The Wrong Side of Dead (14 page)

“What about your father, Seth? If you leave, what will happen to him?” Desperation left her grasping at straws, even if it meant hurting him to do it. She hated trumping him with the father card, but she had nothing else.

“Low blow, Jess.” He sighed. “With me in jail, all he’s got is Tony Salvatore anyway, but good try.” An awkward silence reminded her how fragile their connection had always been. “Have a nice life, Jessie. I think my dad would have been proud how you turned out. I know I am.”

Harper didn’t wait for her reply. With a catch in his voice, he ended the call, leaving her wallowing in dial tone.

“Damn it.”

Someone was determined to frame Harper. And to cover their tracks, they’d taken a second shot at it, adding an assault charge for good measure. Yet Jess knew from experience that if the boy didn’t want to be found, he could shape-shift into a damned ghost—for real. But that wouldn’t fix the hole left in her life where he’d been.

Jess had to turn things around with a new game plan. Up until now, the real killer had dictated the action.
The coward!
She’d been reacting—shoring up Harper’s defenses—but that hadn’t worked. Jess needed results, and there was only one way to meet that challenge.

Head-on!

She had to stir things up, even if it meant becoming a target for a killer. And, unfortunately for her, she knew exactly where to start.

South Side of Chicago
1:10
A.M
.

Hookers don’t get workman’s comp. And forget about sick days, not even in Nevada, where prostitution is legal. Being an independent contractor herself—
of a different sort
—Jess knew all about operating without benefits.

So she had a pretty good notion where to find Jade.

And if the woman had known Mandy, she figured chances were that they traveled in the same circles. She didn’t have to start from scratch to track her down. It was a theory—one that had paid off. And she didn’t have to shell out much coin to score Jade’s favorite spots. Even if someone hadn’t given her a usable description, she recognized Jade by her fresh stitches and distinctive limp in stilettos as Jess drove by her on the street.

Finding a spot under the pale glow of blue and red neon, the woman lit up a cigarette with her back to the wall of Phat Jack’s. Next to the lounge was a dark alley, probably the closest thing a streetwalker had to an office. Jade wasn’t working it hard, judging by her slouch and lack of interest in the few men who came out of the bar.

Jess parked the blue van down the street and approached Jade on foot, keeping her hand near the butt of the Colt Python, which she wore under a jeans jacket. When she got close, she heaped on the familiar and added a dash of honey to her voice.

“Well…what happened to you?” She smiled as if she were an old friend, but Jade gave her the stink eye, clearly not in the mood.

“None of yo’ business. Now get outta my face.” The woman flipped a hand—flashing an insane set of long red nails—and turned her shoulder like that would discourage her.
Who was she kidding?

“Okay, I get it. You’re a businesswoman.” She moved, staying in front of the woman. “What’s your price?”

“No way. I don’t go for none o’ that. Beat it.” Jade hobbled away, sucking on her smoke. Two other hookers down the block took notice. And a group of men rounded a corner down the street.

“Hey, I just wanna talk. Nothin’ wrong with that, is there…just talkin’?” Grinning, Jess caught up to her and lowered her voice, turning her back on the unwanted attention from the outsiders. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink inside, and you can take a load off. And I’ll even pay for your time. What’s not to love? Those shoes would be killin’ my feet ’bout now. What do ya say?”

Jade stopped and listened, her tough street act fading as she stubbed out her cigarette. Jess could have been angered by her false accusation against Seth, but she knew the woman had probably had no say in it.

“You buyin’?” she asked, raising her chin in challenge.

“Yep. Whatever you’re having, I’m good for it.”

“I normally get fifty for my time. And I leave, when I say I do.” Jade narrowed her eyes, defying an objection.

Jess grimaced but forced a smile. “I have no doubt you’re worth every penny. Now prove it.”

“Okay, then.” Jade made a beeline for the front door of Phat Jack’s, not waiting for her. But a voice came from behind Jess.

“Don’t move.”

A dark shadow reflected off a nearby window and forced her to stop. On instinct, she inched a hand toward her gun.

“Put your hands up.” A gruff hostile voice. “Don’t turn around.”

The crunch of a shoe on cement gave her an indication where the man stood, too far away for a sucker punch. And the reflected glint of metal under neon warned her the man had a weapon—and two other men at his side, standing in murky shadows.
Not good!

Jade turned, and her eyes grew wide when she saw the men. She looked scared shitless. Her gaze darted from Jess to whoever stood behind her. In sympathy, the woman slowly shook her head. Jess took it to mean the men would be trouble, but the hooker wanted no part in the beef.

“Beat it, Jade.” One of the men gave her a reprieve. And by using her name, he reminded her that he knew who she was.

No one had to tell Jade a second time. She limped out of sight, leaving only the unsteady clack of her stilettos on the sidewalk for Jess to know which way she went.

“Now turn around…bounty hunter.” The man’s voice made her skin crawl, like an unwanted touch. “And keep your hands where I can see ’em.”

