But Sharon had survived. Somehow, she'd managed to walk away from the scene of the accident with barely a scratch. If he recalled, a sprained wrist and a grazed cheek had been the extent of her injuries, which was brutally unfair.
The Reaper knew that she had not deserved to live. She had not been there to cross over with her friends when they had died, when they'd needed her the most. Somehow, she'd been protected from the fate that her stars should have led her to.
Sharon had an interesting job. She had recently qualified as a vet and worked for a big clinic in Chestnut Hill. It was a twenty-four-hour emergency clinic and as a junior employee, Sharon usually took the night shift, knocking off at seven a.m.
Then she would go upstairs, closing blackout blinds at the top of the house, and sleep until mid-afternoon.
He knew her routine and couldn’t wait to take her. It would be the first victim that he claimed while sleeping. He was ready for her. And because of the way she had escaped death, he was going to make sure she suffered long minutes of terror. If she was shut inside her house, he could make sure she experienced the full force of incipient death before she actually died.
There was her house ahead: an old cottage, on the hill, surrounded by apple orchards.
This was where she lived, and he knew she would be home.
The reaper smiled.
He grasped his scythe and climbed out of the car, heading for the front door. Her time on this earth was over. In a few minutes, Sharon would be punished for having outlived her fate.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
May slugged back her second cup of coffee. They made it extra strong at this hospital cafe, and she needed the caffeine shot to power her brain.
Who was this killer? How was he able to move and operate within a community this way, knowing so many details about people?
Even she, a county deputy, couldn't get details from the hospital manager who knew some of them.
As she stared at Owen, who was attacking a Danish pastry with ravenous hunger, May wondered briefly if the killer could be the hospital manager himself. Was she wrong to suspect him? But she quickly canned the idea. He had been at work when the most recent murder occurred. But it was someone like him, she thought. Someone well-networked in this community, someone who knew a lot of facts and details about others. Even though Kerry was the one doing the profile, May had her own ideas and they were now starting to form a picture in her mind.
This was a person that other people spoke to. A person trusted by the community. She was sure of this and hoped Kerry could fill in some of the remaining gaps.
The murders were happening every other day. The killer was tapping into the community and knew about the people living in this area. There was no doubt in May's mind that the killer was acting on inside information that he was gaining from somewhere.
He had to have a job that gave him access to records. Or else, that allowed him to network within the community so that he heard the talk, news, and gossip that people loved to relate.
And while May knew that he had a kind of mission in mind, she also knew that he was killing women who he perceived deserved to die. Perhaps he wanted to judge them himself?
What if he believed he was acting on a higher authority, which was what gave him the power to go ahead and take lives?
That would point to some kind of a psychotic break, May decided. Without a doubt they were seeking somebody who had recently been precipitated into a killing spree, through something that had happened in his own life.
While Kerry was at work on the profiling, May knew she needed to go back over every single detail. Every note she'd made and every thought she'd had. Somewhere, she was sure, the key to this killer was concealed.
From her pocket, she pulled out her notebook, and began to reread the handwritten details as she picked up the last delicious flakes of her pastry, hoping to find something she'd missed.
At that moment, her phone rang.
It was Kerry, and May's heart skipped a beat. Had Kerry been able to complete the psychological profile she would need to narrow down the parameters on this killer?
She grabbed the phone quickly.
"Hey, Kerry," she said.
"I've been doing some research on your killer. And it's quite interesting," Kerry said.
"Okay," May said. "I'm listening."
"He's definitely psychotic if you ask me. His mind operates on a different plane than normal people. That's a fact, based on the choice of murder weapon, and the way he seems to chase down his victims before the kill."
"It's always good to know what type of personality we're dealing with," May said.