Nicole sat on the bed, pulled the dart from Travis’ neck, and tickled his face until he jerked awake. She chuckled as he wrestled with his chains.
“That’s the third time I’ve got the better of you, Detective,” Nicole said, scratching his chest with the dart. “You can’t stop falling for me. Seems I’m better at this game.”
Travis tried to conceal his confusion with steely determination, but Nicole knew he only remembered being knocked unconscious twice.
“Once in my bedroom,” she reminded him. “Once at your office, and the time before that you were too busy squeezing my ass to notice. I kissed you to sleep, and added a little knockout powder to make sure. How was the sushi? Did you enjoy your after dinner mint? I hated it, every second. But thanks for the alibi.”
Kyle had been so interested in feeling Nicole’s body it never occurred to him that he was being used. As expected, he accepted her invitation and came by himself. He’d left his partner to crack the case while he had dinner with the prime suspect. Of course, Travis never questioned Nicole’s innocence. From the day they met, she’d ensnared him in her web of seduction and lies. Even though he knew the killer was female, he was quite prepared to have sex with the woman who had the most to gain from Toshigi’s death.
Nicole’s scheme had played out perfectly. She mixed crushed sleeping tablets into Travis’ food. Later that night, she stabbed a tranquillizer dart into his neck while they made love. Once he dozed off, Nicole went to her bedroom to download the digital photos. She’d mounted her camera on a tripod in advance and left the connecting door partially open. All she’d needed to do was lure Kyle into the picture, and the automatic timer took care of the rest. Travis never suspected a thing. Nicole eliminated Hannah and Iris, put Lakeysia in hospital, dropped off the photos at the precinct, and returned home with time to spare.
“You killed them?” Travis asked, still shocked at Nicole’s betrayal. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
“You’re the master sleuth,” Nicole said, plucking the dart’s wings. “You figure it out. Do I look the part, Detective?”
“What are you? My dream date?”
Nicole sat at her vanity table. She removed her blonde wig, placed it on a plaster bust, and straightened her natural black hair. “I’m barely eighteen. Don’t you think that’s a bit of an age gap? No? Well, neither did Toshigi or Randall. They had me in bed at thirteen. It’s all in my private photo album. Take a look. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Nicole soaked a cloth in cleaning solvent, wrung it, and wiped the creamy pink paint from her face. As her Caucasian disguise dissolved, Kyle glanced around the room, seeing the paintings for the first time. Nicole had drawn the key moments of her life: her parents being murdered while she watched from hiding, the San Jose orphanage where she grew up, Toshigi adopting her, working with the Cyber Maidens at Dragonsoft, and hints at the sexual abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her beloved father.
The paintings were the prize of Nicole’s collection. She’d done them recently and kept their existence secret. Her childhood experiences were so traumatizing she was able to recreate vivid memories exactly as they happened. Nicole used the latest in computer graphics technology. As a result, the level of detail was so high a casual onlooker might mistake them for actual photographs.
“They abused you,” said Kyle. “I’m sorry.” He stared at a picture of Nicole being sexually assaulted by Randall while her father watched from the bedside. She was a teenager, completely at their mercy. “And you did nothing,” Kyle continued, “said nothing for five years. I don’t understand. Why wait? Why not go to the authorities?”
“Because I was afraid!” screamed Nicole. “I was a little child. Weak, helpless. What could I have done? Nobody would have taken the word of a young girl against respected businessmen. My father had friends in high places, and I had none at all. Even I have my limits, Detective. Besides, I had to do Jade Dragon’s character justice.”
Travis recounted Jade’s tale. “As a child, she watched her parents die. The ninja girl sought revenge on those who’d wronged her, hunted them down one by one. Before she took their lives, she looked them in the eye, and showed them her face. To let them know they’d been murdered by an eighteen year old girl. Your character’s history… is your own.”
Nicole stored her contact lenses in their case. Having wiped away her Caucasian disguise, she resembled the sweet, young Japanese girl Travis once loved so dearly.
