Perhaps the time to retire from killing had arrived. With Lacey now in his life, he had everything he ever wanted. He was wealthy, young, privileged and internationally famous. She was magnificent, intelligent, and well-educated. Together they shared an appreciation for the arts. Over time, she would forgive him for the forceful manner by which he had brought them together.
He stared at the girl.
So beautiful.
His mother would have approved.
Otto pushed the START button on the Range Rover. In three hours, they would start a new life together at sea on his motor yacht. He put the car into gear and began their journey to Montauk. It was a perfect day for a drive.
The cab company dispatcher tried to reach the driver for the third time. “8C82 respond.”
No reply.
“8C82… call in please.”
The dispatcher waited. Dead air.
“8C82…”
Mary Reed knew the driver. Manny Manchescu was a reliable employee, a veteran of the industry. It was not like him to disregard a call.
Mary picked up the phone and called her supervisor. Her words made her feel uneasy. She dared not think about the possibilities.
“Sir, I think 8C82 is in trouble,” she reported.
160
SHANE “BLADE” WATSON sat across the table from his rivals. The New York City Hells Angels chapter president made his position clear. “This meeting doesn’t change a thing. I’m here for Russ and Lacey, not for you two. We find her and the piece of shit that took her. After that, it’s business as usual. You stay the fuck out of our way, and we’ll stay the fuck out of yours. Understood?”
“Calm down, Blade,” Russ Paley said. The tension in the Odyssey Gentlemen’s Club owner’s office was palpable. “I didn’t ask you here to broker a peace treaty. I want my girl back, plain and simple. And you guys can make that happen faster than the cops ever could.”
Ray Newman, chapter president for the Outlaws motorcycle club, spoke next. “I’ll put my guys on notice.” To Blade he said. “You don’t have to worry about starting a war. Lacey’s a civilian. We’re here to help.”
“Agreed,” Don Morris said. “Forbidden Ones will stand together on this.” The chapter president extended his hand to his fellow bike gang leaders. “For Lacey?” he proposed.
The men shook hands. “For Lacey,” they agreed.
To Paley, Blade said, “Tell us what you need, Russ.”
Russ Paley handed the men a promotional picture of the young dancer. “Get out your phones. Take a shot of Lacey and get her picture out to your people. Get them patrolling the streets. Look everywhere. Anton wanted you to know the FBI and NYPD are looking for her too. The guy who has her is the suspected Scroll Killer. If that’s true Lacey’s life is in jeopardy. Forget days. She’s got hours, maybe less. Who knows what this sick sonofabitch has planned for her.”
“Where’s Anton now?” Ray Newman asked.
“Degario’s picking him up from Bellevue. Mike said Lacey was last seen being wheeled out of the hospital in a Yellow cab with the guy the cops are looking for. She was unconscious.”
“He hurt her?” Blade asked.
“We don’t know,” Russ replied.
“Probably used formaldehyde or an injectable to knock her out,” Newman suggested.
“He must have,” Don Morris agreed. “Lacey strikes me as a fighter. No way she’d go with him willingly. How’s Anton holding up?”
“Not so good,” Russ replied. “He’s worried sick.”
Blade’s phone chimed. He confirmed the text. “Lacey’s picture’s been broadcast to the club,” he reported. He stood. “We need to be on the street. We’re wasting time sitting around here.”
Newman and Morris rose. “I suggest we divide up the city, work it by sector,” Newman suggested. “My guys will take downtown and Manhattan to the Hudson. Staten Island and the harbor too.”
“We’ll take everything north of Manhattan,” Morris said.
“Fair enough,” Blade said. “I’ve put everybody on the road. We’ll take east of the city. I’ll call New Jersey, get their chapter involved too. No way she’s slipping through the cracks.”
“Thanks, boys,” Russ said.
“You said it was a Yellow Cab?” Newman asked.
“Yes,” Russ replied. “Why?”
“One of my guys is a mechanic. Works in their fleet service department.”
“Think he can find out what cab picked up the call at Bellevue?”
Newman took out his phone as he left the office. “I’ll ask.”
“Ballsy move taking a cab,” Blade said.
“Yeah,” Morris agreed. “Not the brightest idea. Probably thought he could hide in plain sight.”
“So far it’s working,” Blade said.
“What if Lacey wakes up?” Morris asked. “It’s over then. She’ll try to escape. He’ll kill her and the driver.”
“Not if he keeps her sedated,” Blade said.
Newman returned to the room. “We may have something. My guy says everything’s going fucking crazy at Yellow. Cops have been all over the place asking questions. One of their hacks is missing.”
“Did he say when they lost track of the cab?” Morris asked.
“There’s been no radio contact for the last half-hour.”
“Maybe he’s on his lunch break,” Blade said.
Newman shook his head. “The cars GPS last placed it in Brooklyn Heights at the Conroy Apartments. That was also the driver’s last reported drop-off.”
“I’m sending my guys there now,” Blade said. He placed a call. “Maybe we can beat the cops to Lacey.”
