She chooses red for her new hair color. The dead bum would have approved.
Then Alex heads toward the Old Stone Inn near the airport, picked because the name is absolutely perfect, and muses about all of the people who are going to die in the next few days.
There will be quite a few.
CHAPTER 5
I WANTED TO GET GOOD AND DRUNK, but I’d been pretty much good and drunk for the last few weeks. Mourning. Hating myself. Wallowing in a pool of alcohol, antidepressants, and self-pity, biding time until I was able get my shit together.
The time had finally come.
I walked past acres of tombstones through freezing rain, exited the Graceland Cemetery on Clark and Irving, and hailed a taxi.
“UIC on Roosevelt.”
The cabbie glanced up at me in the rearview. I was soaked and shivering, my clothes sticking to me like they’d been painted on, my nipples jutting out like gun barrels.
“Wet out there,” he said.
I didn’t answer. He turned up the heat without being asked. I didn’t deserve warming up, but I had no will to argue.
Forty blocks later and thirty bucks lighter, I was spit out by the cab at the University of Illinois Chicago. The rain had changed its style of attack, cold fat drops replaced by wind-driven drizzle, which stung like needle pricks. The campus, normally gorgeous in the autumn, looked barren and dead. The trees were skeletons, their leafy skins shed in clumps all over the ground, brown and wet as mud.
The Illinois Forensic Science Center was on the south side of the street. Before it merged with the state police more than a decade ago, it was just known as the Crime Lab. One of the most advanced in the country, containing over fifty thousand square feet of crime-busting technology.
I showed my badge at the front desk, declined the offer of paper towels, and took the stairs to the second floor and Officer Scott Hajek, whom I’d phoned earlier.
Hajek had a roundish face and large blue eyes magnified to cartoon-ish extreme by his thick glasses. The top of his head came up to my nose. He had a crush on me, and had asked me out several times over the years. I always deferred, saying I already had a boyfriend. Hopefully he’d have the tact not to ask me again.
Per our call, I met Hajek in one of the many labs, this one crammed with computer equipment, expensive-looking electronic devices, and an impressive collection of empty pizza boxes stacked neatly in the corner.
Hajek, sitting in a swivel chair and peering at a computer, glanced over his shoulder at me when I entered.
“Still raining?”
I held my thumb and index finger an inch apart, indicating a wee bit.
“There are some takeout napkins on the table there, next to that container of Parmesan cheese.”
“I’m fine.” My teeth were only chattering a little.
“You hungry? I still got some pizza left over from lunch. Double pepperoni.”
“No thanks.”
“You don’t like pizza?”
“I just came from a funeral. I’m not very hungry.”
Hajek stared at me, and for a moment I saw his eyes flicker to my boobs, which felt ready to fire two shots across his bow.
“Maybe later to night? You have to eat, and if you want to talk, I’m a good listener.”
“Thanks for offering, Scott.” I tried to sound genuine, even though I was tired and he was annoying me, squinting to see through my dress. “Tell me what you got on the cell phone I sent over.”
Hajek blinked, swallowed, and turned back to his desk.
“It’s a PP Tangsung 117EX. Quad-band, GSM 1900 network, MMS and EMS. Or, in non-geek terms, a pay-as-you-go model with enhanced video and messaging capabilities, and a good antenna. I lifted two prints, both belonging to Alexandra Kork, but you probably already knew that.”
I shivered. “Traceable?”
Hajek swiveled to face me, except his eyes didn’t meet mine.
“She bought the phone at the mall in Gurnee, Illinois, six days ago. I called them, spoke to the employee who sold it to her. Said it was a tall woman, well built, with bandages on her face. Used a credit card in the name of Shanna Arnold. I ran a check; Mrs. Arnold was recently reported missing by her husband.”
“Were you able to trace the call? Where Alex called from? Her number?”
Hajek didn’t answer. His eyes were having a telepathic conversation with my breasts. I folded my arms over my chest.
“Officer Hajek?”
He blinked.
“Captain Bains called me. Said you’re on a leave of absence. You’re not part of this investigation.”
My demeanor grew as cold as my skin.
“So you’re not going to tell me?”
“I could get into trouble, Lieutenant.”
“She killed my fiancé, Scott.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
I could have gone all superior officer on him, but instead I lowered my arms, knowing he’d look at my boobs again. Girl power.
“Please, Scott. Between you and me.”
He licked his lips, then slowly nodded.
“There isn’t a record of her activating the phone. That means she unlocked it, and used a different SIM card as a new number.” He cleared his throat. “Then she spoofed the caller ID.”
“In non-geek, please.”
“Basically, she hacked the phone to make it usable with any network, then put in a stolen Subscriber Identity Module so the calls are being billed to someone else’s account.” He held up the cell. “This phone is using Shanna Arnold’s SIM.”
“Can we find out the number Alex called from?”
“No. Because of the spoof. Alex used this phone as a remote camera, switching it on by calling it. When I checked out the caller ID recorded on the SIM card, it showed that fake number Hollywood uses in movies, 555-5555.”
I’d seen the 555 number myself, on calls from Alex. She probably thought it was funny. “How is that possible?”
