The 13th Victim

by Linda S. Prather

Jerry nodded to Officer Cooper, who stood guard at the door to Grange’s house. “ME here yet?”

  Cooper nodded. “You might not want to go in there, sir.”

  I’ve been awake almost forty-eight hours, and this shit is getting old. “I’m chief detective on all homicides at the moment, Cooper. So whether you like it or not, I’m going in.”

  Cooper’s face flushed. “I didn’t mean any offense, sir. It’s Sammons. He’s still in there, and to be honest, he’s a little out of line.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.” Jerry entered the house and nodded to several officers from the forensic team, who were searching and fingerprinting the residence. “Body upstairs?”

  Bastin Maggard nodded. “Sammons is up there, Jerry. He keeps getting in the ME’s way.”

  Jerry could hear the raised voices from above him and shook his head. He knew what it was like to lose a partner. Sammons shouldn’t even be there.

  Jerry entered the room, ignoring Sammons’s glare. “What have we got, Frank?”

  Frank shot a glance at Sammons. “Like I told him, I think we’re looking at two different killers, Jerry. There’s some abnormalities here.” He nodded toward the luggage sitting against the east wall. “Also looks like he was leaving town. We found his cruiser parked down the street.”

  Sammons stalked toward them, his fists clenched. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Wasn’t a better cop out there than Grange.”

  “Officer Sammons, you should leave now.” Jerry kept his voice low, but the underlying steel in his words wasn’t lost on Sammons.

  “I’ll find the damn killer myself.” Sammons pushed by him. “Stay out of my way, Palano, or you just might wind up with a knife in your back.”

  Frank whistled long and low after the downstairs door slammed hard. “Glad you showed up, Jerry. With him stomping and yelling, I had a hard time even getting my photographer in here for decent pictures. He said we knew who the killer was, so just remove the body. Seemed awful antsy about something, especially when he noticed the suitcases. He started to open them, but I stopped him.”

  Jerry knelt beside him. “You said there were some abnormalities. What are we looking at?”

  “Taser wounds here.” Frank pointed to where two bruises had formed. “Full voltage, from the looks of it.” He rolled the body over. “Four stab wounds, but all carefully placed to cause pain, not kill. Whoever did this knew their anatomy.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The throat was slit from left to right, just like Marconi. I believe the same person killed both of them, but I don’t believe it’s the same person who killed Barnsworth. There may be more, but I’d prefer to wait until I’ve had a chance to go over the body thoroughly.”

  “You sure, Frank? The witness said he saw the girl with the knife before she grabbed Marconi’s phone and ran.”

  “Did he see her kill him?”

  Jerry retraced his conversation with Garland in his mind and shook his head. “No, just that she was standing over the body crying and holding the knife.”

  “There you go, then.” Frank pointed at the throat. “It would take an awfully strong person to make that kind of cut, and I doubt a young girl would have that kind of strength. Especially one who was crying and upset. The kind of person who kills like this doesn’t get upset.”

  Jerry rose and sighed. He was bone-tired, but his earlier suspicions that Grange was a dirty cop were confirmed, and all he needed to do was find the evidence. If he was right, there should be a large sum of money here somewhere. “I need to borrow your photographer, Frank.”

  “I’m done here for now. I’ll get the body out and send him in. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, send Cooper up, and tell him to bring a notepad. We’re going to go through these suitcases. Then we’re going to tear this room apart.”

  Ten minutes later, Jerry placed the money in an evidence bag and handed it to Cooper. He’d hoped the young officer wasn’t involved, and from the look on his face, Jerry was pretty sure the money was a total shock to him. “Have Sammons picked up, and we’ll need a warrant for his locker and his house.”

  Cooper nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Jerry sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the body’s outline on the floor. He was running on empty, physically and emotionally. Whoever was calling the shots in this game were professionals, and they were one step ahead of him before he even knew which direction to take. He needed to talk to the girl. Fat chance of that. Andi is never going to let me near her without a court order. The thought brought him little comfort. Andi was too damn stubborn to give up her source, even with a court order. As much as it tormented him to do it, putting her in jail might be the only way he could protect her.

  ~ ~ ~

  “You’ve got ink on your nose, lass.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “That’s the last batch.” Shamus stacked and tied the final bundle then stripped off his gloves and untied his apron, tossing both in a corner. “We get these delivered, we can head home for a nice hot shower and sleep the rest of the day.”

  Andi wished it were that simple, but she needed to touch base with Jerry and find out what happened to Grange. The officer’s death and the second body at Summit would be a huge story. “Let’s get them loaded and delivered.”

  “Wait here.”

  Shamus disappeared through a set of double doors, returning with a dolly. “We should be able to get most of them with one trip.” He glanced at the piles. “Make that two trips.”

  They worked in silence until Shamus’s car was fully loaded. “Have we got a delivery schedule?” Andi asked, stacking a bundle in the back seat.

  “I’ll return the dolly and print one out.”

