Competitive Dreams: Dreams and Reality, #19

By Hadena James

With the murder of the serial killer known as The Ghost Maker, the serial killer club he ran became dormant. Now, someone calling themself Mictlan the Collector has taken control of the defunct club. He's arranged a competition for a select group of members. The serial killer with the most points at the end will win a million dollars in cryptocurrency, and he's chosen Kansas City as the hunting grounds. Fearing this could happen after The Ghost Maker's death, the NSA had an operative infiltrate the nefarious club. The operative gives the SCTU advanced warning of the competition.

 

To stop it, Aislinn Cain and the SCTU must identify and capture Mictlan the Collector before the first day. Identifying and capturing a serial killer is never easy and Mictlan complicates the issue by requiring competitors to take a victim to gain admittance. The competitors have less than one week to complete the entrance task, which divides the resources of the SCTU between trying to identify Mictlan the Collector and identifying the serial killers participating in the competition.

For a chance at a million dollars in cryptocurrency, serial killers will travel far and wide to participate. With visiting serial killers comes new signature methods requiring the SCTU to reach out to their law enforcement contacts all over the world to at least attempt to find their place of origin and gain any files on them that might exist. The situation is dire enough that the CIA activates their own special black books operation referred to as The Home Defense Program, forcing the SCTU to coordinate with the CIA as well as local law enforcement.

 

Finally, as the start date of the competition gets nearer, panicked politicians want to enact martial law for the Kansas City Metro area. Convinced that martial law will result in more deaths than the competition, the SCTU is racing against the ticking clock, fighting their limited manpower, and extreme panic to save their home city from becoming a grisly battlefield.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hadena James
• Release date: Nov 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201507510

Book preview

Competitor Two

She read the email from Mictlan again. She had to make a kill to be accepted to the competition, to prove her interest and determination to win. And she would win, of that, she was sure. Morgan sat on the couch, looking at her captured prey, a petite woman with greying brown hair. Mascara had run down her cheeks. She was pretty in an aging cheerleader trophy wife kind of way. She’d cut in front of Morgan at the Starbucks. No apology, no excuse me, nothing. Just another entitled bitch throwing her weight around. She’d stop now, actions had consequences and now she knew it, or at least she was starting to realize it.

This is what happens when you’re rude. You could have asked me; you could have said ‘hey, I’m in a super hurry, may I jump in front of you?’ I’m a nice person and would have let you. But no, you just pushed your way right in without a word. What if I were also in a hurry? What if I had been on my way to the hospital to help my sister give birth? What if I had been late for a meeting? What if I needed to be somewhere too? Did you care? No. For whatever reason, you think you don’t need to worry about the other people in this world, because they are all less important than you. But I’m looking around this room, and you don’t seem very important. You seem lonely. No photographs of family on the walls. No men’s shoes by the front door. Not a single kid’s toy laying around. Are you lonely? Is that why you’re so damn rude to other people? Or are you lonely because your sense of entitlement has isolated you in this world? Morgan asked. I bet it’s the latter, she said after a moment. But don’t worry, I’ll end your loneliness. You won’t have to worry about how important you are ever again. When I finish, you’ll be happy for probably the first time in your life. But I believe people shouldn’t die alone, so I’ll stay with you for the entire thing, because I’m a nice person.

The woman muttered something that was muffled by the gag in her mouth. It sounded like I’m sowwy. Morgan waved it away, it was too late for apologies and the woman didn’t mean it anyway, they never did. They said it simply to save their lives, but why should she care about them, when they cared about no one but themselves? The hypocrisy was stunning. No, Morgan felt no pity for this selfish woman. She pulled a captive bolt gun from her purse, as well as a vial and syringe. Normally the bolt gun was enough, but twice it had either misfired or the person’s skull had been too thick to do the necessary damage, and she’d had to euthanize them after the gun only knocked them unconscious. Now she made sure to carry both the gun and the potassium chloride. She hated the mess made by guns and knives, so just like back home, she’d started using the potassium chloride to euthanize those the bolt gun didn’t kill.

