Sense of Evil - Kay Hooper [70]
By tacit consent, neither of the men left her until her car was unlocked, the door open, and the interior light showing them all an empty, unthreatening little Honda.
“Lock your doors,” Dean Emery advised.
“You bet. Thanks, guys.” She got in and immediately locked the doors and started the car, absently looking after them until both reached and safely entered their own cars.
Not that the guys had to worry, really.
So far, anyway.
Ginny was hardly a profiler, but she did have a semester of Abnormal Psychology under her belt, and she vividly recalled the section about serial killers, especially since it had given her nightmares for weeks.
Very few serial killers murdered both men and women. There had been killers who targeted both male and female children or young people, but when the targets were adults, they were almost always one sex.
A homosexual serial killer targeted men or young males, and a heterosexual killer targeted women or girls, as a rule. Though some homosexual killers, or men who were insecure sexually and feared they might be homosexual, had been known to target women out of sheer rage. They didn't want to be whatever they were, and they blamed women for it.
The very rare female serial killers went after men, or apparently had so far—except in the rather frighteningly common cases of women poisoning children or other family members, when they tended not to differentiate between the sexes.
Have some soup, dear. Oh, it tastes funny? That's just a new spice I'm trying out.
Jesus.
The things people got up to.
Ginny pulled her car out of the lot and headed for home, still pondering, mostly because her mind refused to let go of the subject.
What did he look like? Did she pass him on the street every day? Did she know him? He was strong, very strong; the medical report on Tricia Kane said that he'd driven a large knife into her chest to the hilt.
Ginny shivered.
What kind of rage did it take to do something like that? And how had Tricia aroused it in him? Just by being blond and successful? Just by being female?
Just by being?
When Ginny had colored her bleached hair back to something approximating its natural dark brown a week or so before, not a soul at the station had laughed or even commented, and her friends said it was wise of her. No reason to take stupid chances, after all, not when she was a cop in the thick of things.
Her mother had been visibly relieved.
Her father had said at least it made her look less like a whore.
As she pulled her car into the driveway, Ginny felt all her insides tighten. He was home, and judging by the crooked way his car was parked, he had, as usual on a weekend, spent the afternoon drinking.
Shit.
Still in the car, she removed her holster and locked it securely away in the glove compartment. When she got out, she locked the car up as well.
She never took the gun with her into the house. Never.
It was too tempting.
She went up the steps and used her key to let herself in, silently telling herself for the hundredth time that she had to get her own place, no matter what. And soon.
“Hey, little girl.” His voice was slurred, his mouth wet. “Where you been?”
Her own voice deadened, Ginny replied, “At work, Daddy,” and pushed the door closed behind her.
11
ISABEL LOOKED AT RAFE with a faint smile. “You didn't expect that, did you? That evil could be beautiful.” She wondered if he understood. If he could even begin to understand.
“No.”
“Of course not. It should be ugly, that's what everyone expects. Red eyes, scaly flesh, horns and fangs. It should look like it was born in hell. At least that. At least. It should breathe fire and brimstone. It should burn to the touch.”
“But it doesn't.”
“No. Evil always wears a deceptive face. It won't be ugly, at least not until it really shows itself. It won't look like something bad. That would be too easy to recognize. Too easy for us to see. Because the important thing, the thing evil does best,