AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When Ott looked up, he noticed the heavyset office administrator, Warren Talbout, heading his way. Ott quickly resumed his work, installing the desktop computer software his company had created to facilitate communications integration between phones and computers.
Talbout, who wore a graying walrus mustache, stopped by and said, “How’s the upgrade going, David?”
Ott looked up. “It’s Daniel. And the upgrades are coming along fine. I should be finished later today.”
The office administrator nodded and waddled away. Ott wasn’t upset the man had gotten his name wrong. Few people in any of the offices where he worked bothered to learn his name. He was only ever anywhere for about two weeks at a time. Just a reasonably friendly, totally nondescript guy who made it easier for them to move data between their phones and their computers.
In fact, he liked to think that no matter where he went no one ever noticed him, like a forgettable piece of furniture. He was about five foot ten and one hundred sixty-five pounds, slim for adult males in the US. With no distinctive features whatsoever.
Young Ott had been taunted for being thin and sickly. But as he learned and grew, he found he could do things no one else could. He understood math and numbers like most people did language, though he was also good with languages. He’d easily landed this job with Computelex. He made plenty of money and got to fly across the entire country—business class.
Mostly, Ott blended in and traveled with hardly anyone even speaking to him. He was happy he’d found uses for his superpower. Now he was the one doing the taunting.
Ott read some of the article. No comment from the NYPD spokeswoman about details connecting the murders. Ott knew TV news wasn’t as careful as print. News shows would play up an angle to increase ratings; before too long, they’d create special graphics and theme music for these murders.
He didn’t want to be too obvious, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the page. He’d stop every couple of seconds to look up and nod hello to someone walking past. Everyone who worked at the insurance company stayed busy and avoided idle chitchat. That focus gave him room to indulge himself in this big comfortable office, with its north-facing view of the park and abundant takeout options—all the trappings of a secure, safe haven.
His cell phone chimed with a short, low, professional tone. He smiled and snatched the phone from his belt. Technically it was his lunchtime. His mouth stretched into a wide grin as he said, “Hello, sweetheart.”
He was surprised by giggles and his two daughters sing-songing together, “Hello, Papa!”
“Hello, my little dumplings. I thought it was your mother calling.”
“She’s right here. We wanted to surprise you.”
“And what a great surprise it is.” Ott’s three-year-old, Tatyana, and five-year-old, Lilly, were his absolute prizes. He worked hard so that they would never know hard times. And he was raising them to be polite and respectful. Thankfully their mother, Lena, had few of the arrogant habits most American women did.
Lena was Polish and had proven to be a good wife and a great mother. She was simple and sweet, very meek. They’d met online, and Ott quickly knew she was the woman for him. He even spoke a fair amount of Polish. They used it as a code to talk privately around the girls.
He chatted with his daughters, who told him about their homeschool lessons, the books they were reading (or pretending to read), and how they’d raced their mother and won.
Ott never would’ve imagined he could feel as much love as he did for these girls. He wondered if either of his parents had felt anything for him approaching the love he had for his daughters. He doubted it—his father had barely acknowledged him, except to make mean jokes, and his mother had just seemed exhausted all the time. When she died, Ott had felt relief for her, that she could finally rest. Since then, he’d probably spoken no more than thirty words total to his father.
Lena got on the line, and his mood shifted. His wife tended to bring up less enjoyable topics, problems that needed solutions. She said, “We need to enroll the girls in a dance class. And the dog has a cough again.”
Ott hid a groan as he hurried his wife off the phone. “I’m sorry, dear, I have to get back to work.”
She said she understood and told him she couldn’t wait to see him. He smiled after hanging up, thinking about his two separate—and very different—lives. Over the past year, it had become clear that he needed both to survive, though it was a daily challenge to keep them from crashing into each other.
Ott loved his wife and girls, but he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure he got from killing. The feeling could make his head spin, and he had an increasingly difficult time containing his urges. He felt the sensation in his entire body, like wave after wave of excitement. A release. A renewal. He wouldn’t describe it as sexual in nature—it was more primal and satisfying.
Usually the victims were obvious to him. It had to do with their attitudes. That was his catalyst, his reason to act: he could not abide women with insolent, demeaning attitudes. He no longer put up with arrogance and ridicule from women. Nor could he understand why American women thought they were smarter, prettier, and more important than anyone else in the world. There was something about their egotistical speech patterns that shocked his nervous system.
His work dictated the pace he kept in his avocation. Since he only took victims outside his home area, occasionally choosing his next victim from an office where he had done contract work, the length of his business trips determined how patient he could be.
He did his best to be patient, let some time lapse. Usually. But sometimes the urge hit him so strongly that he couldn’t wait.
He’d been in New York for only about a month now and had already succumbed to the temptation of three perfect victims. It was more than he usually allowed himself, but then again, in a city as big as New York, he was almost surprised the media had even connected them. Not that he was concerned. At each crime scene, he’d been careful not to leave any evidence that could be linked to him, and careful about security cameras.
Today would be his last day in this office. He’d figured out a way to reroute the company’s computer network to integrate more easily with the software he was installing. He never bothered to explain his work to the clients, just to his boss back at Computelex headquarters in Omaha. HQ was the only one he needed to impress.
Ott moved from his desk to work at a control box in a tiny room at one end of the floor. He had been in there before and realized that from that vantage, he could hear everything in the manager’s office, the copy room, and the break room, which all surrounded the control box.
As he worked, he overheard two women talking. It took him a moment to realize they were standing in the break room. He recognized one of the voices as belonging to an intern, a smart girl from somewhere north of the city.
He was about to go back to his desk when he heard the intern say, “How much longer is that telephone tech going to be here?”
The other woman said, “I think he’s supposed to finish up today.”
