Damon by Kathi S. Barton

that it would be.
    ~~~
    Anthony got back into his car. Damned wo man was going to pay for this. He slammed his bloodied hand down on the steering wheel several times bef ore he felt marginally better. Taking several deep breaths, he closed his eyes to review what he’d just learned. He nearly hit the wheel again in frustration.
    All he’d been able to get from the clerk behind the counter was that there were women running all the time and that maybe he should ju st give up on finding this one. Well that had been her opinion before Anthony had c hanged it for her at any rate. It had been too easy to get the woman to beg hi m to not hit her anymore. And easier still to kill her.
    Anthony hated to teach stupid women lessons, but if he was the onl y one to do it, then so be it. He’d train them one bitch at a time if he had to. He reached into the glove box and pulled out the container of sanitary wipes. He meticulously cleaned the bl ood from his hand and forearm. There was blood on his service ring and that made him want to go back in and hit the dead woman again. He took prid e in his control not to do so. He took all the wipes and stuffed them into his pocket. Starting the car, he drove t o the local police department. He would ask his fellow officers to help.
    He of course wouldn ’t tell them that she was his. He wouldn’t want it to get around the Anthony Ormond had lost one so he told them the same story he’d told all the other departmen ts along the stops of the bus. The only one he h adn’t stopped in was Columbus. That bitch that had called him about Charlotte had told him tha t she was going to Washington. He wished n ow that he’d gotten her name. Something like that, a lie to him, shouldn’t go unpunished. They were most helpful, even going s o far as to pull up the cameras in that station over the past five days to see if the thief had gotten off in their fair city.
    He was driving back to his hotel when he remembered something else. The boy, he’d not looked for the boy who could have been getting off the bus instead of his mother. Anthony had made sure the kid would remember his belt across his backside, but that did n’t mean the lesson had taken. When he got them back, he was going to have to buy an extra leather belt to adminis ter their punishments to them. One just would not be enough and if the boy died, then so much the better.
    He hated that his Charlotte had be en sullied. Of course her mother had had no problem telling him all abo ut the boy who had ruined her. She went on and on about how she had begged Charlotte to get rid of it, b ut she wouldn’t listen to her. Now that Charlotte had a nice young man like him wanting her, maybe it wasn’t too lat e to give him up for adoption.
    Anthony thou ght his idea was much simpler. Just get rid of him and then there would be no lingering th oughts about getting him back. Killing kids, especially tainted ones like her boy, didn’t need to be messing with nice young girls when he was old enough to fuck one. Didn’t need his kind lowering the gene pool when men like Anthony worked so hard to make the strongest survive . Y eah, the boy was jus t a heartbeat away from death. And for all that his Charlotte had put him though concerning the boy, then she needed to see him dead to believe that Anthony ha d her best interest, at heart. Of course this was a fter he beat him and her both.
    He got back to the hotel and pulled out his no tebook. The tabs along the outer edge were a little tattered, but he could still read them. At the front of the book was a list of names. Al l but one had been marked out. Charlotte’s name was the only one there at the bottom. The other ten names were of women who had failed the test and had had to be eliminated. The next tab had the list of things they’d do ne to be crossed off the list.
    He kept this one and used it to measure the other women that he thought might make a good suitable wife for him. Nothing but the best