Free Broken Pieces by Carla Cassidy

that made it easy for me to see things that others didn’t.”
    “You’ve definitely changed since high school,” she replied. Talk about stating the obvious—could she say anything more stupid?
    He smiled. “My mother tells everyone I was a late bloomer. My first year in college I shot up four inches and gained some weight.”
    “Finn told me that half the women in town went out and bought dogs or cats when you started your clinic here.”
    He laughed. “It’s amazing what a difference a few years can make in the way people see you. Girls who never looked my way in school are suddenly bringing me casseroles and dropping off perfectly healthy animals who they think need my attention.”
    “Hmm, I guess I should feel privileged that you asked me out for pizza,” she said lightly.
    “I guess you should,” he agreed teasingly, but with a bold hot light shining from his eyes.
    A crazy breathlessness swept over her. She’d have to take care. She had a feeling Jack Taylor had the potential to rock her world and that’s the last thing she wanted or needed in her life.
    *     *     *
    It was back.
    The hunger.
    The rage.
    The ravenous need to feel the potent power of ultimate control. He’d managed to keep it at bay for almost six months, but now it was back, burning in his gut, tearing apart his brain.
    He knew how to sate it. It had all begun so long ago with her. With Mariah. That was the first time the rage had become so great he’d felt he’d die from it. That night he hadn’t known where to find relief, what would stop the maddening demons from screaming in his head.
    He’d scarcely remembered leaving his house with a garbage bag wadded up in his pocket. He’d run like a wild animal being chased by a predator, only for him the predator was an unrelenting growl inside his head.
    Then he’d seen her. Standing in the grove of trees by her house. She was all that was good, all that was kind, and he wanted to smash that goodness and destroy as he’d been destroyed.
    And he had. He’d taken her with a brutality that later would make him puke. But in her terror, in the very act of dominance, he’d reached a place he’d never been before, a place of utter and complete nirvana.
    After he’d left her lying broken on the ground, after he’d puked up his guts, he realized the rage that had tormented him was gone and he was at peace like he’d never been before.
    That had been the beginning. And for a year it had been enough. When the rage began to build again,filling him up to the point that he thought his skin would crawl right off him, he’d known exactly what to do.
    Her name had been Gina and she’d been sitting in the town square. He’d come up behind her, thrown the bag over her head and raped her. This time he’d been smart—he’d worn a condom. He’d left her scared and broken and run like the wind when he was finished.
    It had been good, but it hadn’t been as good as with Mariah. In all the times after, it had never been as good as it had been that first time.
    Even when he’d escalated it by not covering their faces, by staring into their eyes as he raped them, it hadn’t been the same. Even when he’d choked the life out of them, then carried them to his secret place and buried them, it hadn’t been as good.
    And now the hunger was back.
    The hunger and the rage.
    Tonight somebody would pay. Tonight some woman would die and as he raped her, as he choked her until the life flicker in her eyes vanished, he’d think of that first time.
    And Mariah.

Chapter 7
    M ariah stood on the back porch and surveyed the work Joel had done. The yard finally looked like a real lawn instead of an abandoned lot, and in the flower beds, now without the cover of the weeds, a few petunias and impatiens she’d bought and planted that morning bloomed in reds and purples.
    Wafting on the summer breeze was not only the scent of freshly mowed grass but also the faint whiff of hickory smoke coming from