“Who are you?” he asked.
“Take your clothes off,” Leslie demanded, thrusting the tip of the knife toward him to add urgency to her directive. She didn’t want to see this man’s junk. In fact, the thought made her stomach roil.
A slimy smile crept onto his face. “Oh, you want to see me.”
“Strip naked,” she told him. “Now!”
Pete lifted his shirt over his head. Then he slowly lowered his pajama bottoms. Did he think he was performing?
Just take the damn pants off!
No matter how much she wanted to look away, to spare her eyes the vision in front of her, she had to remain focused. If she diverted her attention from him for even a second, she could find the knife inside her.
Now his pajamas were around his ankles.
Oh God! He wears tighty-whities.
They complemented no man, let alone this one.
“And the underwear,” she said, trying not to cringe. “Take them off.”
Pete’s face was mix of confusion and arousal. “Ah, you like what you see.”
She did her best to purge her mind of the conjured image of this man grunting over a drugged woman. The last thing she wanted to see was him naked, but it was necessary.
Once he was stripped completely, she kicked the discarded clothing away from him. “Sit in a kitchen chair.” She had spotted the dining area the moment she got to the second floor, and the spindle-backed chairs were ideal for restraining him.
The second Pete’s fat ass hit the chair, she whipped out a pair of cuffs from her purse. She snapped one end around his wrist, the other end to the chair.
“You’re into role playing?” He grinned, clearly trying to be sexy but failing wildly. “I like it.”
He was apparently ugly and dumb. She wanted to hit him in the head so hard that he wouldn’t come to, but what fun would that be?
She pressed the tip of the blade into his neck. “The other hand. Now!”
Pete yelped, and she retracted the blade, realizing she might have pierced him deeper than she had intended just then. Blood was trickling down his neck.
When both his wrists were secured, she took out two more sets of cuffs to bind his ankles to the chair, but they were too big for the cuffs to fit around. She pulled out her roll of duct tape. She’d have to make do. But it was awkward to hold the blade on him with one hand while unwinding the tape with the other. At least he was too dumb—and frozen by fear—to kick her.
She resumed her full height once she was done, and looked at Pete, who had tears streaming down his cheeks now. She pressed the metal into his neck again.
“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”
Finally, we have comprehension.
She walked around in front of him and slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth. Her answer would have him screaming and attracting good Samaritans, and she didn’t need anyone ruining this party.
With a final smack to the tape across his face, she hunched over to meet him at eye level. “I’m going to kill you. But first, I’m going to torture you.”
-
Chapter 44
WE LEFT SHAW’S APARTMENT WITH a few agents watching over it. CSU was being called in to scour the apartment and collect anything that might incriminate her in the murders of Malone, Hall, Simpson, and the real Sandy Hoss.
Jack, Paige, Zach, and I set out to Peter Foreman’s townhouse, along with some other agents. Even though a BOLO was in place, Jack called in Grafton to specifically check the area for the car registered under the name of Sandy Hoss.
We were in the parking lot for the complex when Grafton came hurrying toward us. “A deputy found the car two blocks east.”
“So, she’s here,” Jack said, turning to his team. “We don’t know when she showed up. Foreman could already be dead, but we act as if we have a man to save, you got it?”
The three of us nodded. I even noticed Grafton bob his head.
“And if she wasn’t worried about us spotting her car…” I let my words trail off. This scenario wasn’t good.
“She’s calling us out,” Jack concluded. “Paige, you and Zach go around the back of Foreman’s unit to the patio door. Go now.”
Paige and Zach jogged off and swooped around Foreman’s building to the back. Jack and I stuck close to the side of the building as we made it to Foreman’s front yard.
There was a minivan in the driveway, but the curtains were closed in the house.
Jack drew his gun. “Pick the lock, but don’t go in until my mark.”
I did as he directed, stepped back, and pulled my weapon.
“We go in on the count of three.”
I nodded.
He chopped his hand in the air three times, and I went in first.
I smelled it the moment I entered—blood.
Across from the entry was a rec room and the patio door. I saw Paige and Zach standing outside it, and Jack went to let them in after directing me to cover him.
Once we were all inside, Jack pointed toward the ceiling and the four us made our way cautiously up the stairs, Jack in the lead. We all had our guns drawn. It was best to be prepared. And with the intensity of the smell, there was a lot of blood loss. She could still be here.
We reached the second level and found an unbound naked man sitting in a chair. Pete Foreman, I assumed.
Around his ankles was a patch of missing hair. She’d improvised his shackles with duct tape. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him. A trail of red had made a river down his neck. But it wasn’t the main source of blood. In the pool of blood on the floor was the man’s penis.
Vomit hurled up my throat so quickly that my cheeks puffed to avoid expulsion. Somehow I managed to swallow the sour bile.
Avoiding making any contact with the blood on the floor, Jack got close enough to press two fingers to Foreman’s neck. “He’s got a pulse.”
I had my phone to my ear in less than a second. “We need an ambulance.” I provided Foreman’s address to the emergency dispatch.
