Thirst No. 3 (2 page)

“Yes.”

“You’re serious?”

“Don’t I look serious?”

“I’m not sure.” He glances around to make sure we’re still alone. “There’s something about you I don’t get.” He pauses. “Are you a cop?”

“I thought you knew all the local cops.”

“Answer my question.”

“No, Daniel Boford. I’m not a cop.” I slowly smile. “Just a fan.”

“Then you must have seen some of my races.”

“I’ve seen a lot of them.” I actually came to the track meets to watch Teri run, but I don’t tell him that. “I saw you win that amazing double in the Lynwood Invitation.”

“You mean, when I ran the hundred and the two hundred?”

“Gimme a break! You ran the two hundred and the four hundred meters. You won both races. And you anchored the four-by-four-hundred-meter relay.” I pause. “Trying to test me?”

“Maybe.”

“How am I doing so far?”

“Pretty good. You want to go for coffee?”

“Right now? Is there a place open?”

“Sure. I know a place.”

“Don’t you have to finish working out?”

“I’m done.” He touches my arm. “Don’t you want to talk some more?”

“Sure. But—”

“But what?” he asks quickly, and in an instant I realize his antennae are still up. I have underestimated him, not that it will affect the final outcome.

“All right. I’ll have coffee with you. Where do you want to go?”

He squeezes my arm. “Where do you want to go?”

“Like I told you, I’m sort of new to this—”

“Are you sure you’re not a cop?” he interrupts.

I stop, act worried. “You just asked me that.”

“Yes, but since you lied the first time, I thought I’d ask again.”

I casually shake off his hand and pull a badge from my back pocket. “No, not a cop.” I open the badge. “FBI.”

The ID is real—I paid someone high in the bureau to make it for me. I enjoy such toys, they come in handy. However, it doesn’t impress Danny. He studies it but acts unconcerned. I don’t know what to think. He’s either very cool or very stupid.

“Why is the FBI interested in me?” he asks.

“Michelle Cornwick.”

Finally, I get a reaction out of him.

“That’s bullshit! She told everyone that the guy who raped her had on a ski mask. I talked to her parents.”

“How nice. You’ve met Mom and Dad.”

“Quit screwing with me, lady.” He looks me up and down, no doubt searching for a gun. But he doesn’t see one, because my snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver is under my shirt, near my lower spine. I have a blade, too, in my right boot. He adds, “The guy who raped her wore a condom.”

“Condoms break.”

He fidgets, finally showing some fear. “You here alone?” he demands.

“No. I have backup.”

“You’re a liar. You couldn’t have matched my DNA to anything found on her. Mine isn’t on record.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never been busted. I’ve never had a sample taken.”

“Lisa Gonzales,” I say flatly.

“What about Lisa?”

“You’re doing her, in between a few others. Once I explained this to her, Lisa—with her doctor’s help—was only too happy to give me a sample of your semen.”

“Lisa’s a friend! She would never stab me in the back!”

“She probably wouldn’t stab good old Danny Boy. But we’re talking about a rapist here. Lisa’s no dummy. She understood how important your sample was to our case.”

“What case?”

“The case of the federal government against Daniel E. Boford. In other words, we know who the rapist is. And I’m here to take you in.”

“You’re arresting me?”

“Yes.”

He is an interesting specimen. His fear is genuine, but I sense his hatred is stronger. “Where’s your backup? I want to see their badges.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you’re a fake. If the FBI was interested in me, the local cops would have given me a heads-up.”

“You’re wrong. You’ve assaulted women as far off as New Orleans. You’ve crossed state lines. That’s what brought you to the FBI’s attention. Face it, buddy, you’re busted.”

He snorted. “Busted? I’m going to be picked in the first round of the NFL draft next month. That’s who Daniel E. Boford is.”

“He’s also just another asshole who doesn’t know when to keep his dick in his pants.” I stop and pull handcuffs from my coat pocket. “Turn around. Place your hands behind your back.”

“What for?”

“Because you’re under arrest and I’m going to cuff you. Do as I say.”

He makes no move to obey. He keeps scanning the area. The stadium looks empty; it sounds empty too. Except for the birds singing there’s just the two of us—that’s what he’s thinking. I can tell by the change in his body language, the growing confidence in the way he holds himself, that he doesn’t believe I’ve brought backup. He thinks he can take me.

