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BODY COUNT: High-Heels was published this week on Amazon. It is the sequel to BODY COUNT: Killers, and BODY COUNT: Roatán. The series follows the exploits of a team of men and women dedicated to the task of uncovering and bringing down serial killers. All three titles are available in both electronic and paperback format.
As readers have said:
[of BODY COUNT: Killers] Brilliant! Determined to solve a murder before retiring, Memphis Detective Blake Harris soon realizes it’s a serial killing. An offer from the mother of a victim brings Harris face to face with Homeland Security and a challenge he can’t pass up.In honor and celebration of the series’ completion, Moristotle & Co. begins today to serialize the entire series. Starting now, here are the Core Characters of BODY COUNT: Killers, and its Prologue:
–Whitnee Overstreet
[of BODY COUNT: Roatán] The serial killer task force is back, this time going international, to take down an insidious murderer of American tourists on the vacation paradise of Roatán, Honduras. Convoluted, furiously paced, like speeding down a mountain road in the dark, Roatán roars to a surprise conclusion.
—Roger Owens, author of
Dancing at the Driftwood Hotel and
Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café
June Warner’s son was murdered by a serial killer. She uses government contacts to foster a national team to hunt for his killer.
Blake Harris, the team’s leader, is a retired detective from the Memphis Police Department. He selects the cases to investigate and expects total commitment from his team.
Taylor Manning, Blake’s second-in-command, is also retired from the police. A former trainer in hand-to-hand combat, he is calm under pressure.
Tony Harris has worked undercover with gangs and thugs, a world where any sign of weakness can get you killed.
Wayne Roberts was a pupil of Taylor’s. He stops and thinks and looks for weaknesses in attackers.
Shelley Adams got tired of working undercover for the police and wants something else. She’s a crack shot with firearms.
Bobby Lee is a second-generation Vietnamese American. He’s a bloodhound on a trail, but doesn’t go outside the box.
Peter Santos was 18 when he went to jail for hacking into a police database. He’s the team’s boy genius: he uses computers to identify patterns of potential serial killings.
Mary Winehouse, a top FBI profiler, was tired of bouncing around the country and wanted to settle down in one spot.
Bob Rivers is a university instructor in pathology. No matter where he goes, he’s the smartest person in the room.
Prologue
The early bus to Memphis pulled out of the Little Rock station at 5:10 a.m., with only a scattering of passengers at that time of the morning. In the front, an old man sat with his wife. A few seats back from them, a couple of working-class men were fast asleep, and had been asleep even before the bus pulled out. Toward the back, the members of a black family on their way home talked in low voices. In the middle sat a dark figure with a hoodie pulled over his cap and a backpack on the seat next to him. He slept peacefully as the bus barreled along in the pre-dawn; he too was on his way home, but there was one more stop to make before he slept in his own bed. It was the killing season, and he still had work to do.
The noise of Memphis woke him. He wasn’t sure when he had at last fallen asleep, but he felt better. The bus turned into the terminal and came to a stop. The second he stepped from the bus, the hot morning air washed over him, and sweat began to form on his forehead. He hurriedly walked to the main street before pulling the hoodie off. The fewer people he encountered, the better off he would be. He walked into the Burger King on the corner and ordered a black coffee with a sausage and biscuit. With his breakfast in hand, he headed to the local bus stop, where he sat down to eat and wait.
He put the last bite into his mouth as the bus pulled up. He paid the fare and found a seat halfway back, on the curbside. These scouting trips were the same in every town he had been to. He would ride around most of the day looking for areas that felt right to him. He could never put a finger on just what it was that made one part of town better than another – it was just something in his gut that said, this is where you’ll find him. The process never failed him. Fate always provided the right candidate for the killing, and he was positive that tonight, the last night of the killing season, would be the best.
He slept in the park most of the afternoon and into the night. At 8:40 he caught the bus again and got off at Cooper Street. The first kill was always the best. He had time to pick and choose and time to enjoy the hunt. The next two would be rushed, but necessary. After his last kill, he would ride out the cold winter months planning for the next season, so the last day of a season was both a happy time and a sad one.
He opened and closed his hand on the metal handle of the sharp-bladed push knife and waited for the footsteps to get closer. He fought his impulse to look around the end of the wall that hid him. He never saw the faces of those he killed until the light was gone from their eyes. He was an artist and his brush required him to strike from behind. It was an art form that had chosen him, not the other way around. He had been an expert with the push knife almost from the first second he picked it up. The first couple of kills hadn’t been clean and neat, but over time he mastered killing with one blow – the lights went out before the body knew it was dead.
The young man passed him without a care in the world. The killer took one step and drove the blade upward. The young man grew stiff for a second, the killer withdrew the blade, and the body fell at his feet. He leaned over the dead man, searched his face, saw nothing, and wiped the blade on the dead man’s shirt. Then he snapped a photo and headed toward the bus stop. Two more would have to die before he caught the morning bus out of Memphis.
| Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers |
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