Next he pulled out the tarp wrapped around Tara. The third. He’d watched her from his hiding spot as she’d walked nude around her apartment, the same upstairs studio Kristi Bentz now occupied. How fitting, he thought as he lugged Tara’s frozen body to another point a little further downstream, opened the tarp and viewed her again. Her skin was pale, though tan lines that hadn’t quite faded from summer were still visible. Her big breasts with their incredible nipples were puckered, begging for him to kiss them, lick them one last time. Yet he resisted. She, too, was pushed into the motionless water to be found by the creatures of the night.

He made two more trips, first with Monique. Tall and statuesque in life, an athlete, and now heavy and stiff, unbending. He untied the tarp with his gloved fingers and noticed that even in death, her muscles were defined. Her long red hair fell stiffly past her shoulders and was mimicked by frosty curls at the juncture of those long, incredible legs. His gut tightened as he looked at her before rolling her body into the water.

Finally he carried the last, smaller tarp far from his parking spot, where he untied the lashings, let the plastic fall free, then gazed long and hard at Rylee, with her cheerleader good looks and blue, sightless eyes. Even in the harsh beam of the headlamp, she was still beautiful. Her curves were perfect, her tiny waist nipped in beneath the globes of round breasts with pale pink nipples. A butterfly tattoo was frozen on the inside of one thigh and he remembered licking the icy decoration with his tongue as he’d explored her.

Yes, he would miss her and was irritated that he hadn’t had longer to view her, touch her, feel her icy smooth skin against his own.

There will be others…give her up. Make room for the next.

His heartbeat quickened. He had but a week to wait and then…oh, and then…

With renewed energy, he pushed her body into the shadowy swamp water. With the beam of his light cutting through the inky depths, he saw her staring up at him through the wavering current as the water slid over those pale features.

Her blood, he’d thought, had been pure.

Perfect.

Slowly she disappeared from view.

CHAPTER 10

A riel knelt in the chapel.

Her knees ached and her shoulders were tight as she bowed her head and asked for guidance. Again. As she had every morning this week.

Ariel had always had a strong faith, hoping it would carry her through the tough times in her life: the death of her older brother Lance; her parents’ divorce; her new stepfather and the string of boyfriends who had left her from the time she was fourteen, boys whom she’d given her heart and so much more before they all moved on.

No one had stayed.