Brad’s eyes peered around the room. His options for escaping weren’t promising. His muscles were stiffening from the cold. She’s slipped a cog. She was crazy. Keep her talking.
“It’s not a perfect system, but it’s better than every other freaking one.”
She raised an eyebrow and laughed. “How did the perfect system work for you? Fiancée and baby dead.” Toscana’s tone was mocking. “All because the jail system couldn’t keep Wolfe secured. He escapes jail not once, but twice. Each time he continues killing. Where’s the justice in that, smartass? A perfect example of the failure of the system. I can’t believe you would even try to defend that.”
Brad clenched his jaw until he felt the pain up to his temples. He couldn’t let Toscana distract him. Keep talking and figure a way out of here. There was no doubt she was going to kill him and Michael.
“Wolfe was a despicable piece of shit, I’ll give you that,” Brad said. “He’s the exception, though, not the rule. What’s the burr up your ass, anyway?”
“Fuck you, Coulter. You think your perfect family—oops, sorry, the perfect family you let get killed—is the only one affected by shitbags?”
Brad sneered. “Let me guess, you’ve got some sad story you want to tell me. Something you want to get off your chest. Some vast boo-hoo. Tell you what, Toscana, I’m not fuckin’ interested.”
In three strides, Toscana was in front of Brad. She jabbed the cattle prod into his chest. He screamed and struggled against his restraints. Brad’s entire body was on fire. He thought his head would explode.
Toscana stepped back, grinning.
Brad slumped in the chair and gasped for air. An involuntary shiver rolled through his body. He needed to come up with a better plan than pissing off Toscana. Maybe listening was the best idea.
“Tell me,” he gasped. “What happened in your life that was so horrible that you needed to take revenge? What did any of these guys do to you? You didn’t just kill them, you executed them, and then put some on display.”
Toscana ignored Coulter and headed to Michael. She pulled a syringe out of her pocket, injected the needle into Michael’s arm, and pushed the plunger.
Michael’s head wobbled back and forth; his eyes grew wide. Coulter watched Michael’s pupils constrict. His head bobbled a couple of times, then dropped to his chest.
“You’re killing him,” Brad said.
“That’s the point.” Toscana’s lips curled. “Michael first, then you.”
Brad strained against the restraints, wobbling the chair. He was no closer to escaping. Bargain. “Let Michael go. Keep me here.”
“Aw, isn’t that amusing. Coulter being the bigger man.” She touched her hand to her heart. ‘“Take me, but leave Michael alone.’” Her voice was mocking again. “Why would I want to do that? I have both of you. Neither of you are leaving alive. Your deaths, however, will be totally different. When you two are finally found, Michael will be dead from an overdose and you will have apparently committed suicide, not able to live with all the killings.”
“Why not put the energy into making the system better? You’re smart. You’re on the fast track as a cop.” Brad felt some give in one chair leg.
“I’ve done better in the last few weeks than you’ve done your entire career.”
“Mutilating and killing? You call that better?”
“Dealing out justice, the courts couldn’t. If there had been someone like me around twenty-two years ago, my skills wouldn’t be needed. My sister would still be alive.”
Brad rolled his eyes. Finally, Toscana was going to reveal her secret. He couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. “All right, I’ll bite. What happened to your sister?”
“Took you long enough to ask, asshat.” Toscana straightened and paced the room. She’d become a performer in her own play. “See, that’s your problem, you are so egotistical, you can’t comprehend that others have something to say, might have an opinion.”
“Just tell your story.” Brad glared. “Cut the drama.”
Toscana grabbed a chair, set it in front of Brad, and leaned close. “My sixteen-year-old sister was babysitting a couple blocks away. Never made it home. Mom and Dad didn’t know until the next morning, when she wasn’t at home and the bed hadn’t been slept in. The police were called, but it was the usual crap. She was a teenaged girl, maybe she was out with her boyfriend. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet. Didn’t investigate it at all. Two days later, her body was found behind a dumpster in a park. She’d been raped and then murdered.”
