Page 1 of Survivor
Prologue
The Stranger
Summer 2005
He stumbled into the kitchen, heading straight for the sink. Careful not to touch anything, he used his forearm to lift the lever and turn the water on. His eyes were fixated on the swirl of crimson that circled the drain as he ran his hands under the faucet. After several long minutes, his arms and hands were still stained pink, so he reached for the bottle of dish soap and turned it up, covering both arms with the slippery, blue liquid. One more thing he’d have to take with him rather than risk leaving behind DNA or prints the cops could trace back to him.
“Fuck!” he cursed, kicking the kitchen cabinet. The door opened and a box of trash bags fell onto the mat at his feet. Well, that was convenient. Kneeling, he tore a bag from the box, twisting it around his hand before pulling the cabinet open, careful to keep the plastic between his skin and the wood. Windex, another bottle of Dawn, and oh yes, bleach. Grabbing the bottle, he was pleasantly surprised to see a box of nitrile gloves sitting pretty beside the oven cleaner. It took a couple of tries to get the first glove on with the trash bag still wrapped around his hand, but he had to be careful not to leave any evidence that he’d been in the house.
He poured the Windex down the sink first, filling the empty bottle with bleach before using the rest of the pungent liquid to clean the blood-splattered stainless steel sink and countertops. Using the drawstrings of the trash bag, he threaded the red ribbon through a belt loop to tie the bag to his jeans, then wrapped the large kitchen knife in the towel he’d dried his hands with and stuffed it into the trash bag. Backing out of the kitchen, he made sure there was nothing left that could be used to link the two bodies upstairs back to him.
A gray metal organizer with the word MAIL etched into it was mounted on the wall, with several envelopes in it, one of them catching his eye. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” The return address on the envelope read DISD in large print, then beneath the letters in smaller print, Dallas Independent School District. Tearing the letter open, he unfolded the paper and grinned. Right there, in black and white, was the name he needed to know.…Taylor Langford. Smiling, he slid the paper back into the envelope, folding it and tucking it into his back pocket.
Now he knew the kid’s full name, but where was the little shit? Climbing the stairs to the second floor, he closed his eyes and strained to listen, hoping to hear some sound or noise alerting him to where they’d stashed the boy. Crickets chirped outside and a train horn blew in the distance, but inside the house—nerve-wracking silence. He’d searched from top to bottom, every nook and cranny, the attic, the shed in the backyard. Hell, he’d even opened both large trash bins and dumped them out on the floor of the garage looking for the child. Sighing, he did one more sweep of the second floor just to be safe then made his way back to the master bedroom where the bodies ofmommy and daddylay on the floor, still and lifeless. Kneeling beside the woman, he gently wiped a stray hair off her forehead. “It didn’t have to be this way.”
He stood and turned to leave the room, careful not to step in the pool of blood that was still spreading out along the carpet from the man that now lay beside his wife, eyes open but dark and vacant. There was a crimson-colored scarf hanging on a hook by the bedroom door and he grabbed it, wrapped it around his hands a couple of times, and used the material to wipe the handrail and banisters as he went back downstairs. Leaving through the back door, he kept walking through the field behind the house and followed the dark, narrow highway until he came to the gas station where he’d left his truck behind the dumpster earlier in the day. He dug out a large black trash bag from the dumpster and tore it open. Pulling the letter from his back pocket, he committed the name to memory before putting it in, tying the bag into a knot, and tossing it back into the dumpster. It was the best way to dispose of evidence: leave it right under everyone’s noses.
Once on the highway, he started turning ideas over in his head. He needed a new plan, one that didn’t include two dead bodies, not securing his target, or the flashing lights now illuminating his rearview mirror.
