TWIN KILLER MYSTERY THRILLER BOX SET (Two full-length novels)

by Osborne, Jon

  I widen my smile a little more and raise my voice several decibels so as to be heard clearly above Mother Nature’s deafening cacophony. “I said, how’s it goin’? Fuckin’ freezin’ out here tonight, ain’t it?”

  The driver nods and looks me over from head to toe again, taking in the full measure of my splendid, feminine charms. “Yep, sure is. Colder than a witch’s tit.”

  I ignore the crass remark and let my mink fall open to show off my inviting cleavage. Every bit as inviting as Dinah Leach’s had been, if I do say so myself. Every bit as inviting as my mother’s, too.

  “Interested in warming up this witch’s tit?” I ask.

  The driver flicks away his cigarette and finally smiles back at me. “I thought you’d never ask, honey.”

  ***

  In the back seat of the limousine ten minutes later, I take the horny driver into my mouth and begin to suck gently. Hard enough to provide the necessary friction, but not hard enough to actually hurt him. That was the secret to giving a great blowjob, wasn’t it?

  Moaning softly, the driver leans his head back against the leather seat and closes his eyes in satisfaction, enjoying the intense sensations I’m providing with my swirling tongue. A moment later – just as he’s really starting to get into it – I inhale deeply through my nostrils and ready myself for what will come next.

  In the very next instant, I chomp down hard on his penis with my sharp white teeth, straining my jaw muscles with the effort.

  A bloodcurdling scream immediately explodes from the limo driver’s throat. The sound is absolutely deafening inside the vehicle, leaving my ears ringing. Still, it’s not quite loud enough for any passers-by to hear it above the howling winter winds outside.

  Turning my head to the side, I spit out the sinful piece of flesh in my mouth onto the floorboards of the back seat. Wiping away blood from my mouth with the back of my left hand, I smile mischievously. “Well, now, whaddya know?” I say. “I guess you’re just like me now.”

  All of the blood has drained from the limo driver’s face now, turning his cheeks a ghostly white. His trembling hands cup his destroyed crotch as he tries desperately to staunch the sickening flow of blood. His bloodshot eyes bulge wildly from their sockets, watering profusely from the agonizing pain.

  I widen my smile a little more and slide out the preloaded hypodermic needle from the waistband of my nylons, clucking my tongue against the roof of my mouth as I do so.

  “Oh, come on,” I say. “Quit being such a big baby, would ya? Look at it this way: now you and I can share clothes. If nothing else, it’ll save us a lot of money.”

  The man doesn’t even try answering me. He is much too preoccupied with attending to his mutilated crotch at the moment. Slipping the syringe deep into his throbbing jugular vein, I depress the plunger with my thumb.

  “Just go to sleep now, sweetheart,” I whisper, echoing my suggestion to Dinah Leach down in Atlanta while brushing the back of my hand against his stubbled cheek. “It’ll be so much easier for you this way.”

  Ten seconds later, his eyelids droop and he slumps over in his seat.

  I feel around for the keys in the limo driver’s right pocket. Finally finding them, I then climb up into the front seat and crank the engine into life. A moment later, I wheel the limo into a nearby alleyway and pop the trunk before moving his motionless body there. If anybody happens to be watching us right now, they’ll most likely think that I’m a thoughtful friend taking care of a drunken pal.

  I laugh. I just can’t help myself. Yep. A real angel of mercy – that was me, all right.

  Just like my mother.

  ***

  At precisely one a.m., I pull the limousine up to the nightclub’s main entrance, having found the pickup time in the travel log tucked away inside the limousine’s glove compartment.

  Thank God for the little things, right?

  Ten long minutes pass before a path finally clears in the crowd that’s still huddled around the entrance outside. A moment later, Penelope Hargrave sashays her way through the mass of humanity on both sides of the velvet ropes, still looking like the fifty million bucks she’s worth despite the inclement weather. She’s clearly accustomed to the popping flashbulbs of the paparazzi, and the dumb whore smiles the same stupid smile she always smiles, luxuriating in the thoroughly undeserved adoration that’s being showered upon her by her adoring public.

