Blind Pursuit

46

Frantic.

Gund stamped the gas pedal to the floor, careening north. He didn’t look at the speedometer needle, didn’t want to see it pinned to the far right of the dial.

He had no idea where he was going. All that mattered was to put distance between himself and the ranch. If he returned to it tonight, Erin would die.

Leaving her unharmed had exhausted nearly the last reserves of his willpower. Even now he wasn’t sure he could hold out against the ugly impulses churning inside him, wasn’t sure he could resist the urge to turn the van around.

Gasoline in the rear compartment. Two cans. More than enough to do the job.

He didn’t want to think about that. But it was hard not to, agonizingly hard.

His fingers tingled and itched. His neck burned. In his ears was a faraway chiming, elusive and mysterious.

All day long he’d been on edge. And after what he’d done with Erin-the meeting of their lips, the pressure of his mouth on hers Until the moment when he’d pulled her close, he had never known what he wanted from her, wanted and desperately needed. He’d been blind to his true nature, blind to the origins of his compulsion… willfully blind, afraid to face the ugly reality of what he was. Although he had tracked down Erin and Annie Reilly, although he had become part of their lives, he’d never admitted the full reason for their hold on him.

The burnings had been bad, but the twisted needs that lay at the root of his crimes were still worse.

Better to splash his victims with gas and toss a lighted match than to… to…

“Fuck,” he whispered, testing the word, a word he had not used-not once-since he was fifteen years old.

The muttered obscenity drew the muscles of his groin tighter. He shifted in the driver’s seat.

Turn around. He had to turn around, go back, fuck her. Fuck her and then burn her, burn her -

“I won’t,” he murmured, his eyes misting. “I won’t do it. I won’t.”

Tension racked his body. He couldn’t fight himself much longer.

But perhaps he didn’t have to.

There might be a way out. A way to find relief.

His photo. His special picture.

Yes. Go home. Remove the photograph from its hiding place. And then…

He knew what he would do.

Would it be enough? He wasn’t sure. But it was his last hope.

As he swung off Houghton Road onto 22nd Street, he glanced at the dashboard clock: 8:15.

His apartment was only fifteen minutes away-ten, if he maintained this reckless speed.

And if a traffic cop should pull him over…

He fingered the shotgun mounted under the dash, then lightly touched the handgun in his pocket.

Any cop who tried to ticket him would be dead. Anyone who interfered with him tonight, anyone who fucked with him…

Dead.