Serial Uncut - J. A. Konrath [48]
At thirty miles per hour, the fibers of Lucy’s trench coat were sanded away, along with her camouflage panties, and just as she tugged a folding knife out of her pocket and began to hack at the flesh of her ankle, the rough county road began to grind through her coccyx.
She dropped the knife and they screamed together for two of the longest miles of their wretched lives, until the road curved and the Honda didn’t, and the car and Lucy and Donaldson all punched together through a guardrail and took the fastest route down the mountain.
The Next Day, Location Unknown
The TV droned on in the background.
“…is Gregory Donaldson, age 56, who was in the news a week ago for assaulting a police officer in Wisconsin. He’s been linked to over fifty homicides going back thirty years, and found hidden in the upholstery of his vehicle was a large collection of Polaroid pictures, apparently showing him viciously murdering numerous victims. The woman chained to Donaldson, as of yet unidentified, is described as a person of interest by the FBI. They’ve just released a statement suggesting that fingerprint and DNA evidence could point to her being a serial killer. A task force has been formed to try and close the books on dozens of unsolved murders spanning nineteen states that this duo may have been responsible for.
“This is the arresting officer in the recent Marshal Otis Taylor case, Chicago Homicide Lieutenant Jacqueline Daniels, who encountered Donaldson eight days ago at a Murray’s truck stop on Interstate 39 in Wisconsin during her confrontation with Taylor.”
The scene on the television changed from the trench-coated reporter standing in front of the hospital to an attractive woman in a pantsuit being mobbed by reporters in a parking lot.
“There are predators out there,” the cop said. “We’ve been lucky to nail three in a week. But there are others. Many others. Recreational killers are incredibly hard to catch, but even the smartest of them screw up eventually.”
Hmm, Luther thought, turning his attention from the television set to the crying, bleeding man hanging from the ceiling.
Jacqueline Daniels… I really should look her up.
For the continuing adventures of Mr. K, read Shaken, the 7th Jack Daniels thriller by J.A. Konrath.
For the continuing adventures of Orson and Luther, read Desert Places and Locked Doors by Blake Crouch.
For the continuing adventures of Taylor, read Afraid by Jack Kilborn.
In Which Blake and Joe Interview Each Other About the Experience of Writing Serial and Serial Uncut.
Blake: I know it must be a great thrill getting to work with me, probably the real reason you wanted to become a writer in the first place. Did the experience live up to the dream?
Joe: I can’t remember where we met for the first time. I think it was Jon Jordan (editor of the Crimespree zine) who gave me one of your books and said, “Read this, this guy is sick like you.” He was right. But to answer your question, yes, the experience lived up to the dream. I’ve collaborated on stories with several authors (Jeff Strand, Henry Perez, Tom Schreck, F. Paul Wilson) but nothing ever came so fast and furious, with so little need for revision. We cranked out almost 8000 words in something like five hours. This might be a good place to talk about our co-writing process.
Blake: You pitched this idea to me in an email: “Now, let’s consider hitchhiking. You aren’t supposed to go hitch hiking, because the driver who picks you up could be crazy. You aren’t supposed to pick up hitchhikers, because they could be crazy. Now if we were to collaborate, I write a scene where a driver kills someone he picked up. You write a scene where a hitchhiker kills the guy who gave him a ride. Then we get these two together…”
I was immediately hooked. As I recall, we each wrote our sections in isolation, and we didn’t share them with each other. When they were as good as they could be, you emailed me 200 words to kick off section 3, and I wrote back