by Fiona Quinn
“You’ve been feeding poor Laura a bunch of hooey.”
“I told her what needed to be told,” Frith said.
“You didn’t tell her about all of the women you’ve killed.”
“I’ve never actually killed a woman. Why get their Jezebel blood on my hands?”
“It really does seem too much of a coincidence that you and Laura are friends.” Stall. Stall. How many minutes had passed? How far were my teammates?
“Coincidence? No. One of your problems, Lexi, is that you think you have all the brains. You think you are smarter than anyone else is. In the end, it’s your conceit, your arrogance and vanity, that creates your Achilles’ heel. You never saw me coming. You never saw me pull the strings on my puppet.”
“You’re calling Laura your puppet?” I gestured over to where she stood, wide eyed and still as a statue.
Wilson. I needed Deep to record Frith explaining his role with Wilson, so no matter my outcome, they could still indict Frith.
“One of many,” Frith smiled coldly.
“How did you find her?” Come on, Jack. Get here. Frith was looking very relaxed. I wouldn’t be talking him out of anything.
“It wasn’t all that hard. Iniquus would have wanted their baby girl close. They would have wanted the best for you. I Googled. Laura’s reputed to be one of the best physical therapists within in a two-hour drive of DC. Hats off to you, Laura.” Frith’s eyes slid momentarily in her direction. She responded with a high pitched giggle. Verge of hysteria. Why didn’t she back into the building and call someone with real arrest authority? Go, Laura. I egged her on with my mind.
“Dedicated, too. She was in the chat rooms and doing research on how she could best support your recovery. Omega has some impressive computer programs. I tapped in my search parameters, and away it went, coughing up possibilities. Who was looking up emaciation and head trauma at the same time? Oh, it was Laura. No. Not hard at all to find and follow her. It was entertaining. I got to screw your therapist. I was banging her from behind, thinking about my gun going bang and killing you. My imagination spattered your brains and blood all over the walls and sheets. Very sexy. I came like a wild man.”
The sun popped out from behind a cloud and glinted in Frith’s eye. He moved into the shadow of the building. “I found your little get-away. Sad that Omega handed me their idiot team to capture you. Just couldn’t convince them that in your condition you’d be a problem. Tidied some jackasses from their duty roster. I’m sure they want to thank you personally for clearing away the debris. Ah, but still it would have been a thing of beauty to see your blood coloring the bay water, darkening that glittering white sand. Not dead, mind you – you still have a purpose to serve. But a heartbeat away would have been nice. I could almost write a poem about it”
Disgust replaced my blood and thrummed through my veins.
Deep’s whisper wafted up from my T-shirt, “Three minutes out, stall, keep him talking.” I narrowed my eyes and recited:
“Now, at your last gasp of love’s last breath,
When your pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by your bed of death…”
“You memorized my little rhyme.” Frith offered up a sardonic smile. He was enjoying this way too much.
“It’s etched on my brain. Like your scars are etched on my body.”
“I didn’t do that. Wilson did.”
“And Wilson was you. You trained him. You gave him the women’s names. You wrote the poems. You set the kill dates.”
“I particularly enjoyed working on that last poem, Lexi, knowing what would follow. Oh, I wish I had been there,” he chuckled. “Wilson said you screamed like a banshee. Did you enjoy it? Did you like the pain, Lexi?” Frith licked his lips. “I bet it made you hot. Did it turn you on? Make you wish that Wilson would fuck you? All taped up. The little victim. Isn’t that every whore’s fantasy?” Frith stretched his mouth into a sneer. His face transformed into something hideous and satanic. I could almost smell the sulfur.
“I won that one, Frith. I’m alive, and Wilson is dead.”
“No. I won that one, Lexi. Wilson was killed. He needed to be. I couldn’t leave him walking around. He knew too much. My hands look clean. Not a drop of blood is visible on them.”
“I can prove otherwise. I have evidence of you at my apartment fire. Was it you who struck the match? Or Wilson?”