  A large Puerto Rican man dressed in a black tuxedo opens the back door of the limousine for her and holds it for the socialite as she steps inside. Looking up into the rearview mirror, I watch Penelope Hargrave immediately pour herself a drink from the fresh bottle of Black Label that’s sitting in an ice bucket in the climate-controlled center console.

  I stare up into the mirror at the socialite’s lovely reflection, study her closely. Penelope Hargrave’s platinum blonde hair has obviously been dyed recently, probably at one of the finest salons in the entire city. The heavy scent of her perfume permeates the entirety of the vehicle – perfume that has no doubt cost her at least five hundred dollars an ounce. The glittering diamond jewelry sparkling at her wrists and throat look to be equal to the gross domestic product of most third-world countries.

  All in all, an embarrassment of riches.

  “All alone tonight, miss?” I ask.

  Penelope Hargrave looks up in irritation and locks stares with me in the mirror. Wrinkling up her face in disgust, she then leans forward and activates the tinted window between us. “Ugh. Don’t even talk to me, OK? Just drive me home. Isn’t that what you get paid to do?”

  I nod as the window slides up with a soft electric whine. “Yes, ma’am,” I say. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I get paid to do.”

  ***

  Forty minutes later, Penelope Hargrave’s is tied securely to the back seat of the limousine – spread-eagle, of course. Each one of her bloodcurdling screams pierces my eardrums and threatens to make my brain explode, but I know exactly how to shut her up.

  After all, there’s only one language she understands.

  Removing a huge wad of one-dollar bills from the pocket of my soft mink coat, I stuff them one by one down the socialite’s throat with a long, thin piece of metal I’ve brought along for the occassion.

  Penelope Hargrave’s beautiful face turns purple after a measly ten greenbacks. Five more George Washingtons stops her breathing altogether.

  I purse my painted lips in disappointment, cursing my rotten luck. I’d brought along a hundred dollar bills with me tonight, had wanted to enjoy this a bit more. And I had absolutely zero idea of how I’ll spend all the leftover loot. A new purse, maybe. Perhaps a manicure with Annabeth Preston. That might be nice. Hell, we could make a mother-daughter day out of it.

  Half an hour later, I dump Penelope Hargrave’s dead body into the alleyway two hundred yards away from her multi-million-dollar brownstone in the heart of lower Manhattan. Just to make an artistic statement, I position her corpse right next to a long row of dented silver trashcans. Why not? Unlike me, that’s exactly what Penelope Hargrave represents in this world, isn’t it? Trash?

  Goddamn right, it is. She’d been trash on the day she’d been born – given nearly every imaginable advantage in life – and she remained trash to the fateful day that she’d died in the backseat of a beautiful stretch limousine during one of the worst blizzards in the history of New York City.

  Trash. Nothing more and nothing less.

  Just like the next name on my very special little list.

  Sliding back behind the limousine’s steering wheel, I crank the engine into life and put the long, sleek vehicle into gear before driving away into the storm-ravaged night.

  Time for me to get back to work.

  And after I’ve dumped the limo into the icy waters of the Hudson River in order to properly dispose of the driver’s unconscious body in the trunk, I’ll turn my attention to the pop singer out in Arkansas, Amber Knightly.

  And that was when things re
ally ought to start getting interesting for me.

  PART VII

  PERMANENT VACATION

  “Fort Myers Beach forms the tourist heart of Lee County, Florida. Studies have shown that virtually every tourist who visits Lee County crosses the Matanzas Pass Bridge at least once during their stay on their way to a fun-filled day on the sun-soaked shore of Estero Island.” – waterfrontfortmyers.com.

  CHAPTER 40

  Five months after her brutal rape in the parking lot of the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office in Cleveland, Ohio, Dana Whitestone swiveled back and forth on her stool at the Smokin’ Oyster Brewery on Fort Myers Beach down in sunny Southwest Florida and ordered up her fourth beer of the morning.

