A PREDATOR IN WAIT
Brenda and her mother got out of the car. They each grabbed a suitcase from the backseat of the vehicle before they shut the doors to the car, and on the life that they had both once cherished.
They walked forward and Mary slid her key into the lock of the front door. Inside the house, an intruder sat waiting. He wore a blue bandana over his face so that just his eyes and the top of his head were visible. He expected the return of Mary Parsh, a fifty-eight-year-old woman who wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight, and therefore become an easy victim. Instead, he got Mary, as well as her young and physically fit daughter Brenda. He would have to deal with Brenda first in order to eliminate any problems that might occur due to her unexpected presence.
When he heard the car pull into the driveway, the intruder moved to the front door. Adrenaline coursed through his body as he listened to the key enter the lock to release the bolt. The door opened and he confronted Mary and Brenda as soon as they stepped inside. Mary never even had an opportunity to pull the keys out of the front door’s lock.
Also by Steven Walker
BLOOD TRAIL
PREDATOR
STEVEN WALKER
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Dedicated to Mary and Brenda Parsh, Sheila Cole, Virginia Witte, Myrtle Rupp, Marjorie Call, Deborah Sheppard, Mildred Wallace, and Joyce Tharp. None of them deserved to die by the hands of a brutal murderer. May they be remembered for all time for the lives they led, not just for the way they died.
I dropped a single tear in the ocean. When you find it, that’s when I’ll stop missing you.
—Years of Tears Web site,
www.yearsoftears.org
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank the victims’ surviving friends and relatives for allowing me to get to know their loved ones through their stories and pictures. Special thanks go out to Don Call, Sue Sewing, Rosebud Call, Teresa Haubold, Mike Stafford, Richard McGougan, and Vicki Abernathy. I’d also like to thank the Cape Girardeau Police Department, and, in particular, Henry Gerecke, Jimmy Smith, Carl Kinnison, and especially John Brown. I also appreciate the assistance of Adrian Schuka, of the Berks County District Attorney’s Office, and I promised to acknowledge Noah Bond, of WPSD.
I need to give credit to Michaela Hamilton for having enough confidence and patience to allow me to write another book for Kensington. Mike Shohl deserves credit for his invaluable feedback, encouragement, and editing skills. Mike’s boot needs equal credit for kicking my butt whenever I fell asleep at the keyboard.
Without Kindra’s loving patience and support, this project would never have been accomplished.
As an additional note: If Morley Swingle started wearing a cape, he could put Batman out of business. The bad guys don’t have a chance against him.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
1978–1981
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
1982
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
1983
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
1984
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
2007
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
2008
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Prologue
Missouri is often referred to as the “Show Me” state. People have to prove themselves to a Missourian, just as the residents of this state have been proving themselves to the rest of the country since the mid-eighteenth century when a French trading post was first established in what is present-day St. Louis.
Lewis and Clark were famous frontiersmen who began their expedition west from the city of St. Charles, in 1804. The famous Gateway Arch rises majestically above the St. Louis skyline as a symbol of Missouri’s role as the “Gateway to the West” and the opening of a new frontier. Today, visitors to the state can follow in the footsteps of daring adventurers of the past by retracing their paths along the California, Santa Fe, and Oregon Trails.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was born in the town of Florida, Missouri, and based the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on his own childhood in the town of Hannibal, where he grew
