Bad Moon Rising by Katherine Sutcliffe

into the living room, a cautious glance under
the bed where Melissa usually hid her purse. It wasn’t there.
    Her stomach cramping with a magnifying sense of dread
and loss, Holly sat on the floor and looked around. There were many framed
photographs placed amid the crowd of candles, incense, and oils. Images of
friends and family, past and present. Shots of Melissa’s parents before they
had been killed in a car accident, cradling their youthful, innocent baby in
their arms. Melissa’s fifth birthday party, a juggling clown and presents
stacked high on a picnic table. Another of a Christmas tree and Melissa sitting
among stores of opened presents.
    Then there were those including Holly. Gangly teenage
girls with their arms hooked around each other’s shoulders taken at Jackson Square, their first day in New Orleans. More of Holly alone, each one a caricature
of the previous one, the hardship of their existences carving her face into a
maturity that belied her young years.
    Holly closed her eyes. “Oh God, Melissa. Where are
you?”
     
    He stands in the dark and fog, the nearest vapor light
one block away, casting not a solitary shadow on the parked Mustang. He’s not
at all surprised to find the car here. He expected as much. The brilliant
ex-prosecutor would again be haunting the streets and alleys, looking for his
family’s killer. What does surprise him is J.D.’s coming here, to Melissa’s
apartment. How had he known about the missing girl?
    He laughs softly. Coincidence perhaps. Perhaps one of
the whore’s friends has reported her missing. Yes, perhaps. But there have
been no cops snooping around. Nothing on the police scanner to indicate that
Melissa Carmichael has disappeared. As if the department cares. As if they want
this nasty trouble to escalate. Not again. That’s what will make this newest
foray so much fun. Before it’s all over, again, he will have them dancing on a
wire.
    Ah, blessed power. The aphrodisiac of complete control.
    He moves through the fog to the Mustang. The humidity
has settled over the windows in a thick, wet haze. He is tempted to write some
cryptic note with his finger on the condensation, feed J.D. some clue that will
foster anger and suspicion. Not yet. Too early in the game. This time he will
be more careful. He’d acted too quickly those years before, murdered a hooker
too soon after she had serviced her last john.
    But watching Angel Gonzalez tried for the slayings had
been entertaining, if nothing else. In some twisted way, he had been in control
even then. Because of him an innocent man was tried and convicted and put to
death. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
    Moving down the cracked and buckled sidewalks, he
stays close to the buildings, avoiding the diffused light from the overhead
streetlamps. It is a long walk to his destination, but he enjoys this time.
Enjoys the vibrations of anxiety he feels in the air. The night is unusually
quiet, the area vacant. That, too, pleases him. The district fears him. Even
now, the whores are trembling behind their locked doors. He needn’t kill again
for a while. The terror that he has brought to this community is enough, for
the moment, to instill him with the sweet, sweet feeling of domination and
authority. It fills him with euphoria as he almost glides down the backstreets
to the river, pausing to drink in the scent of the muddy water before
continuing down the stretch of old warehouses that have not yet been converted
into art galleries and such nonsense.
    He hums as he walks, invigorated by what is to come.
    The building is ancient, with crumbling bricks that
had been lain by sweating slaves’ hands a hundred and fifty years ago, the
timbers deteriorating, eaten away by age and mildew, crumbling into fine dust
that makes his footsteps all but silent.
    He has researched the history of the cavernous building,
which juts out over the river on pilings. Once food was brought here to await
its trip up the river on