THREE TIMES A LADY

by Jon Osborne

  The queen-sized bed in the middle of the room had been neatly made, just as Nicholas had known it would be. Dana Whitestone had always been something of a neat freak, hadn’t she? Had always liked everything in her life to fit into a neat little box. And from the look of things, she still retained those particular idiosyncrasies, even though she was back on the sauce now. Still, being a drunk didn’t mean that you also needed to be a slob. Dana Whitestone was proof positive of that much.

  Shivering hard despite the heavy, almost oppressive warmth in the room, Nicholas allowed himself to enjoy all the many feelings that were rushing through his veins. Anticipation. Joy. Revenge.

  Opening up Dana Whitestone’s purse, he counted out the bills inside her wallet. Eighty-one dollars. Then he took out her driver’s license and examined her vital statistics with great interest.

  Born 20 September 1972, she was thirty-nine years old now, a Virgo in the prime of her life. And good thing, too. She remained young and healthy enough to prove the worthy foil Nicholas needed to drive him to the very top of his game, even if it was her remarkable brain that had always marked her greatest strength.

  Placing Dana Whitestone’s wallet back into her purse, Nicholas then returned to the bathroom from which he’d stolen her panties a moment earlier. Leaning down, he ran his hand over the toilet seat where she did her dirty business. They all did their dirty business in the privacy of their own homes, didn’t they? Where they thought they were all alone and no one else in the world could see them.

  Once again, how painfully wrong she’d been.

  On his way out of the house, Nicholas stopped in each one of the rooms, planting small listening devices throughout. Some went behind furniture, others in potted plants. With the end game upon them now, it was absolutely vital that he tracked Dana Whitestone movements at all times. Just like his mother had always tracked his. That was key if everything was to go according to plan from here on out.

  Finally exiting the quaint beach house five minutes later, Nicholas shuffled across the street with his head down again, completely confident in the knowledge not even the best investigator in the world could tell he’d been in the former FBI agent’s house. And thank God for that, too. Because Dana Whitestone was one of the best investigators in the world. Maybe even the best. Still, she had her own special little gifts, and Nicholas had his. To say the least, it should make for a very interesting match-up when the time finally came for the last act of the play to commence.

  Back in his own bedroom two minutes later, Nicholas flopped down on his bed and lifted the pilfered panties to his face again. Breathing in Dana Whitestone’s intoxicating scent once more, in his mind he made love to her for the first time, though certainly not for the last.

  As he’d expected, she proved to be a wonderful lover.

  CHAPTER 37

  Using both hands, Bill Krugman shielded his eyes from the bright Florida sunlight that was pounding down from the cloudless blue skies above.

  Exotic-looking seabirds squawked high in the air overhead as he pressed his nose against the glass and tried to get a good look inside Dana Whitestone’s vacation house, tunneling his vision with his palms and fogging up the window with his breath.

  Krugman could just make out a sparsely furnished living room that had been decorated with two wicker armchairs, a rattan settee and the kinds of oil paintings you might find at a neighborhood rummage sale for fifteen bucks apiece.

  Watching this as she jogged back down Indian Bayou a few minutes after her odd encounter with the old landscaper at the church, Dana felt a cold lump of dread form deep in the pit of her stomach. The man known to everyone in the FBI simply by his title of ‘the Director’ didn’t come by to pay former agents a personal visit for no good reason. That couldn’t be good news for Dana under even the best of circumstances, and was probably enough to justify the expense of her running away to Bora Bora instead of the more easily accessible Gulf Coast of Florida.

  Sweating like a pig by the time she’d finally turned up the driveway thirty seconds later, Dana blinked hard against the salty rivers of perspiration sliding down her forehead and into her eyes, stinging her retinas and blurring her vision.