Toscana stood and twirled Brad’s tactical knife between her fingers. “I was eight, so I didn’t understand what was happening. All I knew was that my mom wouldn’t stop crying. And my dad was angry. I was scared, I didn’t understand what was happening, why my parents didn’t have time for me.” Toscana’s chin trembled.
She stared across the room for a moment, then bounded back in front of Brad, her voice rising with venom.
“Police didn’t have any suspects and stopped coming by.” Brad was losing feeling in his body. He wiggled his fingers and toes and flexed his muscles in a vain hope he’d beat the cold.
She dug the knife into the arm of the wooden chair, twisting it.
“It wasn’t until the third girl was kidnapped and raped a month later that they finally apprehended the murderer. He was the twenty-year-old son of a judge. A high-priced lawyer got him out on bail. It only took him two weeks to find his next victim. But as the girl was walking home from babysitting, the mother of the kids saw her being dragged into a car. She got the license number and reported it to the police. The police were close and surrounded the car. They negotiated with the guy inside. He threatened to kill the girl and himself. When the police felt negotiations weren’t going anywhere, an officer with a hunting rifle killed him. The girl survived.”
“That sounds like a perfect outcome,” Brad said. “He was stopped and couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. Saved the system a lot of money.”
She stabbed the knife blade into the chair arm. “It has nothing to do with saving the system money. He didn’t pay for his crimes.”
“What do you mean?” Brad asked. “He died for his crimes.”
Toscana shook her head. “No. He got off easy. He needed to suffer, like his victims suffered. The system had failed my sister and my family.”
“I hear ya. But nothing was going to bring your sister back. That’s the hard truth.”
“We suffered.” Toscana’s hands were clenched. “I suffered. My family was never the same.” She stomped a foot. “My mother cried herself to sleep for months. My father was an angry man till the day he died.” Toscana gripped the arms of Brad’s chair and glared into his eyes. “I was the forgotten child. My sister was beautiful and bubbly. Everything I wasn’t. I was shy, quiet, and a tomboy. I wasn’t the daughter they wanted, period.” She pushed away from the chair, strode over to a shelf of cans and swept them all onto the floor. “How do I get closure? I didn’t get to kill him. I didn’t get revenge. My parents died within three months of each other of broken hearts when I was twenty.”
“How does Michael fit into this? He’s a drug addict. He tried smuggling drugs, he got caught. He’s not a sex offender. He’s got nothing to do with your story.”
Toscana rushed back to Brad’s chair. “Weren’t you listening? Why don’t you understand? Michael was going to screw up people’s lives with the drugs he was smuggling. He was no different from the others. His uncle used his connections as the mayor to get his nephew released. That’s bullshit. It’s another flaw in the system. A flaw I exposed. No sense restricting myself to just sexual predators. Any predators. Like the first drug dealers.”
Brad shook his head and sneered. “I have to give you credit.”
Toscana’s head jerked back in surprise. “For what?”
“There are few female killers. You’ll be famous. They’ll write books about you.” A grin played at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe a movie. They could get
Kathy Bates to play your role. She does pure evil well.”
“She’s hardly a goddess.”
Brad laughed. “Yeah, well, I was kidding. You’re hardly a goddess. Just a pathetic murderer.”
She strode over and swung her foot. It connected with his jaw.
Brad spit blood and a tooth. He swirled his tongue around his mouth. “I was going to get that tooth pulled, anyway.” He spit at Toscana’s feet. “It was hard for you the first time, wasn’t it?”
“He needed to die.”
“But you had trouble doing it. Hesitation stabs—just like in suicides.” He raised his eyebrows and snorted. “Lack of guts. It’s harder than you think, jamming in the knife. Lots of resistance. The muscles are tough, trying to shove the knife up and back.” He glared directly into her eyes. “Maybe too hard for you to do?”
“Go to hell, Coulter.” Toscana’s shoulders shook with rage.
