Kill Switch: A Vigilante Serial Killer Action Thriller (Angel of Darkness Suspense Thriller Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Maybe,” said Tess, “but maybe you can help me – I’m looking for my friend Jacek Grabowski. Do you know him?”

“Why don’t you buy us a drink so we can get comfortable and talk,” Red Head said.

A drink, even at twice the normal cost, was a cheap price for information. Tess waved to one of the bartenders, who looked at who she was with and then nodded without even asking what she wanted to order.

“So do you know Jacek Grabowski?”

“No,” said Red Head.

Tess looked at the other woman who just shook her head.

Great. Just a couple of freeloaders. Hell, how did guys put up with this crap when they tried picking up women?

The bartender brought each of the women a brown colored drink in a glass about twice the size of a shot glass.

He held out his hand to Tess. “Two hundred zloty.”

Tess thought he said two hundred zlotys, but that couldn’t be right. “Excuse me?”

Holding up two fingers, he said again, “Two hundred zloty.”

“No, no, no.” Tess pointed to the two women. “I only ordered drinks for these two.”

The bartender stared her coldly in the eye. “Two drinks – two hundred zloty.”

That was fifty bucks. No way was she getting scammed into paying fifty bucks for what was probably worth about fifty cents.

“Come on,” Tess said, “those aren’t a hundred zloty each.”

The bartender waved to someone behind Tess.

A big guy with stubble and a squint reared over her. “Problem?”

“Yeah” – Tess pointed at the bartender – “this guy is trying to rip me off for two hundred zloty for two drinks.”

Squint nodded. “Two hundred zloty is price.”

“Not for me it ain’t.”

She turned to leave, but Squint grabbed her arm. His fingers clawed into her bicep.

She glared up into his face. “You’re hurting me.”

“Two hundred zloty or it hurt more.”

Finally, it clicked: these girls weren’t hookers, not even freeloaders. No, they were employed by the bar solely to scam gullible people into buying them extortionately priced drinks. If the customer refused to pay, heavies moved in. No way would an average joe get out of here without paying or bleeding. But she was no average joe. And there was one hell of a principle here.

She cowered behind her hands. “Okay. I’ll pay. Please, don’t hurt me.”

Squint relaxed his grip, obviously assuming his work was done.

“I need to get my money.” She gestured to her black backpack.

He nodded.

Crouching on the floor, Tess unslung her backpack, opened it and rooted inside on the pretext of looking for her money. There was at least one other bouncer in here who she’d passed when she’d come in, but she’d no idea how many others were around.

Squint stood over Tess, but ignored her while he shared a joke in Polish with the two women who’d gotten her into this mess.

Those few seconds were all Tess needed. She slipped on her black leather gloves and balled her fists. Inside her gloves, the strip of eighth-of-an-inch-thick steel curved over her knuckles to hug them perfectly.

As she stood up, Squint turned back to her and pointed to the bartender. “You pay now.”

Smiling as coyly as she could, Tess picked up one of the drinks. “Look, no hard feelings, huh?”

She held it out to him. Let him think he’d won. Let him think he was the big man. Let him think a skinny woman could never be any kind of threat.

With more of a sneer than a smile, he reached for the drink.

Tess threw it in his face.

He automatically pulled his hands up to his eyes.

Tess stamped through his knee. The bone crunched so loudly she heard it over the thumping music.

He cried out and staggered to one side as all around, people scattered, not wanting to be dragged into violence.

Tess slammed a right hook into the side of Squint’s head and then hammered a kick into his other leg.

Squint crashed into the silver floor. With a broken knee, he wouldn’t be standing unaided for months, so she could rule him out as any further threat.

Something pounded Tess square in the back.

She crashed forward to sprawl over the bar. Bottles skidded away and smashed on the floor.

From the force of the blow, the angle of delivery, and the size of the impact area, her training told her someone had kicked her. She’d be bruised tomorrow, but adrenaline deadened her to the immediate pain.

A follow-up attack would likely come from her right because most people were right-handed. Instinctively, instead of turning to face her attacker, she ducked and spun away to her left.

That instant, another kick sliced across the top of the bar from her right, smashing through drinks people had left to stand.

Glass shards showered Tess.

She cowered for the briefest of moments, then, fists up, Tess faced her attacker.

A tall skinny bouncer stormed at her. He had obviously studied martial arts, probably Tae Kwon Do from his form. He launched a high sweeping roundhouse kick at her head. The kick was so graceful, it must have looked amazing to the bystanders watching from a safe distance.

Tess stepped in closer to him. To those watching, moving closer to danger must have looked suicidal, but they hadn’t spent seven years in the Far East learning how to kill with their bare hands.

While the bouncer’s leg was arcing toward her through the air, Tess’s elbow thundered into his knee.

No sooner had her blow landed, than she flung backfist with the same hand into his face. His nose exploded, blood spurting out across his cheeks.

Grabbing him around the back of the neck, she hauled him forward and slammed her knee into his gut.

Fearing someone might clobber her from behind again, Tess glanced around while her still holding her opponent.

A fat bouncer with a ponytail pushed his way through the mesmerized crowd.

Twisting around, Tess threw the tall bouncer over her hip so he crashed to the floor in the direct line of the fat bouncer.

This fat bouncer proved more agile than he looked and jumped over his colleague.

Tess sidestepped and hammered a kick at him as he sailed through the air, kicking his legs out from under him.

The fat bouncer crashed forward but managed to throw his hands up to protect himself as he smashed into the bar.

