush or if it was ‘the hunt’.

And, if it
was
‘the hunt’, was it her feminine side anticipating the possibility of finding that perfect man? Or the detective in her hoping to catch a predator?

Ordinarily, there wouldn’t have been any question in her mind. The detective side of herself saw far more action than her feminine side, had risen to dominance long since, suppressing the softer side that she’d been forced to realize was a weakness she couldn’t afford if she wanted to stay alive and relatively sane. It helped that her personal life had only been a series of disappointments that had gradually worn down her optimism to the point that she no longer had any real expectation that there
was
a ‘perfect man’ out there for her.

There was still the sporadic twinge of interest when she saw a man that appealed to her on at least a physical level. Occasionally, she even gave in to the emotional and physical need to find release in a warm, male body, but without expectations, without the starry-eyed little girl dreams she’d indulged at one time that it was, or could be, more than what it appeared—a raw, animalistic coupling to assuage physical needs. About the most that could be expected of that sort of liaison was a few days, weeks, or months of pleasure and aggravation that slowly degenerated until it was more a trial than pleasure of any kind.

The search for a life partner with cool logic produced even worse results because then there wasn’t even passion to hold it together.

There was still hope, though, she realized. Deep down she’d never really given up entirely on the dream that one day, when she least expected it, she was going to walk smack into the one man that did it all for her. The white knight that thrilled her to her core with no more than a look, drove her wild in bed, intrigued her with his intelligence and complex personality. And, at the same time, gave her a sense of unshakable security because integrity was so deeply ingrained in him that trust was a matter of course.

She didn’t really believe that, but she still hoped, and it was that tiny hope that accounted for a little of the excitement thrumming through her because she felt so feminine tonight. She’d indulged herself in an orgy of primping she rarely took the time for. She’d donned a slinky black dress, sexy high-heals, just enough make-up to THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 4

highlight her best features.

Even the pistol tucked in a thigh holster didn’t diminish the glorious sense of femininity she felt as she strolled across the parking lot toward ‘single territory’ where she knew there was at least some possibility that man that was just the right ‘fit’ might be waiting to be found.

She shook the thoughts off as she reached the corner of the building, struggling to suppress the inappropriate sense that she was just a woman seeking a mate. The night was all business and she’d do well to remember that if she wanted to wake up tomorrow with a whole hide.

Her backup was sitting in an unmarked car three rows over. He eyed her

assessingly for so long that amusement flickered through her. She was going to rag him tomorrow about not recognizing her—because she could see he didn’t, could pinpoint the exact moment when it dawned on him.

Mildly annoyed that he hadn’t immediately recognized her as the same woman he

worked with every day, she lifted a hand as if to smooth her hair and shot him a bird. He was glaring at her when she glanced in his direction again.

Prick, she thought, feeling slightly mollified.

Ignoring him, she scanned the main parking lot. The pickings were slim tonight, she thought, feeling vaguely deflated. Of course it was still early, but it wasn’t ‘prime night’ either and wasn’t likely to get terribly busy even if the club
was
one of the most popular in the city.

All business again, she focused on her purpose, grappling with the fresh spurt of adrenaline that flooded her bloodstream as she spied the entrance.

Without a doubt, there was no greater ‘rush’ than knowing she was closing in on quarry—a combination of sheer terror and fierce satisfaction that always arose regardless of the potential for danger. Truthfully, though, she had no sense that she was closing in on her quarry, felt none of the ‘vibes’ she’d learned to expect that told her she was close.

The painful fact was, she was pretty damned sure she wasn’t any closer to

figuring out what was going on than she had been when she’d been given her current assignment. If there was any sense of urgency whatsoever to account for the surge of her heart rate it was the fact that time was against her, and she hadn’t managed to come up with a damned thing, not one lead beyond the club itself, and even that was a long shot.

More than a dozen women—that they knew of—had disappeared in the past two

days and nobody had a clue of why, of whether the same perp or group of perps were responsible, or what, exactly, they meant to do with the young women.

They had their suspicions and it was possible they were right on target, but it had been her experience that the most obvious possibility turned out to be a dead end as often as it was on target and, what was worse, tended to act as blinders if one wasn’t damned careful.

