One more kill, p.1
One More Kill, page 1
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Copyright © 2021 by Carolyn Arnold
Excerpt from Ties That Bind copyright © 2011 by Carolyn Arnold
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publisher.
Hibbert & Stiles Publishing Inc.
hspubinc.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Names: Arnold, Carolyn
Title: One More Kill / Carolyn Arnold.
Description: 2021 Hibbert & Stiles Publishing Inc. edition. | Series: Brandon Fisher FBI series ; book 9
Identifiers: ISBN (e-book): 978-1-989706-60-2 | ISBN (4 x 7 paperback): 978-1-989706-61-9 | ISBN (5 x 8 paperback): 978-1-989706-62-6 | ISBN (6 x 9 hardcover): 978-1-989706-63-3
Additional Formats: ISBN (6 x 9 paperback large print): 978-1-989706-64-0 | ISBN (audiobook): 978-1-989706-65-7
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTE TO READERS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OVERVIEW OF ONE MORE KILL
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CHAPTER ONE
Huntsville, Arkansas
Saturday, October 16, 3:20 AM Local Time
The moon was brilliant in the night sky, giving him all the light he needed to see his prey. They entered the woods, and he was right on their tail. What a rush! The thrill of the hunt had adrenaline pumping through his veins. It had been far too long since he’d felt this level of euphoria.
He stepped into the woods and listened. The snapping of twigs and the crunching of rocks underfoot. And they thought they’d be safe in the woods. Foolish—and a grave mistake. The Leopard smiled to himself.
He was skilled at the art of listening, of homing in on his targets. He sniffed the air and caught the scent of the woman’s perfume. She’d certainly come through this way, and if his instinct was right, she was nearby. He smiled and lifted his archery bow, took a few steadying breaths, and pivoted, searching for his target.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” he prattled off in a singsong voice that he hoped sent chills through her very being.
The sound of deep breathing, the bristling of movement—then he saw her. About ten yards ahead. Easy-peasy shot. He pulled back on the bow and let the arrow fly. It catapulted through the air and found its target.
She screamed, and he grinned again, taking such extreme pleasure in her pain and frustration. There would be no one to hear her screams out here! And, oh, how loud people could be! They were certainly louder than animals in the face of their mortality, and more visceral. He loved toying with them the way a cat bats around a mouse in its claws.
Prey One went down in a heap, and he caught up to her, towering above her.
She was still wailing and clutching at the back of her thigh where his arrowhead had pierced into her meaty flesh and rendered her immobile. From the look of the blood pooling on the dirt, he’d struck an artery. He smiled down at her, and her face, a panicked mask, contorted into an expression of absolute horror, and her yells became mute.
“Show your fear,” he told her and briefly shut his eyes. “Let me feel your terror.” He ripped the arrow from her leg, and she howled into the night.
But there was another noise interfering.
Prey Two—the man. No doubt he had plans of grandeur and that of playing hero.
How lovely, the Leopard thought. “Your white knight is coming, my lady, but he will die just like you.”
She let out an ear-piercing, strangled cry that resonated through him, filling him with absolute bliss.
Prey Two emerged from behind a thicket of evergreens. He stood in a bath of moonlight that made its way through a small clearing in the forest, presenting a confident stance, but the Leopard could smell fear. A distinct odor—unpleasant, repulsive. A stench that he needed to put to an end. But first, he had something else to attend to. He needed to make sure the woman wasn’t going to risk moving, not that she’d get far if she tried.
The Leopard crouched next to her and removed his Bowie from its sleeve. He held it up for her to see and picked up on the small nuance of her widened eyes reflected in the blade. She tried to back away from him but was unsuccessful.
Her horrified protests became louder—the most pleasant sound to his ears, but there was even better yet to come.
He lunged forward, quickly slicing across her torso, from one side of her belly button to the other. Her intestines spilled from her, and her cries were near deafening.
Much better… A soothing lullaby to my ears…
Prey Two reacted, screaming and coming at the Leopard. Did he not realize that it was far too late to do anything remotely effective?
The Leopard resumed full height and lifted his archery bow. Depending on the male prey, they either ran at this point or challenged him. He so hoped for the latter, as it made it far more fun when they actually thought they could beat him.
