Eyes of the Predator (40 page)

They were miles from Toccoa in
the rising foothill and mountain country when the radio chattered to life.

“All units, all units, be
advised, Rye County deputy reports the possible suspect vehicle associated with
the homicides in Pickham County, older model Chevrolet bearing Texas plates,
now possibly located at the Creek Side Cabins, ten miles north of Crichton on
the state highway. Units responding advise.”

The radio crackled and a trooper
on a traffic stop on I-85 advised he was enroute to Crichton. Some lucky
motorist was about to be sent on their way with a warning. Another trooper in
Toccoa responded, and then George picked up the mike.

“Pickham County 301 responding
with State 155,” he said firmly and then added, “Advise the Rye County unit and
all responding units that the male suspect is armed and extremely dangerous. If
possible and there are no signs of immediate threat to the female, stand by for
this unit.”

“10-4, Pickham 301.” The pickup
grew quiet while the dispatcher switched to other frequencies to relay the
information to other law enforcement agencies in the area responding.

 “Which way?”

Sharon looked up, squinting from
the map. Her finger pointed to an almost invisible dot. “That’s where we’re
headed. Take a right on the next county road. It winds around that mountain
there, but looks like the shortest route.”

“How long?”

Sharon studied the map for a
second. “Thirty minutes…maybe. We’re closer than we would have been back in
Toccoa, but the way the roads wind, it’s hard to say.”

George’s foot pressed harder on
the accelerator, trying to shave some minutes off their arrival time. Lucky
break, maybe. They were certainly due for some luck.

The hunter in George knew that he
had to capitalize on the luck of the hunt, or it meant nothing. If you stumbled
upon your prey but didn’t get the shot off, or missed or just stood there in
surprise, your luck would change. To this point, the man in the Chevy had had
it all his way. Luck, predatory skill, or a combination of both, he had been
invisible to them. But now, they had their break.

The pickup truck fishtailed
slightly as he made the turn onto the county road and increased speed again.
They did not speak. George Mackey and Sharon Price stared ahead, as if willing
the pickup to the Creek Side Cabins outside Crichton, Georgia. They would not
miss their shot. It was time to end the hunt. They would put this animal down,
if they could just get there in time.

George leaned forward into the
wheel as if willing the truck forward, faster.

The jerk of his legs at the
radio’s blaring alert almost spilled the large drink cup Clay had nestled
between his knees as he drove. Arriving in Toccoa, he had passed the state
patrol post and seen the Pickham County pickup parked by the front door. He had
no idea what to do, but knew that he had better not be seen staking out the
deputy from Pickham County.

After an endless thirty minutes
in the parking lot of a nearby convenience store, Clay had decided to explore
the area, listening carefully to the radio on the seat. The deputy and GBI must
be here for a reason, although that reason was not altogether clear to Clay.

The radio broke squelch with a
burst of static.

“Pickham 301, 10-8 from Toccoa
post. Circulating in the area.”

“10-4, Pickham 301.”

Jerking the truck into gear, Clay
raced back to the state patrol post. Keeping the Pickham County deputy close
was the key to finding the girl, or at least was his best chance. But as he
passed the post, he saw that the deputy’s pickup was gone. He swallowed down
the lump that had immediately formed in his throat. Now what? Which way?

Hitting the steering wheel with
his fist, he could not suppress a shouted, “SHIT!” and cursed himself for not
staying closer and watching.

Reaching for the radio on the
seat, he turned the little knob for volume up a bit. There had been no radio
traffic about the Chevy, just Pickham 301 saying he was circulating in the
area, whatever that meant.

Despair settled down on him.
Having come so far, the thought of turning back did not occur to him, but now
he had no plan. He had no idea which way the deputy had gone. He could only
listen to the radio and hope for some information.

Driving in aimless circles
through the back roads of north Georgia, Clay wound his way out of the Toccoa
area. The heavy darkness of the lost cause settled in on him. What was he
doing? What was he going to do?