In this case, it was nothing short of a miracle that they’d tumbled to it as quickly as they had. Ordinarily, they probably wouldn’t have even picked up on the case so quickly. People went missing all the time and, in general, when it was an adult, it turned out that they weren’t actually missing at all. They’d just decided on impulse to take off with someone—friends or a new acquaintance—and reappeared a few days or a week later. It was so commonplace, in fact, that they wouldn’t even entertain the possibility that a person actually might be missing until they’d been a no show for at least three THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 5

days.

The police chief’s daughter had been one of the first to disappear, though.

Nobody had quite dared to suggest that, maybe, she’d found a man that appealed to her when she was out ‘clubbing’ and had just decided to take a few days to get to know him a little better. They’d gotten right on it—and discovered in the course of their search that a bare minimum of six other young women had also turned up missing the same night from various nightspots around the city—Carol, Captain Sloan’s daughter, and two of her friends, Lynn Patterson and Joy Freemont had all disappeared together. The captain had found Carol’s abandoned car behind the club she’d told him she intended to visit that evening.

Almost a half dozen others were ‘maybes’—women who’d pulled a similar stunt

before and hadn’t been reported as MIA, yet, because they were still expected to turn up alive and well and tired from their little weekend adventure.

Despite the doubts that had plagued them about the chief’s daughter, that many women going missing all on the same night just didn’t sit right. Especially when not only had not a single one turned up by evening of the following day or even called to touch base with anybody that knew them but nearly a dozen more had vanished the following night.

No bodies had turned up.

Nobody had actually expected that they would—certainly not if the cases were

connected and, oddly enough, they seemed to be. Serial killers, thankfully, didn’t seem to be ‘in’ to wholesale slaughter.

It had to be a white slavery ring. Even Miranda was inclined to accept that a ring must be working the area, despite her tendency to discount the most obvious. Nothing else would explain such a massive disappearance of young—mostly blond—white

females.

No doubt, at least some of the cases weren’t connected at all, but just as surely the majority were.

Although she doubted he would agree, they were damned lucky that the chief’s

daughter had been among the first. Otherwise it could have been weeks, possibly months, before they’d become aware that someone was stalking and taking young women from the city and, by that time, the perps would almost certainly have moved on.

Because the one thing all, or at least most, of them seemed to have in common

was that they were all single women living alone and, in far too many of the cases, they hadn’t had anyone to report them missing. Every one of the women that had vanished had been out clubbing.

Reaching the door to the club at last, Miranda pulled it open and stepped inside.

Instantly, a wall of music crashed over her, the assault so loud it set her eardrums to rattling. She glanced around the small vestibule, noting the woman behind the counter and the two bouncers that stood like matching bookends on either side of the ‘gateway’

to adult land.

Leaning close enough to the bullet proof cage the woman stood behind to hear the woman’s demand for the cover charge fee, Miranda pulled a bill from her purse and passed it through the small slot provided. Wondering if the woman had any idea how ineffectual her ‘safety cage’ was, she moved away from the window as soon as she’d collected her change and stuffed the bills back into her evening purse. One of the THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 6

bouncers held out his left hand in silent demand, a stamp poised in the other.

Miranda flicked an assessing glance over both men as she extended her right hand and waited to be stamped and tagged with the neon wristbands the club used to

differentiate legal from illegal drinkers. Unable to detect even a spark of interest in either man’s eyes, she glanced at her wrist as the one tagging her finished, abruptly feeling a strange sense of uneasiness sweep over her.

She wasn’t a habitual clubber. She was single and she had been the rounds a few times, but it was hard to get away from the fact that the club scene seemed to be more of a route for hook ups than anything else.

Not that she was against an occasional hook up. Sometimes it seemed the best

way to juggle a demanding career and the need for companionship when it couldn’t be ignored anymore, but she rarely even had time to indulge those needs.

Oddly enough, though, she felt a sudden threat in being tagged, despite her

familiarity with the practice.

She wasn’t certain why, but she pondered it as she passed between the bouncers and paused just inside the club proper to allow her eyes to adjust to the cave-like interior.

With little surprise, but a good deal of disappointment since she knew she was early and it wasn’t a ‘peak’ singles night, she saw at a glance that the club was a long way from packed.

There were still an impressive number of barflies hunched around the long bar

and scattered throughout the dim interior.

Wryly, she wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It would certainly make it easier to attract the kind of attention she was looking to draw, but it seemed a little less likely that her quarry would be working the bar when the pickings were not only slimmer, but the chances of attracting attention to themselves was higher.