Her Broken Wings by D.K. Hood
Four
He’d forgotten how cold it was in Montana in October. Not that he minded. The icy chill seeping through his clothes only heightened his awareness. He loved the dark. The long shadows and black trees surrounding him added to his excitement. Wind gusts whistled through the pines and stirred up the fall leaves in great plumes of dust. The noise covered his progress back through the woods as he moved closer to the house. He wanted to be inside to watch the mystery unfold. The woman’s sobbing screams still echoed in his ears and he wished the exquisite sound hadn’t stopped. It was like the sweetest music and had tempered the missing part of his latest kill. He’d missed the begging and pleading he usually encountered the moment they knew they were going to die. Shooting a sleeping man had hardly whet his appetite but this was Black Rock Falls, and he owed it to the people of this fine county, the very best in murder and mayhem.
As he crouched behind a patch of dead undergrowth, it was as if the building had turned into a dollhouse, all lit up inside. The deputy who’d arrived first had turned on every light, giving him a grandstand view of the rooms facing the woods. In fact, he could see right down the hallway and into the kitchen. The wide staircase and the wall smeared with blood intrigued him. What had happened after he’d left? Had the wife rolled in her husband’s remains before she ran screaming into the night? He stared at the wide-open door and wondered why the young deputy hadn’t pulled the drapes. If he’d been inclined, he could easily shoot him through any of the windows at close range. For anyone inside the house looking out, the pitch darkness surrounding him would offer him maximum cover until it was too late.
He smothered a chuckle. The sheriff would arrive soon and he’d witness her expert crime-solving skills first-hand. He’d heard so much about her. In fact, she’d become almost a cult figure among men like him. Yeah, he had friends—no names, of course. In chat rooms buried so deep in the web nobody could find them, Sheriff Jenna Alton was a frequent topic of conversation, and outsmarting her was a fantasy for some. She’d become a challenge, and many creatures of the night, like him, would soon be rising for the bait.