Free The Burning Man by Christa Faust Page A

shift until his leaking forehead came to rest against a colorful bag in the passenger seat.
    Olivia watched him die like she was waiting for a bus. It took a little longer than she was expecting, but soon enough he stopped breathing. Still she felt nothing.
    She woke with a swallowed gasp, sitting up in her bed with the vivid horror of that dream clinging to her mind like an oil slick suffocating a sea bird. It was the most awful, most inexplicable dream she’d ever had.
    She’d often talked with Kieran about how important it was in law enforcement to be able to see into minds of killers. She had read dozens of books on the subject of psychopathology and psychological profiling, but she’d never imagined anything even remotely like the kind of casual, careless boredom she’d felt in that dream.
    What did it say about her own mind, that she was able to dredge something like that up from the depths of her subconscious? Or had she just been reading too much Thomas Harris?
    Olivia pulled her blanket around her shoulders, shivering. Already, the details of the dream were unraveling, slipping away. She looked at her clock radio. It would be going off in two minutes, to wake her for her first period German class. There was a test that day, a minor quiz, but Olivia took every test very seriously and had stayed up late the night before studying.
    She concentrated, and before long thoughts of German conjugation filled her head, washing away the last clinging fragments of her terrible, murderous dream.
    * * *
    The seductive whisper of Olivia’s presence inside Tony’s brain dissipated like fog as he pulled Jimmy’s body upright in the driver’s seat. He shook his head to clear it, and then went through the target’s pockets, removing his wallet and badge. He also removed the keys from the ignition and used them to open the trunk. He took the larger of the two suitcases and set it to one side, then closed the trunk and set about meticulously covering the back end of the car with branches, making it virtually invisible from the road.
    He had a bad moment when he heard a car coming down the road, but if the driver noticed anything odd, they didn’t bother to stop and check it out. Tony held his breath as they passed, heart thumping, and tried to blend into the greenery as the sound of the car’s engine faded into the distance.
    He was in the clear, for now, but he’d ditch his own car at the earliest opportunity, just to be on the safe side.
    * * *
    That opportunity came at a rest stop east of Tampa, where he was able to score a green minivan. He ditched the gun in an overflowing dumpster, took only a brief detour to a neighborhood liquor store, and then drove the new vehicle back to Jimmy’s apartment. He parked across the street and headed up the walkway, all ready to be confronted by nosy neighbors. He’d prepared an explanation about how he’d promised to water Jimmy’s plants while he was at Disney World.
    Turned out that nobody really cared about anyone else in the crummy little complex. Which was just the way Tony liked it.
    Carrying a clinking bag from the liquor store, he let himself into the stuffy apartment and quickly discovered that his excuse wouldn’t have worked, anyhow. There were no plants. In fact, there were hardly any decorations of any kind. The fire-sale sofa, a dull, unappealing plaid, was shoved up against the far wall like the homely girl no one wants to dance with. A second-hand recliner that looked like it got way more mileage than the sofa. Generic table, cluttered with mail and magazines and unwashed coffee mugs. Clearly the house of a recently divorced male who had been used to letting his wife handle things around the house.
    Tony didn’t linger. He was on a mission.
    He found Jimmy’s gun and shoulder holster hanging inside the closet door. It was a nice rig, comfortable, well-worn leather that fit him perfectly. He was disappointed to find that Jimmy didn’t have any other firearms