The Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace Read Free Book Online Page A

Hailey Dean staring him down. Hailey Dean passing just inches from him as she questioned each witness on the stand. Hailey Dean so close he could feel the whisper of air melting around her as she passed, always wearing black, hair always pulled back tightly from her face.
    Her voice was sharp as a whip on cross-exams, yet cajoling and hushed on direct with her own witnesses. During her closing argument to the jury, she spoke so softly, leaning in with her fingers resting on the jury rail, that Cruise had to strain to hear her words. His mouth went dry, his palms sweaty as hell as he’d watched the jury leaning forward toward her, and he caught himself doing the same.
    Then, without warning, she turned on him and lashed out loudly, causing the jury to look directly at him while she practically shouted out the evidence.
    His stomach burned with the memory.
    And the stench of this place was giving him another pounding headache. Like the kind he used to get each time he’d go hunting for the next woman, the next victim. The tension building, he’d watch his own hands at work in the highest-tech kitchens in Atlanta. Then, later that same night, almost as if in a dream, off Stewart Avenue, hidden in the shadows of motels lining the strip, he’d have the hooker facedown in front of him, his hands choking, out of control, pulsing as if they belonged to someone much stronger, someone superhuman.
    Only after, when he walked away and headed for his car, could he ever breathe again.
    His body needed the kill, needed the feel of skin under his fingertips, digging, digging into flesh, to feel alive.
    And who were the “victims” anyway? They were all hookers. He was doing the city a favor.
    In court, the photos of the women’s necks showed mangled flesh, as if the killer had torn the skin with his fingers in the frenzy of the strangling. Once, as Hailey Dean looked down at crime scene photos she was holding in her hand, he thought she was going to crack.
    A flush of victory loomed for Cruise when her voice broke in the middle of questioning a lead homicide detective. She’d been looking at a shot of the knees of one of the hookers, scratched and bruised from the dirt where she’d knelt.
    It was LaSondra Williams.
    This whole mess was his lawyer’s fault. That stupid ass. He had never finished working Cruise’s alibi for the night LaSondra Williams was strangled. Cruise knew Leonard didn’t believe him. But he’d stood there lying that the private investigator couldn’t locate the leads Cruise gave him.
    Here in Reidsville, he had plenty of time to relive the trial, all the errors his lawyer had made, and all the other indignities Hailey Dean subjected him to.
    He followed her career from behind bars. He had gone to the law library and Xeroxed every document he could find on her. He had every news clipping, every blurb, every shred of information on Dean. It was too obvious to just thrust it under his cot, so instead, at night, he’d meticulously tear apart the thin layers of cotton that made up his mattress and press each article between the strips. He had to be careful.
    He read all about her cases, every appeal of every case she ever tried, even the hard-luck story that came out about the murder of her fiancé. The thought of her and the memory of his attorney screwing him over consumed him.
    The day the verdict was handed down, she was pale. Her hair was pulled back and he couldn’t take his eyes off her neck.
    He remembered watching her neck as the verdict was read.
    Guilty. All eleven counts.
    The courtroom turned into a reddish, hazy blur when the last count was read, the last verdict of guilty, for the murder of LaSondra Williams.
    His body took over, his hands felt the electricity surging through them, shooting through his wrists down to his fingertips and he leaped.
    Lunging across the table, strewing law books and notes and paper cups…he made it. He made it all the way to where she stood, unprotected in the