Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [188]
Newburgh Heights was such a friendly little suburb it gagged him. Not much of a challenge. Nor much challenge in the cute pizza delivery girl either. But this wasn’t about challenge, it was simply for show.
The girl parked behind the building, near the door, and gathered up the stack of red insulators. She’d be back in a few minutes with another load ready to deliver.
The neon sign for Mama Mia’s included a delivery number. He flipped open the cellular phone and dialed the number while he unfolded a real estate flyer. The description promised a four-bedroom colonial with a whirlpool bath and skylight in the master bedroom. How romantic, he mused, just as a woman barked in his ear.
“Mama Mia’s.”
“I’d like two large pepperoni pizzas delivered.”
“Phone number.”
“555-4545,” he read off the flyer.
“Name and address.”
“Heston,” he continued reading, “at 5349 Archer Drive.”
“Would you like some breadsticks and soda with that?”
“No, just the pizza.”
“It’ll be about twenty minutes, Mr. Heston.”
“Fine.” He snapped the phone shut. Twenty minutes would be plenty of time. He pulled on his black leather driving gloves, and then he wiped the phone with a corner of his shirt. As he drove by the Dumpster, he tossed the phone.
He headed south on Archer Drive, thinking about pizza, a moonlit bath and that cute delivery girl with the polite smile and the tight ass.
CHAPTER 9
Maggie’s eyes begged to close. Her shoulders slouched from exhaustion. It was almost midnight by the time Gwen left. Maggie knew she’d never be able to sleep. She had already checked every window latch twice, leaving only a choice few open to keep the wonderful chilly breeze flowing through the main floor. Likewise, she had double-checked the security system several times after Gwen’s departure. Now she paced, dreading the night hours, hating the dark and vowing to put up drapes and blinds tomorrow.
Finally she sat back down cross-legged in the middle of the pile created from the contents of Stucky’s personal box of horror. She pulled out the folder with newspaper clippings and articles she had downloaded. Ever since Stucky’s escape five months ago, she had watched newspaper headlines across the country by using the Internet.
She still couldn’t believe how easily Albert Stucky had escaped. On his way to a maximum-security facility—a simple trip that should have taken a couple of hours—Stucky killed two transport guards. Then he disappeared into the Florida Everglades, never to be seen again.
Anyone else may not have been able to survive, having become a nifty snack for some alligator. But knowing Stucky, Maggie imagined him emerging from the Everglades in a three-piece suit and a briefcase made of alligator skin. Yes, Albert Stucky was intelligent and crafty and savvy enough to charm an alligator out of its own skin, and then reward it by slicing it up and feeding it to the other alligators.
She sorted through the most recent articles. Last week, the Philadelphia Journal had an article about a woman’s torso found in the river, her head and feet found in a Dumpster. It was the closest thing she had seen in months to Stucky’s M.O., yet it still didn’t feel like him. It was too much. It was overkill. Stucky’s handiwork, though inconceivably horrible, had never included chopping away a victim’s identity. No, Stucky enjoyed doing that with subtle psychological and mental tricks. Even his extraction of an organ from the victim was not a statement about the victim but rather his attempt to continue the game. Maggie imagined him watching and laughing as some unsuspecting diner found Stucky’s appalling surprise, often tucked