Her daddy had run cattle in Nebraska, but he had served in Vietnam and the bang of the .30-.30 rifle had made him wet himself several times. He’d switched to using a bolt gun when it was time to send the cattle to be processed; there was still a bang, but it wasn’t as loud as a rifle shot. When she’d gotten old enough to do the killings, she’d gone back to using the rifle at first, but even standing two or three feet away, there was usually blowback from shooting the adult animals and she hated having blood and brains on her. Just because she’d grown up on a ranch didn’t mean she liked or wanted to be dirty. She didn’t. The bolt gun was cleaner, and she’d then inject the stunned animal with potassium chloride to finish the job.

Eight years earlier, when Jessica Mikkleson had decided to sleep with Morgan’s fiancé, she’d learned bolt guns worked on people, too. That rude bitch had been her first. She’d used the gun twenty-one times since then on other rude and entitled women who thought everyone else should just let them have whatever they wanted.

The world didn’t work that way. All through middle school and high school, women like Jessica and this one had bullied her: she wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t feminine, she wasn’t thin enough, she wasn’t enough for these women to think she had value and was worthwhile, and through it all, Morgan had smiled and pretended they were right. Then she’d been accepted to college at the University of Kansas, on a full scholarship. She’d tried to convince Brad to come with her to Kansas, but Brad was a Nebraska boy through and through and was already helping on his daddy’s farm. College and city life wasn’t for him. And while she’d gotten into college, Jessica had only gotten into community college.

Then she’d come home for a visit and Jessica, who was working part time as a waitress, had seen her at the diner. Jessica had still been the same bullying bitch of old. She’d sat down in the booth across from Morgan and Morgan’s parents and pulled out her cellphone to show Morgan the pictures of her and Brad. And to let Morgan know she was pregnant and it was Brad’s; she was going to tell him that night. Morgan had let her. Morgan had ignored her, she’d stayed the weekend with her mom and dad and returned to school single, like nothing had happened. Three weeks later, Brad had called her begging to get back together, the baby wasn’t his; it was his friend’s baby. He and Morgan could pretend it didn’t happen. No harm, no foul. But there had been harm.

Morgan drove the six hours home that Thursday night. She didn’t stop on the way to her hometown; she’d gone straight to Jessica’s shitty trailer. Much to Morgan’s surprise, no one else was there, just Jessica with a facial mask, her hair up in curlers, and dressed in a faded nightgown that was anything but sexy. She’d considered not going through with it, but then Jessica had begun taunting Morgan. Whatever Morgan had Jessica could have too. Then Jessica had shown Morgan a picture of Morgan’s dad, nude, lying on the couch of the shitty trailer. Jessica was a terrible person, and the world wouldn’t miss her. She’d tied Jessica up to a chair and used the bolt gun that she found in the house. Jessica died instantly. She’d driven back to school and arrived in time to attend classes the next morning.

A handful of weeks later, her momma called her. The investigation into Jessica’s murder had uncovered a lot of secrets, and DNA testing on the fetal tissue had proved the baby was Morgan’s father’s. Morgan had briefly wondered if she had killed the wrong person.

Her momma wanted to move; she could get a job in Lawrence, Kansas and she and Morgan could get a small apartment; that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Morgan had agreed. No one disrespected her momma like that. Her father died of a heart attack within a few months of her momma moving to Lawrence. Morgan was still angry at him all these years later, but she helped quell that anger by killing the Jessicas of the world, the women who were entitled bitches who thought they should be able to have what everyone else had, just because they were pretty or slutty. She put the bolt gun to her current Jessica’s head.

What’s your name? Morgan asked.

Winsey, the woman muttered through the gag.

Lindsey, nice name, Morgan said, and pulled the trigger on the bolt gun. The woman’s eye lids fluttered but remained open. Blood oozed around the barrel of the bolt gun. Morgan pulled it back from the wound. She watched to see if the woman breathed, but her chest didn’t move. She sat back down and waited for several minutes, watching intently for any signs of life. After ten minutes, she was satisfied Lindsey was dead. She stood up, went to the kitchen, washed the blood off the bolt gun, dried it carefully, and put it back in its pouch and in her purse. When she got home, she’d clean it properly. Then she packed up the potassium chloride vial and syringe. She carefully examined the room, looking for errant strands of her hair. She didn’t find any. She pulled a Ziploc baggy out of her bag and dumped it on Lindsey, then she placed a few of the strands of hair in Lindsey’s hand, gently and carefully wrapping it around her fingers, and even sticking a piece in the ring Lindsey was wearing.