  For the most part, Indian Bayou was a quiet street that housed mostly seasonal residents – people who’d saved a year or more just to afford the high rental prices. The clientele for these winter getaways ran the gamut of humanity. Many were retirees fleeing the cold back home in Michigan or Ohio or Pennsylvania – Rust Belt states where the sun only shined three or four months out of the year. But there were also some younger couples there, as well. These people were in their late thirties or early forties who were embarking upon their first real vacations with their small children in tow – sawed-off, freckle-faced little tots who invariably clutched plastic buckets and shovels in their tiny hands to facilitate the digging of elaborate trenches in the sugary-fine sand of Fort Myers Beach.

  The gravel-lined driveway crunched beneath Dana’s rubber-soled Nikes, causing Bill Krugman to turn around and smile down at her from the landing. ‘Dana,’ he said warmly, not looking in the least bit embarrassed by the fact that he’d just been caught playing the role of the quaint, seaside town’s Peeping Tom.

  Krugman’s gold Rolex glinted in the bright sunlight as he straightened the crisp white sleeves of his dress shirt, pulling them into sight from beneath the arms of his lightweight, flawlessly tailoured blue suit. Dana wasn’t at all surprised to see the Director’s choice of attire. Even considering the blazing temperatures, Krugman wasn’t the kind of guy to break a sweat. Ever. Cool as a cucumber at all times, that was him.

  Dana nodded a hello up at her former boss, squinting against the irritating drops of sweat searing her eyes. ‘Hello, sir,’ she said. ‘How is Marie doing?’

  Krugman beamed. ‘Picture of health, I’m proud to say. Not a single trace of cancer left.’

  Dana smiled. And why not? She was genuinely happy to hear the news. ‘Thank God,’ she said, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. ‘I’m so happy to hear that.’ Dana paused, knowing the Director hadn’t traveled all the way down to Florida just to deliver a personal update on his wife’s medical condition. There had to be something else. Clearing her throat, she asked, ‘So, sir, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’

  Krugman descended the wooden steps. ‘No time for pleasantries, huh, Agent Whitestone? Fair enough, I guess. I was never one for small talk myself.’ He reached the foot of the stairs, squinting irritably against the blinding sun. ‘Could we maybe go inside? It’s hotter than hell out here.’

  Dana flushed, suddenly remembering her manners. She might have been raised in six different foster homes, but not one of them had been a barn. ‘Of course, sir,’ she said quickly. ‘Come on in and I’ll get you something cold to drink.’

  Dana brushed past Krugman and ascended the wooden steps before sliding her key into the lock and opening up the door, stepping aside to let Krugman in first. She followed him inside and asked, ‘What can I get for you, sir? Beer? Water? Soda?’

  The look on Krugman’s face let Dana know that alcohol was out of the question for him – and probably should be for her, as well. Crinkling up her face in sudden embarrassment, Dana hoped he couldn’t smell the beer on her breath. Then she shook her head to chase away the concern. What did she care if he smelled beer on her breath? She didn’t work for him any more. She could drink whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. ‘Water would be great, Agent Whitestone,’ Krugman said. ‘Thanks.’

  Dana did her best to ignore the fact that Krugman was calling her by her former title as she headed into the kitchen with the Director following closely at her heels. Pulling out a bottle of Aquafina from the refrigerator, she twisted off the cap with the gunshot sound of snapping plastic and handed it over. Then she and Krugman went back into the living room and took seats on opposite ends of the rattan settee.

  Krugman tilted back his head and took a long swallow of his water before clearin
g his throat. ‘I need you back, Dana,’ he said, cutting right to the chase. ‘I’ve got a serial killer on my hands who’s murdering famous people.’

  Dana looked away from him, knowing she couldn’t even deal with what had happened to her in the parking lot of the coroner’s office back home in Cleveland yet. No way in hell she’d be able to deal with another serial killer. Not now and probably never again. It was just too much too ask of her, not to mention too soon. After all these years of staying strong despite the nearly insurmountable odds that had been stacked up against her, the woman in the autopsy video had finally broken Dana’s spirit. Crushed it, actually. She had nothing left to fight with any more. She’d become completely and utterly empty.

