Kill Me Once (15 page)

He’d been following Dana’s career from a distance and with great interest from the very start. And sometimes from not even all that much of a distance at all. Hell, he’d been in the fucking
auditorium
the day she’d received her diploma from the FBI Training Academy following seventeen gruelling weeks of training. Nobody had been happier – or
prouder
– than Nathan when she’d marched across the stage that day and into her new life as a full-fledged agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

She’d stumbled a few times early on in her career, of course, like they all did, but her move to Cleveland had clearly done her a world of good. She’d finally left the safety of the nest in Quantico and spread her wings to fly on her own, which meant she was ready to take him on as an equal.

Again, about fucking time. After all, if this wasn’t to be a fair fight, what the hell use was there in even having a fight at all? He could easily have snapped her neck or gutted her like a fish any time he’d wanted to over the years, of course – the ultimate goal when everything was said and done – but now he was extremely thankful he’d waited. It would only make the final
coup de grâce
all that much more delicious.

Nathan lit up a menthol cigarette, his second of the day, and snapped the silver Zippo shut before carefully pulling the Porsche out into traffic with the sounds of Ashley Ball playing Lecuona’s ‘Yo Te Quiero Siempre’ filling the car. He took a long, satisfying drag on the cigarette and exhaled the wonderful smoke out through his nostrils in a smooth blue stream. Time to review the material he’d learned during his latest study session.

First there were Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. What a delightfully heartless pair they had been!

The Ken and Barbie of murder were an attractive blond Canadian couple possessed of a sexually driven bloodlust – he a rapist and insatiable sexual sadist, she his more-than-willing partner in crime. All told, Bernardo and Homolka were suspected of forty-three sex attacks and a long string of killings. Their tragic fall from grace could be traced directly to the day she’d cut a deal with their prosecutors as a result of which he’d received a life sentence.

Moral of the story? Never work with a partner.

That wouldn’t be a problem for Nathan. He wasn’t married any more – much to his infinite dismay – and his black heart was quite unavailable for the stealing by any other woman than the one who’d been so cruelly ripped from his life all those years ago.

The second case he’d studied had concerned Anatoly Onoprienko, a Ukrainian serial killer who’d stalked the countryside murdering at random. Nathan had committed the entire
Eastern Economist
newspaper article to memory, an exquisite gift that he’d sharpened to a razor’s edge since childhood. In his mind’s eye, he could actually
see
the words printed on the page:

ONOPRIENKO SENTENCED FOR MURDER SPREE ZHYTOMYR – The Zhytomyr Regional Court on 1 April passed sentence on Anatoly Onoprienko, who murdered 52 people, handing down the expected death sentence. Mr Onoprienko, a 39-year-old former sailor, will remain in solitary confinement at a Zhytomyr prison while President Leonid Kuchma considers his appeal. It is unlikely Mr Onoprienko will face execution in the foreseeable future due to Ukraine’s current moratorium on capital punishment.

Moral of the story? Always live alone – as had been proven when Onoprienko had been turned in by the cousin he’d been living with at the time.

Not a problem for Nathan, either. The settlement from the wrongful-death lawsuit had left him with money to burn, so it wasn’t as though he needed to scrape up the rent money each month. Besides, he’d lived alone since that awful night so many years ago and he was fairly accustomed to it by now.

Was accustomed to it, mind you, but certainly not
happy
about it.

He wiped a tear away from his eye and fought off the sudden feeling of melancholy that he felt settling over him. He stubbed out the cigarette in the Porsche’s ashtray, shifted the sports car into fourth gear and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The Porsche’s engine purred like a satisfied tiger underneath the hood.

Nathan shook his head. What the hell was there to be sad about, anyway? He was already better than these other killers and he knew it. He was already better than them, and he was only getting better with each passing day. Cold comfort as it was, at least it was
something
.

And maybe a quick little trip to Wichita, Kansas, would help take care of the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dana wheeled an FBI loaner car onto Edison Street in the Pico-Union section of Los Angeles twenty minutes later and pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road. She switched off the ignition and turned in her seat to face Brown.

‘Sit tight for a minute, OK?’ she said. ‘I think I should probably handle this one on my own.’