When she got to the front door, she looked around the room again. No indication of her presence. That was good. She thought for a moment and went to find the back door. She found it and pulled a screwdriver out of her purse. Then she opened the door and began to use the screwdriver to pry at the bottom of the knob. Once it was sufficiently loose, she went through the door and began to work on it some more until it fell off at her feet. Once the knob was off, she forced the door back open, damaging the frame, then she entered the house, dropped a pamphlet for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints on the table, and left through the front door, locking it behind her. She left another torn pamphlet on the porch as if it were a piece of trash that had simply fallen out when she’d gotten the other pamphlet out to show Lindsey.

Morgan had known weeks ago when the converters had stopped to talk to her on her porch that their brochures and pamphlets would come in handy eventually. She’d taken three of each that they offered.

Three

I don’t like flying; I find it stressful. Flying with someone in one of the cages stresses me out even more. Usually, we caught the killer or rapist and they sat in jail for days or weeks fighting the application of federal charges, and other marshals ended up being responsible for bringing the perpetrator to Missouri to face charges in the federal serial crimes court. Missouri had the dubious honor of having the highest serial killer per capita rate in the US. At nearly any given time, there were twenty active serial killers in the Kansas City metro area; more than New York City, Los Angeles, or Las Vegas, especially given that the population of the metro area was just under two million people. Which is why the serial crimes court had been set up in Kansas City instead of Washington DC, plus the city was centrally located. It was roughly a two-hour flight to nearly anywhere in the continental US.

But this guy had announced his decision not to fight the charges as soon as he was put in handcuffs, which meant he was flying back with us. However, better this guy than some of the others we’d captured over the years. Chances were good this guy wouldn’t be a problem. He and Lucas would sit and chat for most of the flight. However, this did mean I was losing one of my usual conversationalists for the flight back. Gabriel was one of those people that immediately fell asleep when he got on an airplane. Xavier was usually busy going over data on his major research project about psychopaths. I could not read or watch TV on an airplane, it triggered motion sickness, and I found it too stressful to sleep.

The Learjet used by the SCTU held approximately twenty people, including the pilots and any prisoners. The seats were staggered, with some facing the back of the plane and some facing the front. I always had to face forward or I’d end up with motion sickness; apparently the tiny bones in my ears were incredibly sensitive to motion. Fiona sat down in the seat facing me.

I’m guessing you are waiting until we land to read the NSA’s brief on the information Patterson gave them, Fiona said. I nodded. According to Patterson, the admin calls himself Mictlan the Collector and he’s having a competition in Kansas City in two weeks. He’s familiar with our rotating schedule and expects either Blake’s team or Holmes’ team to be the KC-based team for the four weeks the competition runs. Patterson thinks Mictlan and the Malibu Beach Strangler are the same killer. Mictlan is paying three winners a million in cryptocurrency, according to the advert, and he’s also willing to pay serial killers in other areas to step up their rates and provide a distraction for the SCTU.

A competition like one of the old tournaments? I asked.

Uh, no. There are rules for this one and specific victim types the competitors are expected to target. Patterson thinks something else is going on, possibly because like most serial killers he’s paranoid, but also possibly because there is something else going on, Fiona said. I nodded. In general, psychopaths are paranoid and delusional. My grandfather was not an exception. There were times I struggled with both as well, but my team would tell me if they thought I was being overly paranoid or if I was acting delusional. The thing about psychopathic delusions were that they were egocentric and tended to be grandiose. Since Fiona had not said Patterson declares or some other commanding tone, I didn’t think Patterson was suffering from a grandiose delusion. He had good instincts about people, especially other psychopaths.

Rules? I raised an eyebrow.

Yes, rules; no victims under 18, the competitors will be issued special brands to mark their victims with and if they fail to use their brand, the victim won’t count toward the final point total. They can be disqualified if they take a victim other than what’s on the list. Fiona shrugged.

Does he give potential victim names? I asked, mildly hopeful.

No, and the victim types aren’t horribly specific either; for example, the first is the Bad Parent. There’s a category for cops, lawyers, first responders, as well as the Soccer Mom and the Hipster Dad,

Basically, anyone in the metro area could be a victim. I sighed.

Yes, possibly, Fiona said. There’s a special category for the male and female Karens of the world too.

I don’t actually know what a Karen is, I admitted. I’ve heard the term used, but I have no idea what it references.

