Free Sense of Evil by Kay Hooper Page A

twelve?”
    “Six women in six weeks, both times.”
    “So it is just women,” Mallory said. “Bottom line, he hates women.”
    “Hates, loves, wants, needs—it’s probably a tangle. He hates them for what they are, either because they represent what he wants and can’t have or because he feels somehow emasculated by them. Killing them gives him power over them, gives him control. He needs that, needs to feel he’s stronger than they are, that he can master them.”
    “A manly man,” Hollis said, her mockery both obvious and hollow.
    Isabel nodded. “Or, at least, so he wants to believe. And wants us to believe.”
     
    Alan Moore had always thought that calling the central work area of the
Chronicle
offices “the newsroom” must have been someone’s idea of irony. Because nothing newsworthy ever happened in Hastings.
    Or hadn’t, until the first murder.
    Not that there hadn’t been killings in Hastings before, of course; when a town had been in existence for nearly two hundred years, there were bound to be killings every now and then. People had died out of greed, out of jealousy, out of spite, out of rage.
    But until the murder of Jamie Brower, no one had been killed by pure evil.
    Alan hadn’t hesitated to point that out in his coverage of the murders and their investigation. And not even Rafe had accused him—publicly or privately—of sensationalizing the tragedies of those murders.
    Some things damned well couldn’t be denied.
    There was something evil in Hastings, and the fact that it was walking around on two legs passing itself off as human didn’t change that fact.
    “How many times have I told you to pick up your own damned mail, Alan?” Callie Rosier, the
Chronicle’
s only full-time photographer, dumped several envelopes on his already cluttered desk. “It’s in a little box with your name on it right on the other side of that wall. You can’t miss it.”
    “I just said you could pick up mine while you were getting yours, what’s wrong with that?” Alan retorted.
    “What is this ‘while you’re up’ thing with you men?” She continued to her own desk, shaking her head as she sat down. “You sweat your brains out running miles every morning and lifting weights in the gym so you’ll look good in your jeans but pester other people to get stuff for you when it’s in the same damned room. Jesus.”
    “Don’t you have film to develop?” The question was more habit than curiosity, and absentminded to boot since he was leafing through his mail.
    “No. Why are all these places offering me credit cards?”
    “The same reason they’re offering them to me,” Alan replied, tossing several into his overflowing trash can. “Because they haven’t checked our credit records.” He eyed his final bit of mail, a large manila envelope with no return address, and hesitated only an instant before tearing it open.
    “I think these telemarketers are morons,” Callie said, studying the contents of one envelope marked URGENT! “They don’t even bother to be accurate in who they’re sending this stuff to anymore. I ask you, does the name Callie sound like it belongs to a man? This one should have been addressed to you. Take a little blue pill and get another inch or two. I’m sure you’d like another inch or two. And more staying power, says here.”
    “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Alan said.
    “Aren’t you usually?”
    He looked at her, saw that she was focused on her own mail and not even paying attention to the conversation. With only an instant’s pause, Alan said casually, “Oh, yeah, always.” Then he looked back down at his mail and, this time under his breath, repeated, “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
     
    Rafe accepted the message slip, absently introduced Officer McBrayer to the federal agents, then read the information she had offered. “Her husband says she’s been gone since Monday?”
    “He thinks since Monday.” Ginny made an effort to sound as brisk and