“No,” he says. He waits to see if I draw a gun, and even that will not stop him, because he believes he’s close enough to disarm me. I play into his fantasy and draw my weapon. I purposely move too slow, and as I bring it around, he grabs my right arm and points the revolver at the sky, squeezing my wrist. He smiles.

“Didn’t they teach you anything at Quantico?” he asks.

I struggle. “Let go of me! Sanders! Tanner! He’s resisting arrest!”

No one appears, and his smile widens. “Looks like your
backup slept in, Alisa.” He rips the gun from my hand and turns it on me. He can see the side of the five-round chamber and knows it’s loaded, but he’s not sure what kind of bullets the gun holds.

I glare at him. “They’re sharpshooters, and right now they’re taking aim at your head. If you want to live, give me back my gun.”

My gun
. I sound like I’m pleading. He laughs.

“Drop it, there’s no one here except us. But I’m confused. Why did you decide to take me alone? Did you want all the glory?” He lifts the gun and points it at my head. “Answer me.”

I hesitate. “Harold Proveman.”

“Who’s he?”

“The father of Linda Proveman. One of the first women you raped.” I pause. “He posted a large reward for the capture of the man who defiled his daughter.”

Danny nods in understanding. “You thought you’d collect the reward rather than take the ‘well done’ pat on the back the FBI will give you?”

“Yes.”

“Liar. You’re not FBI at all. You’re some cheap down-on-her-luck private eye. No trained FBI agent would act as clumsy as you.” He cocks the revolver. “Does Mr. Proveman know who I am?”

“Yes.”

He puts pressure on the trigger. “Are you sure?”

“He knows you go to school here. But I never gave him your name.”

“Because you wanted to be sure to get all the reward first?”

“Yes.”

He smiles and lowers the gun. “How much am I worth, by the way?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

He whistles, impressed. “What did Mr. Proveman plan to do with me once you turned me over to him?”

“You don’t want to know.”

He smiles some more, before yanking the cuffs from my hands and spinning me around. “Put your hands behind your back.”

I do as he commands. “You don’t want to do this, Danny.”

“Why not?” He cuffs me and drags me down the steps toward the parking lot. The light in the east has grown, but the track is still empty. I speak in a pitiful voice.

“I have a plan that can make both of us a lot of cash. I have another suspect that fits the profile of Linda Proveman’s assailant. I can turn him over to her dad and collect the reward and split it with you.”

“Why would Mr. Proveman believe this other guy did it?”

“I can use your semen sample and tie it to him. That’s all the proof the man needs. He’s connected, Mafia, a real hothead. He’ll murder whoever I bring him. I swear, by noon today, you can have fifty grand in your pocket.”

“No.”

“At least think about it!”

He slaps my head with the gun. “I’ll be worth a hundred times that in a month. And I don’t trust you. You plan on lying to the guy who hired you, which means you’re probably lying to me right now.” He pauses. “I’m sorry, babe, but you’ve got to disappear.”

He drags me toward his Honda Accord, which is the main reason for my charade. I don’t want to kill him and dispose of his body using my own car, not with all the new techniques for uncovering evidence that modern-day cops have at their disposal. Better Danny drive me to his own dumping ground in his vehicle. Wiping away my prints will only take seconds. I’m new to the city, he has lived here for years. He knows the area better than me. He’ll know the perfect spot to make a body disappear.

I knew ahead of time he was not simply a rapist, but a killer. I could refer to a dozen signs he gives off that make it obvious. But the simplest answer is best. A killer knows another killer, and I have killed thousands.

He doesn’t shove me into the trunk but forces me to drive. There are holes in my story, and he senses them, like any dangerous man would. He wants to know everything he can before he kills me. He doesn’t want any surprises messing up his draft day.

In the car, he cuffs me to the steering wheel and digs the
gun into my ribs. Yet I refuse to talk unless he lets me listen to the radio.

“What the hell?” he mumbles. “Are you nuts or something?”

“I like music. Don’t you?”

“Alisa, look, I don’t think you grasp what’s going on here.”

“Do you want me to turn right or left at the corner?”

“Left.” He shakes his head. “You are one weird bitch, you know that?”

“I like to think I’m unique.”

