Undercover Hunter(110)

                If it turned out to be Calvin Sweet, she wanted his blood.

                * * *

                Calvin Sweet didn’t think anything when he saw that Cherokee deputy come out of the house where DeeJay was staying. The whole damn town seemed to be trying to put on its best face for these writers, so why wouldn’t that include the sheriff’s department?

                He almost giggled as he trudged through the snow toward the house and Micah Parish drove away. The cops were probably busy showing how caring and alert they were, what a safe place this was...and hoping like hell the writers didn’t focus on the fear and the missing kids.

                He liked walking around town these days, feeling all the fear, watching the way people tried to keep their children close, knowing he had caused it all.

                So, yeah, the writers had to have heard about it. And the sheriff was probably busy making it look like cops were on top of everything around her.

                But they weren’t. They’d never been. They sure as hell hadn’t saved him and he had always wondered why. They must have known what was going on, even though he denied it. He’d been questioned about it, but nobody ever took it any further.

                That made them lazy. Maybe it even made them evil. They’d turned a blind eye even when they got suspicious. His mother had certainly thought they were evil and had wanted nothing to do with any of them.

                This whole place lived in some kind of fantasy world, where the only bad things they wanted to know was who was cheating on whom. Well, he’d taught them before and he was teaching them again.

                Blind. They were all blind. And now they were afraid.

                So, yeah, the sheriff was probably trying to minimize the whole thing so these writers wouldn’t trash the town. Giving them personal attention from the police to convince them that nobody had superior law enforcement.

                Calvin knew better.

                But he was teaching all of them a lesson and, more importantly, he was carrying out the mission left to him by his mother. Purifying those boys.

                And now it was time to purify a woman. The surety of it had become his current driving force. He was past questioning the wisdom of anything he was doing. He only knew he must do this.

                It was time to lure his prey.

                Sometimes the confusion of his own thoughts troubled him. He was saving these boys, and these women, so why did he see them as prey? But once the hunting urge took over, the confusion and questions vanished. He was on a mission. That one conviction never deserted him, not even in moments of confusion.

                He walked up to the front door of the house and knocked.

                * * *

                Cade opened the door and faced a slender, dark-haired man, possibly in his early thirties, who had a face so smooth and perfectly shaped that it appeared almost angelic.

                But he also felt a jolt of recognition, one that made his stomach twist into knots. He didn’t need to hear the guy identify himself to recognize the resemblance, however slight, to the photos he’d seen of the boys and women who had disappeared. This guy fit the victim profile in every way except age. Now he knew for sure why DeeJay kept saying her nose was twitching.

                He had long experience of appearing impassive, so he was sure the jolt didn’t give him away. He summoned a look of mild inquiry. “Yes?”

                “I’m Calvin Sweet. From the crisis center. I met DeeJay the other day.”