  The bartender twisted off the cap from an ice-cold Bud Light and slid it over to her with a smile. He needed to shout to be heard clearly above the group of drunken tourists who were noisily punctuating the sounds of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” on the jukebox over in the corner with the requisite “bah-bah-bum!”

  Wiping up a puddle of spilled beer on the section of bar directly in front of her, the bartender yelled, “How’s your vacation going?”

  Dana looked up at the man and gave him the once-over. Different guy than the one who’d served her the first three longnecks of the morning. About forty-five years old. Longish salt-and-pepper hair. Solid build. A throwback hippie quality about him.

  “How’d you know I was on vacation?” she shouted back.

  The bartender waited for a pause in the music before winking. “Tan lines,” he said, then immediately moved farther down the crowded bar to attend to the group of rowdy bikers that was hollering for more shots. Having picked their poison for the day, this particularly motley crew had settled in to do mortal combat with Jack Daniel’s – no beer chasers required.

  Dana leaned back her head and took a long swallow of her fresh beer as the bartender moved away, savoring the pleasant way the icy alcohol cut into the back of her throat and enjoying the warm breeze that was blowing gently through the tiki bar with no walls and a thatched roof, fluttering her short blonde hair softly around her head and keeping her from sweating like a pig.

  Even in March, the mercury had already reached eighty-five degrees in Southwest Florida, and thank God for that. If nothing else, it was certainly a far cry from Cleveland, where the wintry weather hadn’t loosened its icy grip on the city one little bit since Dana had left, even though spring had supposedly sprung already. Then again, Cleveland had always been a place where nice weather had never showed up until somewhere around mid-June. A gloomy place where the skies hanging over Lake Erie remained gray and cloudy and pregnant with either rain or snow far longer than most other parts of the country.

  A place where Dana had lost her will to fight the good fight and had instead simply given up.

  With her checkered past with the bottle, Dana knew there was no way in hell that she should’ve drinking anything stronger than ice-water with a lemon twist right now, but they didn’t call alcoholism a disease for the simple fun of it. The siren song of the booze had eventually won her over again after all of her useless fighting, dragging her down into the same sorry place she knew all too well. The same sorry place she’d found herself following the deaths of Crawford Bell and Eric Carlton. The same sorry place she’d promised herself she’d never visit again.

  Dana closed her eyes and sighed. Then she opened them up again and shrugged. Fuck it. Lifting her beer bottle, she took another healthy drink of her beer and swished it around in her mouth. With everything she’d gone through in her life she deserved a drink whenever she damn well pleased. There was nothing for her to feel guilty about here. Nothing for her to feel remorse over. Those kinds of bullshit feelings were far better left to the circle-jerk AA meetings that she had absolutely zero intention of ever attending again.

  Swiveling her barstool in a complete circle, she idly peeled the label from her sweating beer bottle as the jukebox kicked over to Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville”, drawing yet another orgasmic cheer from the tables full of tourists.

  Dana swayed her butt in her seat and tapped her foot in perfect time to the infectious island music, feeling at home here. Fort Myers Beach was famous for having one of the safest beaches in the entire world, and if there was one thing she needed to feel right now, it was safe. Down here in sunny Florida, the sugary-soft white sand reflected the sun’s heat so that you didn’t burn your feet on the way down to the warm water, the bathwater surf had absolutely no riptide to speak of, and the depth only dropped off a foot or two for every twenty yards you waded out.

  Down here in sunny Florida, she didn’t need to worry about insane women wearing beautiful black dresses who called her out by name in autopsy videos before facilitating her horrific rape.

  The locals on Fort Myers Beach referred to their hometown as “paradise”, and Dana could understand why. No hyperbole required. As long as you could put up with the hurricanes that routinely ripped through the place like a bull in a china shop (and also with the flock of elderly snowbirds that flew down here every winter before completely taking the place over) it was paradise. A section of the country where you could just get lost in the crowd and maybe – just maybe – find yourself again in the process.