“That was actually a lot of fun, and so easily done. We went into your neighbor Tommy’s apartment. He was a dependable drunk, wasn’t he?” Frith leaned nonchalantly against the brick wall, acting as if this were a friendly conversation between colleagues at the end of the day. He even had the audacity to cross his ankles. “I turned the gas on the stove up to high and laid a flammable debris trail back to the bedroom. Poured a bottle of Jack Daniels on the bed next to a box of cigarettes. Wilson and I slapped Tommy to consciousness and got him to our car. I went to the other side of the building, pulled the fire alarms to get everyone out, and then BOOM. It was marvelous.”
“Why did you care if the people got out?”
“I didn’t care about the people, I cared about you. I had to keep you alive for Travis. It wouldn’t be any fun unless you suffered. And, you have been suffering since the fire burned your apartment to ashes. I’ve enjoyed watching your misery.”
“You are not without a drop of blood on your hands. You killed Tom Matsy. You and Wilson duped Matsy into the back of his car; you put him up in a cheap motel, and you gave him the drug overdose. You staged the scene. I saw you going into Matsy’s room on the motel security tape with my own eyes. I saw your car license plate at the fire and the motel. Even if I couldn’t prove anything else, you’d still spend the rest of your life in prison for his murder. Ex-FBI don’t fare well in our penal system.”
“FBI?” Laura asked. “I thought you were Homeland Security.”
Frith ignored her. “You’re a clever girl to figure that out, though it won’t matter in the end. I have a nice little nest egg sitting offshore. A pretty little pleasure palace on a beach far, far away. And a new identity. I have one more little errand to do: I need you dead, and then I’m out of here and onto my life of luxury.”
I thought probably at that point I should have been afraid. I wasn’t. I was many things, nauseated, revolted, infuriated, but no, not afraid. I had a feeling that when this was over, I’d turn to a pool of jelly. Thank god for Master Wang’s training in mental sparring.
“Congratulations.” My voice was dry and sarcastic.
Frith gave a slight bow. “Thank you.”
“My team will never let up. There will be plenty of money to go after you, too. With you manipulating Wilson, you’ve racked up seven murders: Matsy, plus six from the different agencies, and two attempts on me.”
“Yes, attempted murders, up until now that is,” Frith said.
“There were others. Since I’m going to die anyway, at least satisfy my curiosity. Why does the Assembly want me out of the picture?”
“You think the Assembly cares about you? Tsk, tsk, tsk. There’s that vanity again. You really are tremendously egotistical. Omega, on the other hand, would like you badly. They are none too pleased that their men died when you did not. And, the operation cost is dripping red on their ledgers until they hand you in. I don’t plan on letting them get to you, though. There is a sizable bounty on your head. You lost me my windfall once, and now I get to earn it back in spades. You are going to be quite the cash cow once you’re lying in the morgue. I know they said ‘treat with kid-gloves’, but beggars can’t be choosers and accidents happen. So, I will bypass the Omega assholes and claim the money for myself. Then I will drink a toast to your memory with my evening margaritas on the beach at my new home. Maybe even invent a new drink, a shot – that would be ironic, the Bloody Lynx.” He looked pleased with himself.
My mind scanned for anything that made sense from this new puzzle piece. “What do you mean that I lost your w
indfall?”
“You are so stupid, Lexi. You puzzled out the drug case and called in the information to save my life.”
“You aren’t showing a lot of gratitude.”
“Gratitude? You ruined everything. I was set to pick up a stockpile of gold. Untraceable! A million dollars’ worth! The explosion that you pre-empted wasn’t going to kill me, it was going to be my cover. Everyone would think I was dead. No one would be looking for me. I’d leave just enough gold behind so that they would find the traces and think it had melted away. I would leave safe and rich. See how lovely? See what an idiot you are? Save my life? You moron, you ruined my life!”
“So you decided to take your revenge on me. That explains me. What about the other women? You had some of them killed before I ruined your plans.”
“There were plenty of people before you came into the picture that needed to be taught a lesson about arrogance. Practicing on the first six gave Wilson time to perfect his skills.”
