On the one hand he was angry over the destruction of his camera. His camera was his instrument. What he did with it was his art. He never allowed anyone to handle his cameras or his lenses. Seeing that camera hit the ground, seeing the lens wrench off the body, had been like watching his own limb being torn off. Having it destroyed by Lauren Lawton—by a woman he just seconds before had control over—had infuriated him. The rage he had felt had almost overwhelmed his control. The prospect of losing control left him feeling agitated.

Control was essential. Control equaled success. Losing control meant making mistakes. Mistakes equaled failure. Failure was not an option. Failure meant going to prison. He wasn’t going to prison again. Ever.

He was an intelligent person. A highly intelligent person. He was certainly more intelligent than any of the cops who had investigated him. Over the years he had learned from his mistakes and perfected his methods.

Success was all about control.

Control was the sensation that had filled him as he had photographed Leah Lawton and her little blonde friend. They had been unaware of him. The control had been his as he captured their images: their slender tanned legs and arms, their budding breasts, the sliver of belly the blonde girl showed every time she raised her tennis racquet. Each separate piece of girl was controlled by him as he captured it on film.

Control was what he had felt as Lauren Lawton had raced toward him, her face twisting in anger. He had created that emotion. He had captured the images of that emotion and frozen them in time.

Every time he closed his eyes he could see her expression, the raw hatred, and that excited him. There was his challenge: to create that hatred and to manipulate it and turn it around on her. The potential power in that success was enough to give him a hard-on.

Overall, he decided he was feeling good. Not just good. Great. He had almost everything he wanted. Almost.

Toward the front of the restaurant the same group of night shift nurses he had been watching all week were getting ready to leave—Denise Garland among them. They had gotten up from their table, talking and laughing. One of the older fat ones spotted him and waved. He waved back.

As the nurses headed for the front door, he put a ten and a five down next to his plate to pay his bill and leave Ellen Norman, twenty-four, with the curly strawberry blond hair and receding chin, a nice tip.

“Pervert at two o’clock!” Tanner said as Ballencoa came out of the diner.

He walked out into the sunshine, settled a pair of sunglasses on his nose, hitched at the waist of his baggy cargo pants, and looked around like he was pleased with himself.

“Oh, yeah, Roland,” Tanner said. “You’re all that. King of the Panty Whackers.”