161
AGENT PENNER ENDED the call. “That was the Bureau,” he said. “Both Boro and Yellow had cabs running calls to and from the hospital at the time of Ms. Chastain’s abduction.” He smirked at Detective Pallister. “You were right about the dash cams. A Boro cab caught a video of Scroll putting Lacey in the backseat of a Yellow cab. Number is 8C82. They called the company to speak with the driver. Can’t raise him on the radio. They have his last location before he went dark: Conroy Apartments in Brooklyn Heights. I’ve called Keon and asked him to meet us there. This is the closest we’ve come to nailing down a location for Scroll. We need to move on this, fast.”
The agents thanked the security officer and left the office.
“Keon says Scroll hit again,” Detective Pallister shared the news with the team as they left the hospital. “Some drug dealer named Rosalita Sanchez. Eviscerated her. But get this. He called it in this time.”
“He identified himself?” Chris asked.
Pallister shook his head. “Not exactly. Dave said the Commissioner’s office received an anonymous call from Sanchez’s cellphone. No one on the line. 9-1-1 dispatched officers to the scene figuring the caller might be unconscious. They called the task force when they found her.”
“Did he leave a note?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah. Said she wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, and that her kids are innocent. This guy brutally murders Sanchez, then shows concern for the welfare of her children. Can you believe that?”
The Conroy Apartments was a full-fledged crime scene. The team arrived to find the decedent, Manny Manchescu, the cab driver, in the care of the Office of the Coroner. Detective Dave Keon provided an update as they crossed under the black and yellow barrier tape that kept onlookers at bay.
“We found him downstairs in the supply room,” Keon reported. “Blood was seeping out from under the door. Three stab wounds to the lower back and a broken neck. That’s one lousy way to check out.”
“Let me guess,” Penner said. “No witnesses.”
“One, but not too credible.” Keon pointed to a kindly looking old lady standing in her pink track suit beside her dog. “That’s Mrs. Sheen. The lab is Taffy. Mrs. Sheen says she saw the cab arrive. The driver helped a man push a woman in a wheelchair into the building around the back.”
; “She give you a description of Scroll?”
“Scroll?” Keon asked.
“That’s who we figure killed the cab driver and kidnapped the woman.”
“Jesus.”
“What’s the deal with Mrs. Sheen?” Chris asked.
“I don’t think she’s altogether there. I asked her if she could provide me with a description of the man she saw. She put him in his mid-to-late thirties, about five-foot-ten, medium build, with brown hair and a kind face.”
“Sounds like a pretty good description to me,” Penner said.
“And a dead ringer for Tom Cruise. Apparently, so am I. And the Coroner. And just about every other cop on the scene.”
“That kind of changes things.”
“Just a tad.”
“Maybe you’ll get a more accurate statement from the dog,” Chris joked.
“There was one thing Mrs. Sheen said that was significant,” Keon said.
“What’s that?” Penner asked.
“Our guy arrived in the cab, but he left in a silver Range Rover. She remembers part of the license plate: MRG…”
“Where’s the cab?” Pallister asked.
Jordan had walked away from the team, headed toward the back of the building. She called out. “Here, around back. Visitors parking lot.”
The team joined her at the vehicle.
Penner theorized the sequence of events. “So, he brings Lacey here by cab on the premise of… what? Taking her back to his place? He couldn’t be that stupid.”
“He wasn’t,” Jordan said. She opened the car door. “He needed to switch cars. Probably figured that his image had been captured on the security camera at the hospital. The cab ride was a means to an end. The driver was collateral damage.” She pointed to the brake and accelerator pedals. “Look. Blood.”
“Other than the scrolls,” Chris said, “that’s the first real piece of evidence we’ve found so far.”
“Speaking of scrolls,” Keon said. He removed the evidence from his pocket and handed it to Jordan. “This one was found on Rosalita Sanchez’s body. I thought you might want to examine it.”
Jordan took the scroll. She shared the details of the crime scene with the team as they flashed through her mind. Rosalita being surprised in her bathroom… the killers knife dragging across her throat, then cutting deep into her stomach, gutting her… filling her with drugs.
“How could you possibly know that?” Keon said in amazement. “Astounding.”
Jordan then revealed something unique about the vision which ventured beyond the examination of the physical evidence. “He’s talking to himself while he’s killing her,” she said. “Rambling on. Muttering something under his breath. Make it real… something… Make it real… Otto? Yes, a name: Otto.”
Penner speculated. “What if the only thing that’s off about Mrs. Sheen’s observation is this guy’s resemblance to Tom Cruise? What if everything else is correct? What if we have our description? Five-foot-ten, brown hair, medium build, mid-to-late thirties, good-looking, first name Otto. We need to pull out all the stops. Rick, run the info through the DMV and see if we get a hit. Dave, take the Boro cab dash cam photo and our pic from the hospital, grainy as it is, and have the uniforms start a door-to-door in this building and the shops around Kessel’s Restoration. See if someone confirms the name Otto against the picture. Jordan, Chris, and I will talk to the Coroner. See if there’s anything more he can tell us about the drivers murder.”
“You got it,” Pallister said.
“On it,” Keon replied.
The men left to complete their assignments.
To Penner and Chris, Jordan said. “There was one more thing I kept seeing. But I have no idea what it means.”
