The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams Read Free Book Online

bastard is. I’ll put you in the budget as a consultant.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think that would be a great choice for me right now. This kind of work, I think it’s why I drank so much.”
    “Bullshit.” Rauser chuckled, but there was no humor whatsoever in his eyes. He had never been the kind of guy to cut me a lot of slack. “You drank because you’re an alcoholic. What are you worried about?”
    “I was fired from the Bureau, remember? Couldn’t stay sober. Oh, and my marriage came apart and I spent three months in rehab. ’Member that? You want to derail your entire case? You need a criminologist whose credentials hold up during the trial phase.”
    “DA can get some talking head up there on the stand with a prettier past. I need you now, today, in
this
phase. I don’t trust anybody else with this pointy-head analysis shit. And I fucking hate it when you feel sorry for yourself.” He started gathering his things with quick jerky movements. “I know, I know, the Bureau did you wrong. Well, goddamnit, get over it, Street. So you have a drinking problem. You and about fifty millionother people. Stop using it as an excuse not to participate. So you had a tough childhood. Welcome to the club.”
    Angry and stretched too tight, he shoved his notes and photographs into his leather case. I thought about Bob Shelby, the killer’s only documented male victim. He’d lived alone on disability, Rauser had told me. Life had obviously already handed Bob Shelby enough pain. He shouldn’t have had to endure torture and humiliation and terror in his final moments. I thought about Elicia Richardson. Black, female, young, and successful, she’d shattered all those ceilings. Her family must have been so proud of her. Why did she open her door that day? I thought about Anne Chambers just beginning adult life at WFSU. I thought about Lei Koto and the chaos and horror in that kitchen, and Tim coming home to find her. I thought about Rauser’s eyes on me now, steel with tiny blue flecks. I knew him. It hadn’t been easy for him to ask for help.
    I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, took a deep breath. I wanted a drink.
    Rauser slammed his case closed, grabbed it by the handle. “Congratulations, by the way. You’re in full agreement with your former employer. Bureau says he’s coming alive again too and that this cooling-off phase will be very brief. You know as well as I do what that means.”
    It wasn’t really a cooling off, I thought. It was a gradual ramping up. And even though APD wasn’t turning up bodies at the moment, the killer was out there, and he was fantasizing, reliving his kills, very carefully planning for a later reenactment, and perhaps already stalking his next victim.

7
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    He had not noticed me. He had a tiny phone to his ear and he was telling someone too loudly that his work keeps him
so
busy. “I see the wife and kids for five minutes at breakfast,” he said into his stupid phone, and laughed. It was eight this morning and we were jammed into an elevator. Every asshole in town with a briefcase was pressed up against me, and he was showing off for the crowd. I saw him sneak a glance around the elevator, his theater. This was where he thrived. I recognized the pathology. It sickened me. It felt like a heavy, wet blanket just dropped down on me, and it had. Its name was David. What a little prick, a fucking little bragger. Mr. Up-and-Coming. No time for the family, but plenty of time for his dick. He had not changed a bit.
    He snapped his phone shut and glanced around again. He wanted to make sure he had made an impression. So desperate for approval.
Pathetic
.
    He lit up when he saw my face. He remembered. A mutual friend, an invitation to a backyard barbeque. I met his wife and fucked him twenty minutes later behind his own pool house. And now