“You’ve got a wonderful memory, Kyle. Shame you don’t have any intelligence to go with it.” Nicole stored the blonde wig’s bust beside her redhead one. “You really thought I was Lenora, didn’t you?” she taunted her prisoner, circling the bed. “I led you all on a wild goose chase, planted clues. I snipped a piece of the bitch’s hair to leave at Charlie’s office, cleaned out her apartment, set up the room at the inn. Smearing the newspaper articles in her blood was a nice touch, don’t you think? I made complete fools of the SFPD and the great Detective Kyle Travis. You wouldn’t even have gone after Lenora if your partner hadn’t deciphered my code. How’s Lakeysia doing by the way?”
Nicole took down a painting and showed it to Kyle. The Asian woman in the picture was about sixteen years old. Iris, Hannah and Lenora gathered round a screen, clutching videogame control pads. Nicole sat in the background. She worked alone at a sloped table, sketching concept art for a videogame. The drawing within was her green kunoichi, Jade Dragon.
“I got to prove I’m the greatest games designer who’s ever lived,” boasted Nicole, “and not some pretty face at the office. The other girls never respected me. They always believed I got the job because I was the president’s daughter. My brilliant designs had nothing to do with it.”
“What about the maid?” asked Kyle. “Your secretary? Rebecca? The two rookie cops? Lakeysia? Thorne? What did they ever do to piss you off?”
Nicole rehung the picture. “Nothing much,” she agreed, “but I had to get your attention. People die in this city every day. Who cares about a few murders here and there? They wouldn’t even make the headlines. Eleven kills in three days. Now, that’s a story people pay attention to. Yesterday, I was a name in small print on the back of a game box, but tomorrow, I’ll be famous.”
“I thought you wanted to frame Lenora. Won’t she be the famous one? Are you going to kill me as well?”
Nicole climbed on her bed, stood over Kyle, and stripped to her underwear. She kicked her boots away then stepped out of her jumpsuit. “How often do you play games?” she asked. “Before the surprise ending, the hero always gets the girl. Or vice versa.”
“What now? You expect me to kiss you?”
Nicole said nothing. She pulled down her panties, unfastened her bra strap, and tossed her underclothes aside. Now completely naked, she sat on Kyle’s waist, and assumed a lovemaking position.
“I’ll be doing the kissing,” Nicole said. “It’s called rape. It’s not a very pleasant experience. You did wonder why I hated my father so much. I thought I’d reconstruct the crime for you. Cheer up. You’re about to have the best sex of your life. Me too.”
Kyle spat in Nicole’s face. “Relationships require commitment from both parties, and I haven’t made up my mind yet. Your words, remember?”
“You don’t have a choice,” Nicole said, calmly wiping away the saliva. “That’s no way to treat a lady, Detective, especially a damsel in distress. It was fun watching you save my life, even if I was never in any real danger.”
Kyle had been so eager to play the knight in shining armor, and dash to her rescue. It was easy to rig the hostage situation at the motel. After the encounter with Travis at the docks, Nicole ditched her scuba outfit, and took two separate taxis to Watts Inn. Once there, she exercised with the barbells and punching bag until she perspired faster than sweat dripped from her body. Nicole needed the police to believe she’d been held captive since midday, and her story would be far more plausible if she was exhausted when help arrived.
Despite Nicole’s snap decision to up the ante after killing Rebecca, it proved equally trivial to strangle Officer Wilson, and to leave a footprint trail for Lakeysia to follow. Assassinating her maid in front of Travis was more satisfying, if only for the challenge of planning a murder in less than an hour. When Kyle telephoned ahead to announce his visit, Nicole decided to stage Sarah’s death to divert his suspicion. She’d procured a silenced nine-millimeter pistol from the arms dealer recommended by Randall, and knew Sarah’s cleaning routine off by heart. With her supplier dead, there was no way the weapon could be traced back to her.
