Copycat by Erica Spindler Read Free Book Online Page B

girls. But for me, too. I can’t…start drinking again. I can’t let it…let him take over my life.
    â€œNot that I have—” She shook her head and bit off the thought. She wouldn’t go there. Wouldn’t burden her sweet child with her problems.
    â€œI hope you’re happy. That it’s good there.” She paused. “I think about you every day, baby. I love you.”
    She bent and straightened the flowers, hating to go. Wishing with all her heart that staying would bring her daughter back. Finally she forced herself to take a step back from the grave site. To turn, walk away.
    Her cell phone rang as she reached the walkway. She simultaneously answered and glanced back.
    â€œLundgren here.”
    â€œHello, Kitt.”
    The hair at the back of her neck prickled. The Sleeping Angel Killer. How had he gotten her cell number?
    â€œI’m at a disadvantage,” she said. “You know my name but I don’t know yours.”
    â€œYou know who I am.”
    â€œI know who you say you are.”
    â€œYes.” He paused. “So, did you arrange what I asked?”
    â€œI talked to my chief.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œHe’s taking your request seriously.”
    â€œBut not seriously enough to give you the case.”
    â€œPDs don’t work that way.”
    â€œAnother girl’s going to die,” he said. “You can stop it.”
    â€œHow?” she asked, heart beating faster. “How can I stop it?”
    â€œI committed perfect crimes. This one’s a cheap imitator. He’ll move fast. Too fast. He won’t plan. The Copycat doesn’t know my secrets.”
    â€œWhat secrets?” She gripped the phone tightly, working to keep excitement from her voice. To keep it cool, even. “Tell me, so I can help.”
    â€œI know your secret, Kitt.”
    His voice had turned sly. She frowned. “What secret would you be referring to?”
    â€œYou could have caught me. But you were drunk. That’s why you fell. It was a stupid mistake on my part. But I didn’t make another, did I?”
    Kitt couldn’t speak. The past rushed up, choking her. A call had come into the department. A mother, insisting her daughter was being targeted by the SAK. That she was being stalked.
    During that time, they had gotten so many calls like that, hundreds. The department checked them all out, but they simply didn’t have the manpower to watch every nine-and ten-year-old girl in Rockford.
    But something about this mother’s claim, about this girl…she’d had a feeling. The chief had refused to fund it, had reminded Kitt of her fragile emotional state.
    They had buried Sadie the week before.
    So, she had broken one of the cardinal rules of police work—she’d gone solo. Set up her own after-hours stakeout.
    Night after night she had sat outside that girl’s house. Just her and her little flask. The flask that chased the cold away.
    At least that’s what she had told herself. It had been a lie, of course. The flask had been about chasing the pain away.
    A week into it, she had seen him. A man who didn’t belong. She should have called for backup. Instead, she’d given chase.
    Or tried. By that time, she had been stumbling drunk. She’d fallen, hit her head and been knocked unconscious. When she’d come to, he’d been long gone.
    He had never given them another chance.
    The chief had been furious. The SAK could have killed her. He could have taken her gun, used it on her or others.
    Kitt refocused on the now, on what this meant: he was who he said. There were only two others within the department who knew the truth about that night, Sal and Brian.
    Then another girl had died and the SAK had disappeared. Until now.
    â€œOkay,” she said, “you’ve got me. Do you know who the Copycat is?”
    He laughed coyly. “I might.”
    â€œThen tell me. I’ll stop