Tess stomped on his ankle to put him out of action too. He reared back, face contorted in pain.

Tess spun around. Faced the crowd. Fists up ready to strike.

The bouncer who’d been on the door and let her in was standing on the edge of the crowd. He looked at his three battered colleagues at Tess’s feet, then held his hands up and backed away.

Like the story of Moses and the Red Sea, the crowd parted, making a clear route to the door for Tess.

Keeping her fists up, gaze panning around for a threat, she headed out.

As she passed, the Brit with a pimple on his nose nudged Gazza. “Fuck me, Gazza! And you thought you were going to shag that? Jesus, she’d have bloody killed you, mate.”

Tess exited the club.

She shook her head. Jesus, why was it so difficult to have a quiet goddamn drink in this country?

She marched along the street, regularly checking behind her to ensure the bouncers hadn’t decided there was strength in even greater numbers.

Now what? Another bar or call it quits for the day?

With a stunning blue sky declaring what a beautiful world it was, Tess strolled across the cobbled square toward Town Hall Tower. In an area that could hold thousands of people, only the odd business person prepared for another day’s toil. The emptiness gave the square strange feel. Like in a horror movie after a plague had decimated the population and the camera panned over deserted city streets which normally teemed with people.

Passing the Cloth Hall, its colonnade of stone arches more a setting for a romance than a horror movie, Tess checked her watch – 6:26 a.m. She’d give anyone ten-to-one odds she wouldn’t see Elena for at least another hour. Maybe two. After Elena had insisted on another couple of beers in the bar last night, Tess wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t show up at all. To Tess, three strong European beers was a decent drink, but to fragile old Elena, with barely an ounce of meat on her bones, it must have been like a falling into a vat of whisky and trying to drink her way out.

Tess rounded the corner of the tower. She needn’t have worried – Elena waved at her, sitting on the steps between the two stone lions.

Well, if Cat had the strength her mother had, they had a good chance of finding her before it was too late. Unless, of course, it was already too late.

“Morning,” Tess said with a grin, “I was worried you wouldn’t make it on time.”

Elena looked bemused. “Why?”

“Because of all the beer last night.”

“Three beers?” Elena laughed. “Oh my, you should have seen me when I was your age.”

“You enjoyed partying?”

“No. I just enjoyed an average social life. We Eastern Europeans enjoy our beer – why do you think we have so many of them? So, where are we going first?”

Tess took a breath, not wanting to ruin the atmosphere. “You do appreciate that what we find could be very upsetting.”

Elena’s lightheartedness vanished in an instant. “More upsetting than the pictures I see in my mind every time I think about the nightmare Cat’s trapped in?”

“Let’s hope not,” Tess said, “Okay, before the streets are overrun by tourists, I want to walk the route we think Cat took to see if we can find anything she might have dropped.”

After the fight the previous night, Tess had gone to bed. Red Riot’s staff would have circulated warnings about her to other bars, so there had been little point in visiting anywhere else. Now, all she could do was go back to the original plan she’d formulated before she’d heard the Brits chatting.

Elena held out her hand to Tess. Tess took it and eased the lady up off the steps. Elena groaned as she clambered to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” said Elena, “but it takes me a while to get going once I stop. So where first?”

Tess pointed to Bracka Street in the area of the Old Town they’d identified last night as where Cat had probably been looking for work just before she disappeared.

Walking slowly, Tess said, “Do you remember exactly what Cat was wearing and had with her?”

“Yes, it was what she’d had to wear for two days because all our clothes had been stolen with everything else.”

“So did she have pants or a dress, a bag, an umbrella, a head scarf…?”

Without any hesitation, Elena said, “White canvas shoes, pale blue skirt, white blouse, navy canvas purse. No scarf. No umbrella.”

“And you’d recognize any of those if you saw them?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Did she have sunglasses with her? Jewelry? A handkerchief? Anything distinctive in her purse?”

Elena thought for a moment. “She wore a thin silver necklace and matching anklet, and silver ear studs. And she had her passport and some personal documents with her; a little money; a small wallet with photos she always carried with her and, er… er… I don’t know what it’s called – a small green plant with leaves – it usually has three but sometimes you find one with four so you keep it for good luck.”

“A four-leaf clover?”

“Yes, she always kept it with her in a little plastic wallet.”

“Okay. So if she was, er…” How could she put it without Elena picturing horrors?

“If she was taken?” Elena said.

Tess nodded solemnly. “She could easily have lost some jewelry or something from her purse.” She pointed to Bracka. “We’ll walk up one side and down the other to make sure we don’t miss anything.”

If they found something, maybe it would be strong enough evidence for the police to take the possibility of an abduction seriously. Tess had little faith in the police – they’d failed her so badly, how could she ever trust them again? – but the more eyes that were looking for Cat the better.

But whether the police became involved or not, finding something that belonged to Cat would show them where she’d been taken. Finding the scene of the crime would be the first step in solving it.

Shuffling along the sidewalk, Tess inspected the cracks between the uneven paving stones and the trash in the gutter, hoping they’d find something, but praying it wouldn’t be bloodstained.

They scoured the left-hand side of the street further than they’d decided Cat might have ventured – going beyond the Franciscan Church, famous for its Art Nouveau interior which blazed with murals in blues, greens and yellows, and on into the far side of the park which circled the Old Town. Afterward, they crawled down the other side of the street, even taking a detour up a side alley that might have caught Cat’s eye.

Despite proceeding at a torturously slow pace to ensure they searched every inch of both sidewalks and the road, they found nothing.