Chapter Thirteen
Linda Salinas trudged up the porch stairs to her house, swaying slightly as she held grocery bags in both hands. From the shadow of the bushes, he watched her. He knew her routine and her every move. For weeks, he’d been watching her, and Tuesday night was grocery night. He smiled as she dropped a bag to grab onto the railing so she wouldn’t fall. When she bent over to pick up her groceries, he glimpsed the backside of her tanned thighs. His breath quickened as his eyes fixed on her movements.
Tuesday night was the one night she was alone. There were no children or grandchildren who came over, no friends, and she had nowhere to be. After learning her schedule, he’d marked Tuesday as the day he would pay her a visit. Many Tuesdays had come and gone, but that night he was in predator mode. That night he would attack, and afterward, he’d find another target. There were a couple women he’d been staking out, but nothing as intense as Linda Salinas. At least not yet.
The excitement of surprising her, of seeing the fear in her eyes, of smelling it oozing from her body was what he loved. Fear and dominance were what drove him to seek, stalk, and attack his victims. A lot of his time was spent fantasizing and hunting, and once he decided to give in to his craving, he was past the point of no return.
That night, as he watched Linda Salinas close and lock her door, he was beyond fantasizing. The rush of adrenaline surging through his body reminded him how badly he needed this. He would wait for the next several hours until she went to bed. He’d broken into her house earlier that day and unlatched a window in the family room. She never checked her windows before she went to bed.
In all his hunting, it never ceased to amaze him how many women left their windows and door unlocked, or never checked them when they arrived home. He wasn’t complaining because it made what he did so much easier. It just surprised him how trusting people were in general. Maybe some would reason that the women felt safe in a small town, but he’d seen it when he was hunting in the city before he moved to Alina. He chuckled. Predators such as he relied on women’s naiveté to feed their hunger.
With a backdrop of crickets in the long grass, nighttime erased all remnants of twilight. The predator’s gaze fixed on his prey’s lighted bedroom window. Very soon now it would go out. Licking his lips, he shoved his hands in his pockets and waited. Darkness brought the primal nature to the front, an invigorating state for those who craved fear and dominance.
Then the light went out. Jittering a foot against the ground, his heart pounded as he imagined the look of fear on Linda Salinas’s face. Slow down. Keep cool. You’ve got time. You want to make sure the bitch is fast asleep. Waking up a woman from sleep when she thought she was safe hit him below the belt each and every time. He doubted that he’d ever tire of the rush of excitement the woman’s fear brought to him. And it only got better as he threatened her and told her all the awfully nasty things he was going to do to her. There was really nothing like it.
A little less than two hours later, he was in Linda Salinas’s bedroom doorway. In the glow from the moonlight, he saw her form encased in a blanket. The air conditioning made the room cool, and it reminded him of a tomb. He smiled at his analogy, then pulled the knife out of his pocket. The blade gleamed as he slowly approached the bed, his heart beating, his excitement through the roof. And still she slept, oblivious to how drastically her life would forever change.
Standing over her, he saw her black hair curled around her forehead and her body moving up and down as she breathed. Showtime, my sweet lamb. Grasping her shoulders, he shook her firmly, loving the way her eyes flew open and confusion masked her face. When her sleepy gaze became clear, it fixed on his ski mask, then on his brown eyes. Her gaze was terrified. Perfect. You didn’t disappoint me, darling.
“Don’t move or I’ll kill you,” he gritted as he held the blade against her quivering neck. Her fear kept growing and his desire pushed him on.
He threw off her bed coverings, and the small whimpers and ever-present fear etched on her face fed him and pushed him on. He cut off her clothes with the knife, his eyes feasting on her breasts. I’m going to have fun with those. Out of instinct, her hands flew to her breasts in an attempt to cover them from his piercing gaze. He shoved them off and leaned close to her ear.
“You’re going to do everything I tell you to do. If you don’t, I’ll fucking kill you. If you scream, I’ll cut you bad, then fucking kill you. And if you ever try to cover yourself, I’ll fuck you with the knife. You got it?” She nodded, her face pained with terror. “Then we understand each other.”
For the next four hours, he brutally raped her. She was compliant, not even daring to cry out. The only evidence of her grief, fear, and shame was the tears that kept rolling down her cheeks. Of course, he fed off those wet streams just like he did with her fright.
When he was fully sated, he took out a camera and snapped a slew of pictures of her in various poses, and then he dragged her to the bathroom and made her sit in the tub. Turning on the cold water, he ordered her to stay there until he came back. He returned to the bedroom and stripped the bed of all coverings, shoved her clothes in a large plastic bag, and carefully cleaned anything that could have any trace of his DNA. He went back to the bathroom and ordered his victim to wash herself while he watched, grabbing the soap from her and roughly cleaning her vagina and rear end. Throwing the soap into the bathwater, he said, “Don’t move. If you call the police, I’ll put all the pictures I took of you on the Internet. Be smart, not stupid. Remember, I know where you live.”
Past experience taught him that, fearful he may still be in the house, Linda Salinas would most probably stay in the cold bathwater for at least an hour before her courage allowed her to venture out. By then, he’d be long gone.
He disposed of the bedsheets and clothes, then headed to his house. After checking on his children, he slid between the sheets and tugged his wife to him. She moaned slightly and snuggled close to him. In a matter of seconds, his exhaustion overtook him and he fell into a deep, restful sleep.