“How did you catch me? The truth.”

I glance at him and let my voice go cold. “You’ll see.”

He shifts uncomfortably at my sudden change in tone. He keeps the gun in my side, but there’s a tremor in his grip. My cold tone can be like ice to mortals. He no longer feels in complete control.

But he still intends to kill me, and rape me, I’m not sure in what order. We drive far into the countryside before we turn down a dirt road that leads through a patch of thick trees. I smell the swampy water before I see the green pond. He’s buried bodies beneath its surface. I smell them as well.

But my nose is more sensitive than a bloodhound’s. The spot is perfect for murder. Totally isolated, with a lake deep enough to hide a hundred corpses and wash away an endless number of fingerprints. Danny disconnects me from the steering wheel but keeps me cuffed. He orders me out of his car.

Now that he has me alone, his confidence returns. He forces me to the edge of the pond. The grass is tall and thick; it clings to our legs. The air is humid, filled with the faint buzz of insects. I can tell he’s excited, but I don’t need my vampiric skills to know that. His pants bulge.

He points the gun at me. “Strip,” he orders.

I hold up my cuffed wrists. “With these on?”

He cocks the gun. “Do it!”

“No. I’m . . . shy.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re shy? Do you see what I’m holding? Do you know what it will feel like if I put a cap in your belly? Trust me, you don’t want to find out.”

“I couldn’t afford real bullets,” I mutter.

“Huh?”

“The gun, it’s loaded with blanks.”

“You’re bullshitting me again.”

“Go ahead, shoot, I don’t care.”

“All right then.” He raises the gun, takes aim at my stomach and fires. I feel the wad of the blank’s paper spread over me like dry rain as the noise from the shot echoes through the woods. Yet I know, with my extraordinary hearing, that there’s nobody within ten miles of us to hear the shot. Danny probably knows the same. He’s not worried we’ll have company soon. But he stares at my gun in disgust.

“You were going to drag me to a Mafia hood with a gun loaded with blanks?” he asks.

I slip out of the cuffs as if I were Houdini. But I don’t snap them in two. I need them. Taking a step toward him, I let him see more of the real me. My eyes, I feel their heat and I know they must burn. He suddenly has trouble looking at me.

“What the hell,” he whispers.

“You see, I’ve just been acting the fool to fool you. All along I wanted you to bring me to this spot, to where you dump the girls you don’t let go. Only I didn’t know where it was. That’s why I let you give me directions.”

I have allowed my voice to change further, to take on the timbre of my true years. People, when they hear how ancient I really am, usually do one of two things. They freeze in awe or shake with fear. Danny isn’t in awe of me, not yet, but he begins to pale.

“Who are you?” he mumbles.

I reach into my black boot and remove my blade.

“Death,” I say as I come closer.

He holds out a trembling hand. “Wait a second. This has all been a misunderstanding. I’m not going to really hurt you. I was just playing with you. Honestly, I’ll drive you back to school right now.”

“No. Your school days are over with. You won’t be running any more races, and the NFL isn’t going to draft you next week.” I gesture to the lake. “You’re going to die here, and you’re going to stay in this pond with all the other people you left to rot here. The fish and worms and insects will find their
way into the interior of your car, to your body, and over the next few months they’ll munch on your skin and muscles and organs until all that’s left of you is a slimy skeleton. Eventually even that will dissolve, and it will be like you never existed, Danny Boy.”

He trembles with fear. He has tears in his eyes. My voice, my words—the power in them shakes him to the core. His own voice cracks as he tries to convince himself he’s not going to die.

“But you’re just a chick. You can’t hurt me.”

“Then why are you so scared?”

“Because of that knife. Put that knife away and we can talk.”

“Where exactly would you like me to put it?”

“I don’t know, just put it—”

He suddenly stops talking, because I’ve shifted into high speed and thrown the knife so hard and fast it’s sunk up to its hilt in the center of his right thigh. He gazes down at it in horror as a thin line of blood trickles over his sweats. In the blink of an eye I’m standing beside him. I pat him on the back in a poor imitation of comforting him.

“You don’t want to pull it out,” I warn. “There’s a large artery that runs through each leg, and I’m afraid I just severed one with my knife. Pull out my knife and your blood will gush all over the place. You’ll be dead in two minutes, maybe less.”