  Unfortunately, Krugman mistook her silence for interest. ‘The press has taken to calling this person “the Censor”,’ the Director went on. ‘The targets are mostly B-list celebrities. Dinah Leach from The Real Housewives of Atlanta was the first victim last year. Penelope Hargrave – Steve Hargrave’s oldest daughter, the guy who’s trying to bankroll the rebuilding of the Twin Towers – was the next to go in New York City. And Amber Knightly was murdered just two nights ago out in Arkansas.’

  Dana lifted her eyebrows in surprise. The question tumbled out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop it from coming. ‘The pop singer?’ she asked.

  Krugman nodded. ‘That would be her. Hell, the killer we’re after is starting to make Aillen Wuournos look more like Angelina Jolie – a real do-gooder hell-bent upon single-handedly saving the world.’

  Dana frowned at Krugman’s odd analogy. ‘How do you know the killer’s a woman? How do you know it’s not a man?’

  Krugman shifted in his seat. ‘Oh, it’s a woman, all right.’

  It took everything Dana had to not shout at her former boss. ‘OK, but how do you know that?’

  ‘Because we know who she is,’ Krugman said, catching her completely by surprise. ‘We know her name and we found her prints at the scenes of each of the murders I was telling you about. Her name is Nicole Preston and she’s from Chicago. Killed her mother late last night, too, according to the field office out in Illinois. Hung her dead body from a steel hook in the family’s butcher’s shop after the deed was done. Real sick piece of work, no two ways about it.’

  Krugman paused and closed his eyes. When he opened them up again, he held Dana’s stare. ‘I know what happened to you in the parking lot of the coroner’s office, Dana,’ he said softly.

  Dana’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart slammed against her ribcage. She was much too stunned for a moment to even breathe.

  Finally, she swallowed back the shame in her throat and whispered, ‘How?’

  Krugman again shifted in his seat, uncomfortably this time. ‘Nicole Preston’s prints were also found in the autopsy room in Ohio. I saw the video, Dana, saw Preston hold up the picture of your brother to the camera. That’s when it occurred to me to check out the surveillance footage from the parking lot. I saw what those men did to you. I’m very sorry that happened. It was absolutely awful.’

  Dana’s lips trembled, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say.

  Krugman straightened on the settee. ‘Anyway, Nicole Preston killed Christian Manhoff, too, but that’s not the main reason she was in Cleveland. Manhoff was just a prop. She came to Cleveland because she’s targeting you too, Dana. I don’t know why, but that much I know for a fact.’

  Dana shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. Still, she already knew that Krugman was telling her the truth. She let out a deep breath that deflated her chest eight inches. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Preston told me that much right to my face. But how in the hell do you know that?’

  Krugman cleared his throat. ‘Because the Illinois field office found a list of five names pinned to the chest of Nicole Preston’s mother.’

  ‘And?’

  Krugman dropped his stare. ‘And your name was the last one on it.’

  CHAPTER 38

  Kill two birds with one stone, Nicholas thought as he watched Dana Whitestone and her former boss enter the vacation house across the street. Just murder them both right now while they were together and speed along the entire process of achieving fame.

  He shook his head to chase away the thought, knowing in his gut that he needed to stick to the game plan here; no matter how strong the temptation might be to alter it.

  Nicholas sighed, knowing that the authorities would make short work of tracking him down now with all the evidence he’d left behind. Still, he didn’t really care. That had been the goal ever since the very beginning, after all, hadn’t it? To go out in a blaze of glory.

  Of course it had.

  On national television.

  Nicholas pressed his lips into a tight line of anticipation. The simple fact of the matter was that you could murder anyone, just so long as you were willing to give up your own life in return. Even an FBI agent. And Nicholas was more than willing to give up his own life in exchange for Dana Whitestone’s. Always had been ever since the day he’d watched his little brother brutally murdered in cold blood right in front of his shocked and disbelieving eyes, killed by the same woman who’d given them both life before she’d snatched it away again with her sick compulsion to live her own dreams of fame through her two little boys. Two little boys who hadn’t known any better. Two little boys who’d never stood a chance against a woman like her.