  Andi checked her watch. It was 5:15 a.m., and the streets would start to fill shortly with the work crowd and the Saturday-morning shoppers. She turned sharply at the noise behind her and breathed a sigh of relief when Shamus walked toward her. From this moment on, she needed to be on guard and ready for anything. If TK was telling the truth, there were ten more bodies out there somewhere, and someone would be trying to stop them from being revealed.

  “Ready?” Shamus asked.

  “Let’s do this.” Andi opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, her body weary, but her mind still running at full speed. “Do you think I made a mistake not mentioning Grange’s murder? That’s bound to be the Tribune headline.”

  “Nah, lass. Unless we’re wrong, the girl didn’t kill the bloke.”

  The empty streets allowed them to make good time, and fifteen minutes later, Shamus pulled to the curb. Andi hopped out, grabbed a bundle, and filled the dispenser. At least the next three stops are drop-offs at convenience stores. Her arms ached, and she didn’t bother with her seatbelt. “I hope people notice it’s full. If we don’t have a sellout, Sinclair will spend next week criticizing everything we do and reminding us this was a flop.”

  “We’d be rolling in the dough if the cheap old bastard would let us put the online site up.” Shamus pulled to the curb again. “I’ll get this one.”

  He was back in seconds and back on the road. “I could put up the online site and show it to him. We could just run the main features for a short time and see how it did.”

  Andi leaned her head against the headrest. “How much would it cost?”

  “Nothing for a site just to show him how it works. Quite a bit to maintain the storage size if he went for it.”

  She yawned as he stopped the car. “Let’s wait until we have this story locked down. I think we’re both going to be very busy the next few days.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sammons drove to the warehouse and parked in the back lot. Grange had been right about the girls. If they’d killed them all that first night, they wouldn’t be in this mess and Grange would still be alive. The boss had fucked up this time. There was no doubt in his mind who killed Grange, and if Devers was right, that meant she’d killed Marconi too. The bitch had tr
ied to make it look like the same girl who killed Barnsworth. If they find the money, I’m screwed. And Palano would. The bastard wouldn’t stop until he did.

  Lights flashed across the parking lot, and a grey Mercedes pulled up beside him. The blonde exited and smiled at him, nodding toward the back door. She didn’t wait to see if he followed, but sashayed across the lot and disappeared inside the warehouse.

  His heart began to pound, and sweat broke out under his armpits and across his back. The Cobra. He’d taken the time to do research on her, pulling in some favors from underground sources he hadn’t used in years. The boss had hired his own personal assassin, and if the rumors were true, she was the best in the business. There was only one reason she would be here: a cleanup mission, which meant he was next on her list.

  An image of Grange’s face flashed through his mind, followed immediately by the boss’s last words: My assistant will break your legs before she cuts off your testicles and makes you eat them.

  Sammons fingered the pistol at his waist. He’d seen too much to try to run. They would eventually find him. “Shit, I ain’t going out like that.”

  Tears filled his eyes, and his lips trembled as he pulled the gun from the holster. It wasn’t his fault. He’d been a good cop until the injury had cost him every dime he had, including mortgaging his house to the hilt, and finally losing it to foreclosure. The damn city had sat by and watched him suffer. When he had nothing left, the boss had shown up, getting him back on the police force and offering him a job on the side—one that paid a hundred times better than being a cop. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  Sammons steadied his hand as he raised the gun to his right temple. The blonde stepped into the doorway of the warehouse and glared at him. “Fuck you, Cobra.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Cherese studied the blood spatter on the windshield and the side window. There really wasn’t any reason to check to see if he was dead. Chicken shit. She’d looked forward to spending a few hours with him and a blowtorch. C’est la vie. There were still Gambini and Carter. And that damn hooker, if she gets in my way again. In fact, I might just do her for fun.

  She pulled the warehouse door closed behind her but left it unlocked. A cleaning crew had totally sanitized it earlier that day. The only thing the police would find were Sammons’s and Grange’s fingerprints in the office. The captain had his crooked cops, and Palano could move on. She chuckled. At least they would think he moved on.

  Cherese buckled her seatbelt and reached for the cell phone in the passenger seat. The boss would be unhappy about Sammons. He may have had information they needed, especially the addresses where the rest of the bodies were buried. She hated to blow up every building Marconi had constructed in the last month, but that was her next plan.

  “Hello?”

  “Sammons offed himself in the parking lot.”

  The line was silent, and Cherese ended the call, started the car, and drove out of the lot. She was surrounded by amateurs who had big ideas but no workable plans. It was time for all of them to die, so she could move on to what really mattered. Flipping on the radio, she headed for the motel and a short nap. It’s going to be a great day.

  ~ ~ ~

  “What do you think?”

  Tracy stared into the mirror at the short blond bob that had replaced her stringy brown hair. She looked like a totally different person, which was exactly what she was going for. “It looks great, thank you.”

  The hairdresser turned her around, placed a finger beside her chin, and smiled. “You know, we have a makeup artist here too. With the right makeup, you could be smashing.”

  Tracy hesitated. She didn’t care if she was smashing, but she did want to be unrecognizable, especially from a distance, as she didn’t plan to let anyone get too close. “How much would it cost?”

