Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Mysteries Book 10) by J.A. Konrath Page B

Michigan ordeal. Donaldson stuck to lies, about both his previous injuries and his current ones, and feigned amnesia for much of his time in intensive care. Incredibly, they’d allowed him to walk out of there (well,
limp
out of there) when they’d deemed him healthy enough.
    So the serial killer who’d lost track of how many he’d actually killed was free to do so once again.
    Except, seriously, who could bear to kill anyone in this horrible heat? How did anything at all get done in Phoenix? What fool thought it was a smart idea to build a city in the middle of a desert?
    Donaldson hobbled up to the massive glass and concrete edifice that was the front of the Burton Barr Central Library, blinded by the sun reflecting off five stories of windows, and entered on the west side.
    The air conditioning hit him like a slap, and he passed a handsome male guard in slacks and a polo. The guard glanced at Donaldson, trying and failing to hide his revulsion.
    I’ve raped and tortured and murdered men bigger, stronger, and prettier than you
.
    It was a pleasant thought, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. Donaldson couldn’t remember the last time he’d killed for sport. Or for any reason. His latest crime spree, which was lame by any self-respecting maniac’s standards, involved stealing a car from a woman who left it running when she went into a convenience store, and taking the wallet off a drunk passed out in a tavern parking lot. He’d also tried, and failed, to shoplift food on four different occasions. His appearance and gait made it impossible to be inconspicuous, and he’d been caught and told to leave three of those times. On the fourth, the clerk felt sorry for him and told him to keep the snack cakes he’d tried to pilfer. Which was even more humiliating than getting caught.
    In some ways, helplessness was even worse than pain.
    Donaldson headed for the glass elevator at the south end of the building, standing next to a child who was waiting. A little girl of no more than five or six. She stared directly at Donaldson’s scarred face. Donaldson saw revulsion there, something he’d gotten used to. But he also saw something else.
    Fear.
    And it felt good to be feared again.
    “I’m going to come to your house tonight,” Donaldson said to her, keeping his voice low. “And I’m going to cut up your mommy and daddy with a knife and eat their guts. Next, I’ll slice off your face. Then you’ll look… Just. Like. Me.”
    Donaldson watched her fear become full-fledged terror, watched her shorts soak with urine, and then she ran off, screaming.
    Donaldson glanced over his shoulder, saw he’d caught the guard’s attention. He shrugged, as if to say, “It’s not my fault the kid got frightened by my sad appearance.”
    The guard turned away. Donaldson climbed into the elevator, alone.
    He got out on the second floor, pulling out the stolen wallet and finding the previous owner’s library card, and using it to reserve Internet time on one of the many public computers. He sat down, which was painful enough to cause him to gasp, and then got onto Google.
    First he checked Google News, looking for the keywords
Lucy + serial killer
. But he only found the old stories. Nothing new.
    Then he switched from a news search to a web search, and checked the same terms for the past week. Gradually he expanded the search to include new words.
Hitchhike. Drag behind car. Lemon juice. Female killer. Escaped female serial killer. Luther Kite
.
    He winced when he typed in that last term. While Donaldson had nothing in particular against a fellow practitioner of the psychopathic arts, Lucy’s fascination with Kite, and the possibility that she might be with him at that very moment, rankled the older man.
    Lucy belonged to Donaldson. Not Kite. They were destined to spend the rest of their wretched, pain-filled lives together. The only thing that kept Donaldson from jumping off a bridge and ending his unbearable existence was the