Read Online The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams - Free Book Online

lovers, coworkers, would have experienced this on some level. Also, the sadistic behaviors probably need acting out with sexual partners even in the cooling-off periods. He probably pays for this or finds them in S/M communities where there’s curiosity play with pain and bondage, but he wouldn’t like his partners having boundaries or using safe words. People like this get bad reputations in communities where it’s controlled. I’d start asking questions there. He’s probably also looking at websites that help him fuel the domination fantasy. He’s careful, though. The whole social veneer idea, it’s really true, Rauser. On the surface, I think he is what he says he is. Extremely good at the game.”
    “All the other victims were fairly easy access, but if David has a familyand wears expensive suits, it’ll be different. He’ll have a security system, maybe a nanny or a stay-at-home wife, a dog or two.”
    “Elicia Richardson had a security system,” I said, and picked up a picture of her lying facedown with her legs spread, bruised and bitten. Dark-stained oak floors surrounded the Chinese rug where she’d been left like an abandoned rag doll. Savage bite marks covered her shoulders and inner thighs, stab wounds on the thighs and buttocks, on her sides and lower back. I imagined him walking into her home. Had she been expecting him? I closed my eyes and tried to be there, see Elicia in life, through his eyes. I ring the bell and wait. She’s pretty. She smiles. Does she know me? She wants me here. Why? I step into her home. I’m nervous, but then my lungs fill with the air she’s breathing and I feel the power. I know I own her now just like I own the doorway I’ve stepped through and the air we’re sharing and the rug under my feet. All I can think about is when, when will I hit her that first time? I like the blitz. I like the surprise. I like seeing her plead while I get out my wire and my knife.
    “Yeah, but the security system wasn’t activated,” Rauser objected. “Because she opened the door for the creepy sonofabitch just like the other three. She lived alone, though. David doesn’t.”
    “He won’t take David at home. He’s stepping out of that box, which makes him even more dangerous.”
    “We’re looking into the bisexual thing. But, truth is, it’s the most closeted community out there. Lot of guys might want it, but they don’t necessarily advertise that. We’re hoping David does or the killer does. We’re canvassing bars—straight, gay, S/M—questioning hustlers, male and female.”
    “This is not about sexual preference or sexual attraction,” I said, and thought about all the violent serial cases I’d worked with the Bureau. “It’s about power.”
    “How do I find him?” Rauser asked. “How do we get to David in time?”
    “Release the letter,” I answered.

9
    I felt like I’d been out jogging all night. Rauser stayed until almost six. I was supposed to serve a restraining order at nine. Normally, these things aren’t scheduled, but I got lucky on this one. The target, one William LaBrecque, had been forced to agree to church counseling sessions and to accept the documents I intended to hand him, a restraining order he’d dodged from the sheriff for weeks, in order for the State to consider supervised visitations. Easy money.
    I found him in the chapel, sitting ramrod straight, staring ahead. A carpenter, I knew from his file, and a strong block of a man. William LaBrecque didn’t seem particularly happy to see me. The feeling was mutual. I had not been inside a church in fifteen years.
    “Don’t you dare hand that to me in a house of God!” He practically hissed at me. His top lip curled.
    “Look, we both know you have to take this or you’ll never get to see your kid, so don’t give me the house-of-God crap,” I whispered. “Take it or I’ll leave it sitting here. Either way, you’ve been served, Mr. LaBrecque.”
    Uh-oh
. I was beginning to think