Free R.S. Guthrie - Detective Bobby Mac 03 - Reckoning by R.S. Guthrie

had—could not possibly imagine the raw, unbridled terror it caused the very soul of a human to look onto its formation. To sense of what it was capable; to feel what could only be described as hatred of Good, and of humans, and of anything normal—it was quite literally demonstrative to the spirit and capable of causing permanent scarring that could not be driven away by a stadium full of psychiatrists.
    Spence slowly turned to the side, where he knew the creature had chosen to appear. The smell had hit him already and thankfully he’d grown accustomed to the stench—that, at least, was a tangible. As detectives and police became accustomed to decomposition or meat factory workers to opened flesh, Spence had become desensitized. It was the only reason he did not vomit as he hadthe first dozen or so times. The most fear came in the moment before he looked upon his demon. The anticipation.
    When he looked, mercifully, the horror was so overwhelming he immediately lost control of all bodily functions and collapsed unconscious.
     

     
    He awoke hours later in pools of his own excretions. It was nauseating, but the fear of what he’d experienced in his mind and soul before passing out was far more damaging than the smell of anything human , excrement or not.
    Spence checked the day and the time. He had no idea how long he was out, but the freshness of the mess in which he rested suggested it had not been too long. It was four in the morning. Mac wasn’t due a call for his next surprise until the next day. The thing wanted MacAulay , as it referred to him, emphasizing verbally the traditional spelling, to know he was always a step behind. Cat and mouse. More than once Spence wondered what Mac’s family had done to so enrage the Evil of the world.
    Truthfully, he didn’t want to know.
    He decided instead of such contemplations he would clean himself and his apartment.
     

     
    “Manny, I had an important realization yesterday.”
    “Good to see you again, boss,” Manny told me.
    “Run a profile on Melissa Grant, from Rocky Gap, Idaho. I want to know everything the system has on her. Also call the police up there, the new Chief, uh, Brown. Jeffers Brown. Get everything they have, too. I mean BOLOs, everything.”
    “Done.”
    “We need her birthdate first,” I said.
    “Give me a minute,” Manny said, and spun in his chair. “I can get that for you in a shake.”
    Technology. I loved it. God it made the cop’s job easier.
    “September twentieth,” Manny said two or three minutes later.
    “She’ll be nineteen,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Nineteen. In a month. We’ve got one month to get to Spence Grant or his daughter will die.”
    “Mac, we don’t even know if she’s alive. He could have let her go. More likely—and I hate saying this, partner—but he probably killed her before scooting out of Idaho. Buried her in the wilderness, bones now picked clean.”
    “He told me he brought her with him.”
    “He could have lied. Probably lied. No matter how much he disguised himself, no matter how many times, do you know how much harder it would be to live in a city on the lookout for the child that was with you—for a month, much less for ten years ?”
    “I know. I know what the books and the procedures and the odds say. But I think I may have figured a pattern that relates to the number nineteen. The victims’ ages. They’re not random. This is another of his crazy games. Running the rat through the maze.”
    “Who’s he ? You’re sounding kind of paranoid, partner.”
    “How many victims?” I said.
    “Hailey Carpenter made nine,” Manny answered with that young man, everything-was-a-bet-or-competition swagger.
    “Your confidence betrays you,” I said.
    “Meaning?”
    “You’re thinking nine bodies plus one, Melissa Grant, does not equal nineteen. That we’ve got nine more bodies coming for Melissa Grant to make number nineteen on her nineteenth birthday—which there’s not time for based