  “Makeovers are free, but if you want to buy the makeup you could probably get by with about twenty-five dollars.”

  “Okay.”

  Thirty minutes later, she turned to another mirror, totally transformed. Not only did she look different, but she looked older and more sophisticated. “Wow.”

  The girl handed her a card. “I’ve bagged up some samples for you free of charge. You’ll have to let me know what your mother thinks when you get home. I’ll be surprised if she even recognizes you.”

  For a moment, the pain was overwhelming. The last time she’d been to a beauty shop was with her mother for her freshman dance. They’d spent the entire day together, having facials and getting their hair and nails done, and ending the day with dinner and a movie. Six months later, her mother was dead, and she had been handed over to Uncle Boyd, who’d quickly sold everything her mother had worked for, trashed the rest, and moved her away from everything and everyone she knew.

  A hand gently pressed her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Thank you again.”

  “That poor girl,” a customer said.

  Tracy turned to glance at the customer who’d spoken, noting the paper she was reading. “Is something wrong?” She smiled at the makeup lady and took the bag she was holding.

  The woman turned to her, concern mirrored in her eyes as she turned the special edition of the Daily Drudge around so Tracy could see it. “Sixteen and all alone, running for her life. If she’s telling the truth, those men deserved to die.”

  “I heard she killed a cop last night.” The makeup artist began cleaning up her tray. “Might not be as innocent as she claims. It’s all over the Tribune this morning. His poor partner was so overwhelmed with grief he took his own life.”

  I need to get out of here and find copies of both those papers. “Thank you again.” Tracy walked toward the door, waving as she went. She continued to walk at a moderate pace, vigilantly watching all the men around her, especially those wearing suits, until she was past the beauty shop window. Then, she ran the rest of the way to the corner and the newspaper stand there.

  “Can I help you, miss?”

  “A copy of the Daily Drudge and the Tribune, please.”

  “You’re in luck, young lady, just one copy of the Drudge left. That Andi Carter sure can write.”

  He passed the papers to her. “That’ll be a dollar thirty-five.”

  Tracy handed him two dollars, eager to get to her room. “Keep the change.”

  She resisted the urge to take the back streets, which were so common to her now, and instead held her head high and made her way to the inn. She would need to move that night, as the clerk had seen her the way she looked before. Her instinct for self-preservation still caused her to look over her shoulder and around the parking lot before she opened the door. She breathed a sigh of relief when it closed behind her.

  Flopping on the bed, she opened the Tribune and stared at the smiling faces of the two officers pictured there. She hadn’t been able to get close enough to the warehouse the night before to see the officer’s face, but now that she knew the police were involved, she couldn’t turn herself in.

  She tossed the paper aside and picked up the Daily Drudge, devouring every word of Andi’s article. She swiped at a tear as she read it. Andi understood her, what she was doing, and why. There was no plea at the end for her to turn herself in, which meant Andi also knew she couldn’t trust the cops. Now that she was suspected as a cop killer, her days were numbered. If the men looking for her didn’t kill her, the cops would.

  Tracy folded the paper and stuck it in the backpack she’d purchased that morning. Pulling out the notepad and pen she’d also purchased, she wrote a quick note and sealed it in an envelope. She’d wait until dark and drop it on the altar at the church. It was time to move.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Come in, Stuart.” Jasmine knew she was breaking protocol, but if she didn’t at least warn Stuart, she would never forgive herself. His profession disgusted her, but the world would never completely wipe out prostitution and the exploitation of women. Within that world, Gambini was at least tolerable. For the most part, h
e took care of the women who worked for him. He protected them.

  “What happened to your face?” Stuart kicked off his shoes as he entered the apartment. “Tell me who did it, and I’ll make sure they don’t ever hit another woman.”

  “I think you’d better sit down, Stuart.”

  He stared at the white leather chair then sat on the edge and sighed. “No offense, honey, but all this white gives me the creeps.”

  “Did you read the morning paper?”

  “Carter’s drivel, or the two cops?”

  “You don’t believe her?” She crossed the room and began to water her plants. “She must have gotten the information from someone. You said it yourself. She’s talking to the girl.”

  “I’m sure there’s some truth to it, but why would somebody kill twelve girls? It doesn’t make sense.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something this group of men didn’t want seen. Or they overhead something that they didn’t want repeated.”

  “So you think the cop she killed was in on it?”

  Jasmine took a seat on the couch and crossed her legs. “She didn’t kill the cop. I saw the woman who did.” She pointed to her jaw. “She gave me this, with a warning that if she saw me again, I wouldn’t be so lucky.” She waited until she had his full attention. “And she’s been following you.”

  Stuart finally leaned back in the seat, his face a mass of confusion. “Why the hell would she be following me?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know she’s a very dangerous woman, and you should be careful.”

  He grunted. “I’m sure I’ve come up against worse than her.”

  Jasmine shook her head. “Trust me, you haven’t. She’s an assassin, and she’s here on a job.”

  His eyebrows rose. “And just how would you know that?”

  “I spent some time in Afghanistan two years ago. I’ve seen her work.”