The wheels bumped against the tarmac and he braced himself as the pilot applied the brakes. They had a small layover at the Denver International Airport before the next leg of the trip to Indianapolis. He’d considered staying a few extra days in Hawaii if Olivia had made the trip. His dream woman, paradise, what more could a man want? But when she had to cancel her trip, he headed for the airport with the rest of the group for the return home on Monday evening.
As soon as the plane engines powered down, he grabbed his bag from under the seat and stood, trying to loosen his muscles. Most of the COBRA Securities agents were flying first class, which was a good thing. He could barely fit into a regular seat. As soon as they filed off the plane, Luke Colton came striding over.
“Change of plans, Mylonas. Logan just called. I have an assignment for you.”
“Great.” The best way to get over the disappointment of crushed expectations was to throw himself into his work. “What’s the case?”
“I need you to head to New York and you need to hustle. Your flight leaves in ten. You’re going to be keeping an eye on a television reporter.”
Alex’s heart stopped. New York…television reporter…it couldn’t be. “What’s the reporter’s name?” he croaked.
“Olivia Larrson.”
Chapter Eight
“This has been the evening news on NYC-TV3. For Kip Prescott, this is Olivia Larrson. Good night New York and thanks for watching.”
“That’s a wrap,” Jonah called out through her earpiece. The camera lights clicked off and she relaxed against her chair. Once again, they’d played the tape just as the Vigilante instructed. Now it was a waiting game. She had no doubt they would find Donald Rose’s body along with his stepson.
After they played Rose’s confession, she followed up with a report on the first victim, Anthony Purdy. The coroner ruled the preliminary cause of death as cardiac arrest, but until toxicology tests came back, they didn’t know if it was from natural causes or induced. Seeing as how he’d been kidnapped and forced to confess, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that it had been induced.
“Next time, I get to announce the Vigilante video,” Kip insisted, sounding very much like a petulant child. Kip was movie-star handsome and he looked good on camera, but the man was definitely depriving some village of their idiot. She’d hadn’t been shocked when he was hired to replace Ernie, just disappointed. Kip’s dad owned the station. Nepotism at its finest.
“Give it up, Prescott,” Jonah muttered as he came to stand in front of them. There was no love lost between the two men. Jonah knew Kip wasn’t qualified for the position but there was nothing he could do about it. Kip was just plain stupid.
“Also, I think it’s time for me to do the sign-off. I talked to my fath—er, the owner and he agreed with me.”
“Tell you what…we’ll put a pin in that and discuss it later,” Jonah said. “Much later…like never,” he muttered under his breath and Olivia smiled.
Kip looked perplexed. “How do we put a pin in it?”
Jonah rolled his eyes and Olivia had to turn her head to hide a chuckle. She gathered her iPad and phone and stood. She was wondering how the Vigilante would contact her tonight when her cell signaled an incoming text from an unknown caller. She made eye-contact with Jonah and indicated the cell. He understood instantly. He motioned for her to follow him and they left to notify Detectives Benson and Kramer. She opened the text and read the message. No note, just another address and instructions. After Susannah pulled the location up on her GPS, they determined it was a retention pond in an industrial park in the Meatpacking District. At least it wasn’t too far from her apartment so she would hopefully get home before midnight.
Benson radioed in the information and called for a dive team to meet them at the site. Roddy and Phil were on standby so the van was already loaded and ready to roll. They piled in and Roddy fired the engine, trying his best to keep pace with the detectives. When Benson blew through a yellow light with the red and blue LED visor lights flashing on their unmarked car, Roddy slammed the brakes and banged the steering wheel with a harsh curse. “Would it be so bad to give us an escort?”
“Think about it,” Jonah said. “If the public saw us chasing the cops, they’d put two and two together and realize it was a big story. They might follow and then it would just turn into a big circus.”
“Still,” Roddy grumbled.
They made it to the pond ahead of the dive team so Phil and Roddy grabbed cameras and shot B-roll footage of the area. Someone called out and the cops headed in that direction.