“Get away from her!” the man barked.
He was like a tiny chihuahua taking on a bullmastiff. How admirable, yet foolish. The Leopard reloaded the arrow that he’d used on the woman, slipped it into the bow, and released.
It was like the man wasn’t even going to try to escape his pending fate—until the last second, when he turned and started to run. The arrow hit him in the back of the leg, and he yelled out, dropping to the ground. The Leopard smiled.
Perfect. He wanted him alive to have fun with next.
He returned to the woman. It was time to get to work before she died from blood loss. The next step was much more entertaining with the prey still conscious, but he’d be fighting against the clock.
He bent down next to her and slapped her face until her eyes popped open. What many people didn’t know was they could live with their entrails hanging outside of their body, sometimes for quite a while. The body was miracle and hell—depending on perspective. Her body trembled beneath his touch, but she didn’t try to move. She wouldn’t be able to anyway.
The man was crying about ten yards away where he’d dropped, sputtering nonsensical, incoherent words, but he was no threat.
The Leopard ignored him—for now. He’d get to him soon enough. He traded his Bowie for another blade, this one smaller, super sharp, allowing him straighter, more precise lines. Finally, it was time to finish what he’d started before he’d been so rudely interrupted. He held her head still, which wasn’t hard as she was beginning to slip away into unconsciousness.
He came at her left eye first, and she screamed in terror. Fantastic! He proceeded to stab the tip of the blade into her eye socket and began cutting with care and precision. She was bucking now, just slightly, her body more or less twitching like it was having an epileptic seizure. Sadly, it wouldn’t be long now, and his fun with her would be over…
He flicked away the flesh of the eyelid. He held the eye he’d extracted for her to see with her remaining eye, but there was no light there, and her chest had stopped moving. He became livid. No! She was to be conscious and alert for both removals! He did, after all, live, breathe, and prey on his victims’ fear and helplessness at his hands—at proving himself the superior hunter.
He put the removed eye into one of two small jars that he had in a pocket of his camouflage jacket. Then he extracted the second eye and put it with the first. Both bobbed in the preservative fluid, and he put the jar back in his vest.
Next, he extracted two large, yellow cat’s-eye marbles from another pocket. Prey One was almost complete.
He set the marbles in her now-empty eye sockets and admired his work.
Beautiful, but the fun with her is over!
Still, not all was lost. He had reason to be thrilled. There was one more prey to toy with.
He stood and turned to where the man had fallen, but there was no sign of him. Excitement whirled through his veins.
The hunt continues…
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CHAPTER TWO
Four days later
FBI Office, Quantico, Virginia
Thursday, 12:50 PM Local Time
The vultures were circling… That could be said of a couple of things, but it immediately applied to the discovery of two murder victims found in the woods of rural Arkansas.
Currently, I, FBI Special Agent Brandon Fisher, was in a briefing room at Quantico with the rest of my team members with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. That included Paige Dawson, Kelly Marsh, and the latest addition, a man named Tony Manning. He was technically our boss—for now. I liked to believe that Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper would be back soon. Mid-forties, Tony seemed more concerned with carving out his reputation as a badass than actually being effective, though in all fairness, we hadn’t hit the field yet. I had a feeling that was about to change.
Also in the room was Nadia Webber, our team’s assigned analyst. She was handling the latest briefing, an investigation that promised to finally free us from our cubicles. We’d been keeping them warm ever since our case last month went belly-up—also the reason Jack wasn’t around. The director and other higher-ups of the Bureau, who might also be considered circling vultures, had decided it was a good time to dredge Jack’s past for any hint of wrongdoing they could hold against him.
We were all seated at a round conference table, while Nadia stood next to a large flat-screen mounted on the wall with a tablet in her hands.
On the screen were images of two victims—one male, one female. Both were sprawled in a wooded patch, but the screen was split vertically up the middle. From what we’d already been told, they were found in the same area of the woods, though not next to each other. As for their bodies, the massacre was similar. Blood was pooled out on the ground in front of them, along with…
Bile rose in the back of my throat, and I swallowed roughly, as I concluded that I was looking at their intestines.
