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Fred grinned, but only for a moment before his grin faded. He chuckled and said, “I was about to say I owe the guy a favor, but Dr. Ames didn’t deserve to die. I don’t know this Prescott guy, but if he was one of the paramedics who helped Mandy, he didn’t deserve to die either.” He chuckled again, but there was no humor in it this time. “I sometimes wish that we could train serial killers to only target people who deserve to die. Like that guy from that TV show a few years back, the blood spatter guy.”
“Trust me,” Faith said seriously, “you don’t want to pull at that thread. Your wife was right. Killing other people, even for revenge, is wrong.”
“I keep telling myself that,” he replied, “but then I wonder, you know, what if someone had shot Ted Bundy before he killed all of those women? Is it really wrong to want bad people to die?”
There would have been another Bundy,Faith thought.Someone would have shown up. There’s always evil people.
She didn’t say this out loud, though, because Michael returned. As before with Hunt, his expression gave the answer away.
“Mr. Harrison,” he said, extending his hand, “security footage confirms that you were on the premises during the nights of all three murders. You’re off the hook.”
Fred shook his hand and said, “Thank you, Special Agent. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” He grinned sheepishly and added, “Well, I guess I’m not sorry that I’m not the murderer.”
Michael smiled politely and withdrew his hand. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Harrison.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I hope you catch the guy. People shouldn’t have to lose their loved ones because of someone else’s emotional problems.”
“No,” Faith agreed, “they shouldn’t.”
But they do. There’s always another Bundy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
He waited behind the massive transformer on the first floor of the employee garage. His heart pounded in his chest, and he had to fight to keep from fidgeting. He was out of view of the security cameras, but he felt it was still prudent to appear as inconspicuous as possible. Just in case anyone happened to glance his way.
No one had come this way, and no one would. He had visited the hospital several times since Mandy’s death, and he knew that only one person frequented this area, a certain veteran charge nurse who didn’t want her coworkers to know that she still smoked and slunk to the transformer bank every few hours to work through a few American Spirits before popping a handful of Altoids and returning to work.
She would probably end up croaking from a heart attack in a few years if he just left her alone. Or maybe she’d waste away from lung cancer, and he’d have the pleasure of watching her shrivel up.
But that wasn’t his style. He wanted her to suffer. Not the long, slow decline of cancer, surrounded by friends and family who ensured your last moments were as comfortable as possible. She needed to feel terror, utter terror, in her last moments. She deserved no happiness at the end, and she would receive none.
He wiped a hand across his brow and took deep breaths to steady himself. He wasn’t nervous. He had planned this out thoroughly. This was by far the least risky of his targets to kill, daylight notwithstanding.
It was also the most important. All four of them were responsible for his sister’s death, but this nurse, this Beulah Ford, she was the worst. She had sent Mandy home. She had pushed to release her to free up beds for other people, and she hadn’t even thought to make sure that his bandaged sister who still had a damnedskullfracture was good to recover at home.
The doctor should have scanned her again. The paramedic should have gotten her to the hospital faster. Of course that prick Hucksley shouldn’t have hit her in the first place.
But she would have been fine. She would have made it if it weren’t for this bitch nurse, Beulah Ford.
That’s why he saved her for last.
He looked up and his breath caught in his throat. She was coming! He watched gleefully, but with a hint of distaste as she waddled her way to the transformer, jowls flapping like a bulldog’s. How the hell did they allow people like that to become nurses anyway? Weretheysupposed to advise people on their health?
The voice in his head reminded him that he had looked no different before Mandy died. Hell, he had smoked more than Ford did. There was no need to judge her for her appearance. She had a far more serious charge to answer to anyway.
He waited until she pulled her cigarette out and lit it. She took a deep drag, and when she closed her eyes to savor the smoke, he rushed forward. Her eyes opened and widened in terror, but she had to blow out the smoke and draw in another breath before she could scream, and by then it was too late. The needle was buried in her neck, and her eyes were already beginning to glaze over.
Getting her into the van took some doing, but he had worked out religiously six days a week for the past ten years, and if he could dig a grave and lower a coffin into the ground and then fill the grave in one night, then he could handle a big woman.
He got her into the van, taking care to make sure she was securely positioned and safe from too much jostling. It wouldn’t do to have her die on the way from rolling around the back of the van.
He got into the van and pulled smoothly out of the parking lot. The security officer nodded to him as he left, and he lifted a hand in farewell before pulling out onto the road.
The sun was an inch or two above the horizon. By the time he reached his destination, it would be brunch time. That gave him a good nine hours of daylight to work with.
More than enough.
He pulled onto the 69 freeway and accelerated to a smooth and steady sixty-five. He briefly considered allowing Beulah to see him before he buried her. He could do that if he wanted. She could scream all she wanted. No one had been to the Church of Galilee in thirty years. The cemetery was barely recognizable as a cemetery.