“Looks like they found Rose,” Jonah said. “I’ll get the scoop.” He took off but was stopped by a uniformed policeman. He tried to talk his way in but the cop wasn’t budging. He stomped back over and leaned against the van next to Olivia. “If the Vigilante keeps to the script so far, which is apparently two days apart, you should receive another video tomorrow.”
Olivia shivered, not knowing how the video would arrive.
“I’m glad I made that call,” Jonah muttered cryptically.
“What call?”
Before he could answer, Susannah arrived to fill them in on the discovery of Rose’s body. His next of kin was being notified. The dive team arrived and was in the process of gearing up to search the pond. Olivia checked her watch. It was going to be a long night.
#
“Man, did you see that? That vigilante dude struck again.” Ray Smith slapped Trent Charles in the shoulder.
“Hey,” Trent complained, rubbing the spot. “So?”
“So? What do you mean so?” Ray started to slap Trent again but his hand froze midair at the murderous look Trent shot him. Ray lowered his arm. “We could be next.”
Trent scoffed. “You’re jacked. How could we possibly be next? Those two losers were tried in a court of law and found innocent. We were never arrested for a crime.”
“All but,” Ray scoffed. “The way Laurie’s family cries to the media, you’d think we were the sons of Sam or something.”
Trent rolled his eyes. “Funny.”
Ray flipped through the channels on their seventy-five-inch flat screen television mounted on the wall above the fireplace. The apartment they shared on West Fifty-Seventh Street overlooked Central Park and cost well into the millions. Technically the apartment belonged to Ray’s parents, but they’d given it to their son to use. Trent’s trust fund rivaled Ray’s, so he could afford his own place, but they’d been roommates in college, so they just continued the arrangement once they graduated a few months ago.
“What the hell?” Ray stopped on a news channel and upped the volume. It was a live feed of Laurie’s father holding a press conference, naming Ray and Trent as the people who murdered his daughter.
“He’s at this again? He needs to give it up already.” Trent shook his head. “We’ll call our lawyers in the morning. That’s slander or something.”
“Don’t you get it? What if the Vigilante sees this and comes after us?”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“We aren’t even considered suspects by the police, just some wigged-out, grieving father.”
“Yeah, but he goes around crying to anyone that will listen that we’re guilty.”
“Newsflash dumbass, we are. You gave her coke from your personal stash and then challenged her to a drink-off, providing the alcohol. I may not be a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s some degree of murder. Plus, we hid her body. That’s desecrating a corpse or something. We’re the only ones who know where she’s buried.”
Ray’s eyes narrowed. “It’s going to stay that way, too. We both vowed to take the information to our graves. If that vigilante guy gets ahold of us, that may be sooner rather than later,” he grumbled.
“So what do you propose we do? Confess. No effing way, amigo. You might not have meant to kill her, but she’s still dead. I’m an accomplice. Prison, dude. Not happening.”
“We confess nothing. That vow sticks,” Ray insisted.
“So what, we put a cap in her old man’s ass so he can’t point a finger?”
“Hell, no. He has armed bodyguards. I’ve seen them. They wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger if we tried to get close.” A wicked gleam entered Ray’s eyes and he shook his head slowly. “The Vigilante gets his message across through that blonde reporter babe. I say we off her and poof, we’re safe.”
Ray was clearly delusional. “You’re suggesting we kill the reporter?”
Ray shrugged. “Sure, why not? Apparently I’ve already killed once so it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
What Ray didn’t know was that the drugs and alcohol didn’t kill Laurie…Trent did. He put his hands around her neck and squeezed the life out of her. He knew from an early age that he was different. He discovered by accident that he enjoyed torturing animals. At first it was small things…cutting tails off squirrels or using a slingshot to pick birds out of trees. He got away with it for years, the torture evolving into more macabre acts. Then he made the mistake of grabbing his little sister’s cat. The damn thing rubbed up against him and covered him in hair. He’d swung his foot back and punted the mangy yellow tabby like she was a Wilson football headed for the goal posts. He knew he should’ve felt remorse when it slammed into a tree, breaking its neck on impact, but he’d actually felt…elation. A high unmatched even by the best line of coke. The rush was euphoric.