I had tried counting down the seconds in my head until help arrived. I had passed the mark when I should hear tire squeals fifty-Mississippi ago. My internal clock and reality did not jive, but surely any second now. . . “You went to the meeting, you listened to Wilson talk, and you realized that you could use him as a tool. So you created a modus, developed Wilson, and then you set him loose.”
“I couldn’t set that idiot loose; he would have botched everything. I had to control his every move. It wasn’t as easy as I made it look. It was satisfying, though.”
“I happened to be last.”
“You know, Lexi, you are not the dog that I was chasing. You were merely the tick on the dog that I am taking pleasure in crushing between my fingernails.”
“Spyder McGraw.” Anger bubbled to the surface of my skin. I wasn’t sure I could mask it and maintain my look of indifference. I didn’t want my emotions to bring Frith more pleasure and goad him along.
“I thought that you were more important to Spyder. I misunderstood your relationship. Watching the two of you together, it was like father and daughter – well, father and son when you were playing your ridiculous charade as Alex-from-the hood. He couldn’t care less about you.”
Uh-oh. Frith had reached in and tweaked a nerve. He was going for psychological warfare.
“One would think that your father-figure would come home and be supportive when your mommy died. Or that he would come to help out when his daughter’s apartment blew up, or when a stalker was on her trail. But no.”
“He didn’t come because he didn’t know.”
“He didn’t know because you didn’t get word to him. You could have gone to Iniquus. But in your heart, Lexi, you knew he wouldn’t come because he doesn’t love you. Spyder-daddy played you. He only cared to use you and your brain to line his own pockets and inflate his own reputation. Why else would he keep you secret after you were eighteen? You could have been the Iniquus Puzzler out in the open and gotten your share of the pie. Spyder McGraw is a selfish, self-serving manipulator. I should know. He’s my mirror image.”
“Spyder McGraw is an honorable, wonderful man. He would never use me the way you used Wilson.”
“No? Why are you yelling, Lexi? Feeling defensive? Did I pour vinegar on your wound? Where was Spyder when you were kidnapped? Where was Spyder when you were in a plane crash, and all of Iniquus was on the search?”
“He was ill. He knew nothing about me.”
“No? He doesn’t watch the news? He was well enough to head off grid. But not well enough to care about you. Ah, she wavers. I see you’re trying to justify him in that little pea brain of yours. There’s no rationalization. He is me, and you are his Wilson.”
All I could do was shake my head to reject what he was saying. He was good. This did hurt.
“You set the fire to get Spyder home.” I tried to turn the rhetoric.
“No. I set the fire to get you out of the nest. Too many mama birds for Wilson to be successful. I needed to cull you from the herd, if you will.”
“I survived.” My voice was flat. I had grabbed the reins on my emotions again.
“Not because of your actions, but because of my orders. Travis wasn’t supposed to kill you. He was merely to follow the MO of the other women and hit you in the head, not hard enough to kill you, just hard enough to put you out. Your being the lone survivor of the serial killer, who was slaying the agency daughters and wives, would have Iniquus on you like maggots on shit. I thought surely at that point Spyder-daddy would crawl from his hole and come to the rescue. But no, he still wouldn’t come home. I wished to god that I had any other bait. You were obviously meaningless to him.”
Inspiration flashed like lightning. “You’re The Man.”
Frith looked at me blankly
“You were trying to gather intel about Spyder through Maria Rodriguez.”
“What a waste of time she was.” Frith stood with his hip pressed forward, like he was swilling a drink at a cocktail party, and telling a story about just how blasé life could be.
I decided to throw out the theory that seemed to arrive in my frontal lobe fully formed and ready for this moment. “And, since she was such a waste of time, you went with bigger guns. You hired Omega. You used your affiliation with the Assembly to get Judge Wallace to sign an arrest warrant for me on behalf of the FBI. You had the FBI sign the Omega contract as an agent before you left and joined Omega. Then you waited with the contract in your back pocket until you needed them to rally.”
“See how I’m the most clever of all? The Chess Master.” He grinned.
“Not really. Uneducated Maria outsmarted you. She got to me first. You had to find me. It took you months, but you did. You hired the Latino men to check out the prison in Honduras. How did you know to look there?” That was a part of this equation that was a variable.
