TAMED | FREENBECKY

5

He shouldn't have hit her.

That was Kirk's first mistake. When he had come up with the Plan, the idea had been to leave the park immediately after he made the kill. Get away fast, don't hang around to looky-loo. And certainly don't end up in the background of any crime-scene photographs. Killers got caught like that, and he refused to let anyone stop him. That's what the game was about: telling the world, but especially Dr. Becca Armstrong, that he could do whatever he wanted, to whomever he wanted.

All he had to do was stick to the Plan. Be logical. Stay calm.

Today, on his first kill, he had completely and utterly failed. As Kirk had stood over his offering and stripped off the bloody sweatshirt and gloves he would burn before he went home, a dark desire took hold. Dr. Becca Armstrong would begin her morning walk in a mere half hour. The kill zone was far enough from her usual route that he could hang around that area of the park another thirty minutes, if only to catch a glimpse.

He had told himself that's all he wanted. A glimpse.

He had burned to see Becca stroll through the park unaware of what had just occurred, having no idea that he was watching from behind a tree. Would she be frightened later when she realized her proximity to the time and place of the crime? Angry? More determined to catch him?

The thought turned him on. To leave Becca the body of a woman who could have just as easily been the good doctor herself, having met a terrible fate so close to where she walked every morning, was a masterstroke. A grand gesture from a killer who wouldn't let science or psychology outsmart him. Kirk loved grand gestures. It was probably the one part of his Plan that was flawed. But what was the point of showing the world you could do whatever you wanted if you didn't want to do anything big?

And what was the point of challenging somebody if you were afraid to get near them?

That thought had made him deviate from the Plan. He could do whatever he wanted, and what he had wanted then was to see Becca one last time before their game really began. During the weeks he spent learning her routine, he had watched her from a distance, fascinated. They had a connection now. And he wanted to experience it one last time before she became his adversary.

At first he told himself he just wanted a quick look to satisfy his curiosity. To take a mental snapshot, something to remember later. No big deal, certainly nothing that would jeopardize their game.

That had been the new Plan until the moment she walked into view.

Instead of satisfaction, he felt rage. Arousal. Excitement.

She thought she was so clever. Why? Because she'd helped catch a serial killer? Charlie Wang had been an amateur, an embarrassment. He was sloppy, and that's why she'd discovered his patterns.

Not like Kirk. Nobody would stop him, especially not Dr. Becca Armstrong.

He didn't remember consciously deciding to attack her. One moment he was crouched behind the tree, then the next he was pulling on his ski mask and running to intercept her. When he drew back his fist and punched her in the face, he genuinely shocked himself. That hadn't been in the Plan, and yet there he was, improvising.

Back in his apartment, Kirk winced and touched his arm where the wolf's teeth had punctured the skin. Improvising. That was exactly the kind of idiot move that would get him caught. Precisely the type of misstep he always criticized guys like Charles Dunning for making.

Yet seeing the fear in her eyes had thrilled him. It was the most delicious emotion he had ever witnessed. Certainly the best he had ever caused. Not only was she a worthy adversary, but no one had ever given him such pure, succulent terror before.

Already he wanted to experience it again.

That was a problem. Though he'd been angry about the wolf at first, now that he was home safely, he wondered if the interruption had been a sign that he had gone too far, that he was straying from his meticulously crafted plans. Maybe the universe was trying to protect him from his own impulses and keep him on the right path.

How else to explain something so bizarre as a goddamn wolf in West Gate Park?

It was too late to change what he'd done. Now he could only wait and see how his actions would affect the Plan. He'd grabbed her purse as he fled the scene, not because he needed anything inside it, but because he hoped she might dismiss her assault as a simple mugging. Realistically, he knew that threatening to fuck her and make her cry had probably negated any step he could have taken to make his motive look like robbery. Stealing her purse served a dual purpose, though: Not only might it introduce doubt about his motives, but it would also shake her up even further. Frighten her.

Kirk liked that idea a lot.

To be safe, he'd dumped it in a garbage can at the edge of the park. No way would he hang on to it. He didn't keep trophies. On a day when he had broken so many rules, he remained steadfast about the stupidity of trophies. If the cops discovered evidence in your home, you'd practically confessed. Kirk didn't want to find notoriety as a captured serial killer. He preferred an air of mystique, like the Zodiac Killer.

Kirk sighed and picked up the book on his coffee table. Listening to the Dead: Forensic Science and the Serial Murders of Charlie Wang. By Dr. Becca Armstrong. He flipped to the first page, ready to give it yet another read.

The book was his bible, his blueprint. It was his secret weapon in the battle to outsmart Becca Armstrong.

And, he hoped, it would help him forget about how much he'd enjoyed tracing his blade over her bare skin, how badly he wanted to do it again.

She was his opponent, not his victim.

At least not yet.

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