Midnight Caller - By Diane Burke Page 0,72

conscious. Her jaw and teeth throbbed.

“Why?” she whispered, spittle and blood streaming from the corner of her mouth.

He placed his gun out of her reach and drew his knife from his belt. Without a word he pressed the blade against her throat, provided pressure and grinned. A thousand fingers of fire burned her flesh as he sliced her throat.

“Why?” He giggled uncontrollably. He took the tip of the knife and slid it down her shirt, slicing away the top button. “Before I’m finished with you, you’ll know why.”

He straightened, still pinning her to the ground with his weight. He lowered the knife. “We’re going to get up now. You won’t try to run, will you? Or the next slice across your throat will be much deeper.”

“Don’t move or I’ll blow your brains all over this kitchen.” Tony pressed the hard muzzle of his gun into the base of the man’s skull. Relief flowed through Erin’s body and her tears became tears of joy.

“Drop your weapon. Do it now!” Tony demanded.

Peters dropped the knife. He raised his hands in surrender and slowly started to stand. “I underestimated you, Detective. I thought you’d be out of commission after I shot you. Let’s see, shall we?” Peters slammed an elbow backward into Tony’s right shoulder. Tony doubled over in pain, his weapon falling to his side. In a split second, Peters launched his attack. He punched Tony repeatedly in the vicinity of the bullet wound. Tony fell to the floor writhing in agony.

With a shriek she didn’t even recognize as her own, Erin jumped on Peters’s back. Wrapping her legs around the man’s waist, she desperately clawed at his face, gouging her fingers into his eyes. He screamed and tried to pull her hands away. Operating on pure adrenaline, she sank her teeth into the side of his neck. The taste of sweat and flesh nauseated her, but she held on to the bucking, screaming man as hard as she could. Peters wrenched her hair so hard that a hunk came loose in his hand. They toppled to the floor and both of them scrambled like crabs across the floor trying to reach his discarded gun.

Erin got there first. With every ounce of strength remaining, she rolled out of his reach. Jumping to her feet, she pointed the gun at the man’s face. “Don’t move.”

Peters grinned and started to rise.

“Go ahead, you filthy piece of slime. Give me an excuse to pull this trigger.” Tears of rage, mixed with blood, poured down her face. One of her eyes had swollen shut, so she had to tilt her head to keep him in constant sight.

“You wouldn’t shoot me.”

“Try me.” She forced the words through a mouth so numb and swollen it felt like she’d had Novocain. Images filled her mind. Carol begging for her life, pleading to be able to return to her daughter. Newspaper pictures of three other women, lost to their families forever. Tony lying in a pool of blood. Amy crying and asking for her mother. Rage pulsed through her body. Her finger tightened on the trigger. She steadied the weapon with both hands.

“Don’t,” Tony whispered in her ear. He leaned heavily against her back as though it was difficult for him to support his own weight. His arm wrapped around her waist and his right hand slowly moved over hers. “Please, Erin. Give me the gun.”

She couldn’t let go. Her finger twitched against the trigger. She could easily kill this man and that self-knowledge scared her.

Help me, Lord. Help me remember judgment is Yours, not mine.

Erin stared at Peters. “Why? Make me understand.”

“I did it for the children. Don’t you see?” Pride shone in his eyes. “Now they have a chance to be adopted. To have a real family with two parents. They have a chance to be happy. I would have been happy if someone had adopted me, if I had had a dad.”

Erin blinked in astonishment, her stomach churned. “What?” The shock of his words combined with this afternoon’s trauma took its toll on her nervous system and her body trembled. “You killed these women because they were single parents?” She couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“Single moms of special needs kids,” he spat out in anger. “Why do you keep us? You know you hate us. You can’t do the things you want to do when you have us around all the time. Who wants to babysit ‘special’ kids? Nobody. So you lock us in