Read Shattered for Free Online

there.”
    â€œIf a retractor was used to keep the eyelids open,” the doctor explained in a soft, accented voice, “it’s highly likely there was Perfluoron or some kind of saline compound dropped into the eye at regular intervals.”
    One of the lead investigators from St. Louis spoke up then, a slender, gray-at-the-temples man. “I think I see where this is going.”
    Grove nodded deferentially at the man. “Go ahead…Agent Watkins, is it?”
    â€œThat’s right. Joe Watkins. Belleville field office. This is about watching, isn’t it?”
    The group got very still.
    Grove gave a grim little nod. “It’s about the second victim being forced to watch, yeah.”
    A long pause.
    In the far distance the sky rattled with thunder.
    Menner thrust his hands in his pockets and mumbled under his breath, “God, I hate the sadists.”
    Grove looked at the big man. “Right again. This is definitely a sadist we’re after here, a pure sociopath, but he’s the trickiest kind because he’s probably a highly organized personality.”
    Menner looked at Grove. “Meaning he’s good at it? Cunning? Smart?”
    Grove told him that was exactly right.
    The sheriff jumped in then. “Okay, so what are we looking for here?” He was rubbing his thick neck as he spoke. “Somebody with medical training? An eye surgeon?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Grove said, then shot a glance at Dr. Habbib.
    The surgeon was nodding: “I have a colleague in Cincinnati, he goes to third world countries and shows them how to make eyelid clamps out of paperclips.”
    â€œAnd the eyedrops you can find at any Walgreens,” Grove added. “There’s also a battlefield crudeness to the way he tapes the victims’ heads to trees or whatever…lampposts.”
    â€œSo where does that leave us?” Agent Watkins wanted to know. “We can’t canvass every drugstore in the Midwest.”
    Grove looked over at the two shrouds in the weeds. “We look for somebody who fits the profile…and who’s all about watching. ”
    Another moment of tense silence as the group mulled that over.
    â€œAnd a control freak,” Grove added. “That’s really important, the control part…and the watching part.”
    Â 
    Less than fifty feet away, standing in the chilled river breezes, the killer watched. He watched the scene with fervid intensity through the lens of a TV camera. In fact, he watched with something close to awe as the handsome black FBI agent enlightened the team of investigators.
    The killer wore a nylon WJID-TV ST. LOUIS windbreaker, hip-wader boots, and a heavy battery belt connected via electric umbilical cord to his video camera’s yoke. It was the standard uniform for a remote news cameraman at the NBC affiliate, at which he had been an employee for nearly ten years. But he wouldn’t be able to work there much longer if this brilliant profiler from the FBI found out about his compulsion.
    On one level, the cameraman greatly admired this dapper African American criminologist. He had read several articles about him, and had seen him in the flesh on two other occasions: last year at the scene of the Davenport killings, the two nurses from Augustana College, and a month later, in Memphis, those two fry cooks, strangled and gutted in the alley behind the Popeyes Chicken place.
    On each occasion, it was an added bonus to watch the great Special Agent Ulysses Grove inspect the cameraman’s handiwork (while the cameraman taped it all for the world to see). In Memphis, for instance, the experience was so exciting it gave the cameraman a temporary erection, and he had to leave under the false pretenses of food poisoning.
    But now it was quickly becoming apparent that the investigation was progressing faster than the cameraman had hoped. This prodigious profiler was going to eventually track the