CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He stared at the television screen and felt the excitement curl deep inside his gut. It blossomed into heat and spread throughout his body. His fingertips tingled and he was momentarily lightheaded from the surge of emotion.
The pictures flashing across the screen showed a swarm of police surrounding the wooded bushland where he’d dumped her. Sally Batten. That’s what they said. He was surprised it had taken them so long to find her.
It hadn’t taken them anywhere near as long to find Angelina. Images of the girl flooded his thoughts. She’d been nothing like Sally, but Angelina was special because she was the one who’d started it. It was Angelina who had given him the idea. It was almost as if she’d whispered it to him through the window of his car. From the moment he’d seen her, he’d known what he had to do.
He’d spied her at the bus stop outside the university and immediately fell in love with her tall, slender body and long, golden-brown hair. He loved all of them, but the ones that looked like Rapunzel held a special place in his heart and even though her hair was darker than what he normally preferred, she’d been perfect in every other way.
He’d always been in love with Rapunzel. Even when his mother had destroyed every doll she could find, he’d managed to save Rapunzel. He could still remember with a clarity that surprised him, how he’d pressed his lips against her long blond hair and had taken comfort in the painted blue eyes that had peered up at him with sympathy and understanding. Rapunzel knew what it was like to be imprisoned. She knew exactly how it felt to be controlled by a woman who wanted him dead. They had so much in common that way.
And she brought him comfort, like the soft, silky underpants and the sweet-smelling dresses he’d stolen off the neighbors’ clotheslines. Nothing made him feel more whole than when he slid the apparel over his skinny, boy’s body and felt them envelop him in their warmth and acceptance.
He only wished he’d been more careful. If he had, his mother would never have found out, would never have screamed vitriol at him with disgust and hatred burning in her eyes…would never have hunted down every doll and piece of stolen clothing in the house and destroyed them.
Not that it had made a difference. It didn’t make him stop. Yes, he’d cried tears of anger and wished her dead. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. All it did was to teach him how crucial it was to be more careful. A lot more careful. It was a lesson he hadn’t forgotten.