One was taken from the right, one from the left. Vivid color shots of her ghastly frozen features, the black and green fabric around her neck. Clear in the photos were the surroundings. A bed, a cheap wooden headboard, walls and furniture.

Kaitlan's bedroom, no doubt.

OBSESSION

CHAPTER forty-two

You think you have problems? Your issues are nothing.

After that second kill my life plummeted. Or did it soar? I couldn't tell. One minute I'd feel free as I'd ever been. The next I'd be eating dust.

The killing itself was the soaring part. The rightness of it. The seductive call of the fabric, the way it felt in my hands. Its power to take life-just like that. A living, breathing human choked to a deserving, sudden end.

Then out of nowhere fear would drive me to my knees. Utter chest-constricting fear of getting caught. It would descend at the most unexpected of times. When I was at work. Watching television. Taking a shower. On the phone. The thought of friends, family, society at large knowing what I had become petrified me. They would never understand. They would hate me, judge me.

Punish me.

I can't can't go to jail. Not me. That happens to other people. Criminals. People not so smart. go to jail. Not me. That happens to other people. Criminals. People not so smart.

When the panic is at its worst my brain swells like a rushing river. Visions of being apprehended roil and plunge, dragging me under. The worst thought is of being separated from my black silk fabric with green stripes. From its touch and smell. Its comfort.

I'd be undone. Purposeless.

In those horrific moments I tell myself I won't kill again. I've succeeded undetected so far. Why push it?

But deep inside I don't believe my own words. Because even then the fabric calls to me.

The very same night of that second killing I cut another strip of cloth.

Sliding it through my fingers, I remembered the knowledge that had surfaced within me. That I would soon pursue death, not wait for it.

When you first ingest something sweet you get the full effect of the sugar. But sip perfectly sugared coffee, then follow it with candy. The next drink of coffee will no longer taste sweet enough. We humans always want more.

Where did our craving come from? Why are we never satisfied? Why couldn't I, of all people, be content, h.o.a.rding the incredible gift of life the fabric had given me?

Three weeks after that killing I found my next target.

I was reading the paper at the breakfast table, a piece of toast in my hand. My eyes grazed the woman's name in some small article-one I would have ignored. The letters leapt off the page.

The fabric in my car's glove compartment switched on. Waves of heat radiated through the car window, into my kitchen. Caressed the back of my neck.

I stared at the name. Why this one?

That day at work I heard the name again. Gossip. Talk around town of the woman's lurid past-one she denied. An abandoned baby. Three abortions.

And she claimed to want to serve the city.

I had little time. The cloth lulled me, sang to me. Then foreswore all pretense and downright demanded me. I would either break in two or answer its siren song.

Through diligence I learned where the woman worked. Her habits. I planned what must be done -detailed, schemed, clever plans that demanded forethought.

And I struck.

As soon as the deed was done, blessed relief descended once more.

The feeling was short-lived.

It wasn't my fault. Sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry.

I have entered new waters, far deeper than I ever intended. They are dangerous and icy, and will demand of me actions I hadn't expected to take.

But take them I will. Desperation drives the best of us.

Before I knew it a new strip of fabric was cut. Strange, but I don't remember doing it. The hours were too full of anxieties and details.

Something else. I am no longer two people in my mind. The days of barely remembering the killings-gone. I now tread the center divide, blessedly aware of Who I Am and ever so cautiously hiding it from the world.

The cost of being chosen.

I wear the fabric on my body, carefully folded, tucked into a pants pocket. There it clings to me like sucking tentacles.

This is my salvation. I can no longer function apart from it.

Death-at my fingertips.

CHAPTER forty-three

"Help me, G.o.d." Slumped on the couch, Kaitlan whispered the words toward the library ceiling. She had to believe they'd rise up to heaven. G.o.d had listened before. He could save her again.

Visions of Kaitlan's old life reignited in her head. Stretched out on a ratty floor, coming down from cocaine in a room full of traitorous friends. Turn her back and they'd steal from her, lie to her. Anything for their own fix. She would have done the same.

