Kill Me Once (32 page)

The baby wailed for her as they left the room, and Sara felt her heart break into a million tiny pieces as she watched her son being taken away from her for ever.

‘I love you, Jeremiah,’ she whispered.

The nun turned around in the doorway and smiled at her. ‘I’m sure he loves you too, honey. But this is God’s will.’

CHAPTER SIXTY

‘Fucking lying bitch!’

Nathan crushed his mother’s shoulders beneath his knees with all his weight and stared hard into her eyes.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. ‘That’s a real touching story, Mom. Really it is. Still, I’m afraid it’s not quite good enough. Time to pay the piper, cunt. But first I think I’ll give you a little taste of what it was like for
me
growing up. How does that sound?’

Roughly, he flipped Sara onto her stomach and yanked her satin panties down around her knees. He slapped her hard on her bare buttocks, a stinging blow that turned her backside red.

‘“For this you know – no fornicator, unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God!” Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 5.’

He slapped her again, harder this time.

‘“Let the people turn from their wicked deeds! Let them banish from their minds the very thought of doing wrong! Let them turn to the Lord that He may have mercy on them! Yes, turn to our God, for He will abundantly pardon!” Book of Isaiah, chapter 55, verse 7.’

Nathan flipped Sara back over and pinned her shoulders beneath his knees again. He ran the knife lightly over her throat, leaving a superficial but very painful cut in its wake. He moaned softly. Even in the darkness, he could just make out the beautiful contrast between the bright red blood and the pale white skin of her throat.

Just then, her panicked blue eyes suddenly widened in horror at the sight of something over his left shoulder. Turning around, Nathan followed his mother’s gaze to the doorway and saw his little sister standing there in her pyjamas. She was holding a teddy bear in one tiny hand and shifting from one foot to the other as though she had to go to the bathroom.

‘Mommy, what’s happening?’ the third mouse asked, her small voice quiet and shy. ‘You’re scaring me. Who’s that man on top of you? Where’s my daddy?’

When their gazes locked for the first time in their lives, Nathan’s little sister froze in his stare. He never took his eyes off her as he whipped the sharp blade across Sara Whitestone’s slender neck again, this time cutting all the way to the bone.

Jolted out of her stupor, the little girl screamed so loudly that it nearly drowned out the watery gurgling sounds their mother was making as she choked to death on her own blood.

Nathan sprang off the bed and went after her. Her enormous blue eyes widened in terror as he yanked the sharp knife over his head. Wet droplets of their mother’s blood slid down the blade and plopped onto her tiny upturned face.

That was when the front door slammed open with a violent bang.

‘Sara? James? What the hell’s going on in here? It’s Ralph Wilson from next door. Nancy and I heard screaming and called the police. Is everything all right?’

Fear and anger seizing his heart, Nathan bolted past the now-catatonic little girl. From the corner of his eye, he saw a dark circle of urine slowly spread across the front of her pyjama bottoms.

His heart pounded madly in his throat as he dashed into her bedroom and pulled himself up through the open window. Tears of absolute
rage
spilled from his dark brown eyes as he darted quickly across the yard and disappeared into the darkness. He’d been scared, and he’d fucked up.

He had left his little sister alive.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Liquorice. She’d smelled liquorice on his breath
.

The man with the sharp knife was standing over her bed again when the jarring ring of the hotel telephone jolted Dana awake less than an hour later.

She fumbled for it in the darkness, nearly dropping the receiver in the process.

‘Hello?’ she mumbled groggily.

The voice on the other end of the line was intense and unmistakable. ‘Dana, it’s Crawford. I need you to meet me in Cleveland right away. Jeremy Brown’s already here. There’s a charter waiting for you at O’Hare. You need to be on it.’

Dana shook the sleep violently from her brain. Crawford. What was he calling her for? ‘What’s going on, Crawford?’

She heard him blow out a slow breath. ‘The killer has made contact, Dana. He’s made contact and he’s killed again.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Nathan clicked on www.ariseandshine.org and frowned.

