Wait! Angel! Huerta obviously wasn’t the killer. At least not the one who’d killed these women.
Drago undoubtedly still was under that assumption, though. And he was probably still upset with her, which meant he might not know she was missing. If he had no reason to be looking for her, it was up to her to get herself free and get Sandy out of there.
Struggling against the bonds that held her in the chair was futile. She was well and truly a prisoner. Undoubtedly Angel’s next victim. She would have to come up with some kind of plan to trick him. But what?
A soft moan to her right told her she wasn’t alone. She craned around to see. Bound in another chair, Sandy was trying to open her eyes.
“Sandy, I’m here. It’s Camille.”
Another moan and the girl forced her eyes open.
“Are you all right? Did he…hurt you?”
“Not too much.”
What did that mean? That Angel had only roughed her up a little? Or had he done something only a little perverted to the girl? He had painted her face, changed her hair, and made her wear cheap clothes that made her look like his mother, after all.
“Did he touch you?” Camille asked.
“Touch me? No! Not like that. He ruined my hair! And look at the junk on my face. He does mean stuff to scare me.”
Which wouldn’t be hard when dealing with a kid.
“Those pictures of those other women,” Sandy said, staring at the wall. “He made me look like them. Why?”
Because he was a perverted fuck. “I don’t know.” She really didn’t know why he’d hated his mother enough to kill her, then kill her again through these other women—not that she was going to tell Sandy all that.
Even so, the girl started crying, choking back soft sobs.
Camille struggled with her bonds again. “If I could just find a way to get an arm free…”
“I-it’s no use,” Sandy sobbed. “You can’t get away from Angel. He’s crazy. And he’ll be back.”
Camille knew that. Angel could simply be in the next room, plotting what he was going to do to them both now that he had his original intended victim. Fearing what he would do to them, she kept fighting against the bonds that held her.
She had no doubts that Angel would never willingly let them leave. Not alive.
If she could only free one stinking hand…
Chapter Twenty
It took a couple of hours of worry not only about Sandy but now about Camille, as well, before Harlan Ford, one of Drago’s old cell mates, tracked down Jessie Calderon and called it in.
“He doesn’t wanna cooperate,” Harlan said. “But I got him pinned to a chair. He moves and I’ll take a piece of him.”
Drago knew Harlan wielded a knife with precision. He used to be a carnie with one of the smaller shows that traveled through the Midwest and South. For more than a decade, he’d starred in a knife-throwing act for a living. Unfortunately, the man had a temper and had ended up in jail for using that particular ability on another carnie with whom he’d had a violent disagreement.
“If you take a piece,” Drago said, “just make sure it doesn’t kill Calderon or prevent him from talking.”
Harlan laughed, then asked, “Here or there?”
“I’ll come to you. Give me the address.” Writing it down on a bar napkin, Drago said, “I’ll be there in five.”
Thanking Titus for his help and asking him to spread the word they got their man, Drago stuffed the napkin into a pocket and left the bar at a run. He had a holy-hell feeling that the case was about to come to a head. Thankfully, and not just for Sandy.
He itched with the knowledge that something had gone wrong for Camille. And he couldn’t think of anything worse than Angel having her in his grasp. Drago’s gut had churned waiting for Eva to get back to him, but she never had. Either she hadn’t been able to find her old gal-pal or Isabel simply wasn’t talking. And what if Isabel had purposely sent Camille into a trap? He wouldn’t put it past a chola to do something like that to please her boyfriend.
Thinking about what Angel could be doing to the woman he loved sickened Drago. He kept seeing her face, all the nuances of expression when she looked at him. She might have her problems when it came to thinking about a relationship, but he couldn’t believe she didn’t feel the same way he did deep in her gut. They were meant for each other. He was determined to find a way to convince her.
Assuming she was still alive. What if she wasn’t? What if Angel had already gotten to her? For the first time in his life, he was so angry that he felt as if his head would explode.
Angry enough to kill.
—
Angel came back into the bedroom just as the bitch managed to free one hand from her bonds. What was she—double-jointed? He snorted. That might have some entertainment value if she could work her body like that. Before she could free the other hand, he rushed her and grabbed her by the jaw, pushing her head back so far he could have easily snapped her neck.
“You want the kid to live?”
She froze.
“That’s better. Cooperate or you’ll be signing her death sentence.” When the little maggot started wailing again, he turned his gaze on her. “Shut your trap. Now!”
She gurgled, somehow swallowing the irritating sound.
“Let Sandy go,” Camille said.
“Now, why would I do that?”
“She’s not the one you want. I am.”
“You’re right.” He grinned at her. “But you’re a cop. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Then let me go, too.”
Detective Camille Martell was one piece of work. It would be his pleasure to bring her down a few notches to his level. And he would use the kid to do it.
He laughed. “Fat chance. You’re gonna do what I want. Everything I want. You get me?”
He’d never had a cop before. Never killed one, either. Just thinking about it gave him a hard-on. But he was going to draw out the pleasure longer than he ever had before. Before he was through with her, she would beg him to end her.
“I get you, all right, Angel. Don’t count on it.”