Foreman moaned, and his eyelids fluttered. “Jack…”
My breath caught. Did I just hear him right?
“Jack?” This time the name came out as a moan.
“I’m Jack,” my boss told Foreman.
I knew what I should be doing, and my eyes kept going to the dismemberment. The thought of picking it up and bagging it… The vomit was in my mouth again. I swallowed roughly.
I heard Paige opening cupboards and then the freezer in the fridge.
“Here.” She handed me a plastic sandwich bag and a container filled with ice.
“Me?”
I wasn’t sure I was cut out for this task. In fact, I knew I wasn’t. My stomach was churning something fierce…
Paige rolled her eyes. “My God.” She snatched the items back from me and had Foreman’s penis bagged and on ice in seconds.
That was it. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I rushed for the kitchen sink and emptied my stomach. I smacked the edge of the counter, angry at myself for being weak. The last time I was sick over a discovery, Zach had teased me about it, but at least I had Paige on my side at that time. After last night, I couldn’t exactly picture her in my corner now. I washed the chunks down the drain and splashed some cool water on my face before rejoining them in the dining area.
None of them were looking at me. Their focus was on Foreman.
“She…said you’d…” Foreman’s eyes rolled back into his head.
“Stay with us,” Jack cried out, slapping Foreman’s face lightly.
Foreman’s eyes returned to us. “Scene…crime.”
Paramedics raced into the room then, and the four of us stepped aside. Paige handed Foreman’s severed penis to one of them, and he took it from her as if he saw this kind of thing every day, while the other pa
ramedics loaded Foreman onto a gurney.
“Leslie knew we’d come here. She’s playing with us,” Jack said.
“She’s emboldened and calling you out,” I added, my gaze drifting to the men working on Foreman.
“Scene. Crime.” Paige said. “What do you think that means? Does she want us to meet her at one of her past crime scenes?”
Jack shook his head. “I think she wants me to meet her at one.”
My jaw dropped a little. “Just because she has your card?”
“We can’t let you go alone,” Paige said.
“We don’t even know what crime scene she means,” I insisted.
Zach took a few steps away from us, his hand to his chin. “She knew we’d come here. She’s either picked another target and wants to meet there, or she’s alluding to a previous one.”
“And she obviously had some sort of getaway plan to slip away undetected. Her timing was ideal…for her,” Paige pointed out. “And now she’s calling out a federal agent?”
“It seems like she’s not afraid of being caught anymore.” Zach paused. “Thinking about her actions so far, she’s thorough and methodical. But Foreman was a last-minute decision. She left him alive, even if barely, just to deliver the message to Jack.”
Paige nodded. “If we had arrived any later, Foreman might have bled to death.”
The paramedics rushed down the stairs carrying the dead weight of a man who was easily three hundred pounds. Their biceps bulged beneath their shirts. I would bet they were thankful they were in good physical shape. When my gaze left them, it met with Paige’s, her green eyes like chiseled emeralds.
“We have to figure out what Leslie meant,” I said to the group, trying to keep everyone focused.
“A crime scene possibly…” Zach ruminated. “It wouldn’t be Simpson’s house. It’s still being swarmed by CSU. And Hall was murdered in that motel room. It’s too public and exposed. And Malone—”
Paige’s eyes widened. “Clancy’s?”
Zach nodded. “Could be. She’s definitely calling us out and likely knows how this will end. Clancy’s could be where it all started for her, and she wants her story told.”
SHE HAD GRABBED ONE OF Pete’s trench coats, tucked her curls up under a man’s hat, and exchanged her heels for a pair of Pete’s sneakers. And despite the stench from the shoes curdling her stomach, she had no choice but to wear them. While she thought she’d have more time with Pete, instinct had told her otherwise. Either that or she’d panicked. But it turned out that her intuition had proven invaluable. She had seen the police cruisers headed toward the row of townhouses, and none of the deputies seemed to pay her any attention. How different that would have been if she had been dressed as herself. Her short skirts and heels always turned heads.
She wondered how long would it take for Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper to find her. A smile spread across her lips. Did he get the riddle she left behind with Pete?
-
Chapter 45
“BUT WE HAVE HER CAR,” I said. “And Los Angeles is an hour and a half from here.”
“There are other methods of transportation she could’ve used, though—buses, taxis, rental cars.” Paige’s voice grew in volume and hope with each option she noted.
Jack pulled out his phone and requested that Nadia pull the financials for Sandy Hoss and Leslie Shaw, but there weren’t any credit cards to flag under either name.
“Won’t that make it hard to rent a car?” I asked.
“Not if she hit some dive that didn’t care,” Paige said. “They could have taken a cash deposit.”
“Paige could be right,” Zach agreed.
Jack nodded. “I’ll check with the bus station, Zach and Brandon, you contact taxi companies, and Paige, start with the low-end rental companies.”
A few minutes later, Jack, Zach, and I were off our phones.
“No buses are headed out tonight,” Jack said.