Uh, well, a Karen is usually a middle-class white woman who does things like demand to speak to the manager to complain about ‘bad customer service’ when really the service is fine, they just aren’t getting the attention they want or expect, or they do things like call the cops because kids are selling lemonade in the kids’ front yard without a permit. The term Ken is usually applied when it’s a male, but apparently Mictlan doesn’t care about gender. They are all Karens in his opinion.

I’ll google it when we land, I said. It seemed like a really dumb term and a really dumb social construct, which meant I was probably missing some major point because I didn’t get social norms easily.

Do you remember the Mexican restaurant incident a few years ago? Xavier asked me. I looked at him blankly. You, me, Lucas, Trevor, and your mom went to the Enchilada Casa one Sunday for lunch and there was that woman there who was yelling at the woman that owned the place because she couldn’t get an ‘American waiter’ because all the staff were Latino. She sued the owner for throwing her out, and her lawyer tried to call us as witnesses that the owner was being unreasonable. Remember that?

Yes. I did vaguely remember it, because it was absurd.

That woman would be a Karen, Xavier replied. Usually there’s an undercurrent of racism with Karens and Kens. Like demanding a white waiter at a Mexican restaurant, despite most of the staff being American-born Latinos. That last statement triggered the rest of the memory, she had been yelling at the owner that she couldn’t understand the waitstaff at the restaurant because she didn’t speak Spanish. However, none of the staff had spoken to her in Spanish from what we’d heard. Also, she’d had the same waiter we did, and his English was great. His brother actually worked for the Jackson County Sheriff’s department as a deputy and lived in our neighborhood. I knew they’d both been born in the United States, gone to Kansas City schools, and their parents were Hispanic, but had been born in the US as well. When I’d gotten the letter from her lawyer, I’d sent Nyleena around to talk to him to tell him his client was an idiot in a nicer way than I could do it.

Ah, the moron, I said, nodding. Why not just call them morons?

Because it’s rude to call people morons, Fiona said.

And that’s the difference between psychopaths and the rest of humanity, Xavier said. To Aislinn, calling the person a moron is just as acceptable as calling them a Karen.

Karen is a far more specific term applying to a specific type of person. Moron is much broader, Fiona replied.

So, a Karen isn’t just a person lacking in decency, it’s a racist person lacking common sense and decency and possibly the refusal to just live and let live, I said.

Yes, Xavier said.

I’ll just add this to the list of things I don’t understand, I said.

The application of the term Karen? Fiona asked.

No, the extenuation of racism that requires the term to be necessary.

I still don’t follow, she replied.

There are billions of people on the planet, and we interact with people of all sorts every day, be they brown, black, white, or yellow. Deciding you can’t have a brown waiter because you assume they don’t speak English well enough for your tastes, instead of deciding you can’t have the white waiter because there’s a 20 percent chance they are a serial killer, doesn’t make sense to me. Now you’re telling me that there are enough of these morons, particularly among the female population to which you belong, that there is a special term for that kind of person. This is mind-blowing. In the US, 70 percent of serial killers are males that identify as white, non-Hispanic. That number is slightly higher for serial rapists. Based on that, you are more likely to be stalked by a white waiter than one who has an accent and brown, black, or yellow skin.

Based on your simplification, all women should be leery of all men, Fiona said.

I won’t argue against that. I nodded. Women are more likely to be victimized by men than men by women. Of course, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, it does. It just proves that basing a bias on a physical attribute is really stupid.

For you, that is incredibly philosophical, Xavier said.

I blame you all. I was never philosophical before joining the SCTU.

And the swearing? Fiona asked. You’ve started swearing more lately, even without the hormones.

That, I just kind of like, I admitted. Also, I am surrounded by people that swear a lot, it seems to be a common trait among police officers. If I swear a bit more, it helps me fit in.

Basically, it’s our fault you are philosophical and swearing more, Xavier said. You’ve also started using more contractions when you talk, which is nice. When we first met, you sounded stilted and robotic most of the time when you spoke. By using more contractions, you sound more like the rest of us.

"I think everything is your fault specifically," I said, flashing a quick smile.

I’ll accept the blame, Xavier said, with a giggle. What do you make of Patterson’s discovery?

Mictlan was part of the Aztec afterlife. The dead completed quests, for lack of a better term, to help them move through the nine levels, aided by Xolotl. And that exhausts my knowledge of Mictlan, I said.

I meant about the club becoming active again, Xavier said.

