She wasn’t his first kill. In fact, she was his tenth. That meant he needed a cool serial killer name. Something that glorified the man who planned on terrorizing Highland Springs, the Podunk town his birth mother dropped him in and abandoned him when he could barely walk, then reentered his life later on, convinced he would forgive and forget. The cozy town nestled in the Ozarks had never risen to the standards of a man with his intelligence.
He twisted his lips and stared into the wide eyes of the bound and gagged. “What do you think I should be called?”
She squealed in response, the gag preventing any noise of real value. No one would hear her scream. He would silence her forever except for the screams caught in cyberspace for eternity.
Ah, yes. “The Silencer. Thank you.” He patted her cheek too hard to be a love tap and positioned her cell phone into the holder on the tripod. No more would his deeds go unnoticed. From now on, they’d be posted live for all his victim’s family and friends to see. Why should he be the only one to have all the fun?
Once the camera was ready and recording, he pulled on a ski mask, grabbed a knife, and pressed the button on an old-fashioned tape player. The lyrics to the “Mockingbird” song began to play. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”
Sharlene Camenetti pulled her hair back into a ponytail, made sure her badge was straight and headed out the front door. “Going to work now, Candy!”
“Bye, Shar.” Her sister-slash-roommate thrust a piece of buttered toast into her hand. “What have I told you about skipping breakfast?”
“I’m grabbing a bagel at The Brew.” Shar grinned and slapped the screen door so it banged against the house. Her way of saying goodbye and driving her sister nuts. She slid into the driver’s seat and headed for the coffee shop. If she arrived at their tiny police station without bagels and coffee in hand, there would be a mutiny of two—her deputy and her receptionist.
A bell jingled over the door of The Brew. A young woman with purple hair and multiple tattoos glanced up from behind the counter. “Mornin’, Sheriff.”
“Mornin’, Susy. I’ll have the usual. Don’t skimp on the cream cheese.” She placed a twenty-dollar bill on the counter.
The honk of a horn and the sound of breaking glass drew Shar’s attention to the plate-glass window in time to see a truck of teenage boys bat a side-view mirror off a Cadillac. “What the…hold my coffee!” She dashed out the door and thundered down the sidewalk. When the truck stopped at a red light, Shar yanked open the passenger door and dragged the hoodlum out.
“Mason Monroe. Wait until your father hears about this.” Shar pushed him against the side of the rusty Ford. “Bobby, you might as well get out and join us. You don’t even have a driver’s license. You know better than to let someone without a license drive your vehicle, Mason. Whoever is hiding under that blanket in the back had better come on out, too. Don’t make me shoot you.”
“You wouldn’t.” Mason scowled and stomped to the sidewalk as his friends joined him. “That’s police brutality.”
“Maybe I won’t shoot you, but you sure make me want to, and you have no idea what police brutality is.” She crossed her arms and shook her head. “Explain yourselves.”
They all started talking at once.
“Bobby, you’re the driver, you talk.” Shar speared the boy with a sharp glance.
“There’s nothing to do in this Podunk town.” He kicked at a rock in the road.
“So you were bored?” Shar frowned. “This is going to cost your folks a pretty penny because I can see you did this all the way up Main Street. Park that heap of a truck over there and join us at the coffee shop.”
“We get coffee?” Mason straightened up.
“I get coffee. You get put in holding until your parents come and get you. Move it.” She waved them in front of her. “Don’t be stupid and try to run, Bobby Miller. I know where you live, and I’ll be mighty pissed when I come fetch you.”
She made the boys stand against the window while she picked up her purchase, then crammed all five of them into the backseat of her jeep. Not conventional, but safer than what they were causing havoc in.
At the station, she handed the bag of bagels to her receptionist, Amber, shook her head at the way the boys ogled the young woman’s cleavage, then shoved Mason toward holding. “Put your tongue back in your mouth, scamp, and move. Come on, the rest of you, too. There’s a phone for you to call home. If I find one mark of graffiti, I’ll arrest you in addition to getting you in trouble with your mom and dad.”
Shar saw no reason to babysit the boys since the door and windows could only be opened from the outside and was in full view of her office through the large glass windows. She sat at her desk and propped her feet up. She slathered a thick layer of strawberry cream cheese on a plain bagel, toasted the boys with her coffee, and sat back to wait.
