Killer Dead, Victim Alive is my recent psychological thriller, and the second book in The Serial Killer Anthology following The Deadly Samaritan. It is available now in ebook or paperback — or free on Kindle Unlimited.

In the meantime, please take the time to read a chapter, Abduction, meet Keith Victor, and learn about the night he kidnapped Chrissy Weeks.

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CHAPTER FORTY | Abduction

It had been a week since Keith Victor first noticed Chrissy Weeks leaving Marmalade Café on Park Place in El Segundo. At that point, he wasn’t necessarily looking for a new person to take. But he watched her daily for a week and was intrigued by her fearlessness.

She was alone a great deal.

She went out at night.

She went home alone.

She never seemed to look around when she was going to or from her car.

His bottom line: her fearlessness was recklessness, which sealed the deal for him.

He knew she was one hundred and eighty degrees different than the others. But something was alluring about her that he found fascinating. Plus, he had read the news articles describing his “type”; this woman was precisely the opposite and would confuse the profilers, who he knew thought they had figured him out.

Tonight, he followed her to Marina del Rey and watched her enter UOVO restaurant on Admiralty Way. She was alone and didn’t appear to be meeting anyone, at least not outside, before entering.

Three hours later, she walked out, again by herself, and headed toward her car. Victor had parked next to Weeks’ car and had backed in on the right; his driver-side door was just feet from hers. She approached the vehicles and entered the narrow lane between them.

Victor stepped out of his car, wrapped his left arm around her left arm, and immobilized her right arm so he could place the large sponge over her mouth and nose with his right arm. She was unconscious within seconds.

He put her in the back seat and laid her down as best as possible, considering her height, gagged her mouth, and put a shopping bag from Trader Joe’s over her head. He fastened it at her neck with a cloth. He tied her hands and ankles with duct tape.

He reached out to the space between the two cars, grabbed her purse, and reached inside for her wallet. He didn’t know her name, although he knew where she lived, what type of car she drove, and many of her daily habits. He never researched the names because he didn’t want the searches on his IP address.

He looked at her driver’s license. Christine Leigh Weeks. Born February 19, 1994.

He returned the license to her purse and placed it back on the ground between the cars.

He slowly pulled out of the parking lot, calmly worked his way over to Jefferson, and headed for the 405.

By LA standards, the drive was short—less than 30 minutes. He pulled into the driveway, tapped the garage door opener on the visor, and pulled in. The door came back down and closed behind him.

Victor exited the car, glancing into the back seat to see if Weeks was moving. She wasn’t – still out cold.

He looked over at KJ standing at the door leading into the house.

“Everything good?” KJ asked.

“Yeah, fine,” Victor said. “I have someone.”

He opened the door to the back seat. “I’ll put her in the room. Change the plates so we don’t forget.”

“Okay,” KJ said and walked toward a cabinet on the back wall of the garage.

Victor slid Weeks out of the car, lifted her, placed her over his right shoulder, and headed for the door to the room built into the garage.

KJ removed the two license plates from the cupboard and returned to the car to remove the smudged, difficult-to-read ones on Victor’s car. It wasn’t necessary. Victor never used this car after he took someone.

KJ finished and went inside the small room to see if Victor needed help.

He didn’t. He had placed Weeks on a mattress on the floor and chained her hands to a water pipe against the wall. There was another woman there, too.

“That’s enough for tonight,” Victor said. “I’m going to get some water and then leave.”

KJ nodded, and they both walked toward the three stairs that led to the inside of the house.

Victor went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and looked inside. He took a bottle of water out and sat at the small glass table. KJ said goodnight and walked through the kitchen to the bedroom on the left.

Victor took a sip as he pushed his hair back from his forehead.

He didn’t know it, of course, but he would die from a bullet to that spot in two weeks.