It’s going to be bad. But we can reasonably believe that the organizer is a folklorist or historian and possibly that he’s Hispanic.

Uh, okay, Xavier said with a frown.

How much Aztec history and mythology did you learn in school? Probably slightly less than me, which is almost none. American education studies Western Civilization and only briefly sideswipes Native North American cultures history. We learn about Osiris, Anubis, Horus, Jupiter, Zeus, and Aphrodite. We learn about the Elysium Fields and Ammut, the eater of bad souls, we do not learn about Mictlan. I can sum up the entire American education systems lectures on Aztecs in one sentence: ‘They sacrificed prisoners of war by ripping out their still beating hearts in mass sacrificial ceremonies and were conquered by civilized Spaniards.’

Uh, yeah, I remember that day in high school, Xavier said.

Exactly, so if he chose the name Mictlan, he obviously knows more about Aztec religion than most Americans, and it already goes beyond what he would have learned in a high school world history class. Therefore, he’s studied it on his own because it’s part of his heritage or he’s fascinated by it. If the latter, he’s probably a folklorist, historian, or mythology hobbyist. Although I will say that adding the phrase, The Collector, to the end indicates he understands Mictlan in ways I don’t, which again isn’t hard, but speaks to some professional interest that probably goes beyond it being a hobby.

Why? Fiona asked.

Because Mictlan was one of the places Aztecs could go when they died, therefore Mictlan collected the souls of dead Aztecs. I shrugged.

And as a serial killer, Mictlan is collecting the souls of his victims. Fiona nodded once, decisively. I nodded gently in agreement.

If Patterson is correct and Mictlan is the Malibu Beach Strangler, then all his victims died mid-coitus; sometimes the sex seemed consensual and sometimes it appeared to be rape. Either way, he’s a sexual sadist; it’s the strangulation that tickles his fancy, not the sex, and he’s been dormant for a while, I said.

He’s on our suspected dead list, Xavier said. He hasn’t claimed a victim in seven years and he was a fairly frequent killer. We have eighty-three confirmed victims in seventeen years.

Maybe that’s why Patterson thinks this is about something other than the money and competition, I suggested.

Like what? Fiona asked.

Vicarious killing is my first thought, I said. He was claiming at least five victims a year when he suddenly stopped. Maybe he became physically unable to kill and that’s why he stopped. By restarting the club and holding a competition, he might be able to get detailed photos and souvenirs of the killings, which isn’t quite as satisfying as doing it yourself, but since sex is linked to his killing instincts, they might be enough to tickle his fancy still.

I should remember to make all those questions rhetorical, because I forget I don’t really want the answer, even from you, Fiona said.

We’ve seen other killers get their jollies from vicarious killings, Xavier said.

The phrase vicarious killings is going to haunt my dreams tonight, Fiona said. I was about to make a sarcastic comment when the pilot announced we’d be landing in less than ten minutes, so we all needed to buckle up. There was no staff on these flights except the pilots. US Marshal flight stewards and stewardesses would be incredibly weird.

Competitor Three

Wanna get out of here? Travis asked her, leaning close and putting his hand over hers.

Sure, she replied, her large blue eyes reflecting the dim lights behind the bar. But I gotta take my friends home.

That’s fine, why don’t I give you my phone number and after you drop them off you can call me, and we’ll make arrangements to meet up? Travis suggested, taking her phone and holding it up for her to unlock. She did so and he typed in Hot Guy from Landshark’s Pub & Pool, and his phone number. She smiled at it and then tucked her phone into her pocket and walked away, presumably to gather up the three girls that had come with her.

She was a little older than Travis usually liked them, but she was a knockout anyway. By morning, he’d have another notch on his headboard and another pair of panties for his collection, unless she didn’t wear any. Some of these older women didn’t, especially when they were out looking for a good time. Travis watched as she spoke to a girl. She had the body of a yoga instructor, all taught, lithe muscles.  She had huge tits and a wonderfully tight but large ass, things that made up for her being thirty or so. As a recent divorcee she was liable to be a wild cat in bed.

It was going to be a wonderful night. To think he’d almost decided to go out with some of his buddies instead of coming to this bar. It wasn’t a great bar by any means, but it didn’t have cameras and that was a plus. As an added bonus, she wouldn’t be leaving with him like he’d expected. Her intention to make sure her drunken girlfriends got home safely worked to his advantage.