“There are Internet ser vices you can sign up for that let you place a call and leave false caller ID numbers and names. You use a VoIP—a Voice-over Internet Protocol service—and punch in the ten-digit number you’re calling, plus the ten-digit number and name you’d like the recipient to see.”
I frowned. I’d been hoping there was a way to trace it through the provider.
“Can we get all the names of customers who had phones recently stolen, see if we can connect Alex with one of those?”
“Do you know how many people lose their phones every day? And not everyone who does reports it. In Mrs. Arnold’s case…”
He let the words trail off. I knew what he meant. Shanna Arnold was probably dead. It wouldn’t be beneath Alex to kill just to get a cell phone.
“So there’s no way to find out where she called from?”
Hajek grinned shyly, like a schoolboy.
“Tell me, Scott.”
“You sure you don’t want to have a bite to eat later? I live real close.”
The little extortionist. If I hadn’t been on a mandatory leave of absence and warned away from this case, I would have gotten seriously pissed.
“Not to night, Scott. But I’ll have some free time next week.”
“Tuesday?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He grinned. Something was caught in his two front teeth. Probably double pepperoni.
“MMS sent through GSM is stored on the SIM card, which also records the unique TAP/CIBER, which can be put into the HLR database—”
I held up my palm. “The bottom line.”
“If Alex sends video or text messages, I can use the SIM card to get the phone number and basic location of the phone she called from. She activated this camera from a phone in Deer Park.”
“Do you have the phone number?”
“There’s a problem.”
“What problem?”
“I tried calling the number already. When I did, this one rang.” He held up the phone from the cemetery.
<
br /> “Meaning?”
“Alex must have known the SIM cards could be traced, so she set up a call-forwarding daisy chain. She calls phone number one, and it automatically forwards the call to number two, and so on, to as many phones as she wants, until the last one in the chain receives the call.”
“But if I find the phone, I can bring it to you, and you can trace it to the next one?”
“Sure. But it won’t be easy to find. A cell phone can only be traced to within three hundred meters of its location. It could be in a hotel room, in a parked car, or plugged into an outlet in some public place, like a library or a bus station. She bought twelve phones in Gurnee, plus she could keep adding more to the chain.”
“I’ll chance it. Gimme the number.”
“You need help, Lieutenant. A big team, working on this, is the best way to go.”
I chewed my lower lip, which still was sore from the same encounter with Alex that resulted in twenty-six stitches on my scalp.
“What if we had a phone that wasn’t part of the daisy chain? That was a direct link to Alex?”
“What do you mean?”
Alex had sent me a cell phone in a floral arrangement, during my hospital recuperation. I hadn’t told anyone, even Herb, because I didn’t want it taken away. I wasn’t on Latham’s murder investigation, but I wasn’t about to give up my only link to Alex.
Unfortunately, I needed Hajek’s expertise, and that meant disclosure. I didn’t know if I trusted Hajek. He’d done good by me in the past, but he was a by-the-book kind of guy, all about protocol and chain of evidence and forms in triplicate.
I weighed my choices, realized I had none, and took a leap of faith.
“Alex gave me one of those twelve phones. She’s called me, text messaged me, a few times. Could we get her location from the SIM card?”
Hajek’s face fell. “She gave you a phone?”
He sounded a bit more upset than I would have liked.
“I just said that. Can we get her phone number from it?”
Hajek rolled his chair a few inches backward, like I’d suddenly become a leper.
“Withholding evidence in a murder investigation is a felony, Lieutenant. Obstruction of justice.”
“Blame stress.”
“How long have you had the phone?”
The look on his face told me he’d gone from ally to adversary. I pulled the friendship card.
“Scott, this is really important to me.”
“I’ve followed this case. Read all the files for research. She’s seriously evil, and totally dangerous. If you’ve had the phone for more than a day or two, keeping it to yourself might have cost the lives of several people.”
I switched to the sympathy card.
“If that’s the case, I’ll head straight for the hundred and third floor of the Sears Tower with a glass cutter and a laminated photo ID so they can identify my body afterward. Come on, Scott. Alex killed the man I loved.”
He shook his head. “You have to turn it in.”
I tried the vamp card, walking up to him with a forced smile and trying my damnedest to get my voice low like Kathleen Turner in Body Heat.
“I’d be really grateful if you could help me out, Scott.”
Instead of melting into putty, Hajek grabbed for the landline on his desk.
“I’m not losing my job over you, Lieutenant. It’s my duty as a police officer to inform your captain that—”
I played my last card. The tough bitch card.
“Officer Hajek.” There was so much steel in my words that he flinched as if hit. “Put down that phone right now or this is going to get ugly.”
Hajek obeyed.
“Give me the number.”
“I…uh—”
“Now!”
Hajek grabbed a sheet of paper off his desk and offered it meekly. I spun on my heels and headed for the door, hearing him pick up the phone again as I left.