“Because Maria was uneducated, her world was very small. Mine is very big. I have friends in interesting places.”
“Like the Assembly?”
“In this case, yes. I was planting evidence for them down in Miami; they needed an enemy removed from an election cycle and living in a jail cell. I met a man named Vega. He and I have a lot in common, it turns out. He, for example, enjoys the sound a human makes when they are in so much pain they think that they will die. It is a very specific cry. It’s wonderful to hear. He gets to hear it all the time in his job. I would like a job like that; they wouldn’t even need to pay me.”
“At the Honduran jail,” I specified.
“Yes, he told me about his jail. He told me about the man who ran things down there, Castillo, and how he used to have his little niece Maria living there with him. After Vega tortured his enemies, he was horny as hell and little Maria was young and soft, ripe for the picking like a sweet mango. Vega had a great time with her. Loved to tie her up and listen to her beg.”
“That’s sickening.” My stomach churned. I had to swallow hard so I wouldn’t throw up.
“Vega said that Maria ran away from him, but he saw her from time to time in Miami. She had married Julio Rodriguez — one of Sylanos’ special few— so Vega couldn’t touch her anymore. Wasn’t that serendipitous, Lexi? Don’t you think the Fates wanted me to find you? All I had to do was figure out where the prison was, somewhere on the east coast of Honduras. Then I could go pay the uncle a few bucks and get you out.”
“Why didn’t you ask Vega to do it for you?”
“Because you used to be beautiful. I couldn’t imagine that Vega could pass you up. He would have fucked you into oblivion, and I wanted you all to myself. Of course, if I knew you had become this,” Frith gestured the length of my body with his gun and sneered, “I would have let him have you. You’re disgusting. I’m going to have to skip the part of my plan where you got to play the role of little Maria. I don’t think I could get it up for you. I’ll go right for the gore.”
I could feel Frith salivating at the thought. I needed to move his attention away from his fantasies and delusion. �
��Well, surprise. I escaped the prison.”
“And almost made it home. Congratulations. It was more than I thought you had in you. Of course, as in everything you do, Lexi, you failed. And I picked you up on the 911 call.”
“Then you handed the contract to Omega, who saw the money dangling out there, and went after it full force. You pretended to be my friend with Iniquus to get information. Only it hasn’t worked out.”
“Yes, Omega is largely ineffectual as I knew they would be. As I needed them to be. I had to intervene a couple of times to keep you alive. Convincing them to use round nosed bullets at the bay house and not shoot you in the head. . .but that wasn’t too difficult.”
My attention slid left to Laura. Until this point, I had forgotten that she was in the picture. Tunnel vision. She had sunk to her knees, hands balled to her gut. By now, she should have slipped away. What the hell was wrong with this woman? Wasn’t she listening? Our lives were on the line here.
Frith never wavered from his masturbatory explanation of his brilliance. “I merely wanted the contract in place so that I could go after the target on your back with impunity. I could serve you up cold and pocket the ransom. And look how well it’s all worked out? You’re here. There are no witnesses. I will hand you over with a hole in your head. Spyder will come to the funeral, and he can join you at the Pearly Gates. The cherry on top. Revenge complete. And you provided me with an alternate income.”
“All you have to do is kill me and hand my body over to the FBI.” Jack? Randy?
“Well, you and Laura. Then it’s off to the warm sands, blue sea, and riches.”
He was winding down – I had to keep him talking. Think. Think. “Some things I don’t get. Why did you call a kill order for T-Bone and Hector? It seems that leaving Maria and Julio alive would have been the perfect cover for you. What about Brody Covington? Are you the one who had him put in the Honduran jail? Why did you jail him instead of taking him out like the others?”
“Puzzling things out to the very end? You need to have all of the pieces fall into place so I can blow you away, and you will rest in peace? Believe it or not, I had nothing at all to do with that. You seem to have an array of enemies. But I was there first – and I’m here last.” Frith raised his gun and aimed at me. It was a kill shot. His hand was steady. I was too close for him to miss. The look on his face was pure pleasure and greed. Options flashed through my head.
