Possession by Ann Rule Page A

over his head, replaced the binoculars with mirrored sunglasses, and leapt off the rock.
    He disliked this part of his day the most. He would have to eat, deliver to his customers, sleep, and rise tomorrow to begin again. He resented his need to eat and sleep as much as he detested the sexual embers that flashed into fire so often. Bodily functions delayed his quest, but he was ravenous now and could think only of a raw steak and cold beer. The bike was safe, hidden by the fallen fir and the huckleberry bushes. Even a plane overhead would not be
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    able to make it out. If the time came when he had to ditch it, he planned simply to send it roaring into the river. He ran his hand over the bulges in the saddle bag instinctively and relaxed as he felt the outlines of the guns inside; they were both there—the pistol and the dismantled rifle.

    He was pushing the bike through the last copse of trees onto the roadway when he saw her. He blinked his eyes to clear the orange outline of the setting sun, but she was still there when he looked again, his breathing suspended by her perfection.

    She ran alone, her breath sounds carrying back to him as he watched from the trees. Her jogging shoes slapped the asphalt steadily, but she ran like all women, arms flung out too far from her sides, breasts bouncing. The woman's hair was tied back with a red band around her forehead, wispy, fine, black, and faintly curly.

    He must have made a sound, although he was not aware of it. For an instant, she turned her head toward the woods, and he saw her full face. Her large eyes looked... not frightened, but wary ... and she ran past him, stepping up her pace.

    He stopped himself from calling out to her; she would not recognize him yet. He had to expect that it would take a long time, but he felt the first ballooning of joy in his gut, the first wonder that it had come about. His knees trembled as he watched her run away from him, knowing it was only for the moment, knowing that she would never really run away from him again.

    There was lettering on the back of her T-shirt. He raised his binoculars to make out what it said:

    Natchitat County Sheriff's Office Wives' Bowling League

    And beneath those smaller letters, a name in flowing script:

    Joanne 44

    Danny Lindstrom watched the red and yellow lights dotting the dispatcher's panel and saw them blur, merge into each other, and then separate. He shook his head, as if he could jar the fatigue loose with an abrupt movement.
    It was 4:12 A.M., and he was officially off duty, but it was always difficult to come down off" shift—especially third watch. He chose to work the 8:00 P.M. to 4:00 A.M. shift, because it gave him his days with Joanne. But he knew also that the hours of darkness were when everything happened, and the sights and sounds and smells set his mind at a pitch where adrenalin flowed as a natural component of blood. When it was hot and the moon was full, like tonight, almost every radio squawk brought situations laced with danger and excitement. He wanted it as much as he feared it. Hell, he sought it out; he was bored with routine police work and even after eight years he still got a kick out of flipping on the blue lights and jamming his thumb on the siren button. But it left him drained physically and emotionally and always with that fine edge of anxiety when it was time to pack it in and go home. It was hard to let go.
    He remembered now the hassle with Joanne. He hated arguing with her just as he was leaving for work, but she was determined to go out jogging by herself, no matter how many times he'd warned her that being a policeman's wife was no automatic guarantee against rape. And that had made her madder. Everything set her off lately. He knew what it really was; it was the same old argument about the baby, or, rather, the fact that there was no baby. Every time she started her period, she cried.
    "You don't just pull babies out of a hat," he'd told her.
    "No, you don't,