by Osborne, Jon
The sound of wailing horns echoed in the background of the call. After a moment or two, Whitestone came back on the line. “Sorry about that, Angel. I’m stuck in a bottleneck on I-90 right now. Anywhere, do you think that maybe we could meet up in an hour or so for a quick bite to eat? I’ve got some things I’d like to talk over with you – to chew over, if you will.”
The lighthearted joke was completely lost on Angel as her first instinct was to think that Dana Whitestone had somehow found out about the computer and sex gear she’d taken from Sasha Diggs’s bedroom.
Her next instinct was to slap herself upside her own head just as hard as she possibly could for allowing the ugly anger she felt inside to pervade every facet of her life now, even something as simple as having lunch with a woman who was clearly going so far out of her way just to be friendly with her that it wasn’t even funny.
Angel took a deep breath through her nostrils and let out the air again in a slow rush over her teeth. “How do you feel about Mexican food?”
The FBI agent laughed. “Si, si, seniorita. Good call. Mexican food sounds just about right to me.”
After agreeing to the details of their lunch meet-up, Angel flipped off her phone and tucked it back into her purse, not knowing then about the pure hell that was about to break loose. Still, she’d find out about that pure hell soon enough. And she’d find out about it in much the same way she’d been finding out about everything else in her life these days:
The hard way.
CHAPTER 113
Six hours later, Jasmine Pepperton recoiled in horror from the huge black dog that was barking furiously at her feet.
Jasmine wrists sang with pain. Her hands had been tied behind her back to a sturdy wooden chair in an elaborately decorated den. She pulled hard against the ropes but they wouldn’t budge an inch. Her mind felt woozy. She’d been drugged, obviously, had absolutely no idea where the hell she was right now. Somewhere down South, the man in her car had said.
The sounds of Debussy’s Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano filled the room as Jasmine looked up at the large blonde man who was seated across from her on the other side of a massive mahogany desk – a different man from the one in her car.
The man lit up a huge cigar before blowing out an enormous cloud of blue smoke. “One word from me and he’ll happily tear open your throat with his teeth,” he said, nodding to the huge dog. “Please don’t test me on this. Just be a good girl and listen to everything I have to say and you’ll remain in perfect health.”
Jasmine stared at the man through the veil of hot tears blurring her vision. “Who are you?” she sputtered.
The Race Master leaned back in his chair and blew out a second huge cloud of fragrant smoke before waving a hand in front of his face to disperse the thick blue fog.
“Who I am, precisely, is none of your concern at the moment, my dear. The important thing here is that your mother does everything she’s instructed to get you back alive. Tell me, Jasmine: Do you think she’ll find those terms acceptable?”
Stomach acid bubbled up in Jasmine’s gut and seared the thin lining of her esophagus. “Am I a political hostage?” she asked, incredulously. “Is that what this is about?”
The Race Master rose to his feet and stared down at her.
“I assure you it’s nothing quite as pedestrian as that, Miss Pepperton. I simply want to exchange your life for the life of my brother. A fair trade. Even Steven, as you Americans might say. Surely even you can understand the parameters of that kind of deal, can’t you?”
Jasmine gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to kick the incessantly yapping dog hard in its mouth. “My mother will never negotiate with a terrorist,” she said. “She’s not allowed to, for Christ’s sake. It’s against the law.”
The Race Master smiled, his thin lips peeling back smoothly from very white teeth. “Oh, she’ll negotiate with me all right, Jasmine. She’ll negotiate with me or else you will surely die. It’s as simple as that. What sort of mother could refuse those terms?”
Jasmine’s thoughts flashed to the unborn baby inside of her, probably no bigger than a pea yet.
The blonde man seemed to read her mind. “Yes, Jasmine, that means your baby will die, too. That unclean life growing inside of you right now is entirely dependent on you for its survival. Try to remember that when I get your mother on the phone, would you? It’ll help you see this through to what I hope isn’t the bitter end. Think about your baby and maybe – just maybe – you’ll both survive.”
