R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 02 - L O S T Read Online Free Page A

others; one that she could wrap her spindly little fingers around and wield like a scythe to all who opposed her.
    Spence had said on more than one occasion that she ran the pickup zone like a prison soup kitchen—pointing her baton this way and that, chewing on the parents, most who had just rushed in from one stress-filled job or another and didn’t much appreciate the mousy dictator and her oppressive little fiefdom.
    So one night a few weeks before the murders, the voice told Spence a funny anecdote:
    Did you hear about the noxious bitch with a chip on her shoulder that got herself run over by a well-meaning parent? Her chip isn’t nearly as big anymore.
    Spence found he liked that story. Liked it a lot, in fact. Liked it so much when his brain went to making it more of a plan than a funny piece of indulgent fiction, he found he didn’t have much of a problem with the idea at all.
    The next midafternoon, when Della Gerard was holding him back with a flat palm and grousing at a parent who’d been parked a few seconds too long in the yellow zone, Spence simply eased off the brake pedal, turned the wheel ever so slightly, and let the right front wheel of his rusted Subaru Forrester run up and over the foot and ankle of his least favorite crossing guard, snapping her tibia and fibula like brittle summer branches in a rainless wood.
    At the hospital, Spence apologized emphatically and even managed to produce a few tears when being interviewed by the Chief of Police. The incident was ruled an unfortunate accident, and though Spence’s insurance premiums went through the roof, Della Gerard retired from her policing duties and never walked correctly or without pain again.
    ~ ~ ~
      
    Killing didn’t come as easy to Spence. Most murderers needed to warm up to the idea. Even serial killers began slowly, sometimes graduating from assault to rape to murder. The voice convinced Spence Grant that he could prey on some of God’s lesser creatures to ease his trepidation.
    The voice questioned him relentlessly:
    What about medical science? Labs do heinous things to rats and mice and even guinea pigs, Spence. All under the guise of saving the world from the disease and pestilence brought about by themselves. Why not you? If you aren’t committed to changing the way things are, then…
    But Spence was ready to learn. Or at least he then believed what had to be done had to be done . He just needed some practice. So he bought a dozen mice, four rats, and two gerbils at a pet store in Coeur d’Alene.
    Spence hated rodents. He would never be talked into hurting a dog, or even a cat.
    The voice was specific about the practice runs.
    Look each of them in the EYE, Spence. Taking a life is a personal thing. Look each of them in the eye, and you won’t be afraid. Put YOUR fear into THEM, Spence. Send them on their way.
    Spence looked each mouse in the eyes. He knew it would be different with a person . The mice had no reasonable sentience. They were terrified, which helped, but they sensed only basic, overarching danger. They could not possibly know what the scalpel held in store for them.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    Three days before the murders Spence hadn’t heard from the voice in a week, and he was getting edgy. It was clear the voice meant him to graduate to a human being, and the idea of taking the life of one of his own kind had actually become a bit of a fixation. After all, mice were not culpable in the destruction of the world.
    Men were.
    And women.
    His own people.
    It was finally time to make a difference. The voice didn’t have far to go in convincing him of that.
    Yet Spence still didn’t know who the first victim would be. This had him pacing back and forth in the downstairs study when his wife thought he was working through the family finances. Who would it be?
    Then, at three thirty-three in the morning, exactly seventy-two hours before the murders, the voice returned to him to give him the plan.
    You must kill THEM , it said