When he’d interviewed David Berkowitz – the notorious Son of Sam – in the early 1980s while doing research for one of his books, the man had still been an unrepentant whack-job mumbling about ‘Father Sam’, a neighbour whose barking dog Berkowitz claimed had demanded that he should kill young women all around New York City. Now he was just another fucking idiot who’d found Jesus Christ.

The website of the notorious serial killer featured a photograph on the home page that showed a smiling face topped off by neatly trimmed fringes of salt-and-pepper hair. Soft-looking hands were clasped in front of his body in a non-threatening manner. Worst of all, he was now calling himself ‘The Son of Hope’.

Nathan rolled his eyes and navigated the cursor over a link titled ‘David’s Apology’:

As I have communicated many times throughout the years, I am deeply sorry for the pain, suffering and sorrow I have brought upon the victims of my crimes. I grieve for those who are wounded, and for the family members of those who lost a loved one because of my selfish actions. I regret what I’ve done and I’m haunted by it
.

Not a day goes by when I do not think about the suffering I have brought to so many. Likewise I cannot even comprehend all the grief and pain that they live with now. And these individuals have every right to be angry with me, too
.

Nevertheless, I apologise for the crimes I committed. My continual prayer is that, as much as possible, these hurting individuals can go on with their lives
.

In addition, I am not writing this apology for pity or sympathy. I simply believe that such an apology is the right thing to do. And, by the grace of God, I hope to do my very best to make amends whenever and wherever possible, both to society and to my victims. – David Berkowitz, 2007

Nathan yawned and closed the lid of his MacBook Pro. False repentance was so goddamn
boring
. Besides, he preferred to remember the Son of Sam when he’d still been a
real
man. And, thanks to him, David Berkowitz would be just that again very soon.

At least for a little while.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Dana touched down at Hopkins two hours later and retrieved the Protégé from long-term parking before slamming down hard on the accelerator and racing down Interstate 90 to the east side of Cleveland. Her nerves were hanging by their final thread. Apart from everything else going on, she was about to come face to face with the man that she seriously suspected might be their killer, a sadistic, corrupt, cold-blooded murderer. A man she had cared about – hell, still did. Did he have a brain tumour or was that a lie too? But would he really use her like that, and be right there at the latest crime scene? Whatever happened she had to remain calm. She couldn’t show her hand, not yet. And part of her still didn’t want to believe it might be true, though it looked more and more likely to be so. She didn’t even want to think about her parents and that he might have killed them, then guided her in her career. Was it to lead her to this point? It couldn’t be. And he had kind eyes, didn’t he, not the eyes of a killer?

The press descended on Dana’s car as soon as she pulled into an empty space outside the Section-8 apartment complex. She pushed her car door open hard against the knees of a cameraman and stepped out. Bright television lights and the flashes of a dozen rapidly shuttering cameras blinded her immediately. The questions rained down on her from all directions.

‘Special Agent Whitestone, how old were the victims this time?’

‘What is the FBI doing to stop the Cleveland Slasher?’

‘Ma’am, when is a full-fledged task force going to be assigned to this case?’

Dana put her head down and fought her way through the crowd to the police tape. Several uniformed cops stepped forward to hold the press back.

Inside the building, she took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Three doors down from the Jacinda Holloway murder scene, Crawford Bell and Jeremy Brown were directing dozens of crime-scene technicians as they scoured an apartment that still smelled faintly of cinnamon rolls. Dread coursed through Dana’s entire system. She wasn’t sure she could do this.

‘Dana,’ Crawford said. ‘They’re in the back bedroom.’