He had enough empathy to know it was wrong, so he worked damn hard to tamp down the urges and succeeded…until the night Laurie was standing in front of him, hammered and begging for sex. Ray drank so much that night, he passed out. Laurie was flying high and she stripped off her shirt to entice him. At first, when he wrapped his hands around her throat, she’d been into it. Then panic set in and she tried to knock his hands away, but those dark urges that he fought off came roaring back. Before he realized it, he was squeezing. He increased the pressure until blood vessels popped in her eyes and her skin turned blue. The rush that came with her last breath was stronger than any orgasm he’d ever experienced. When Ray came to, Trent told him she accidently overdosed and they had to get rid of the body.
As he was ending Laurie’s life, he never considered her family or what they might do when their daughter disappeared. At first, they thought she’d been abducted and search parties scoured the city. But as days turned into weeks with no leads, he and Ray became the main focus of the investigation. He had no doubt Ray would keep the story. He thought he killed her. Little did he know what really happened.
The thought of killing the reporter sent a shot of excitement coursing through his veins. She was small and blonde with blue eyes—just like Laurie.
“Since I got us into this mess, I’ll take the first shot,” Ray said. “I’ve been big game hunting with my dad in Africa. Couldn’t be much different shooting a woman than a lion, right? We need to find out where she lives.”
The good thing about having more money than Bill Gates was the ability to get anything you needed at any time, day or night. “Piece of cake,” Trent said, pulling out his iPhone.
#
A half an hour after Luke’s bombshell assignment, Alex was buckled into a first-class seat headed for the Big Apple. His luggage, however, was winging away in another plane bound for Indiana. Sawyer promised to pick it up for him. Because he didn’t completely trust the airlines not to lose his bags, he had a few clothes and toiletries packed with his computer in a carry on, but he’d need to hit up a department store. No telling how long this assignment would last and he’d be out of clean underwear in a couple of days.
His heartbeat was racing, and it wasn’t from the jet careening down the runway for take-off. He would be seeing Olivia in a few short hours. There were other agents Luke could’ve appointed to this case, some with bodyguard experience. His expertise was in all facets of law and order. Along with guarding Olivia, he’d work on finding out who was sending the videos, therefore unmasking the Vigilante and keeping her out of danger.
Did Olivia know he was coming? Luke said her producer called and requested protection. Jonah Wyles had met Kendall, Olivia’s former roommate, and knew she was marrying a COBRA Securities agent. He’d heard about the agency and trusted them to watch over Olivia. That was a good call. He’d give up his life to protect her. Wyles stressed that there had been no particular threats against Olivia, but the Vigilante had access to her unlisted home address, her personal cell phone and her schedule. That a killer could sneak that close to her made his heart pound harder. He needed to get to her as soon as possible.
He tried to sleep during the flight but was too keyed up. The Vigilante had to be someone Olivia knew, maybe someone close to her. Even if the man or woman wasn’t a threat to her personally, Alex didn’t want her that near to evil. Right or wrong, this person was committing murder. Some would argue that the Vigilante was doing the world a favor by exposing criminals and bringing justice to the victims and their families. Alex didn’t feel that way. He believed in the judicial system, even if it didn’t always get it right.
As soon as the plane landed, he gathered his bag and checked his messages. He had a video email from Luke. He waited until he disembarked and moved out of the flow of people to watch. It was a clip of Olivia’s earlier report announcing the second message from the Vigilante.
He stowed his phone and headed outside to hail a cab. Until he had the lay of the land, he didn’t want to rent a car. Between the subway, busses and cabs, transportation around New York City shouldn’t be a problem.
