The Killing Game

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Book: The Killing Game by J. A. Kerley Read Free Book Online
Authors: J. A. Kerley
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective
studied columns of figures he’d spend all night crunching. “Your senior 4-H project took this much math?”
    “It wasn’t the senior project, Harold, it was the junior one. The senior one was a lot more complicated.”
    Barkley pretended to make sobbing noises. Kayla’s cell phone rang and she plucked it from the back pocket of her jeans. She noted the caller and the smile broadened on her face.
    “Hi, Daddy.” She covered the phone with her hand. “Run along, Harold. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”
    “In class it’s
us
who are trying to catch
you
, Ballard.”
    Kayla grinned and returned to her cell phone. “Yep, I’m here in the greenhouse, Daddy. Guess what? I got voted president of the ag club and I wasn’t even running…”
    The pair talked for ten minutes and would talk again near ten p.m., before Kayla fell into bed. Kayla missed her father terribly. They had been inseparable since her mother passed away when she was seven, the victim of a drunk driver.
    “… all right, Daddy. I’m heading to the dorm to start calculating all this stuff. I love you.”
    Harold Barkley walked toward the dorms. Kayla would beat him on her bike, riding the wide sidewalk that served both pedestrians and bikers.
    She rounded a bend to find the same curious sight she’d noticed for the second day in a row: a man staring into the trees with binoculars. A birdwatcher, she figured, goofy-looking in that big floppy hat and sunglasses. Yesterday she couldn’t tell if it was a guy or girl until she got closer. A guy, could have been twenty, could have been fifty, from all she could see of him.
    Had a game leg, too. Favored it and carried a cane, sticking it under his arm to scan the terrain. All that to watch birds, which meant a person with dedication. As Kayla closed in, the glasses seemed to turn her way, then drift back to the trees. Kayla felt a camaraderie with the birder, out practicing his hobby on a hot evening like this.
    Good for you, buddy,
she thought, smiling and waving as she sped past.

15
    I looked at the classroom clock, almost nine already. How did the time fly by so fast? “OK, let’s wrap things up,” I said. “Questions?”
    “Can we go back to the sociopath issue a bit?” Jason Kellogg said.
    We’d spent two hours on securing crime scenes and its protocols – vital information, but nowhere near as tasty as discussing motivations of the Hillside Strangler or the Night Stalker. When you’ve eaten your cauliflower, you’ve earned a slice of pie.
    “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”
    “You mentioned the sociopath’s need for control. Why is control such a big deal?”
    “Holliday has book learning in that area,” I said. “Let’s give her a shot.”
    “Get it, girl,” Sanchez grinned. “School us.”
    Holliday swallowed hard. She was in the front row and turned to address the bulk of the class. “Uh, well, many professionals think that by being controlling and manipulative, sociopaths reinforce their sense of superiority.”
    Holliday looked at me. I said, “Keep going.”
    “They’re in charge, ergo they’re the most powerful person in the relationship. Conversely, by being stupid enough to be manipulated, the other person is diminished.”
    Jason Kellogg spoke up. “Why don’t people get tired of being jerked around?”
    “The manipulation can be so subtle it’s not noticed, especially with intelligent socios. It’s an interesting problem to them – a project – pressing someone’s buttons without leaving fingerprints on the buttons.”
    “Let me step in,” I said. “I watched a sociopath named Bobby Lee Crayline be hypnotized. He was dangerous to the extreme, guards in attendance. A guard ordered Crayline to sit for the procedure. He didn’t. When ordered to sit again, Crayline crouched slightly on bended knees. Without a second thought, the guard pushed the chair beneath Crayline’s butt and he sat.”
    “So?” Pendel yawned. “The guard ordered the guy to sit and he

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