CHAPTER 6
AN ASTHMATIC BLOWS HARDER than the complimentary hair dryer in room 114 at the Old Stone Inn, but Alex makes do, brushing out her new strawberry red color while standing in front of the bathroom sink. She tilts her head forward, shaking out her long bangs, straightening while drying. When she finishes, her hair is still in front of her face. Alex looks into the mirror, then parts the bangs with her fingers, pushing the right side behind her ear and letting the left side hang flat. Covering her scars.
Alex stares. Sees someone she recognizes. Someone she hasn’t seen in a while. A beautiful old friend who has gone away and is never coming back. Fit. Trim. Still attractive, even a year shy of forty.
“I miss you.”
She kisses the tip of her index finger, then touches the glass, running it down the reflection of her jawline. Her hair falls back, revealing the pink ugliness underneath.
Without telegraphing the move, without even changing expression, Alex makes a fist and drives it into the mirror. Her image shatters.
She feels like there are coiled springs nestling in her muscles, bursting to be set loose. Naked, she lifts her arms above her head and rolls into a handstand, walking over to the area the bed used to occupy before she pushed it into the corner. She tilts farther forward, her feet touching the wall, and begins to do reverse chin-ups, her head touching the carpet with every dip.
When she reaches seventeen, the sweat comes, rolling down her ears and soaking into her hair.
Her arms begin to wobble at forty-six. She starts to pant, oxygenating her muscles, the lactic acid building and burning.
Alex pushes on to sixty, even though her arms are shaking so badly her balance is wavering.
By seventy-three, her left arm gives out, causing her to collapse onto her side. She rolls with the fall, tucking in her head, using momentum to get to her feet. Alex turns and launches into an explosive tae kwon do kata, kicking, twisting, and punching.
Her mind is both focused and clear as she forces her body through the moves, grunting exhalations called ki-hops with each blow. Her muscles remember every thrust and spin. The par tic u lar form she uses is traditionally done with four assistants, who hold boards at various heights to be broken by hands, feet, and head.
Rather than boards, she flails at the air, directing each strike at the unscarred face of Jack Daniels.
The kata ends in the splits, the toes on the forward leg pointed sky-ward, hands clenched into fists and spread out like wings. Her body glistens with sweat, and her breath comes in gasps.
With her heart rate still up, Alex flips over and begins a set of fingertip push-ups. She knocks off a hundred, rolls gracefully to her feet, and pads into the bathroom to towel off.
The cracked mirror tells her she’s still ugly. As if she needed the reminder.
The clock on the nightstand reads ten after three. Her date isn’t due until four, but from experience she knows he usually comes early. In more ways than one.
Alex doesn’t dress. Instead, she digs into her gym bag and removes a fresh roll of duct tape, a package of rubber bands, a box cutter, a Cheetah stun gun, and a handheld butane torch. The stun gun is pink, the shape and size of a cigarette pack. The torch looks like a phaser from Star Trek. It’s also pink, which delighted Alex when she found it at the home supply store. A girl has got to know how to accessorize.
Then she sits on the bed, lotus style, and waits.
Ten minutes later, David “Lance” Strang knocks on her motel door. She confirms it with the peephole.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Lance.”
She opens the door, lets him ogle her. Lance hasn’t changed much in the fifteen years since she’s last seen him. Same broad shoulders. Same strong chin. His thick brown hair has receded just a bit, and now it’s salted with gray, but other than that he’s exactly as she remembered him from their Geiger days.
Lance takes Alex in, staring at her legs, her tits, before moving up to her face. When he sees the scar, his grin falters.
“Yeah, sorry about that, Lance.
And about this.”
Alex brings up the Cheetah and hits David Strang in the gut, applying a million volts to his nervous system. He jerks forward, and all two hundred and twenty fit pounds of him crumple to the carpeting.
CHAPTER 7
I CABBED IT from the Crime Lab, heading for the nearest Washington Mutual bank branch. Again, the driver commented on how soaked I was. Next time it rained, I’d indulge in a thicker bra. Or an umbrella.
During the ride I made some calls. One I didn’t want to make. The other I really didn’t want to make. I began with the easier one.
“Wilbur? It’s Jack.”
“How are you holding up, sweetheart?”
“I’ve been better. Thanks for respecting my wishes and not attending the funeral. Mom would have shot you if she saw you.”
“Um, about that…”
I took a deep breath—never a wise move in a Chicago cab. This one smelled like gym socks and cheap incense.
“Tell me you weren’t there, Wilbur.”
Pause.
“Wilbur…”
“Your fiancé died. Of course I was going to come.”
“I didn’t see you there.”
“You didn’t see me at any of your graduations or your wedding either, Jacqueline. I’m good at being discreet. Look, I know I only met Latham once, when you brought him over, but for what it’s worth I really liked him. I’m so sorry for your loss, sweetheart. If there’s anything I can do…”
My voice got harder. “There is, Wilbur. In fact, there is.”
“Name it.”
“I need you to go away for a while. The person who killed Latham, she has a habit of targeting people close to me.”
Wilbur paused.
“Thank you, Jacqueline.”
“For sending you away?”
“For saying that I might actually be close to you. I know I’ve been an absentee father. I know how much I’ve missed out on. These past few months, as we’ve gotten to know each other, have been the best of my life. I mean that.”
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