He stood up and left, making sure to give time between his departure and hers. No, he didn’t want to be seen leaving the bar with an old lady, no matter how perfect her body was. Her hair had visible grey streaks and if it weren’t for her tits, he wouldn’t have given her a second look. Yet she was perfect, and he’d almost missed it because his buddies had wanted to go out for wings and the baseball game. This was better. This was his night. Tomorrow night, they’d go to the game and he’d show them his newest trophy. The world was his oyster.

As he hit the button to unlock his Porsche, he had a moment of doubt. What if those bitch friends convinced her not to call? They looked like the type of women who would intentionally cock block a guy. They’d call it protecting their friend, but in reality, it was meant to ensure their friend didn’t have an awesome night of sex while they went home and binged 27 Dresses while downing gallons of Jerry Garcia ice cream.

Only cunts wore skirt suits to a bar like Landsharks. She’d said something about the night being a celebration for her friends, but he’d been too busy trying to look down her top and hadn’t caught what they were celebrating. Probably one of the thundercunts’ divorces, or maybe they’d just finished drowning their kids, with their expensive skirt suits and Louboutin and Jimmy Choo stilettos and Hermes handbags. She was different though; she was wearing a low-cut blouse and hip-hugging jeans over boots. No designer labels visible. She was like the poor girl allowed out once a month with her rich bitch friends, or maybe they were clients. Maybe she gave a special yoga class to women who wore only designer labels. They probably got walked on by goats in class and went home and let their French poodles mount them or smeared their pussies with cream to entice their Persian cats to lick them into orgasm.

No, he was rich. He drove a Porsche, for God’s sake, and he was attractive, very attractive. Her friends were probably jealous, if they’d even noticed the two of them talking. Most likely though, they hadn’t, they were too busy with their own bullshit to notice the poor relation’s conversation with the guy in chinos at the bar. Despite his confidence, he had the urge to hang around and drive past those stuck-up cunts in his Porsche, try to blow their tailored skirts up and possibly make them tilt over on their ridiculous shoes.

He stopped fantasizing about knocking them out of their shoes. She’d call. She couldn’t resist, none of them could once he decided he wanted them. Even if her bitch friends convinced her to give up and go home for the night, she’d go home, lie alone in her sheets, which were probably flannel, and she’d call just to see if the offer was real. When he assured her that it was, she’d invite him over to her place. He’d probably have to turn up the charm to convince her to come to his place where his equipment was, but that was acceptable. It wouldn’t be that difficult. They’d fuck all night long without her ever realizing it was being filmed, and when the time was right, he’d get her. Maybe she’d have a couple of kids she needed to protect. Or maybe an aging grandmother or ill father; he’d get everything he wanted from her. It had almost been too easy. He pulled out of the parking lot, in full control of his car and himself, finally. It might take an hour or an hour and a half, but she’d call and he’d beg her to come over, he’d beg her to let him pleasure her. Yes, she’d call.

The bar was only a mile from his house. A large, sprawling Victorian with all the newest appliances and amenities. All three bathrooms had bidets, the master bathroom had an extra-large, jetted tub and a walk-in shower that had pulsing jets. He pulled into the driveway and then into the garage; the door shut as he turned the engine off. He got out and stretched gently. It was almost too easy. Now he just needed to get everything ready. He walked into the kitchen through the connecting door to the garage, and made sure the kitchen and dining room were clean. He’d eaten dinner standing at the kitchen sink, and it wouldn’t do to have hot sauce still in it when she arrived. There wasn’t. He went into the living room and lit the two scented candles on the coffee table, then turned on the TV. The news was showing highlights from the baseball game he’d missed. He watched for a couple of seconds, then headed upstairs to the master bedroom suite. He pulled the handcuffs out of the drawer he kept them in, as well as some other bondage gear. Then he went to the walk-in closet and changed into more comfortable clothing, silk boxers and a silk knee-length robe. He’d learned over the years not to light candles in the bedroom because they threw off the lighting for the hidden cameras around the room. He readied the remotes to the cameras and stereo. Then he went ahead and turned the stereo on, and his seduction selection began to play. Slow jazz mixed with modern easy listening love songs, worked every time. He wondered how long it would take him to get her upstairs to his room. Normally it only took a few minutes, but this one might be more resistant to his seduction, being newly divorced. He was reapplying his cologne when his second cell phone rang. He answered it