Dana nodded a hello to Brown – at least she was pleased to see
him
there – then turned back to Crawford, unable to control the queasiness in her stomach at the sight of him. Still, suspicions were one thing and cold hard facts were something different altogether. Besides, if Crawford
was
involved in these murders, how could she possibly broach with him the subject that the re-creations were following his introductory class killer for killer? And who
else
could she broach the subject with? CK knew what she was thinking, but he was still back in Chicago working the Richard Speck deaths, so he couldn’t help her. She might be able to discuss her suspicions with Jeremy Brown but, despite how closely they’d worked together out in Los Angeles and Wichita, she still didn’t know him all that well. For now she’d just have to keep playing things cool. She had no choice. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if the cancer in Crawford’s brain had turned him into a killer.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Go have a look for yourself,’ Crawford said.

Dana walked across the living room and down a short hallway. Sergeant Gary Templeton was posted outside an open bedroom door. He lowered his tear-filled eyes when he saw her. ‘We missed him again,’ he said. ‘He came right back to the same fucking apartment complex and we missed him again.’

Dana stepped past him into the bedroom. The young woman she’d interviewed just days earlier was naked and lying on the bed, her legs parted and her throat slashed. She’d probably been raped. In her arms she cradled her baby, the little girl’s sweet blue face snugly cradled up against her mother’s soft breast.

Dana threw up all over the carpet.

‘Whoa!’ Templeton said, taking her by the elbow and leading her roughly out of the bedroom. ‘You’ll compromise the crime scene.’

Dana tore her elbow from his grasp and wheeled around to glare at him. ‘There’s nothing here!’ she screamed. ‘There’s never anything at any of the goddamn scenes!’

Brown stepped quickly between them. He took Dana back out into the hallway of the apartment complex while Crawford talked to Templeton.

A moment later her mentor and former partner joined them out in the hall.

‘Go home and get some sleep, Dana,’ he said. ‘You’re not doing anybody any good in this state. Pull yourself together.’

She stared up at him in disbelief. Bile crept up her throat. ‘But, Crawford …’

He shook his head and cut her off before she could continue.
‘Now
, Dana. That’s a goddamn order. Get out of here.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

By the time Dana finally made it back to her apartment complex in Lakewood it was nearly four a.m. She couldn’t think straight. All she wanted to do was get inside. She’d left Crawford there – but could she really have accused him outright? Even Jeremy would have laughed in her face. She was a fool, she’d blown it, she’d lost control, nearly contaminated a crime scene.

She pulled into the parking lot and her heart jumped into her throat when she saw the press that had set up camp there. A dozen of them immediately crowded around her driver’s side door as she eased the car into an empty space.

‘Special Agent Whitestone, are the copycat murders related to the slayings of the little girls?’ a tall man in the middle of the pack shouted. ‘When are you going to catch this guy? Our viewers want answers!’

Dana stepped out of the car and blinked her eyes against the bright television lights. She put her head down and fought her way to the front doors, bumping her shoulders against the mass of humanity on both sides while yet more questions rained down on her.

Thirty seconds later the aggressive audience was still shouting questions at her as she slipped her key-card through the magnetic reader on the front doors and stepped inside. Outside, the reporters turned immediately to face their respective cameras in order to toss the insatiable beast known as 24/7 journalism another hunk of bloody red meat.

Dana closed her eyes while she rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. She stepped out of the elevator and glanced down the hall to make sure that no particularly enterprising members of the press had made it inside. So far, so good.

Quietly, she let herself into Eric’s place and retrieved Oreo from his living-room couch. The back-and-forth with the cat would just happen all over again in the morning, but she really needed Oreo as a security blanket tonight.

Returning to her own apartment with Oreo in tow, she stepped inside her bedroom and quickly changed into her pyjamas before slipping between the covers and pulling the comforter all the way up over her head.

For a brief moment she was hazily aware of being afraid that she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. The next thing she knew, the alarm clock was wailing loudly in her ear and Oreo was curled up around her neck like a furry, purring scarf.

Dana squinted her eyes over at the small digital alarm clock on her bedside table. Almost eight a.m.

She groaned and hit the snooze button but came awake again with a start a moment later when the events of the previous night came flooding back into her mind. She dragged herself out of bed with another groan and walked over to the bedroom window, looking down into the parking lot. She breathed a sigh of relief.
No press out there yet, thank God
.