The thought of the girl’s voice
and the message on his cell phone, which was now in the custody of the GBI,
rang in his ears. It was a moment of clarity. That was the reason he was here.
No need to complicate it more than that. He was young and he was on a quest, an
adventure. It was the one wild thing he had ever done, and he would pay the
price when he got home. Cy would see to that. But for now, it was the voice on
the phone that vibrated in his ears. That was enough.

The radio crackled, and a state
trooper advised the dispatcher that he was on a traffic stop on I-85 near the
Toccoa exit.

Another burst of static, and a
trooper advised he was out at the Toccoa post.

Silence. Wooded hills and back
roads flowed by.

And then another crackle, “All
units, all units, be advised, Rye County deputy reports the possible suspect
vehicle …” Clay struggled to steady the drink cup between his knees while
reaching for the radio. He guided the truck to the shoulder as the dispatcher
gave the lookout.

Grabbing the tattered, unfolded
map from the passenger side floor, he laid it across the steering wheel.
Crichton. His finger swirled over the map searching for the small dot
indicating the town’s location.

“Pickham County 301 responding,”
Clay’s head jerked up, recognizing the thick voice of the deputy from Pickham
County. Reflexively, he wrinkled the map in his fists as the deputy’s voice
calmly and firmly added, “Advise the Rye County unit and all responding units
that the male suspect is armed and extremely dangerous. If possible and there
are no signs of immediate threat to the female, stand by for this unit.”

Scanning the map frantically,
Clay searched for the dot that was Crichton. After a minute of frantically
tracing various routes on the map, it was there. It seemed to loom suddenly at
him off the page. A blunt finger traced a course to it from what he thought his
present location was on the map.

Seconds later the dirt clods spun
out from under the truck’s tires as Clay made a u-turn across the road, engine
roaring.

Dragging the knife blade across
the girl’s flesh, he stroked himself. He moved the blade to a spot that had
previously been cut and had dried. He let it drop heavily onto the cut and
opened the wound again so that it started bleeding. The cuts were shallow, made
only by the weight of the knife, but the knife was sharp and the cuts were
painful, bleeding wounds that widened and gaped with every touch of the knife.

For a brief moment, he saw the
flicker of awareness and pain cross the girl’s face and then it vanished. He
knew that she had run to some faraway place, trying to hide from him. He
smiled, that was fine, little girl. He would bring her back little by little,
cut by cut. He would show her there was no escape, and then her desperation and
fear would overwhelm her. And as her fear overwhelmed her, Lylee would be
completely and entirely satisfied and filled.

His body quivered at the thought.
He let the blade drop heavily to the top of her left breast where the point
made a little hole that started bleeding. His arousal grew.

 He stared at the girl’s
tormented body. Blood trickled from her shoulders and over her breasts. His
hand moved to his groin again. He could see the goose bumps on her flesh. She
quivered and shook slightly in the cold. Her eyes were fixed somewhere behind
him. He lifted the big knife blade and let it fall again on her shoulder,
sawing it slightly back and forth to open the small cut further. Still holding
the knife, he turned the back of his hand to the girl and rubbed it in the flow
of blood. Something flickered in the girl’s eyes, and then she fled away again.
He smiled. Soon, he thought. Soon you will not be able to hide.

Lylee’s body tensed for a moment.

Drained, he threw himself
backwards onto the bed. He put his hand behind his head and lay there looking
at her. Yes, this one was special. He could not bring himself to end it.

Normally, he would have been long
finished with the girl, the duct tape over her mouth muffling her screams and
cries. His hands would already have closed around her throat as he looked into
her panicked eyes. The realization would have already come into those eyes that
there would be no deliverance, no escape. The fear would be so strong that he
would smell it in her sweat and the urine that escaped her bladder. Slowly,
painfully, her life would be choked away. It would be his.

