The Bad Sister. Kevin O'Brien

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      CHAPTER EIGHT

      Friday, September 4, 2:35 A.M.

      He wasn’t very impressed with the results.

      The Sony compact RX100 had been featured in an online article about the best cameras for taking photographs underwater without a flash. He needed the camera for shooting at night. He thought it ironic that, with all the rain, he may as well have been underwater while using it earlier tonight.

      The video looked murky once he watched it full-screen on his computer monitor. Of course, he’d videotaped the two half-sisters in their bedroom with the lights off. The bars on the window kept getting in the way. Still, he was able to zoom in on them: Hannah, in her flimsy pajama set, and Eden, naked except for her panties as she patted off the rain with a towel. She was completely nude as she changed into a V-neck T-shirt before slipping into bed. He captured some good full-frontal shots from that. Why couldn’t it have been Hannah?

      He had better-quality video images of them in the well-lit living room, when Eden had come home from her night of prowling. He backed up the digital recording to watch it again. His eyes lingered on Hannah’s long, bare legs, and her breasts jiggling beneath the delicate pajama top. Watching the girls snap and snarl at each other amused him. But mostly, he was aroused.

      One of the first things he’d done when he’d gotten back here to his home base was peel off all his rain-drenched clothes. Watching the video of the girls in various stages of undress had made him extremely horny. There was something so intimate about being naked, too. He couldn’t help playing with himself.

      He sat at a long desk in the second-floor bedroom of a mostly empty, deserted-looking farmhouse. The place was a leaky, decaying dump. But the utilities were paid up, and that allowed him to keep all the outside cameras running. They were planted around the house—out in front, in the backyard, and one inside the tool shed. On the desktop he’d set up the computer, the monitors, and all his surveillance equipment.

      The rain had died down. A cool breeze drifted through the bedroom’s open window. It felt delicious and slightly erotic against his bare, damp skin.

      He didn’t want to think about what he still had to do tonight. The awful smell from down the hall had been a reminder—until he closed the bathroom door. Most of the ice in the tub had melted, and Riley’s body was starting to decay. Opening the bathroom window and spraying some air freshener in there had helped. But then it smelled like something rotting in a watermelon patch. So he’d lit a few candles while he’d set out the saw, knives, and plastic bags on the bathroom floor. He figured, with all the blood splattering, he’d be naked when he cut up the body; then he could just shower afterward. The burial spot he’d selected was a higher elevation in the woods, so it wouldn’t be too muddy. He figured on finishing up by dawn.

      But he didn’t want to think about that now.

      In the distance, he could hear a muffled barking. But he really had to concentrate and listen for it.

      He looked at the monitor, the one picking up an image from the camera mounted near the ceiling of the little tool shed out back. Inside the cramped space, there would be enough room for a small table, a chair, and a cot. Right now, the shed was empty—except for the stray mutt he’d picked up the day before yesterday. It was a medium-size brown dog, part-retriever and part-something-else. The mutt hadn’t been wearing a collar. With a few Milk-Bone treats, it had been easy to lure him inside the car.

      Also up near the ceiling in the shed were a microphone and a speaker. He’d tested the mic, and even standing on the chair, he couldn’t reach any of the equipment bracketed up there. The walls were soundproof. At least, he hoped so. It had taken the better part of a weekend to install all the damn panels.

      On the desk in front of him, he pressed the sound button to the receiver box. With the volume turned up only to three, the restless mutt made a hell of a racket as it barked, paced around, and intermittently jumped up against the bolted door.

      Switching off the receiver, all he heard was a faint echo of the barking. No one else would hear. The closest neighbor was nearly a mile away.

      This test with the dog was a success. Now he knew. No one would hear any screaming.

      Naked, he got to his feet and walked over to the window. He looked down at the shed at the edge of the patchy, neglected backyard. It stood near a tall, old maple tree with a tire swing hanging from one of the branches. The tire swayed in the wind.

      No one would be looking for a missing girl in there.

      In the morning, after he buried Riley, he would come back here and feed the dog. Then he would let it go.

      But the girl taking its place wouldn’t be as lucky.

      Once Sonny Boy murdered all the other holy sluts on his list, he would kill her, too.