  Nicholas went into his kitchen and pulled out a Heineken from the refrigerator. The tinkling sound of glass hitting glass filled his ears as the bottle made contact with the rest of the twelve-pack inside. Time for some suds. And why not? Things were about to get very interesting now.

  Returning to his living room, Nicholas popped the top on his beer and kicked back on the couch, at the same time positioning the tiny listening device in his ear. With any luck, the bugs he’d planted around Dana Whitestone’s vacation house would pick up every word of her conversation with Bill Krugman, the head of the FBI.

  Nicholas took a long swallow of his beer and listened in as they talked. Krugman was updating his former charge on each of Nicholas’s exquisite murders, including the horrific butchering of Dinah Leach the previous year.

  ‘Dinah Leach was de-sexed, Dana,’ Krugman told his former protégé, an underlying knife-edge of irritation sharpening voice. ‘Her breasts and vagina were sliced off with a knife, for Christ’s sake. Please come back to the Bureau. We need you.’

  From the comfort of his own living room, Nicholas could almost see Dana Whitestone’s face go white at her former boss’s words. God, how he wished he’d have thought to put a video camera in there, as well. The look on Whitestone’s face had to be absolutely priceless. Why in the hell had he skimped on costs this close to the end?

  Nicholas sighed again and shrugged his shoulders. To hell with it. There’d be plenty of cameras around when the final cut was made and delivered to the general public. That much wasn’t a concern. Whether or not anyone liked it, his fame had been all but assured now.

  Dana Whitestone cleared her throat softly and Nicholas sat up straighter on the couch, pressing the listening device farther into his ear. This was it. The vaunted FBI agent would return to the hunt now – and then the fun and games could really begin in earnest. Leaning back his head, Nicholas took a long, celebratory sip of beer.

  And then he nearly choked on it, spitting it out all over the floor at his feet.

  ‘No,’ Dana Whitestone said in response to Krugman’s request that she rejoin the FBI. ‘Absolutely not.’

  CHAPTER 39

  Bill Krugman narrowed his dark brown eyes. His disbelieving voice rumbled out of his throat like a freight train barreling off the rails.

  ‘Dinah Leach didn’t die from the sexual mutilation, Agent Whitestone,’ he snapped. ‘She was still alive, still breathing when they finally unzipped the goddamn body bag. That’s a miracle in and of itself, a testament to how hard she fought to live. She couldn’t talk, but
she tried. Right up until her very last breath. You could learn a thing or two from her.’

  Dana stared back at her former boss. ‘Excuse me?’

  Krugman didn’t blink. His own stare felt hot enough to burn right through six inches of solid steel. ‘I said you could learn a thing or two from Dinah Leach, Dana. Did I stutter?’

  Krugman closed his eyes and shook his head. Then he opened them up again and softened his voice. ‘Listen, Dana, I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been for you when those men violated you. I understand why you left work, I really do. But you represent the wall of protection that stands between the animals and the rest of society. There aren’t too many of us left and we can’t afford to lose a single brick in that wall. More than that, you’re a goddamn cornerstone. People depend on you. Hell, I depend on you. Think it over, at least.’

  Dana pursed her lips. ‘I really don’t see what good that would do, sir. My mind’s made up.’

  Krugman rose from his seat and shook his head again. ‘Just think it over,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘Do it for me. Do it for Crawford. Do it for that little boy you want to adopt. Hell, do it for yourself. Everyone needs you, Dana. Don’t you ever forget that. And no matter what you might think right now, running away isn’t going to make your problems disappear.’

  Krugman paused when he reached the door and turned around. ‘Anyway, I’m putting a 24/7 watch on you. You’re a target of this whack-job now and we need to keep you safe.’

  Dana shook her head. She didn’t need a baby-sitter. Didn’t want a baby-sitter. She was a grown woman, for Christ’s sake. She could take care of herself. And even if she couldn’t take care of herself, that was nobody else’s business but her own. ‘No, thank you, sir,’ she said firmly. ‘That won’t be necessary.’