“Of the taxi companies I contacted, none would take a fare to LA,” Zach stated.
“I found one who would, but they had no requests to go to LA in the last hour. They will call me immediately if they get one,” I added.
Paige hung up. “Fair Rate Rentals just rented out a Kia Rio ten minutes ago to a Sandy Hoss. I’ve got the color and plate.”
“We’ll just get a warrant for the tracking device on the car.” Jack had his phone out again.
Paige shook her head. “Low-end, remember? The company told me equipping their cars with tracking devices wasn’t in their budget.”
Jack clenched his jaw. He paced a few feet and took a cigarette out of his pack. “I will go in one of our rental cars. The three of you will take the other,” he directed. “I want you to stay back from me, though.”
“Jack, you’re crazy,” Paige protested. “You can’t walk out there on your own—”
“We have to bring her down.”
I was with Paige. Jack was crazy for considering this, but I wasn’t going to say anything. At least he was having us come along as backup, even if it was from a distance.
PAIGE, ZACH, AND BRANDON were on the way to the lot in LA. Her stomach was swirling, and it had nothing to do with Brandon being in the backseat and their argument the night before. It was about knowing that if anything happened to Jack, it would be her fault.
If it weren’t for her coming out to confront Ferris Hall, none of them would even be here. And did that mean that Simpson might still be alive and Foreman might not be fighting for his life? She knew she had to release that guilt. Paige wasn’t the one wielding the blade. But she’d never forgive herself if Jack was hurt…or worse. He was her father on the road, her guardian angel, if one believed in such things. Paige wasn’t sure what she thought in that regard, but she did know that Jack was always there for her. Even when she was certain he was disappointed in her and would have preferred to lash out at her.
As she thought of Jack and what the four of them might face when they arrived at the abandoned lot, she prayed to God the killer remained predictable and only wielded a knife. From a strategic viewpoint, there were four of them—armed with guns—against one, but experience had taught her that hunting a killer was never routine. Things could take a bad turn quickly. If something went sideways, she might not ever see Sam again to smooth things over, either.
If only she had left everything alone. Not only would the bloodshed have been avoided but she’d still have Sam. But did she really want a man who didn’t stick around during the rough times? Then again, it wasn’t about her being a murder suspect. It wasn’t even about her shuffling his calls to voice mail. It was about Brandon.
The two of them had made their peace a couple of months ago. She had moved on with Sam; he had moved on with Becky. And all that sounded good, but what if Sam had a point? Brandon had always proclaimed he cared for her, but he would never commit. Yet, what if that changed? What if their jobs changed? Even if she and Sam worked things out, would she leave him to resume a relationship with Brandon if given the opportunity? Would Brandon make life difficult for her if she tried to stay with Sam?
As she analyzed her thoughts, she didn’t much care for the words that kept popping up.
If.
Try.
Lasting relationships shouldn’t exist because of trying. They took work, sure, but it shouldn’t take a concentrated effort to stay together. Was she making too much out of this? Giving Brandon too much power over her again? Sadly, she had the inclination to do just that.
-
Chapter 46
JACK HAD DIRECTED HIS TEAM to hang back from his vehicle. He wore a comm to communicate with his team and was still wearing the Kevlar vest—for good reason. The vacant land was rather isolated, but there were other buildings in the area. Most of them appeared to have closed up shop years ago, but Leslie could be hiding in any one of them
, making him that much more exposed. Even though her weapon of preference was a knife and she seemed to enjoy killing up close, he had to factor in the possibility that she might have a gun.
He turned the car’s headlights off and then pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine. Leslie would expect him to show up in front of the lot, but he wasn’t going to stick to a script.
He locked the car, despite the fact that his agents were watching his vehicle from about fifty feet back. The last thing he needed was Leslie finding a way into his backseat and holding a knife to his throat. The thought instinctively had him rubbing his neck.
He walked slowly toward the lot, keeping close to the curb on the right side of the road. Streetlights were casting a muted glow around the area, creating shadows that made it look like an abandoned military test zone. As he looked around, staying alert, he considered that this location didn’t fit with the rest of her murders—she typically killed indoors. But this had to be about Leslie getting her story out. And if she was looking for understanding, it wouldn’t be coming from him.
She based her actions on emotions, and that only made for poor decisions. Feelings were useful, however; they let him know intuitively when things were off. And they were off right now.
He reached the property, faced it, and looked around cautiously, taking his steps diligently. It soon became apparent that no one else was out here but him.
Jack spoke to his team. “She’s not—”
A noise came from his left, and he turned toward the sound, and a rabbit jumped out from beneath a shrub.
Just a rabbit…
Jack rolled his eyes. The darkness had a way of playing with one’s mind. Add in stalking a serial killer, and the worries and possibilities just became worse, even for someone like him who had a lot of experience dealing with psychopaths.
He walked around the area for a while longer. Eventually, his phone rang.
“Is this Supervisory Special Agent Fisher?” a woman cooed.
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