With G.o.d's help, she'd overcome all that.

Despite her prayer, defeat sucked up the air around Kaitlan in a noxious cloud. Hadn't the three of them been here hours earlier in the very same positions? Scheming how to outwit Craig? Lot of good that had done.

This is real, not a novel, she'd told her grandfather. Yeah. And in real life, even with with prayer, the good guys didn't always win. prayer, the good guys didn't always win.

"Sit up and listen to me, Kaitlan." Sternness edged her grandfather's voice.

"But he has pictures of her. Dead-in my bedroom! Now that I've disappeared he'll use them against me."

"I doubt he wants to do that. They're evidence of the murder he's trying to hide."

"Great, they're just back-ups-in case he doesn't kill me first." Kaitlan covered her eyes with both hands.

"Listen to me, girl, those photos are a point for our side. That was a major misstep for Craig."

"You said you had a plan, D." The hope in Margaret's tone sounded forced.

"I do. Kaitlan, sit up."

She rubbed her forehead and dragged herself up straighter. Whatever her grandfather said, it wouldn't work. Every corner they turned, Craig was already ahead of them.

Darell Brooke perched in his chair, legs spread, cane planted between them. Shocks of white hair stuck this way and that, straggly brows hanging in his eyes. His gaze gleamed like some wild and weary Einstein.

"I am catching Craig Barlow tomorrow," he announced. Glancing at the clock, he drew his mouth in. "Make that today."

It was after midnight. Kaitlan sighed. So much terror and no sleep.

Her grandfather pointed at her. "You won't go to work. In fact you will not leave this house until he's caught."

That would be a nice thought.

She lifted a hand. "We have no evidence to catch him, even with these pictures. They only point to me."

"Not true about the pictures, and evidence exists." Her grandfather shrugged. "The police just haven't found it yet. More likely, the chief knows and is doing everything to point away from it. Craig bought the fabric. That transaction can be traced. Likely he still has the cloth in his house. Now he's taken photos. He may well have taken pictures of the other victims too. They would be his trophies. Perhaps fibers have been found on the victims that will match the carpet in the make and model of his car. Maybe a hair."

"What if he's gotten rid of everything?" Margaret rubbed her knee in small, nervous circles.

"Doubtful. But even if he tried, down to erasing the pictures from his memory card, a skilled technician could recover them. I'll bet Craig doesn't know that. The digital card is like a computer hard drive that's been erased. Old photos can still be found."

"So what do we do tomorrow?" Kaitlan asked.

Her grandfather eyed her with the satisfaction of a cat conning a mouse from its hole. "The King of Suspense is about to make one local fan's day."

The meaningless words floated down inside Kaitlan, weightless as feathers. But they reached bottom with the thud of stone. Understanding puffed up like dust. "You're going to call Craig?"

"More than that. I'm going to invite him to the house."

Margaret gasped.

Kaitlan's lips parted. "No way!"

"You got a better idea?"

"No, but-"

"Then I suggest you listen to what I have to say."

"You can't." Kaitlan shoved forward on the couch. "It's dangerous!What if it doesn't work? What if he gets here and realizes he's been set up-"

"It'll work."

"But the minute he sees me ..."

"He's not going to see you. Or Margaret. He won't know anyone else is in the house. It'll just be him and me."

Kaitlan stared at her grandfather. Determination and stubbornness hardened his features. She knew the look all too well. No matter her arguments, he would not be stopped.

But he had no idea what he was getting into.

She folded her arms. "You cannot cannot be alone with him. I'll go back to my apartment and meet him myself before I let you do that." be alone with him. I'll go back to my apartment and meet him myself before I let you do that."

"You can't!" Margaret cried.

"No, you won't." The sereneness in her grandfather's expression astounded her.

In that instant his soul shimmered, then blazed before her, as if the sun itself chased away its shadows. Kaitlan went weak.

He knew exactly what he was doing. He understood the danger. And that was a chance he was willing to take.

For her her.

Part 3

Deception

CHAPTER forty-four