Free Hold Back the Dark by Eileen Carr Page B

better than drugs and better than sex, although the ecstasy had had something sexual to it. His cock had hardened as he looked down at what he’d done, at the way Orrin’s blood and brains splattered across the tidily vacuumed living room carpet. The feeling had made him reel, it was so powerful.
    He’d known then not to rush with Stacey. When you discovered nirvana, you didn’t want to just visit it. You wanted to live there. It had been sweet, so very sweet, to watch Stacey’s eyes glaze over and to see her head loll back like an old pudgy ragdoll. Then he’d released the cord the smallest amount and allowed the oxygen to rush into her lungs again. He’d watched as Stacey remembered where she was and what was happening to her; watched as the horror and the terror and the knowledge of her own helplessness had washed over her. Then he’d tightened the cord and done it again, and again.
    After Stacey was finally dead, it had taken only a few quick strokes to make him explode inside his pants with a burst of rapture he’d never experienced before. He wanted to feel that again. He wanted to feel the power and the control and the sweet release. He was breathing hard just thinking about it. He slid the cord between his fingers again and replayed it in his mind all over again.
    There had to be a way to make it happen. It was dangerous, though—so dangerous. He’d have to be smart and bide his time.
     

    It had been easy to get a warrant for Lois Bradley’s last known address on Acacia Avenue over in north Sacramento near Del Paso Heights. With two strikes against Lois already, Judge Neely had been willing to believe that she might be predisposed to committing a third crime worthy of a strike.
    Josh stood to one side of the cheap hollow-core door at the entrance to her apartment, and Elise stood on the other beneath the air-conditioning unit that jutted from the wall. Their hands hovered near the weapons on their belts.
    The long, low building was painted pink with turquoise trim in an attempt at whimsy, but the paint didn’t disguise the boarded-up window in the back, or the parking lot with only a scattering of gravel over its hard-packed dirt. The whole neighborhood had a defeated air, as if it had nothing left to lose.
    Lois had something left to lose: her freedom. Paperhangers like Lois were not generally violent. They worked behind the scenes. They weren’t into direct confrontation, but as Elise had pointed out, that wasn’t always the case. If push had come to shove for Lois and she had killed the Dawkins, then she’d graduated from white-collar crime to something much grittier. Shooting a cop would be another big leap, but it was unwise to ever underestimate a third-striker. When faced with spending the rest of their lives in prison, people tended to get unpredictable.
    Every once in a while, Josh wanted to grab one of the habitual offenders and shake them. Did they want to go to jail for life? Was that twelve-pack of Coors they had stolen from the Circle K really worth a life sentence? Most of them couldn’t think past the lovely melting sensation of the alcohol or the weed or the meth hitting their brains, making the rest of their troubles slide away for a while. Forget that the troubles would come back tenfold once the high had worn off. That was too far away to think about. All they were thinking about was the next six-pack or the next hit off the pipe.
    “Ms. Bradley,” Elise said, pounding on the door. “Open up. It’s the police. We need to talk to you.”
    Josh listened intently, but heard nothing. Lois Bradley could be gone or she could be good at keeping quiet.
    Elise knocked again. “Police, Ms. Bradley. Open up now.”
    They waited again. Still nothing. Elise nodded at him and he reached for the doorknob. It turned in his hand—the door wasn’t locked. He looked up at Elise, eyebrows raised. She tilted her head toward the door, giving her opinion that they should go in. He’d stay high,