Thomas Prescott Superpack by Nick Pirog Read Free Book Online Page A

fifteen. Ginny was scattered roughly one body part per ten square feet. The guestroom walls were painted Robin’s Egg Blue . The carpet was painted Ginny Farth’s Vital Fluid Red .
    Dr. Caitlin Dodds was clad in a white Bangor Medical Examiner parka, hovering over Ginny’s truncated head. The doctor lolled the brunette frayed orb to the side. She looked up at Gregory, Gleason, and myself, and stated blandly, “The bastard took the eyes again.”
    The three of us nodded solemnly. Honestly, I would have been disconcerted if he hadn’t taken the eyes. The eyes were the only constant in a sea of variables. There was no pattern to the killings. Only the eyes.
    I’d seen enough. I walked out of the room, down the stairway, past a sliding glass door, noticing a thin light moving through the blackness. I’d assumed we were in the middle of vast woods—so why was I looking at a lighthouse?
    I slid the glass door open and walked out onto a long narrow deck, then ambled down a half dozen stairs. Kicking off my shoes, I plopped down on the cold beach. The waves ran within a dozen feet of my outstretched toes and my shadow was forced to gargle every so often.
    What the hell was going on? I couldn’t get a read on this Tristen Grayer psychopath. Was he killing in lust? Macabre mutilations excite the lust murderer. For them, killing triggers a bizarre sexual fantasy that has developed in the dark recesses of their warped minds. But, I couldn’t get a bead on what Tristen’s fantasy was. Was it rooted in the eyes? He’d left us nothing else to go on. We didn’t even have a picture of the kid for crying out loud. The neighbor, Elby, had said Tristen was badly burned in a fire years earlier. Is that why he takes the eyes? Because he’s disfigured and doesn’t want the victim to see him? Had the contemptuous stares from his childhood prompted these women’s deaths? And the sister. It had all started with her. Why had Tristen killed Ingrid? Because she was pregnant with his son? Because she didn’t want to keep the baby? Had he raped her in the first place?
    I heard footsteps on the deck and seconds later Dr. Caitlin Dodds plopped down next to me. I couldn’t help but notice her usually striking features go soft under the moonlight. In a couple hours Caitlin would try to piece Ginny Farth back together; a chore I didn’t turn green with envy. Caitlin grabbed a handful of sand and tossed it on my bare feet.
    I said, “Well doctor, where do we go from here?”
    She seemed miles away and it took four waves for my voice to hit her drum. She shook her head in disarray, “You’re the expert. You tell me what the hell is going on here.”
    I shook my head. “I’m baffled. I’ve never seen anything like this. Usually with killings of this nature, the killer knows the killee. How Tristen, a hick farmboy from Potato Town crossed paths with Miss Richwood here, I don’t have the faintest idea.”
    “So you don’t secretly know how he’s selecting his victims?”
    I tried to hide a grin. “Yeah, I have it written on a sticky note in a safety deposit box?”
    “Which bank?”
    “Swiss Miss in Manhattan.”
    She smirked. “Are you aware your bank also makes hot chocolate?”
    “You got me. Sincerely, I don’t have the slightest clue what this son of a bitch is up to. When he wants us to catch him, we will. Until then we’re going to have to sit tight and count bodies.”
    She nodded to herself.
    There was a clamoring of footsteps and Caitlin and I turned simultaneously to see Gleason and Gregory hovering over us. I looked at Gregory’s small shadow and remarked, “Where’s the rest of him?”
    He didn’t say anything and I prodded, “Don’t tell me that’s all of it?” I noticed his shadow flip me off.
    Caitlin and I stood up and joined the two; our four shadows resembling a small mountain range on the beachfront. Gleason asked, “Where do we go from here?”
    Gregory offered, “I think we should go talk with some