“Did you have nightmares after that? Do the others you’ve killed haunt you?” His eyes widened. “At night, do they visit? They should.”
“Shut up,” Toscana screamed. “You think you’re the golden boy? How many have you killed? They make you a hero for doing the same thing.”
Brad snorted. “I hardly think it’s the same, princess.”
Toscana’s voice rose, as redness crept up her neck. “Killing is killing. We’re the same.”
“Not even close.” Brad laughed. “You’re thoroughly fucked up.”
“Shut up!” She stepped forward. Her fist connected with Brad’s jaw and his neck jerked to the right.
He shook his head, spit blood, and grinned. “Not bad for a girl.”
She swung again. This time the force jerked his head to the side, and the chair toppled to the floor.
Brad struggled on his side. The punches got his blood circulating. He was less chilled. Or he was well into hypothermia.
With the last punch, he’d thrown his bodyweight onto the frame of the wooden chair. He’d heard the frame crack but didn’t think he’d done significant damage. The ropes were still secure. He had little wiggle room. Shit. He’d need another punch. “That one was better. Maybe you need to get back to the gym. Try putting your hips into the swing.”
Toscana grabbed the chair, jerked it upright and grinned. “I can do this all day. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Give it your best, Barbie.”
This time Toscana used the butt of the gun. He felt a crack in his jaw. Brad pushed off with his legs as Toscana made contact, launching the chair into the air and landing hard five feet away. He screamed out as his back slammed into the floor. If he didn’t have some wiggle room now, he wasn’t sure he could handle another blow. This time, Toscana left him groaning on the floor.
Chapter Seventy-One
Briscoe oversaw the street cops surrounding the building. His men would snag anyone trying to escape.
Steele led one TSU team while Zerr led the other into the mattress factory.
Knowing Briscoe had their backs, Steele and Zerr split, taking their teams right and left.
Steele’s team stayed close to the left wall. Their flashlights illuminated a tiny portion of the warehouse. Mice scattered in the beams, scrambling from one pile of garbage to another. The stench grew stronger the farther into the warehouse they got. Rotting food, human feces, sweat and body odor. Steele rubbed his runny nose with the back of his glove. Even the cold didn’t lessen the odor. He swung his flashlight to the right, and several pairs of red eyes peered back. “Police. Show me your hands.”
Several other flashlights swung toward Steele’s beam. A half-dozen men peered out from behind cardboard boxes.
“We ain’t done nothin’, Officer. We’re just trying to survive the cold.”
“How many of you are here?” Steele asked.
A man with long silver hair and a beard crawled out of a box. “Eight.”
Steele swung his flashlight over the boxes. “Anyone else here?”
“Sure, there’re guys all over. Every floor.” Men slid out of the boxes all over the room. “Small groups, you know. We watch over each other.”
Most of the men wandered over to Steele.
“Have you seen anyone who doesn’t belong here?” Steele shouted.
There were murmurs all around, but no one came forward.
The old guy shrugged. “People come and go.”
“I mean, not homeless. Dressed well?”
“Nope, ain’t seen that.”
Steele panned the room with his flashlight. Men shook their heads.
“Okay. Thanks for your cooperation.”
Steele waved his team forward. They headed deeper into the warehouse. They came across five additional groups of men. None had seen any strangers. Zerr radioed that they’d had the same experience.
Steele’s gut said this was a waste of time. They were in the wrong place. Every second they wasted here was a second Brad was closer to death.
Steele’s team met up with Zerr near the back of the main floor of the warehouse. Voices were coming from a room in the corner. Low at first, then they grew louder. The voices were muffled, and it was impossible to understand what they were saying, but it was getting heated.
Steele and Zerr communicated through hand signals. One of Zerr’s guys stepped to the door with a heavy ram. Steele nodded, and he swung the ram into the door. Steele tossed a flashbang into the dim room. After the explosion and flash of light, they entered. Steele entered first, followed by Zerr. The rest of the team followed and fanned out on either side of the room.