Nadia continued to bring us up to speed. “The victims, identified as Mark and Stephanie Duran, were forty-eight and forty-seven respectively. They were found Monday morning by a local farmer in a patch of woods on their property. They lived in the house on the land but didn’t work the fields. They leased that out.”
“One of the leasing farmers made the discovery. Name of Keith Owen,” Manning inserted out of some sense of self-importance, I figured. Nadia was managing just fine.
“They were both shot with arrows in the back of the upper leg,” Nadia added.
Arrows? That was different. Our team hunted the most sadistic serial killers under the sun, but this was a first—at least for me. But I clued into something else this may tell us about our unsub—or unknown subject. “I’m guessing these wounds were not the cause of death.” The mess on the ground could lead me to that conclusion, but my mind was starting to formulate something else. I just needed a little more to go on.
Nadia shook her head. “They didn’t help, but cause of death was exsanguination.” She swept her finger on the screen of her tablet. On the TV screen there was now a satellite image of the property on the left side, and on the right, a shot from ground level. There was a farmhouse on the land, surrounded by fields, which were skirted by woods. “The Durans were believed to have been chased through their property into the woods where they were then each shot with an arrow,” Nadia said.
The picture in my mind was taking on more shape and distinction. The woods were a fair distance from the farmhouse, but the entire property appeared remote and isolated. The killer would be able to do whatever he or she wanted with no one to hear their victims’ screams. It made me wonder why an arrow and not a gun. But one thing was clear. “Our killer is a hunter,” I said. “After the thrill. Chases the victims, shoots them with an arrow, guts them…” As I spoke, I looked around the room and latched my gaze with Kelly’s.
She flicked a finger toward the screen and said, “Go back to the crime scene photos, Nadia.” She might be new to the team, but she was probably one of the least squeamish. It made me wonder about the cases she’d worked previously when she was with the Miami PD’s homicide division.
The crime scene returned to the monitor.
“They were hunted,” Kelly reiterated exactly what I had said as if she were surprised that she was in agreement with me. But that was what the two of us did—disagreed first, joined forces later. She continued. “They were shot with an arrow simply to immobilize them. He—because often thrill killers, specifically those who are hunters, are male—wanted them to be alive and conscious while he worked through his MO.”
It was certainly a sick method of operation judging from the display in front of us, and her driving home the sad fact the victims were probably alive for all of this suffering had a dark, suffocating cloud descending over the room.
“Were the arrows recovered? Can they tell us anything helpful?” I asked.
“They haven’t been found. It’s believed that the killer removed them and took them with him,” Nadia said.
“To use again,” Kelly muttered.
“Arrows, even if they were left behind, wouldn’t give forensics much to work with, not like that of a bullet,” Paige said. “And bows and arrows are not a registered weapon.”
“True enough,” Manning piped in. “But if we did find out what brand was used, that might help lead us to the killer’s identity.” He shrugged when all eyes went to him. “I also know a little about archery. I used to go north with my dad and uncle when I was young. Anyway, continue, Nadia.”
“All we know about the arrows is they had a lot of pressure behind them and penetrated deeply enough to chip bone,” Nadia said. “It’s believed that he is using either a crossbow or a compound bow.”
“Both are rather accurate if handled by an experienced archer.” Manning cut in again to show how smart he was. “Both those bows are used in hunting, though the compound bow is more traditional. Of course, not as much as the longbow. Think Robin Hood. With that one, however, it’s all driven by manpower and packs less punch. With a compound bow, it utilizes a pulley system that assumes some of the weight on the drawback. The shooter would still get the feel of a longbow without needing as much strength, and the arrow would pack more wallop. Didn’t mean to interrupt, Nadia.”
Sure you did…
Nadia changed the image on the screen, and I’d expected it would be a more graphic display of the Durans’ guts, but it was something else that was equally as disturbing. Their eyes and eyelids were gone, and in their place were large, yellow cat’s-eye marbles.
Paige groaned, and I glanced over at her—implying concern, but it simply masked my desire to avoid the screen for a second or two. But if someone like Paige who had been FBI for years could react like that, I had a right. I’d only been a Fed for four years. Kelly, as expected, didn’t really show much of a visceral reaction, except for maybe some sadness for the plight of the victims.