Brown glanced out the window at the decrepit neighbourhood. ‘Not a good idea, Dana. You got called out by name, you know you’re not supposed to do any investigating outside the office by yourself.’

Dana detected a note of genuine concern for her in his voice and found she appreciated it. It felt good to have someone looking out for her. She liked him – in fact, if she let herself go there she’d have to admit she liked him a lot – and she got the feeling it was mutual.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘but she might open up to me more if I go alone.’

Brown looked as if he wasn’t going to let it go, then shrugged. ‘How about a compromise? I’ll go with you but I promise I’ll keep in the background – a bodyguard sort of thing.’ Then, to lighten the mood, he added, ‘And you’re right. You might be able to strike up a womanly bond with her. Genetically speaking, that’s something I’ve never been especially good at.’

Dana laughed. She knew his easygoing manner belied a steely resolve when he needed it. She enjoyed working with him. ‘Good point,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

They climbed out of the car and Dana took a look around. Pico-Union was a dull, grey place – the part of town they never glamorised in the movies and one that felt even more forlorn and forgotten when you saw the massive piles of uncollected garbage rotting away on every street corner.

Not only was the woman they’d come to see today one whom the copycat killer had approached outside Mary Ellen Orton’s apartment on the night of her vicious murder, Luz Moreno also happened to be a member of
Mara Salvatrucha
– MS-13 – one of the deadliest street gangs in the world.

It had been started in Los Angeles by Salvadorean immigrants tired of being pushed around by the more entrenched Mexican gangs.
Mara
literally meant ‘gang’ in Spanish. As for
Salvatrucha
, there was some debate about that. Some said it meant ‘Salvadorean army ants’ while others maintained it referred to the group of Salvadorean peasant guerrillas who’d made up most of the gang’s initial membership in the early 1980s. The ‘13’ was generally considered a tip of the cap to another ruthless LA street gang,
El Emes
, or ‘the Ms’ – the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. Whatever translation you chose to use, however, it usually meant only one thing to those who dared to cross them.

Muerte
. Death.

Dana glanced at Brown, who nodded, and then she walked toward the street corner where Luz Moreno had told Brown she’d be when they’d talked over the phone an hour earlier. Four or five of Moreno’s heavily tattooed fellow gang members stood on alert sentry duty just out of earshot thirty feet away.

Moreno was shorter even than Dana, maybe five-three. Maybe nineteen. Definitely gorgeous. A distinctly Latina face was framed by full, thick hair piled up high on top of her head above a pair of enormous silver hoop earrings. Chocolate-brown eyes gleamed over a broad, flat nose pierced with a tiny diamond. She was wearing a pair of tight black jeans, unlaced Timberlands and an Enyce coat five times too big for her petite frame.

Dana shifted her gaze to the ornate script tattoo on Moreno’s neck.
Orgullo Salvadoreno
. Salvadorean Pride.

‘You from El Salvador?’

Moreno didn’t answer, just as she didn’t bother responding to Dana’s outstretched hand.

‘OK, then – I guess we’ll just skip that part.’

Over the past couple of days the Indian summer had shattered like a fumbled dinner plate, dropping the temperature to a chilly if more seasonable sixty degrees, so Moreno shuffled her booted feet against the pavement and shoved her hands deep into her puffy coat pockets against the cold. ‘What the hell do you want, lady? It’s fuckin’
freezin’
out here and I ain’t got all goddamn day. The wrong homies see me talkin’ to you and I end up like Brenda Paz. No fuckin’ thank you.’

Dana searched her memory until she remembered the name. Brenda Paz was the MS-13 member who’d been found murdered along the banks of the Shenandoah River in northern Virginia in the summer of 2003 – the victim of her fellow gang bangers, who’d taken exception to the fact she’d been sharing information about
Mara Salvatrucha
with the feds.

Brenda Paz had been all of seventeen years old at the time of her brutal murder, just a couple of years younger than Luz Moreno. Brenda Paz had been stabbed more than a dozen times. Brenda Paz had also been four months pregnant.

Blood in, blood out. You live for your mother, you live for your God, you die for your gang
.