Reaching down and pressing a button hidden beneath the lip of his desk, the Race Master took another long, hard pull on his cigar. Moments later, three large young men wearing blue coveralls entered the room and carried Jasmine Pepperton out of his den, chair and all.
CHAPTER 114
Angel pulled into the parking lot of the La Mexicana restaurant in Shaker Heights forty-five minutes later.
Swinging the Cabriolet into an empty space, she exited the car and slammed shut the door before clicking the keychain-control alarm. The twelve-year-old car honked once as though it were saying goodbye.
Angel had always liked the food at the La Mexicana, mostly because it had always been so authentically Mexican, whipped up and served to you by authentic Mexicans, which was just an added bonus in her book.
Going there on your birthday, however, could prove to be a big mistake. A grande one, actually – something she’d learned the hard way when Malachai had brought her there for her thirtieth.
Because in addition to the authentic Mexican food whipped up and served to you by authentic Mexicans, La Mexicana also forced all the idiot gringos to wear ridiculously huge sombreros while the entire wait staff gathered around to sing Feliz Cumpleanos. Happy birthday, her ass. While it had been happening, Angel had been pretty sure that it would be the last birthday she’d ever be celebrating, seeing as how she was about to die of embarrassment and all.
“Hey, Angel!”
Angel turned toward the sound of Dana Whitestone’s voice. Dressed in a cream-colored business suit, silk blouse and a pair of sensible two-inch heels, the FBI agent was striding briskly across the busy parking lot toward her. Just as Angel had done when the woman had visited her office the previous day, she mentally complimented Whitestone’s taste in clothing. She identified the fed’s outfit as Chanel even from twenty paces away.
Whitestone grinned as she approached. “Hey there, Angel,” she repeated.
Angel grinned back. “Hey there, Dana.”
Goddamn! A breakthrough!
She’d called Dana by her first name. And it had felt good. Damned good, as a matter of fact. And why not? Hate really could be such a tiring emotion – something she’d been finding out firsthand for herself lately. She had absolutely no idea in hell how the Brotherhood maintained it at the intense level they did. Then again, she highly doubted that any of them were having any trouble getting to sleep at night these days, either. Hate could be a tiring emotion, sure, but it could also be a pretty goddamn energizing emotion, too. It all depended on your perspective, Angel supposed.
Stepping inside the restaurant a moment later, they were led immediately to a booth by their waiter, a kid named Juan who couldn’t have been any more than sixteen or seventeen years old and who seated them next to a large plate-glass window overlooking the parking lot full of cars.
The lighting inside the restaurant was dim, and the cushions in the booth whooshed a little bit as they sat down, the air trapped inside escaping beneath their weight and sinking them low into their seats.
The table itself was absolutely humongous and carved out of very solid wood. Mahogany? Angel didn’t know. But she did know that she felt completely ridiculous as she sank even lower into her seat, like a little kid who’d refused an offer of a booster seat and who was regretting the hell out of that decision.
The benches themselves were set high enough off the floor that Angel’s feet barely scraped the carpet below. She doubted that Whitestone’s
feet had made it even that far, but resisted the urge to peek under the table for a closer look.
Dana Whitestone was a remarkably tiny woman – no debating that obvious fact – but it wasn’t the first thing you noticed about her. Something about the way the woman walked and talked, something about the way she carried herself in general, made the FBI agent seem a whole lot bigger than she really was. Almost larger than life.
“We could float this thing all the way down to Cuba and say ‘fuck you’ to Castro if we really wanted to,” Whitestone said, leaning forward to test the sturdiness of the oversized table with her tiny palms before settling back down into her seat. “Anyway, I’ve got tell you, Angel, that dress you’re wearing is absolutely stunning. I noticed it right away out in the parking lot.”
Angel’s cheeks flushed hot as she remembered the reason why she’d worn the dress that day in the first place. To thumb her nose at people like Dana Whitestone. To show them that she didn’t need their kind, that she had people of her own.