“Now see, that’s where the little maggot comes in.” He moved to the kid and gripped her by the neck so hard she made choking sounds. “You don’t do exactly as I say, and she’ll be the one to pay the price.”
Horror flicked over the detective’s features for a second, but she hid it fast, he’d give her that. She covered by giving him a neutral, somewhat bored expression, her clenched jaw the only indication of what she really was feeling inside.
Terror!
How delicious.
“We’ll start with the hair.” He hated the way she’d pulled it flat from her face and clipped it back. He’d seen it as wild as she had been when he’d watched from her deck window the other night. He wanted to feel that hair on his bare flesh when she was going down on him. And no matter that she thought otherwise, she would do exactly that. “You’re wearing your hair like a nun.” He pulled the clip free. She tried ducking from him, but he ran his fingers through the strands so it stood out around her face. “Better.”
“What is it with you and red hair?” she asked.
“I’ve always been partial to redheads, natural ones, so all their hair is red.” The flicker in her eyes told him she got it. He leaned in close enough so she could feel his breath on her face. “Is all your hair red, chica?”
Rather than answering him, she said, “It’s because your mother’s hair was red, isn’t it? What did she ever do to make you hate her so much?”
“She was a puta.”
He turned his head and spat. He’d known that from the time he was a kid and had walked in on her with a man. One of his many new “fathers.” She hadn’t been the least embarrassed. She’d smiled and had performed for him. And he’d watched with fascination, not only that time, but many times over the years. Watching her had taught him everything he knew about taking a woman. But that hadn’t been
all he’d learned.
He added, “A puta who refused to protect her own son.”
“Protect you from who?” She waited a beat, then added, “Jessie Calderon?”
Just hearing the bastard’s name jarred him and before he could stop himself, he smacked her across the face, leaving a red print on her cheek. “Now see what you made me do?”
Though the fire in her eyes made the slight disfigurement worth it. Besides, he could cover any bruising with makeup. It felt good to assert his power, make her know who was in charge here. Just the way he’d made his mother know it after what she’d let Calderon do to him.
“Seems to me, your mama made you do it,” she said. “Your mama made you do lots of things, but you got even with her, didn’t you?”
Now it was Angel who clenched his jaw. The bitch must have read his mind. He whipped around to the closet and brought out the box he kept for his women. He set it down on the dresser and pulled out the vial of purple eye shadow and a brush.
“I suggest you lower your lids and don’t move or I might poke your eye out.”
She stared at him. “How did you learn to put makeup on women? Did Mama let you do it for her?”
“That puta let me do a lot of things for her. She thought it would make up for—” He stopped abruptly before he let her in on the truth.
“For letting Jessie Calderon hurt you?”
“Fuck Calderon!”
“Isn’t he the one who fucked you? Did you like it?” she asked. “Is that why you’re so angry?”
He raised his fist to strike her again, then froze and turned his attention to the girl, who was sobbing quietly. “You make me angry, and I take it out on her!” His jaw clenched when the little bitch squealed in response. “You don’t want that to happen, close your fucking mouth and eyes.”
She did as he demanded, and he applied thick blobs of purple over both lids, spreading it the way he’d watched his mother do thousands of times as she’d admired herself in her mirror. But this one’s mouth didn’t stay closed for long.
“So what’s your relationship to Tomas Huerta?” she asked.
Angel laughed. “That pussy? He got a big reputation and little cojones.”
“So Huerta’s attacking us last night when we were looking for you was just coincidence.”
Angel laughed. “Huerta did what I told him to do. He owed me big time. A couple months back, I warned him about a drug setup that would have gotten him arrested and convicted. Besides, he knew well enough not to cross me and refuse. The fact that he’d have the chance to kill Drago Nance was just an added incentive.”
Little fuck Huerta had been scared of Angel’s violent nature. After he’d killed his puta of a mother, Angel had been able to smell the fear reeking from the pussy. And once he’d started taking women to re-create his mother and take pleasure from bending them to his will, Huerta had convinced his lieutenants that the law would be down on their heads unless they get rid of him.
Though once a gang member, always a gang member, he’d been forcefully pushed out of the inner circle. He still ran his own drug deals, but other than that, he stayed out of gang politics and day-to-day decisions. Instead, he concentrated on the women whose bodies gave him almost as much satisfaction as had his mother’s.
And, of course, their deaths gave him the most pleasure of all.
—
Harlan had tracked Jessie Calderon to a local bar and had forced him into a rear corner where Drago found them. Calderon had six inches and fifty pounds on Harlan, who appeared as scrawny as he was tough. Harlan whipping his blade around with such precision trumped everything. The bartender had gone deaf and blind for the moment and kept turned away from them so he wouldn’t see anything he shouldn’t. He knew better than to let anyone else wander back there.
“We’re looking for a man we needed to find yesterday.” Drago loomed over Calderon threateningly. “Where do we find Angel?”
A pissed-off Calderon said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Angel—what kinda name is that for a man?”
“You knew him as Teresa’s son.”
The man’s outraged expression shifted into distrust. “You don’t mean Teresa Ybarra?”