“What’s that?” Chris asked.
“A word. Montauk.”
162
THE SILVER RANGE ROVER left Brooklyn Heights and traveled east along Interstate 495 toward Montauk. Laying in the backseat, hands and feet now bound by plastic zip ties, upper body and legs held tightly in place by the seat restraints, Lacey drifted in and out of consciousness as the effect of the knock-out gas subsided. The smell of the leather seat cushion upon which she lay stirred her senses. She clung to the aroma, focused on it, breathed it in, shallow inhalations at first, then deeper, used it as a sensory anchor until at last she came around, opened her eyes, and became aware of the bindings that trapped her as tightly as a rabbit in a snare.
Lacey struggled to free herself. Impossible. She recognized her surroundings -the back seat of a car- and panicked. Someone spoke from the front seat.
“Good afternoon, sunshine,” the voice said. “Sleep well?”
No, Lacey thought. It couldn’t be. Her head ached; her body felt numb. She knew the feeling, had experienced it before while recovering from the incapacitating gas from the gift box presented to her by the driver of the Bentley at the club. “You,” she said.
“My name is Otto,” the man replied. “It’s wonderful to speak with you again, Lacey. I hope you’re not too uncomfortable. I’ll let you stretch your legs as soon as we arrive at our destination. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours from now. Sound good?”
“Fuck you.”
Otto dynamited the brake pedal, tapped it hard, then hit the gas. The sudden lurching motion threw Lacey forward in her seat, then back. Instinctively, she tried to brace herself. The plastic zip ties through which the seat restraints had been passed cinched tightly around her hands and feet and cut off her circulation. The sudden pain in her extremities felt as if they had been severed from her body.
“Unpleasantness like that won’t be tolerated,” Otto said. “You’re far too beautiful to possess such a filthy mouth.”
“What do you want from me?” Lacey asked.
“The remainder of your days,” Otto replied.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Otto paused. “Do you believe in love at first sight, Lacey?”
Lacey said nothing. She tried to lift her hands, to get to the zip tie that bound her wrists. The seat restraint immobilized her arms.
Otto continued. “I do. From the moment I saw you dancing at the Odyssey I knew you were the one for me. We’re meant to be together.”
Lacey recognized the obsessive sound in his voice. She’d dealt with men like this in the past. Men who had fallen in love with her hard and fast. As much as her beauty had provided her with many wonderful opportunities in life it had also been a curse. She had found herself in precarious situations before but nothing as demented and unpredictable as this. She was out of her depth with this man and at a disadvantage. There was only one way to deal with this situation. She would need to give in to him, buy time and trust he wouldn’t kill her. She would need to push him emotionally, make him fall even harder for her. Then, when the time was right, she would do whatever it took to survive.
“Now I recognize you,” Lacey lied. She softened the tone of her voice. “Yes, from the club. Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”
Otto tried to control his rising anger. “Don’t patronize me, Lacey. You looked right past me while I sat there, watching you, dreaming about you. You never even gave me a second glance.”
“Oh, Otto,” Lacey replied. The vocal inflection was mellifluous now, purposefully sultry. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. That wasn’t the case at all. It’s the lighting in the club, the strobes and spotlights. I can’t see the audience from the stage. All I see is white light. Why didn’t you come visit me after my show? We could have spent time together, gotten to know one another. That would have been perfectly fine with me.”
“It would?” Otto asked.
“Of course,” Lacey urged. “There’s nothing to say we can’t make up for lost time. Would that be all right? If we spent time together now?”
Otto was perplexed. The most beautiful girl in his world was in his back seat and wanted him. His plan had changed. Perhaps he would not have to torture her into submission after all.
/> “They hurt, Otto,” Lacey said.
“What hurts?”
Lacey tried to raise her wrists. Otto glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “The plastic ties. They’re cutting into my skin.”
“You can wait a while longer.”
“I can’t feel my hands.”
“We’ll be in Montauk soon. I’ll cut you free then.”
“What if that’s too late,” Lacey asked. “You don’t want me to lose the use of my hands, do you?”
“No.”
“Then cut me loose, please. Let me sit up front with you. You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you?”
“You’ll try to escape.”
“No, Otto,” Lacey replied. “I’d never leave you. Why would I want to do that? Everything I need is right here with you. But it can’t be like this. Not bound in the back seat like an animal. Cut me loose. Let me be the Lacey you want me to be.”
God, she was beautiful. He wanted so badly to believe her.
“I want to trust you,” Otto said.
“As you should.”
Otto conceded. “All right,” he said. “At the next exit. You can sit up front with me.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re a good man, Otto.”
“I’m trying.”
163
MIKE DEGARIO’S PHONE rang. He took the call, listened. “Got it,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Who was that?” Anton asked.
“Russ Paley. Everyone’s on board. Angels, Outlaws, Forbidden Ones. They’ve got Lacey’s picture. They’re on the street looking for her now.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. New York’s blanketed.”
“What if he’s already taken her out of state?”
“Angels have Jersey covered. I would imagine Connecticut, too. But he couldn’t have that big of a lead on us, could he?”
The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series: Books 1-3: The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series Boxset Book 1 Page 63