Nicole simply hid the gun under her gown, and turned her back on Kyle at the appropriate moment. To throw ballistics off the scent, she waited until the maid was in line with the French windows before she put a bullet in her temple. The tricky part was making Travis believe the shot came from the garden, but Nicole had enough C-4 to spare for two panes of glass. She remotely detonated the first block when she killed Sarah, and blew up the second before firing at the vase. Kyle was too busy taking cover, and never saw the gun in Nicole’s hand.
With the stage set for Jade’s appearance, Nicole reached into her gown pocket, dialed Toshigi’s home number, and activated her mobile phone’s playback function. Memorizing her recorded message beforehand made it easy to add verbal responses when prompted. Nicole deliberately put herself in the imaginary shooter’s line of fire, and used her pretend anger as an excuse to press the answering machine’s delete key, erasing any potential evidence.
Hoping to woo Nicole with his heroic antics, Travis abandoned her, and leapt through the window. Naturally he discovered the footprints and shell casing Nicole had planted near the statue, but she hid the real evidence while he was preoccupied. Only three people knew about the secret drawer inside the samurai armor display case, and Nicole’s father and maid wouldn’t be sharing that information with anyone. While Travis hunted the phantom killer outside, Nicole retrieved the explosive residue, and locked it away with her cellphone and gun. In retrospect, she should have worn gloves, but nobody thought to check her hands for powder burns.
“Since you’re such a clever girl,” Kyle said, interrupting her train of thought, “why not let me go? You think you’ll get away with killing me? Everyone back at the station knows I’m at your place. They’ll connect you to my death.”
Nicole smiled, unconcerned by Kyle’s desperate pleas. “If they ever find your body. Maybe they’ll think you ran off to Miami with some bimbo tucked under your arm. And if not…” She stretched forward so her breasts touched his body. “Spending a hot, steamy night in my dojo ought to convince them I’m innocent. Passion can melt a guy’s brain. The method’s been tried, tested and proven.”
Travis shut his eyes, and lay prone on the bed. “Forget it, Nicole. Your boyfriend’s not coming tonight.”
“No hard on? I can fix that. You think you’re real tough, don’t you? Some girls like to squeeze the juice from forbidden fruit, but I’ve always had a preference for nuts.”
Nicole reached between her knees and grabbed Kyle’s crotch. She squeezed his balls so hard they creaked with tension. “I crack them open with my bare hands,” she said. “Typical male. All talk. They say twisted testicles can cause a man unbearable pain, but us girls wouldn’t know. We’re the weaker, uneducated sex, aren’t we? Let’s hear you scream, Detective. Cry out and I’ll let go.”
Travis winced in pain, but remained defiant. “Fu… y…” he croaked, unable to complete the words.
“Be patient,” Nicole said. “I’m getting to that.”
Kyle arched his back, pulling away from Nicole. She kept his private parts in a vice hold. Her fingernails cut into Travis’ flesh, drawing blood. Nicole’s grip was so tight his skin turned red around the groin.
“I’ll hand it to you,” Nicole said. “You’re tougher than Lenora was. One broken kneecap was enough for her. She begged me for mercy before I finally shut her up with her own controller cord. In the time it took Lenora to die, I completed the first level of Jade Dragon. That was despite the stupid bitch waving her arms in my eyes.” She squeezed harder. “Then I started my real campaign. You can’t figure out how I pulled it off, can you? How I outsmarted Travis, Lakeysia and Thorne, the dynamic trio? Most of the setups were easy. Sarah, the motel room, my father. Hannah and Iris. Any idiot with a fraction of my intelligence could come up with those, but killing your lieutenant at the police station. That was a classic. Want to know how I did it? Yes, I bet you do.”
Nicole hadn’t been certain Kyle would take her to the precinct a second time, but just in case, she’d stashed Meagan’s uniform and her ‘Lenora’ disguise in the alley opposite. The night she delivered the photos to Lieutenant Throne, Nicole hid her trash bag behind a dumpster, somewhere it wouldn’t be taken by homeless people or refuse collectors.