Drago described her. “Red hair, makeup tattooed on her face.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, that’s her. But she didn’t have no kid named Angel. Her son’s name is Oscar.”
Oscar Ybarra. Drago knew exactly who he was. He’d been Huerta’s enforcer—one of the most violent gangbangers around—until there’d been some kind of split more than a year ago. About the time Teresa Ybarra disappeared, he realized.
“Angel is the name he uses online to lure unsuspecting women,” Drago said. “It looks like Oscar killed Teresa, and now he’s killing other women who look like her.”
“Crazy fuck!”
Sensing a sudden flood of fear enveloping the other man, Drago had a feeling he had a lot to account for. They’d already figured Calderon had done something to the son to make him hate his mother.
“Where can we find him?”
“How would I know? Last time I saw Teresa…it coulda been two years ago.”
“Where was that?” Instinct told Drago the killer stayed close to home, what with him dressing his victims in cheap garments that undoubtedly had belonged to Teresa.
“And don’t say you don’t remember,” Harlan added, flashing his knife close to the man’s face.
Calderon gave it up, both address and description of the building, adding, “Make sure you get that bastard after what he did to Teresa.”
“Yeah, after what he did.” Drago hadn’t forgotten that Calderon had used his fists on the woman. And probably on the son, which could have added to the killer’s violent nature. He nodded to Harlan and indicated they should leave. Once outside, he said, “Thanks for the help. I have a feeling I’m about to bring an end to some murders.”
“Not alone, you’re not. You need backup.”
Drago didn’t argue the point, merely set off with Harlan following. Five minutes later, they were parked outside the 2-flat Calderon had described. Pulling his gun from the glove compartment, Drago got out of the car and holstered the weapon at his back.
Harlan joined him. “You sure this is the place? No address I can see.”
The front door was barred and bolted and boards covered up the windows. “The perfect hidey-hole for a rat.” Drago gave the neighborhood a thorough once-over. It didn’t take him long to spot Camille’s car on the other side of the street. His gut clenched. He prayed she was still alive. She had to be. He had to believe that until he saw otherwise. “I don’t like the feeling here,” he told Harlan. “Maybe you wait outside and look for any kind of trouble.”
“Got it. I’ll text you if I see anything to worry about. Go get that son of a bitch and rescue your woman and the kid!”
His woman. Was she? He hoped so.
He was ready to do whatever it took to convince Camille they belonged together. But first he had to save her from a killer.
As Drago searched for easy entry into the building, he couldn’t help but wonder what Angel had already done to her.
—
“I’ll take the kid apart a little at a time if you don’t cooperate.”
“Cooperate with what?”
Camille was stalling, trying to figure a way to get the drop on the bastard, despite his waving her own gun at her now that he’d untied her. Sandy was untied, too—as if Angel had plans for them both—but the girl was still drugged and sagged on the edge of the bed. With his free hand, Angel reached into the closet and pulled out a short, tight skirt and top that would show both Camille’s cleavage and her stomach and threw them on the bed behind her.
“Put those on.”
Camille hardly recognized herself when she checked the dresser mirror. She looked amazingly like his mother and his victims. And once she had the clothes on, she was certain he would rape her with Sandy watching.
No, he would try
to rape her, Camille thought. That didn’t mean he would succeed. She wasn’t Noreen or Susan or Leanne. Or Teresa. She wasn’t weak. Angel was underestimating her.
If only she’d been able to call Drago, to let him know where she was headed. But her damn cell phone had tanked, so it was up to her. She could do what she had to do to get away. To get back to Drago. Suddenly she realized how important that was, being with the man who’d invaded her heart. She told herself that could still happen. She could take Angel.
But could she keep Sandy from suffering for it? She had to be very clever to get them both out of here in one piece.
“Where’s the bathroom?” she asked, thinking of Noreen’s story about how she got away from him. Maybe she could find something in the bathroom to use as a weapon.
“You don’t need no bathroom. Change right here, while I watch. And oh, yeah, take off the underwear. She didn’t wear no underwear.”
Camille assumed the “she” he referred to was Teresa. Had he raped his mother, then? Camille grew sick inside just thinking it, but it made her even more determined. Not just to get away, but to put an end to his killing streak.
Swallowing hard, she picked up the skirt and held it at her hips. “I don’t think this is big enough to fit me.”
“Then I’ll like it even more. Put it on!”
What she wanted to do was whip the skirt into his face and go for the gun. But having flipped the chair she’d been tied in around to face her, he sat in it and waited for his show. She wanted to give him one, up close and personal, but he was a bit too far away from her. And there was Sandy to think of. She had to get closer to Angel. Get him off guard. Find a weapon…
Her gaze flicked to the dresser behind him, where he’d laid out the makeup he’d used to paint her face, and a plan suddenly came to her. She whirled around, and in doing so got a good look at Sandy. The girl’s face was as crumpled as her body. Not even sobbing anymore, she lay on the edge of the bed, her eyes open but unfocused, as still as death.
Their situation was about to change, and Camille only hoped Sandy had it in her to fight her way out of there.
Dangerous Page 21