“Mr. Mylonas?”
He turned at the summons to see a man striding towards him carrying a small black case. “Yes?”
“This is for you, from BeBe.”
BeBe was Bethany Beulah Davis, COBRA Securities office manager extraordinaire. She’d taken over when Maggie McQueen, now Maggie Addison, had transitioned into a field agent. BeBe was organized, efficient and, pun intended, hell on wheels. She’d been struck by a car while on her bicycle, shattering her C5 vertebra and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. She didn’t let the fact that she was in a wheelchair slow her down. She was the glue that held the office together and they would be lost without her.
Alex accepted the case, thanked the man and twisted the key already in the lock. Inside was a replica of his 9 mm Sig Sauer P226 Nitron with three extra fifteen round magazines. Damn. BeBe was one amazing woman. Not only did she outfit him with his preferred weapon of choice since his luggage hadn’t made the trip, but she managed to find someone to deliver the gun to him. Alex looked up. “How did you—” He glanced around. The man was gone.
Feeling more in control now that he was armed, Alex strode to the taxi stand and waited for an available cab. As soon as he slid inside, he gave the driver Olivia’s address in Chelsea. He had flashbacks of his life in Chicago as the cab lurched and lunged through traffic. Pedestrians were everywhere, enjoying the sights of the city. The taxi pulled up to the building and he paid the fare. After checking the numbers to be sure he had the right address, he approached the door. It was locked, but there was a button next to an intercom system. It looked like he’d be waiting for Olivia on the sidewalk.
Static crackled and then a voice asked, “Can I help you, Sir?”
“Uh, yeah.” Alex reached for his ID and held it up. “I’m an agent with COBRA Securities, here for Olivia Larrson.”
A buzzer sounded and the lock released. Alex gripped the handle and entered the building. Even though it was pushing midnight, an older African-American man struggled to his feet behind a desk. “You’re here for Ms. Larrson?” Alex nodded and handed over his ID to verify his identity. “Is she okay? I usually wait for her to come home before I leave but she hasn’t returned yet. She always lets me know when she’s going to be late.” A look of chagrin flashed across the man’s face. “Wait a minute.” He picked up a cell phone from the counter and checked the screen. He nodded. “She texted me to say she was working
late, not to wait up for her.” He shook his head and smiled. “I can’t get used to this thing. Ms. Larrson bought this for me.” He held up the phone. “I told her I had no use for a cell. I hardly leave the building and my wife is just down the hall. I have a landline.” He chuckled. “What need do I have to text?” He shrugged. “My son had been hounding me to get a phone for years. He wanted to pay Ms. Larrson back but she won’t let him.”
Alex wasn’t surprised. Olivia was kind and thoughtful. And sweet and so damn beautiful she took his breath away. She was almost too good to be true and definitely too good for him.
The man stowed the phone on the counter. He looked tired and his hand shook. Alex’s protective instincts kicked in. “You said you live here in the building, Mr. Marshall?” He read the name on the man’s uniform.
He nodded. “Carl, please.”
“Since we know Olivia will be late, why don’t I walk you to your apartment and I’ll tell you why I’m here.”
Carl gathered his phone and a thermos and turned off the small television behind the desk. “You’re a security agent? Is Ms. Larrson in danger?”
“Not necessarily,” he said, not wanting to worry the man. He waited for Carl to shuffle from behind the counter and then fell into step beside him. “You’ve heard of the Vigilante?”
Carl exhaled loudly. “I have. It might not be right to say so, but I hope they never catch him. He’s doing the world a justice taking scum off the streets.”
Alex didn’t argue with Carl, but murder was murder. So in that sense, what the Vigilante was doing was just as bad as the guilty people he exposed. “Whomever the Vigilante is, he knows Ms. Larrson’s personal information and her schedule. Her bosses don’t want to take any chances.” Him either. If there was the slightest possibility Olivia was in danger, he would protect her, with his life if necessary.
Vigilante Page 5