Sure seemed to make a whole hell of a lot of sense right now, didn’t it? Whitestone really was such an ogre underneath it all, wasn’t she?
Angel forced a smile onto her lips, hoping it reached her eyes and praying that Whitestone wouldn’t see the shame hiding behind it. “I was thinking the exact same thing about your outfit, Dana. Chanel, right?”
The other woman smiled happily. “Ah, a fellow clotheshorse, eh? Perfect. There’s a big sale going on downtown at Macy’s on Saturday. You, me, clothes and lunch. I won’t take no for an answer, so don’t even try, OK? So, whaddya say?”
Angel widened her smile. “Sounds just about right to me. Always in the mood to pick up a few new skirts.”
Juan arrived a moment later and set down a basket of homemade nachos on their table. Still warm with little lines of steam coming off them, the nachos smelled absolutely wonderful. He also set down bowls of three different kinds of salsa.
He pointed to a muted-red bowl first. “This one is mild,” he said in an accent cute enough to make Angel want to take him home with her, “this one is medium, and this one is hot.”
“Caliente,” Angel said.
Juan raised a bushy eyebrow at her and shook his head. “No, no, seniorita. Es muy caliente.”
When Juan had scampered away, Angel looked across the massive table at Whitestone again. “You heard the man, Dana. Es muy caliente. You go first.”
Whitestone laughed and shook her head. “I don’t think so, Angel. My stomach handles that crap just about as well as it handles a bottle of castor oil.”
Angel nodded, knowing the feeling all too well for herself. Spicy food had never been her thing, either. “So, what’s the plan, then?” she asked.
Whitestone lifted her eyebrows on her smooth forehead. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait for our Southwestern chicken salads to arrive.”
The conversation progressed easily from there, with Angel telling Dana how badly it had hurt when Granny Bernice had died – how badly it still hurt – and Dana telling her all about the Cleveland Slasher, the serial killer who’d murdered her parents when she’d been just four years old.
Angel was shocked to learn that the man had been Whitestone’s very own half-brother, given up at birth by their mother – and obviously none too happy about that fact, either.
Angel had followed the story closely in the papers, of course – like just about everyone else around Cleveland – but none of the articles had ever mentioned anything about Whitestone and Nathan Stiedowe being related. She felt honored that the FBI agent felt comfortable enough with her to share that detail, but the woman’s pretty face had gone very pale while she recounted the horrible story, so Angel steered the conversation around to a pleasanter direction.
“What’s the story with Bruce Blankenship?” she asked. “Helluva partner you’ve got there. Hell, he’s practically Mark Harmon’s twin brother.”
Whitestone smiled. “Yep, Bruce is definitely a great guy – and not too hard on the eyes, either. But he’s married. Two adorable kids and a beautiful and loving wife – the whole nine yards. Still, all the good ones married, aren’t they? Anyway, what about you? Anything interesting going on in your love life these days?”
Angel’s cheeks suffused with blood as she remembered her very intimate encounter with Malachai the previous night. Though it had never been her style to kiss and tell, she took a deep breath and told the FBI agent all about it. Every. Last. Graphic. Detail. The FBI agent was smiling the entire time.
Twenty minutes later, their salads finally arrived. Picking at them with no real interest, they then fell into the topic of the five murdered pregnant women.
“What do you think the significance of dumping Sasha Diggs’s body into the river was?” Whitestone asked.
Angel pursed her lips. She’d given the matter a lot of serious thought ever since reading the shocking newspaper article that detailed the deaths earlier that morning, so she shared her theory with Whitestone. “To me, it’s some kind of ritual cleansing,” she said. “Some kind of baptism, maybe. The symbolism of it all doesn’t exactly seem subtle to me.”
Whitestone nodded and chewed on a tiny piece of chicken. “That’s a good point,” she said. “About as subtle as a baseball bat across the fucking forehead, now that I think about it.”