Normally, but not this time. Not
yet. Lylee wanted to bring her back from that place her escape had taken her.
He wanted the complete victory that came with the perfect kill. Her awareness
of her own death and impotence to prevent it would bring Lylee the awareness of
his own power, and the force within him.

Somewhere deep inside, the
predator’s voice called to him. Beware. Caution. For a moment, he thought that
maybe he should listen. End it now and move on. But the nude girl sitting
there, her underwear cut off in tatters around the chair, blood dripping over
her breasts, her eyes gazing into some far distant place, pulled him away from
the warning voice.

Lylee lifted his hand to his
face. He could smell her blood on it. He put it to his mouth and tasted it with
his tongue. No not yet. Just a little longer, and he would bring her back. He
would taste her fear along with her blood.

A shiver of excitement coursed
through his body as he drifted to sleep.

Clods of red clay and gravel spun
in arcs from under the brown sheriff’s car as it bumped roughly down the dirt
drive to the Creek Side Cabins, jarring Deputy Grover Parsons’ teeth in the
process. Roots of the large trees lining the drive had caused the surface to
buckle and swell in places, and the car was almost airborne as it took some of
the bigger bumps in the drive, which had definitely not been graded for such
high speed.

Gannet Carlson, proprietor of the
‘Cabins’, as they were known locally, struggled to keep up. When he got to the
office, which was also the home he and his wife Margaret shared, he found
Grover standing outside his vehicle in a cloud of dust.

The front door to the office
creaked open, and the old woman who had checked in the young man from Texas
bustled out onto the porch in none too good a humor.

“Grover Parsons! What on God’s
green earth…” She stopped in mid-sentence as more swirling dust from her
husband’s sliding pickup billowed up onto and over the porch.

“Gannet! You tell me what is
going on and do it right now.”

Her husband stood beside his
truck waving the dust away from his face as he answered, “Don’t really know,
Marge. Grover here said he had to check something out. Something about that young
fella that came in this morning. One from Texas.”

Marge Carlson looked Deputy
Parsons in the eye. “Tell me what’s going on, Grover.”

“Don’t know for sure, Mrs.
Carlson. The man you checked in and the car match the description of a man
we’re after…the whole state’s after.”

“What did he do, Grover?”

“Don’t know that he did anything.
Just matches the description is all. I need to check it out. That’s all.”

“Well then, why all the
commotion, coming in here like you was after Billy the Kid.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Carlson. Can you
tell me which cabin they’re in?”

“Of course I can, Grover. I
checked them in, didn’t I?” The old woman slapped her hands down the front of
her shirt in an effort to beat some of the dust off. “They’re in twenty-three,
creek side. Around the bend and last cabin. They wanted some place quiet where
they could rest up. Been driving all night.”

“All right then. You and Gannet
stay here in the office. I’ll check things out. There may be some other folks
coming. More deputies, state patrol maybe too…”

“More?” Marge Carlson’s voice
rose in a small crescendo of concern.

“Yes, ma’am. If they do, just
point them in my direction, please.”

“Right, Grover. We’ll do that.”
Gannet moved onto the porch beside his wife and took her hand. It was clear
that there was more to this than just checking something out. “You be careful
now, Grover, you hear.”

“Yes, sir, I will. You two stay
here now. No matter what. Okay?”

The couple nodded solemnly at the
young deputy who climbed back into his car and moved forward down the drive.
The car disappeared into the surrounding trees, and Gannet Carlson led his wife
into their small home.

A hundred yards down the drive,
Deputy Parsons passed the turn off to the left to the forest view cabins.
Another fifty yards further, and he came to the turn to the right that led to
the creek side cabins.

The car coasted to a gentle stop
at the turn with just the slightest squeak of the breaks. Ahead the creek
rushed noisily, full from the previous night’s rain. To the right, the drive
continued in front of the cabins that lined the creek. Peering down the line of
cabins, Deputy Parsons saw the old Chevrolet. It did appear to match the
description of the one they had been giving in the BOLO from the state for the
last two days. Of course, there were a million other old cars on the road that
would also match.