Mostly Murder by Linda Ladd Read Free Book Online Page A

after the dark and shadowy chill inside the house. Claire wanted to find this guy, whoever he was, wherever he was. She didn’t appreciate him putting her face on that doll or leaving a body in her backyard. She was going to get him, and she was going to keep both her weapons loaded and close at hand. If anything, he had given her a warning to be on the lookout for him. And oh yeah, she was going to heed it.
    A Very Scary Man
    By the time Malice reached high school, he had honed his skills and had a whole bag of tricks to frighten people out of their wits. He had continued to watch scary television shows and movies. He had learned from some of the mean things said and done in books and comic books, and he dreamed of having his own TV show someday, one where he could make lots of money terrifying people and watching their reactions when they thought they had no escape from a terrible fate. Sometimes, he frightened complete strangers at the mall. He would follow them and see if he couldn’t find a moment to slip something alive and nasty into their shopping bags so that when his victim rummaged in them, they might find a big hairy spider he’d caught or a handful of wriggling brown night crawlers.
    Women especially hated the worms. It was just so funny to watch. He would follow them and wait on pins and needles for the big finale. Sometimes, they would open their bag or tote for some reason, and they would screech with horror and throw the bag as if it were a poisonous snake. The expressions on their faces were priceless. It was hilarious to watch, and he loved trying to do stuff like that on the sly. He liked the sense of power it gave him. Loved it, in fact. He could make people react, tremble and cry out and curse, but they never knew he was behind it. He would just act like the innocent bystander, just as shocked as the store’s clerk or the guy waiting on them in the food court. He was getting really good at his tricks, and the thrill was just getting better and better. He always did it on Friday, and called it Fright Night. It was his favorite time of the week.
    After a while, he began to watch shows about serial killers and how they abused and mistreated their victims. Sometimes he even got off on the way they murdered people because they killed them in such bizarre and interesting ways. They had rituals and souvenirs and fetishes and things they liked to do with the bodies. He wanted a dead body so bad he could taste it. So, he began to plan how he could get one. He wondered how it would feel to commit murder. How it would feel to stick one of his mom’s big butcher knives into somebody’s stomach. Maybe the long, sharp one that she cut up chickens with—that would probably do it. He wondered if he would have to push it in really hard, or if it would just slice the skin open real easy, like cutting into butter. He was pretty sure that he’d have to be fairly strong to do it. Especially if he did a lot of stabbing or carried on with the butchering for a long time.
    Finally, he got the chance to try out some of his fantasies. He got himself a girlfriend, one he sort of liked. Her name was Betsy. She was real cute with brown hair and freckles but pretty timid and nervous, too, and easy to frighten. So he started out with all sorts of accidental scares just to warm her up for the big stuff. He planned it carefully, wanting to do it just right, maybe at her house when her parents weren’t home. That’s when she seemed to be the most nervous, especially when she was alone in her house at night. And her parents liked to go square dancing and to the movies and so forth, so they were gone a lot. Every Tuesday they went down to the parish community center and danced their do-si-dos and all that crap.
    One night, after a late football practice, he waited until everybody else was gone, and then he showered and dressed in black clothes like a ninja. He’d seen some kung fu movies and the