Vicious. Kevin O'Brien

stood behind a tree in the woods, about thirty feet away, snacking on a Three Musketeers bar.

      He’d given her the flat tire, his way of welcoming her to Cullen—and an ominous start to this weekend he’d planned for her. Susan had no idea he was calling all the shots. He knew Susan would be coming to Cullen before she did.

      And he knew she would die.

      He’d been waiting for Susan and had kept a lookout for her red Toyota—license plate: MLF901. While she’d been in Rosie’s Roadside Sundries, he’d set a small device under her rear left tire. It was a foot-long spiked metal strip—a section cut from a long grid that rental car companies used at their lot exits and entrances to prevent theft. Those spiked strips instantly punctured tires and disabled cars. His smaller, portable version perforated only one tire, but it got the same job done. It just took a bit longer for the tire to deflate.

      In fact, last year, Wendy Matusik had driven at least two miles from the grocery store before all the air left her back tire. He hadn’t gone to any great lengths to hide the perforating device afterward. He’d merely tossed it on the ground by the cellar storage doors on the shady side of Rosie’s. And there it remained for days—much to his amusement—while state police combed the area for clues to Wendy’s disappearance.

      The Wendy episode had been unplanned, a mere impulse. He kept her alive for a few days until he got bored with her. It was the same with that hiker, Monica, who was a bit too mannish for his tastes. After the initial capture, the thrill had worn off pretty quickly. As a kid, when he’d grown tired of a toy, he would smash it with a hammer, and there was always a bit of regret afterward. Except with Wendy and Monica, there were no regrets after he’d slit their throats. Those were departures from the Mama’s Boy killings. All of them had been strangled. And neither Wendy nor Monica had been mothers—not to his knowledge anyway.

      He finished up his candy bar and watched Susan struggle to loosen the tire’s lug nuts. He shoved the Three Musketeers wrapper in his jacket pocket.

      He couldn’t imagine growing tired of Susan. He’d been watching her for weeks now, and she continued to fascinate him. He’d seen her coming and going—sometimes wearing her white nurse’s lab coat—at Dr. Chang’s office. He often parked across the street when she picked up Matthew at Yellowbrick Road Day Care. And sometimes he watched from outside her bedroom window as she climbed into bed alone. She wore a man’s T-shirt to bed. She only wore a nightgown when her fiancé spent the night.

      Of course, he knew her fiancé’s whereabouts most of the time, too.

      But he had become far more interested in studying Susan. He knew the whole layout of her first-floor duplex on Prospect Avenue in Capitol Hill. He’d even broken in once. He’d gotten so close to her, but in her home, he could actually touch her clothes, her shoes, and her panties. He smelled her hair on her pillow—and thought about how he could touch her and smell her as she was tied up. He could do whatever he wanted to her. And maybe after he killed her, he would even taste her blood.

      He’d been looking forward to this weekend for quite some time. He had to be patient. He couldn’t rush it.

      When he’d spotted that teenage girl outside Rosie’s a few minutes ago, he’d thought about going after her, too—just something to tide him over until he had Susan. He’d heard of some guys who masturbated before a big date—to take the edge off. Killing that cute teenage girl before starting in on Susan might serve the same purpose. It was something to think about.

      On the shoulder of Carroll Creek Road, Susan took her young son out of his car seat in the back. “All right, sweetie,” she told him, handing him a wrench. “I need your help with these thingamajigs! I can’t get them unstuck!” Hovering over him, she showed him how to unscrew the lug nuts she’d already loosened. The kid seemed to get a real kick out of helping.

      Watching them, he had to admit, it was pretty damn cute.

      Thirty feet away, Susan stood bent over her son by the rear bumper of the old Toyota. Her brown hair was blowing in the wind. Soon he would be close enough to touch it.

      And soon, before the end of this weekend, her little boy would be an orphan.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “Well, what did this joker look like?” Allen asked. He stood at the gas barbecue on the rental house’s back porch. Moths fluttered around the porch light. Over his navy blue fisherman’s sweater and khakis Allen wore a Hail to the Chef apron they found hanging on a hook in the pantry. He was a tall, ruggedly handsome thirty-eight-year-old. Susan had fallen in love with his thick, wavy salt-and-pepper hair and pale green eyes. He had a scar on his left cheek that looked like a dimple, so it appeared as if Allen were smiling even when he wasn’t. With a pair of tongs, he set four marinated chicken breasts on the grill. That barbecue smell mixed with the crisp, cool night air.

      Susan had Tater Tots and French bread in the oven and a salad in the refrigerator. The kitchen had modern, stainless-steel appliances. She’d been expecting to “rough it” in a squat, rustic, bayside shack. But their rental house was a lovely, comfortable, two-story white wood-veneer house with green shutters. The property was surrounded by trees on three sides—and in the back was this quaint porch. In addition to the barbecue, it had a porch swing and a view of the backyard dock on Skagit Bay. That was where Allen had moored her “surprise,” a beautiful sailboat with an indoor cabin—complete with a small galley, dinette, and V-berth sleeping quarters. He’d rented it from a charter place in town, and tomorrow afternoon, they’d go sailing.

      Mattie was thrilled about it, of course. At the moment, he was in the sunroom, on the other side of the sliding screen door, watching WALL-E on DVD. So much for roughing it, thought Susan, but she wasn’t complaining one bit.

      Susan was wrapped in a russet cardigan sweater. She poured some more pinot noir into Allen’s wineglass, hoping it might take some of the edge off. He seemed far more upset about her Arby’s encounter than she’d been.

      “Actually, this guy seemed perfectly normal,” Susan told him. She spoke in a hushed tone so Mattie wouldn’t hear. “In fact, he was good looking—tall, with dark brown hair. I’d say late thirties, and nicely dressed, too. I would have been flattered if he hadn’t been so overly familiar and pushy.”

      “He didn’t tell you his name or where he was from? Any clue—in case I want to report this to the police?”

      “No, he didn’t say a thing about himself.” She sipped her wine. “But listen, I don’t know about involving the police, Allen. I mean, this man really didn’t do anything wrong. He—”

      “What are you talking about?” Allen interrupted hotly. “The guy followed you all the way to Cullen, and then you got a flat—with practically new tires. We just got them—what—three months ago? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.” With the tongs, he flipped over the chicken breasts on the grill. All the while, he was frowning and shaking his head. “I really wish you’d gotten the license plate number off that red MINI Cooper.”

      “Sorry, it didn’t occur to me,” Susan murmured. “At the time, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

      “Well, if you remember anything else about this creep that would help us track him down, let me know.”

      “All right already, I will,” she sighed. “Y’know, I didn’t encourage the guy—if that’s what you’re thinking.”

      “I wasn’t thinking that at all,” Allen replied.

      “Well, you act like you’re mad at me.” She took her wineglass and retreated to the edge of the porch.

      “I’m not mad at you,” he answered quietly. “I’m just upset thinking about what could have happened.”

      Susan didn’t say anything. She gazed out at the moon and the stars—so bright this far away from the lights of the city. Slivers of white and silver reflected on the bay, and the boat gently rocked in the water. Susan leaned against the railing