After faking sickness upon seeing Iris’ body, Nicole called Travis from the corridor outside the morgue. While he dashed to Thorne’s office, she left the precinct, and changed into the cop outfit. Nicole wore the patrolwoman’s shirt and trousers over her black suit, taped her empty bag and high heels to her waist, and buttoned her shirt over the top. To complete her change of identity, Nicole applied paint to her face then put on her red wig and dark glasses.
When she was ready, Nicole walked back into the precinct. She took the elevator, headed straight for Homicide Division, and interrupted the Lieutenant’s meeting with Travis. Nicole slit Thorne’s throat, knocked Kyle unconscious, and made her getaway. Before detectives found the body, she locked herself in a women’s restroom stall. Now in privacy, she took off Meagan’s uniform, and stashed it in the black bag along with her shoes, glasses and wig. Nicole washed off her face cream, exited the stall, and stuffed the bag into a waste bin, pausing on the way out to put on her high heels. Nicole smirked as she checked her appearance in a mirror. She was an innocent Japanese girl again, and Travis would never question her brief disappearance.
When the fool sent her home with Carmen, it provided the perfect opportunity to lead him further astray. Nicole waited for a break in traffic, pressed the button that disengaged Carmen’s seat belt, and accelerated into a lamppost. The stunned officer flew through the front windshield, and cracked her skull on the pavement. Somehow she survived, but nobody was around to see Nicole snap the woman’s neck. The killer left the Apollo figurine for Travis to find, then fled the accident scene before any nosy bystanders showed up. Nicole took a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf. It would be a while before Travis made the connection to Randall, and she had ample time for a swim in the bay.
Nicole released Kyle’s groin. “You’re stronger than I thought,” she complimented him, “but your tough guy act won’t save Lakeysia. She’s going to die in bed like her partner, all because you chose me over her.”
“Don’t count on it.” Travis caught his breath. “She’s got you fingered, even made a bet you were psycho. I should have listened. Lakeysia’s always right about women.”
Nicole repositioned herself on Kyle’s waist. “Are you upset with me?” she asked, crossing her feet underneath his back.
“You might say I’m a bit pissed off, yeah.”
Nicole picked up her bra, looped it over Kyle’s head, and gripped the elastic straps. “Then let me make it up to you. Time to go out doing what you do best. Ever hear of erotic asphyxiation? It’s my first time, so you’ll have to forgive me if I get carried away.”
She cr
ossed her bra straps, and yanked the elastic taut around Travis’ neck. He jerked violently as Nicole cut off his air supply. Chain links rattled against the bedposts, scraping and clinking in response to Travis flexing his muscles. Nicole refused to let go. She crushed the detective’s waist between her legs until she felt Kyle’s body stiffen.
“Come on, Detective,” Nicole panted, pulling the elastic tighter. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Deprived of his voice, Travis gurgled in response. Nicole stared into his eyes, smiling as she licked her lips. She bent down, kissed him, and sucked the saliva from his mouth. “That’s better,” she said, coming up for air. “Enjoying yourself yet?”
The killer stretched the elastic to breaking point, but stopped short of going all the way. If she tightened the straps any more, Travis’ neck would break, and Nicole wanted this to last as long as possible. On the verge of losing consciousness, Travis clenched his fists, stretched his arms, and exerted all his strength on the chains. The right post held but the left shattered. Travis pulled his arm from the unwinding chain, grabbed the end, and flung it at Nicole’s face. She ducked underneath, laughing as the flailing steel whooshed overhead. Kyle swung again, this time lashing her body.
Nicole passed one bra strap behind his neck, transferred it to the other side, and twisted both elastic sections with one hand. With her other, she grabbed the swinging chain, snared Travis forearm, and pulled her metal lasso tight. Kyle wrestled and shook his limbs, but he had little fight left. Nicole had complete control over his arm. She directed his hand down her body, ignoring his scratching..
Travis realized his struggle was hopeless and lay still. His stiff body sank into Nicole’s bed sheets. Kyle’s dipped head rolled against his shoulder. His breathing grew shallower, and stopped altogether. Nicole held onto the elastic straps for two full minutes, until she was certain Travis had nothing more to give.
Jade Dragon (Action Girl Thrillers) Page 20