“Police. On the floor.”
At least a dozen people were crammed into the room, some wandering, dazed. Others hit the floor in compliance. Steele shone his flashlight around the room. Three Coleman lanterns were spaced around the room, providing limited light and heat. Sleeping bags littered the floor with cardboard as dividers between.
“Coulter, you here?” Steele shouted.
No answer.
“Brad. Are you in here?”
Still no answer.
“I’ll take a team and check the rest of the building,” Zerr said.
A voice from the floor asked, “Who y’all here for?”
“Brad Coulter or Michael Trant.”
“Can’t say as I know anyone by those names. Course, some of us don’t use actual names.”
“How long have you been here?” Steele asked.
“Can’t say for sure. Late September. Shelters won’t take most of us. At least we’re out of the cold here.”
“You sure Coulter or Trant weren’t here today?”
“We’d all help you if we could.” He was pleading with his eyes. “We got a safe thing here. We’d help in a second, so you’d leave us alone. We don’t want no trouble.”
“Don’t want no trouble about what?” A tall black man wearing a heavy overcoat and fake fur hat headed over to them. His gloved hand brushed snow off his shoulders.
“Hey, Gilly. These cops are searching for a couple of people.”
Gilly nodded. “Few people out in this weather. I saw a man and a woman heading south.”
“Wait,” Zerr said. “A man and a woman?”
“Yeah, heading south toward the old CN Railway station. He was wearing a winter army jacket and pants. He was drunk or something. He kept falling. She was holding him up.”
“How long ago?” Steele asked.
Gilly shrugged. “About fifteen minutes ago. Long enough for me to walk here.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
Brad tried to talk but couldn’t. His jaw wouldn’t move. Dislocated or fractured, for sure. He tried to breathe through his nose, but it was likely broken and was clogged with blood now. The best he could do was breathe through gritted teeth. Each breath was a whistle. His lungs screamed for oxygen.
Toscana was squatting beside Michael, injecting something into a vein. Michael’s eyes rolled back in his head, a faint grin on his face. Then his lips curled, and he screamed out. His body conv
ulsed and rocked the chair across the concrete floor.
Brad curled into the fetal position, shook with the cold, and stretched his arms. He could just reach his boot. He rubbed his leg on the floor, causing his pant leg to ride up above his boot top. He stretched his fingers inside the boot and got a finger through the rope glued to his shoddily repaired tactical knife where it was tucked into a leather sheath. Initially, the knife failed to budge. The rope cut into his finger. Brad scrunched as tight as he could, then stretched his legs and withdrew his fingers. The knife slid out of the sheath.
The struggle to retrieve the knife left him breathless. His eyes blurred, and the world spun. Despite the pain, he forced his jaw open to get extra air. Bones shifted in his jaw and searing pain shot to his temple. The world went white. But he could breathe and rapidly gasped for air. The pain subsided, his vision cleared, and his breathing slowed. He worked the blade over the ropes on his knees. Then he reversed the blade and sawed at the ropes around his wrists. The sharp blade easily cut through the rope … and his wrists. Compared to his other pains, the cuts were a minor inconvenience. With his wrists free, he could slide his arms around in front.
He cut through the rope across his chest and rolled onto his knees. When he glanced up, Toscana was standing next to Michael, her eyes wide. “How the hell—”
In three steps she crossed the room, swung her foot back, and kicked at Brad’s jaw. He swiveled as the boot swung toward him. The heel grazed his head—pain shot up his jaw and he dropped the knife blade. He grabbed the swinging leg and yanked, pulling Toscana’s other foot out from under her. She crashed to the floor, hitting the concrete with her ass first, then her head.
Brad pushed to his knees. His gut churned. Waves of nausea crashed into his body and the room spun. He reached out for something to support him. He sucked air through his clenched jaw. It was enough—barely. He rose to a crouch.
Goddess of Justice Page 28