  Dana lifted her stare to the ceiling and studied the fairly new construction. Though she’d missed the devastating effects of Hurricane Allison by almost half a year, you wouldn’t have known it simply by looking around the place. Winds of up to ninety-five miles an hour and a storm-surge five feet above normal had done no real damage to the charming pink and blue cottages dotting the sandy shore, and the cleanup afterward had been little more than an afterthought, much like plowing the snow off Interstate 90 back home in Cleveland following yet another lake-effect blizzard was an afterthought to the residents there. And why not? After all, there were some things in this life you simply needed to do. You didn’t bitch about them. You didn’t whine about them. You didn’t complain about them. You just did them. And if you didn’t, you found yourself snowed in until April or enjoying warm sea breezes through several windows in your home that the architect had never intended to exist.

  Dana took another long swallow of her beer and swiveled in her bar stool a little more, wishing like hell that the alcohol would hurry the hell up already and drown her painful memories like the crying infants in a bathtub she knew them to be.

  Shortly after her brutal rape in the parking lot of the coroner’s office back home in Cleveland, she’d received the devastating news that little Bradley had been adopted out to another family. The well-dressed attorney and his June Cleaver wife who’d taken him in seemed like nice enough people to her. Real stand-up folks, as a matter of fact. Honest-to-God pillars of the community. Bradley’s new father served as a lector at the Assemblies of God Baptist church in Rocky River, and the little boy’s new mother ran the PTA. Their four-bedroom house overlooked a tranquil lake stocked with steelhead trout and had looked positively idyllic to Dana every time she’d driven past.

  Which had been a lot.

  Lost in her self-pitying thoughts, she was abruptly jerked out of her reverie by the sickening sound of glass crunching against bone twenty feet away.

  Whipping her head around hard to the right, Dana saw bright red blood gushing down the face of a stunned-looking biker in his early fifties, courtesy of his fellow biker and bar mate. The wounded party put a hand to his head and came away with a palm-full of blood, his bloodshot eyes widening briefly in surprise. Then a slow, ugly smile crossed his weathered face. Obviously, this didn’t mark his first rodeo. Not by a long shot.

  Reaching around to the back pocket of his filthy blue jeans, the man produced a switchblade knife and flipped it open before taking a menacing step toward his adversary.

  Even as Dana’s newfound bartender friend was frantically scrambling over the bar to get between the drunken combatants – a short billy club in his right hand to underscore the point that he didn’t especially care
for fighting in his establishment – she fought every instinct in her body that was screaming out for her to intercede. Instead, she simply slipped a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill beneath her half-empty beer bottle to make sure it didn’t blow away in the breeze and left the bar before losing herself in the crowd of suntanned tourists that was strolling through Times Square, the quaint little beach town’s unsubtle homage to New York City.

  No reason for Dana to get involved here. No reason for her to risk her own neck. She wasn’t law-enforcement anymore. She wasn’t an FBI agent anymore. Hell, she didn’t know what the hell she was anymore.

  Except for broken, of course.

  CHAPTER 41

  Banks of the White River – Tichnor, Arkansas – 1 a.m.

  “Get some more sandbags over here on the northwest side! It’s starting to give!”

  Covered in full plastic flood-gear from head to toe, I nod to the man holding a bullhorn and scramble to take my new place in the relay line. Torrential rains fall down from the heavens in buckets, making it seem as though God Himself has emerged from a long, leisurely bath before pulling the plug on His celestial bathtub without giving so much as second thought to the insignificant human insects darting around below.

  Rivers of storm-propelled water stream into my eyes and make it difficult for me to see clearly as bright white lightning zips across the pitch-black sky and fights for dominance with the pounding thunder that’s shaking our universe. The sticky brown mud beneath my feet threatens to suck off my work boots with each slow, plodding step I take.

  Once I’m in my new place in line, I twist at my aching hips and take the forty-pound sandbag from a fellow volunteer who’s stationed on my left before twisting at my hips again to hand it off to the portly man on my right. Twist, hand off, repeat. On and on this goes for what seems an eternity, until my back has been turned into a pretzel and the muscles in my arms sing a high-pitched song of exquisite pain. But what else could we do? Stop? Quit? Isn’t an option with the Montgomery Point Lock & Dam this close to bursting.