Dana pulled her collar up against the cold wind that was sweeping the street like an icy broom and fought off a sudden shiver. She couldn’t remember Los Angeles ever being
this
cold before, even at this time of year.

‘I need you to tell me what you remember about the man you saw in South Central that night, Luz,’ she said. ‘Anything. Everything. Start at the beginning.’

Moreno screwed her pretty face up in irritation. ‘Goddamn it, lady, you gonna get me killed over some stupid shit like that? I already told them fuckers everything I know. Already helped them make their stupid little drawing. Read the fuckin’ police report, why don’t you?’

Dana stared at her evenly. ‘I did, Luz. Now like I said, start at the beginning.’

The young Latina tried holding Dana’s blazing stare for a moment, but quickly realised it was a battle she was going to lose. Crawford Bell wasn’t the only one in the FBI who could stare somebody down.

Sighing, Moreno shook her head and said, ‘OK, here’s how it goes – and this is the last goddamn time I want to say it. I was visiting a friend of mine over there when I heard the sirens going off. I went outside to see what the fuck was up and that’s when the creepy motherfucker bowed up on me. He stood there until I saw the blood all over him and I screamed. Then he hauled his ass the fuck outta there. There ain’t nothin’ else to tell, lady. That’s the whole goddamn story.’

‘What do you mean, he “bowed up” on you?’

Moreno shook her head, an action Dana took as disgust for her ignorance of street slang. ‘I mean the motherfucker raised up on me and tried to stare me down, that’s what the fuck I mean. Got all up in my face.’

‘Did he say anything to you? Anything at all?’

Moreno considered the question for a moment before snapping her gum and stealing a quick peek over her shoulder at the esses. ‘Nah,’ she said finally. ‘He just stood there looking down at me all crazy and shit. It was definitely fucked up, though.’

‘How do you mean?’

Moreno eyed Dana for another long moment before sweeping her head around to check the position of her homeboys again. They hadn’t moved, but neither had they taken their eyes off them. The natives were definitely starting to get restless. It was good to know Brown was watching
her
back, Dana thought.

Moreno leaned in close – close enough for Dana to catch an unmistakable whiff of Tommy Girl floating on the air. ‘He didn’t
say
nothin’, but it was almost like he was waiting on me to say something to him, you know what I mean?’

The young Latina shook her head, sending her huge silver earrings swaying back and forth. ‘All I know is it was royally fucked up and I hope to God I never see his creepy ass again. And that’s the truth.’

Dana nodded. She knew the feeling. ‘Anything else you remember from that night, Luz? Anything at all?’

For once, Moreno didn’t hesitate with her answer. ‘His eyes,’ she said quickly. ‘I remember his eyes.’

‘What about them?’

The girl’s lower lip began to tremble, and for the first time Dana could see that she was just a frightened little child underneath all her tough bluster. Dana didn’t blame her in the least. It was a rough world that Luz Moreno had to live in.

‘Los ojos de Diablo
,’ she whispered.

‘Translation?’

‘It means his eyes were all fucked up, bitch. It means he had the eyes of Satan.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dana brushed her way past the pack of underage, wannabe gang bangers walking down the sidewalk in their matching uniforms of FUBU clothes and returned to the loaner car. FUBU stood for ‘For Us, By Us,’ which meant that whites weren’t welcome to participate. Judging by the hostile glares she received from the aggressive-looking group of young black and Latino boys, she figured that was pretty much the motto for the entire neighbourhood.

Wordlessly, she and Brown got in the car and Dana hit the power door-locks before pulling on her seat belt and cranking the engine to life. Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ came on over the stereo.

‘Nice song,’ Brown said. ‘Pretty damn appropriate, considering the circumstances.’

‘How much you figure real estate goes for around here? I’m thinking a nice little place for the summers,’ Dana said, keeping things light and trying to keep her frustration and fear in check. Mainly frustration. Moreno hadn’t told her anything new.

Brown rolled his eyes at her. ‘Let’s just take our fast car and get the hell out of here. I’m moving. This place gives me the creeps.’ He turned serious then. ‘So what did Luz Moreno have to say? Looked like things were getting serious there for a moment.’