The FBI agent fell silent for a long moment then, lost in her own little world, so Angel brought her back. “What do you think it means?” she asked. “Dumping Sasha’s body in the river, I mean. What was that all about?”
Whitestone wiped at her mouth with a heavy cloth napkin and took a quick sip of her lemon ice water. “I’m thinking it has something to do with forensics,” she said. “The water washed away most of the trace evidence, which made it a hell of a lot harder to come up with any clues. The Green River Killer did much the same thing back in the 1970s. It was a big part of the reason why it took so long to catch him.”
Angel took a sip of her own water and found herself agreeing with Whitestone’s theory. The woman had a wonderful head on her shoulders for investigative details – that much seemed clear – and she wanted to hear more. “What about the website?” Angel asked.
“What website’s that?”
Angel’s ears rang as she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t yet shared her recent discovery with Whitestone. As quickly as she could, she brought the FBI agent up to speed about having found the Brotherhood’s homepage listed in Sasha Diggs’s browser history.
Whitestone leaned back in her seat and frowned when Angel had finished. “I’m going to need to look at that computer, Angel,” she said. “Well, my partner will need to look at it, anyway. In any event, Blankenship tried to hack into the Brotherhood’s website to see who was paying all the bills, but just this morning he found out that the site had been taken down completely.”
“Can’t you still trace it, though?” Angel asked. “Wouldn’t there be a record?”
Just then, Juan came back around and Whitestone asked for more ice water before turning her attention back to Angel.
“He tried to trace it, but the server was set up in Nigeria, of all places, which means that it’s basically untraceable without cooperation from the authorities over there. And I’d say the possibility of something like that happening is about as good as a snowball’s chances of surviving a summer vacation in hell.”
“Nigeria?” Angel asked, incredulously.
Whitestone nodded. “Yeah, I know. Ironic, ain’t it? A white-power group setting up shop in an African country. Truth really is stranger than fiction, my friend.”
Another ten minutes passed before Juan came back around to gather their plates. As he leaned over their table and piled up the dirty dishes, a tremendous explosion suddenly ripped directly through the plate-glass picture window to Angel’s right, raining a shower of broken glass down on their heads.
A microscopic shard entered Angel’s right eye, blurring her vision. A larger shard caught Whitestone on the left ch
eek, opening up a nasty-looking gash that immediately started gushing bright red blood. Still another shard caught Angel on the right forearm, slicing deep into a vein.
Everyone in the restaurant started screaming then, diving to the floor and cowering under their tables, seeking some sort of protection from the terrifying assault.
A horrible squeal of tires sounded out in the parking lot. Whipping out a gun from the inside pocket of her cream-colored Chanel jacket, Whitestone leapt on top of the table and kicked away huge pieces of broken glass from the window frame before jumping down into the busy parking lot below.
Angel followed a split-second later, scrambling up onto the table and out the window. Following closely at the FBI agent’s heels, she watched a huge Ford pickup truck on monster tires careen wildly around the corner of the building.
Just then, a hot jolt of pain abruptly zipped through Angel’s right ankle as the heel on her right shoe snapped. Vomit flooded into her mouth. Bright white stars danced in front of her eyes.
Whitestone skidded to a halt three feet away and aimed her gun at the truck while terrified pedestrians ducked behind parked cars, fear and confusion coloring in their horrified faces. The FBI agent lowered her gun to her side and cursed sharply a moment later when it became apparent that there were too many people were around to get off a clean shot.
Gunning the engine hard, the driver of the truck roared out into the busy traffic, nearly causing a deadly pileup at the intersection before speeding down the street, cutting dangerously close in front of a school bus carrying a full load of children. The bus driver slammed down hard on the air brakes, tipping the long yellow crazily left to right and then back again before finally coming to a gentle, upright stop. Angel blew out a grateful sigh of relief that sagged her chest three inches; her heartbeat hammering so wildly in her chest she feared it would crack a hairline fracture deep into her sternum.
Whining into a higher gear, the truck picked up even greater speed as it roared through yet another busy intersection.
