[Brandon Fisher FBI 05.0] Violated

by Carolyn Arnold

  “It burned down actually,” Nadia said. “Ruling was arson and the owner fell under suspicion of having the fire set. The club was managed very poorly. But this is the point that’s really going to make you love me. I can tie Hall and Simpson to Clancy’s. And Paige just said that Malone went there.”

  The four of us remained silent.

  “Simpson used to deal date-rape drugs out of Clancy’s. We know that from the ledger. And Simpson was also the club’s manager,” Nadia said.

  “And Hall?” I asked, curious as to how he tied into the club.

  “He worked for the accounting firm that did Clancy’s books. In fact, Clancy’s was Hall’s account. And when Sandy Hoss took that vacation to California, the club was still open.”

  “Then it seems that whatever happened to Leslie took place at Clancy’s,” I said. “And somehow Hoss got pulled into the mix.”

  “Does anyone else on the ledger tie back to Clancy’s?” Jack asked Nadia.

  “Yes. Peter Foreman. He worked there as a bouncer. His address is coming to you now.”

  -

  Chapter 43

  SHE’D FIND OUT JUST HOW good the FBI was. She was outside Pete Foreman’s townhouse in Canyon Country, not too far from Wild Horse. It was seven in the evening, and so far, there was no sign of the FBI. Leslie was used to working under the cover of complete darkness, but sometimes exceptions needed to be made. Now was one of those times. She wanted to beat the FBI here, kill Pete, and then track the FBI’s moves. Risky, she knew, but the thought of doing so was thrilling.

  It was a two-story unit with front and back entry on the main level and no basement. A van was in his parking spot, and an upstairs light was on. She hadn’t had the opportunity to do research and gather intel the way she normally did on her marks. But she doubted from what she did know that he had settled down. When she’d been better acquainted with him, he was muscled and obnoxious. More recently, when she’d run into him at the bar, any brawn he’d once had was now replaced with blubber.

  He’d even gotten fresh with her the one night at the bar, and it had taken all her power not to act impulsively. She’d watched him leave with women on several occasions in the past. Most of the time they were stumbling over their own feet, intoxicated and likely drugged.

  But drugging women was probably the only way the man could get laid—especially these days. He was homely—crooked teeth, a nose that was too large for his face, and he was pushing the scales at about three hundred pounds. What he lacked in heredity, he didn’t bother to compensate for with good hygiene, diet, and exercise. Pete just didn’t care. Even the barely conscious women he bedded weren’t what anyone would consider beauties.

  She knocked on Pete’s door. She wasn’t going to go about this all cloak-and-dagger. While Pete was a heterosexual, Leslie had fooled many men into thinking she was the genuine article. It was in her genes—without a word of a lie. All except for what lived in her underwear. But she was stuck in this form thanks to the disease-carrying violator Malone.

  Pete’s steps came toward the door, padding against what sounded like a wood floor. She couldn’t see him wearing shoes in his home—he struck her as more of a plaid-pajamas-and-dirty-underwear kind of guy—but he had on something with a sole. Slippers, perhaps?

  He opened the door. His wardrobe was exactly as she had predicted, except he wore a stained white T-shirt instead of the matching top that went with his pajama bottoms.

  “Hello?” He let his eyes trace her from the toe of her stilettos to her ruby lips. Then his mouth slightly curved upward. He leaned against the doorframe. “Well, hello. What can I do for you?”

  He obviously didn’t remember her. Huh. She wasn’t used to being forgettable. “I’m with building management, and we’re performing random maintenance checks on our units.”

  If he bought that line, he really was an idiot.

  “Certainly. Come on in.” Pete backed up, his smile parting his lips now, showcasing those stained teeth.

  She tried to tamp down her nausea. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing him naked.

  He locked the door behind her. “Can I get you anything to drink? A beer?”

  “Ah, no thanks.”

  “Come on, it’s evening. I was just having one myself.”

  So that’s what the stink was…

  “No, thank you.” She met his eyes and, as she did so, was tempted to draw her knife right then and there and end his pathetic life, but she needed to be farther from the door. “You can come with me as I look around the place.” She tried to smile, to lure him in.

  Pete was grinning like a teenaged boy. “Sure.”

  To the right of the front entrance, a staircase climbed to the second level, and straight ahead was a back rec room and patio door. She wanted Pete as far away from an exit as possible.

  “Let’s start upstairs,” she said.

  “Okay. And you’re sure you don’t want that drink?”

  Pete was making this too easy. He deserved what he had coming.

  He stepped back, as though waiting for her to take the first step. He probably wanted to watch her from behind.

  She tried not to shudder as she led him to the second level and waited for him to get away from the stairs before taking the knife from her purse and pointing it in his direction. “You will do as I say.”

  Pete’s eyes widened, and he swallowed loudly against the backdrop of the silent house. A muted TV cast colored shadows in the next room.

  “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 paramedics 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, a
nd 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.