By the time she finished her breakfast, Mark Mayfield, her very own Barney Fife, led five pairs of red-faced parents into her office. They all squeezed inside and demanded to know why she was picking on their little angels.
When they’d finished ranting, she informed them of the multiple calls to the reception desk and how she’d witnessed them with her own eyes destroying a mirror on Mrs. Gladstone’s caddy.
Once they’d redirected their anger from Shar to their offspring, Shar stood. “I’m more than happy to release the boys into your capable hands. As long as restitution is made to the owners of the affected vehicles, we’ll let the matter go. No sense in hurting these boys’ chances of getting into a good college.” Not that one of them had a lick of sense in their heads.
Mr. Monroe, high school football coach, bobbed Mason in the back of the head the moment the boy was free. “Six months of yard work! I don’t care if it’s hot or cold. I ought to take you off first-string quarterback and put you on third.” He grabbed his son by the arm and dragged him from the building, the missus trailing behind.
“What a way to start the day.” Mark grinned, his round face beaming. “Don’t you love small town life?”
“Yes, Mark, I do.” Shar moved to the reception desk where Amber was filing her ridiculously long nails. “Any messages?”
She popped a bubble. “Yep. You got those complaints you told the parents about. You sure do know people, Sheriff.”
“It’s my job. What else?”
Her smile faded. “I’m not sure, but a girl from the Dairy Queen said her friend never met her this morning.”
“How long ago was this?”
“She was supposed to meet up with her two hours ago.”
“At six a.m.?” They couldn’t have been up to any good. Mason and his buddies were right. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Highland Springs other than eating ice cream, swimming, and making out. Unless you had a car and money in your pocket. Then you could drive the hour to Eureka Springs. Shar took the information and headed back to her office. “Mark, go speak with the friend while I call the parents.”
As soon as Shar settled behind her desk, she dialed the number on the message. “Mrs. Holston? This is Sheriff Camenetti. A…” she glanced at the message, “Maggie said your daughter, Rachel, was supposed to meet her at six a.m. this morning, but never arrived. Is she home?”
“No, she told us she spent the night with a friend. Harold!” The woman’s shriek rang through the phone.
Shar held the receiver away from her ear while the woman frantically told Harold about Maggie not being where she said she was going to be. Several minutes later, she got back on the phone. “We’re on our way to see you.” Click.
Well, okay. Shar hung up the phone and wrote down the names. When Mark returned, they could compare notes and see whether they had cause for concern. It wouldn’t be the first time an unhappy teen ran away from home and reappeared a few days later hungry and tired.
The clicking of Amber’s heels on the tile, followed by the more muffled sounds of soft-soled shoes, alerted Shar to the fact that the Holstons had arrived. She stood and took a deep breath. These were her people. A couple of the voters responsible for her being sheriff. She could do this. She could satisfy them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Holston, please have a seat.” She waved a hand to the two chairs in front of her desk. “Amber, water please.”
“We’ve tried calling her cell phone,” Mrs. Holston said, “but it goes straight to voice mail.”
“May I have it, please.” She held out her hand for the phone, then pressed a button on her receiver and called Mark. “Step into my office, please.”
He was there in seconds. “Yes?”
“See if you can put a trace on this. If the phone is on, we’ll be able to track it.” She forced a smile. “Did you have an argument last night?” She turned back to the parents.
“No.” The father shook his head. “Rachel was a bit of a free-spirit, stubborn, but we rarely fought. We’d had dinner together the night before.” He raised his red-rimmed eyes to Shar’s. “This is unlike her, Sheriff.”
Shar met his gaze for several minutes. “We’ll find her. I’ll do everything in my power.”
By the end of the day, she was tired, hungry, and wanting nothing more than to sit in front of the television with a glass of wine—make that two—and a bowl of buttered popcorn. Unfortunately, Candy had other ideas.
“You promised you’d go out to dinner with me.” She glared. “What’s the point of living together if we never hang out?”
“Fine.” Shar slammed her bedroom door and changed her clothes.
- Publisher : Winged Publications
- Publication date : December 5, 2017
- Language : English
- Print length : 251 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1946939307
- ISBN-13 : 978-1946939302