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"Call him right now."



"Let's go take a shower then I'll call. Come on, Em, it's not like the stalker is going to burst in here and kill us both," Parker tried to reason. The argument had started in the car when she had made the mistake of showing Emily the letter she had gotten.



The nut that was sending them had attached the picture of Emily that had been in the paper with a promise to the blonde to save her from Parker's evil influence. The more Parker looked at it, the more it niggled the back of her mind that she should recognize something about the letters and the way they were written. The old fashioned calligraphy was an odd way for someone who wanted to kill you to pen the death notice. It was almost like an invitation to die at the time they decided.



Emily picked up the phone and handed it to Parker along with the card Detective Sully had given her when he had dropped by her practice. The police officer had left an extra in case Parker needed to call him since Gary had taken the first one he handed out.



"This is serious, Parker. There's some nut case out there that wants to send you to the big tennis court in the sky, and I think that it's time for you to start taking that with some degree of respect." She put the phone down for a moment and walked to where Parker was sitting on the bed and stood in between her legs. "I love you, Kong, and I want you around for years to come. Please do it for me?"



"Ah, come on not that look." Parker got up, picked up the phone and dialed the number. It didn't take a lot of arm-twisting to get Logan to agree to meet them at Emily's apartment.



Emily got Parker to lie down until Logan arrived hoping a short nap would ease the exhaustion from Parker's face. She never heard the knock or the conversation Emily had with the detective when he arrived. He took the letter and envelope with him to be dusted for prints, promising to come back later to question Parker. Logan had watched the match on television and couldn't blame Parker for shutting down for a while. As he stepped back into the heat, Logan Sully never saw the figure leaning against a tree further up the street.



Had he bothered to look, Logan might have questioned the rosary hanging down from clenched fingers. The soldier of God had methodically moved from bead to bead as he prayed for the opportunity to rid the world of Parker King. She would be the first of the King sisters to receive salvation through death.



"The lord will cleanse the evil that runs through you, Parker. I'll see to it myself." With the rosary finished, the slightly bent figure turned and headed in the direction of the lower end hotel where the tools for the job at hand were housed. It was time to do some cleansing of his own soul, so that when the time came his hand would be true and holy.



The man behind the desk never looked in as the renter passed him on the way to the slow elevator toward the back of the entrance hall. There had been no complaints about the lodger that had arrived two weeks before the big tennis tournament, and the maid hadn't been in the room in that long, turned away every day by the do not disturb sign on the door. Had she ventured past it, the police would have been alerted from just the screaming alone.



The man looked at no one as he moved down the hall. The hotel still used keys and he had to jiggle it in the lock to get the mechanism to work before it allowed him to enter. On one bed there was a collection of knives that could have been used as mirrors the shine was so great. Only one of them was wrapped in a piece of heavy linen material, which could've easily been the nicest thing found in the room. This one was special because it had the blood of the beast on it from his first attempt outside the restaurant.



He fell to his knees in front of a small children's inflatable pool with a wire mesh over it and started his purification ritual. "I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end. He who believes in me shall know the kingdom of heaven." The lord didn't care if he remembered the words exactly as the nuns had taught him years ago, what mattered was he believed.



"Lord, I need your help in defeating the beast. She is loved by the crowds who know no better." He lifted the mesh from the pool slowly and reached inside. The movement of his hand caused the warning rattles to sound, but it didn't stop him from continuing. God was on his side and would protect him from the serpents.



"Show me a sign, Lord." The thick strong body of the rattler coiled around his right arm leaving itself enough room to still be able to sound his death rattle. Instead of instilling fear, he reached for another one and it too wrapped around his other arm. He lifted both agitated snakes into the air and looked at the viper's eyes. They were unblinking as both heads were poised for a strike. Their handler had given them enough room to do that if that was their choice.



His life had been spent on trying to serve the god he believed existed. A god that struck down those who went against his word by using holy soldiers carefully chosen to do his bidding, this god had no compassion for those who lived their lives outside of the norm. The faithful servant holding the snakes had spun off from his church and formed his own religion along with the type of Supreme Being he followed. There was no room for decent.



He watched in amazement as a drop of venom dripped from the larger one's mouth but he didn't strike. "I shall do your bidding, Lord God." His arm still tingled where the venom had come to rest as he put his tests of faith back in their lair. The time was at hand.



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"Why does your hair always smell so good?"



"I saw the brand of shampoo you wear on your right sleeve and decided to try it out," answered Emily. She was curled up on the bed with Parker pressed against her running her fingers through the blonde hair.



"Keep this up and I may have to spank you."



"As lovely as that thought might be, Logan's due back any minute and I want to be dressed when he arrives."



"Where's your sense of adventure, baby? Wouldn't Mother Parish love to read about her little girl's wild and sexy ways?"



"Keep it up and my mother will have a field day with you. She already thinks you're a bad influence on me."



"I can't be that bad since I can't talk you out of these shorts." Emily turned around at the tease and ran her finger along Parker's lips.



"Would you come with me to meet my mother?" The question sounded almost tentative to Parker who put two fingers under Emily's chin and lifted her head.



"I'd go anywhere with you, baby, never fear that."



The knock on the door was what ended the kiss they were sharing. Parker was starting to think it was some conspiracy to keep her from touching Emily. She looked at the front door of the apartment with the same sentiment she held for the phone next to Emily's bed.



"Logan, how goes the manhunt?" asked Parker.



"Interesting."



"I'd offer you a place to sit but Emily hasn't gone furniture shopping yet. How about the three of us go and grab an early dinner? When you're finished telling me about the psycho chasing after me, I'll give you some tennis pointers."



They took Logan's police sedan to a small family owned Italian restaurant the detective was partial to before the talk of stalkers began. The results the FBI crime lab had come up with were still baffling not only them but the New York police staff as well. The Fed boys had run an analysis on the ink that proved to shed some more light on the perpetrator, but exactly what the spotlight showed was unknown.



"We gave them all the letters that have been sent so far, and they all came back with no prints but with one thing in common," explained Logan.



"What's that?" asked Emily. She reached over and took the fifth bread stick headed toward Parker's mouth away from her.



"What? I'm hungry."



"It's going to spoil your appetite for the tremendous amount of food you ordered so be quiet and pay attention." Emily turned her head back to Logan and nodded for him to continue.



"The ink this guy used is mixed with a toxin. My contacts at the FBI thought that if he was using some sort of different ink we could trace it to were he or she bought it and get a bead on them that way. Turns out the ink is fairly common, but what makes it unique is that the prep mixes it with rattle snake venom."



Emily sat and stared at the salad the waiter had put down while Logan was talking. Next to her Parker picked up her fork and started to twirl the fettuccini she had ordered as an appetizer getting ready to take a bite. It was as if Logan had complimented her on her shoe selection Emily thought, the tennis player acted so unaffected.



"Where does one buy rattle snake venom?" asked Parker. "I mean, I've never been to the grocery when an announcement was made for a price check on register two for rattle snake venom." The joke made Emily get up and run toward the bathroom. "Excuse me a minute, will you?" Parker put her fork down and followed the upset woman.