Jess took a deep breath. She had a real bad feeling. And when she turned, she faced three men who had done their homework and knew who she was. And one of them pointed a gun at her chest.

“Gentlemen…good to see you again. Last time we met, we got off on the wrong foot. What can I do to make amends?” She kept her hands waist high.

Flickering neon washed over Sal Pinzolo, casting his brand of ugly in an eerie glow. The man clenched his weapon, taking perverse pleasure in his threat. And by the looks of him, a well-timed stun grenade exploding at his feet hadn’t improved his looks or his disposition any. Another man she hadn’t seen before looked like Pinzolo’s twin, nothing more than muscle for hire with a vacant stare and no neck. And stepping between them was Nadir Beladi, cigarette smoke wafting in his wake. His cruel eyes were the color of obsidian.

This time she had no surprises up her sleeve.

“It’s not that simple, Ms. Beckett,” Beladi said. “You’ve put me in the awkward position of having to make you an example. You wouldn’t answer my questions about your interest in that crank whore. And you came to my turf, my place of business, giving me attitude and setting off grenades at my feet?”

She had no idea a man could be so sensitive about a small incendiary device.

“Forgive me, Nadir. I didn’t mean any disrespect. But I took exception to Sal using me as a pincushion for his blade. But if you say it was all a big misunderstanding, I’m good with that. We can call it a night.”

“It is too late for that, I’m afraid. For a man of my stature in the community, I must save face.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“You have a very smart mouth, Jessica. I would say that it will get you in trouble one day, but you see? It already has.” The smoker was done talking. He nudged his head toward Pinzolo and No Neck. “Do it.”

Beladi took off, leaving her alone with his men. They stepped toward her, forcing her back. She had nowhere to go except deeper into the alley behind her. And insult to injury, No Neck took her Colt Python and shoved it under his belt as Pinzolo jacked his smug face into a grin. They drove her deeper into the shadows. Her eyes searched the gloom, looking for a way out, but she found nothing to help her. When she got toward the end, the alley looked as if it veered right, but she couldn’t be sure. Old crates and a rusted Dumpster blocked her view.

Jess squared her feet and braced for a fight. She hoped the bastard wouldn’t just shoot her where she stood. Pinzolo guessed what she was thinking and laughed, a sound that echoed off the brick walls.

“I’m not gonna waste a bullet on you, but when we’re done, you’re gonna wish we had.” The smirk on his face told her he wasn’t done taunting her. “You know, there’s a reason they say paybacks are a bitch.”

The coward stuffed his gun in a holster and both men lunged at her. She got in a few good licks but not before No Neck grappled her from behind. He held her arms, wrenching them back until she thought he’d break bone. Jess shoved as hard as she could, putting all her weight behind it, as Pinzolo leered and balled his meaty fists, waiting his turn.

No Neck toppled to one side, but held strong until Pinzolo blocked the light coming from the street. He towered above her, looking like a ghost from one of her nightmares. She clenched her stomach, but nothing prepared her for his vicious first punch. It took the wind out of her and hurt like a mother.

“I have to say it,” she gasped, barely able to speak. “I’m not liking…where this is going.”

She kicked and jerked her body as Pinzolo pummeled her. Two more to the gut, and her legs gave out. Her head lolled to her chest, and he hit her with an uppercut. She saw stars, and her mind faded in and out of shadows.

The punishment continued. She fought to stay conscious although she wasn’t sure why. Oblivion would have been a mercy. But in one swift motion, No Neck let go of her arms and she dropped like a rock. Her kneecaps hit asphalt, jarring her whole body. She fell against something hard. And her head snapped back, sending streetlights spiraling out of control in a blur.

For a brief instance, she lay flat with her swollen cheek on a cold surface. All she wanted was to lie there, not be touched. But the scuff of a shoe near her head made her flinch. She cocked her face to one side and saw a man reaching for her. Jess braced her body, still fighting back, but a movement in the distance caught her fragile attention. A car had blocked the alley. Its headlights cut through the darkness.

And now a lone shadow eclipsed the light, nothing more than an eerie silhouette.

The men saw what had happened. They gaped over their shoulders at the intruder. As they moved aside, the lights from the street blinded her. Jess raised a hand to block the glare, fighting hard not to pass out. She winced and gasped for air, feeling a thousand pinpricks stabbing her eyes. The distant shadow wavered, a blurred spiraling illusion.

Eventually it came into focus.

A tall blonde wearing a long, dark trench coat walked toward them.

“Stop where you are.” Pinzolo’s voice came from the darkness. “Who the hell are you?”

“Is that any way to treat a lady?”

Quiet, but no less threatening, Alexa’s voice was nothing but a chilling whisper. In one fluid motion, she reached under her long coat and pulled out a twelve-gauge Mossberg pump-action shotgun slung under her arm—a fierce-looking weapon with a pistol grip and flash suppressor.

Without hesitation, Alexa racked the slide and took aim. Pinzolo and No Neck fumbled for their guns, shocked that a woman had gotten the drop on them.

“What the hell?” One of them cried out.

“Oh shit.” Jess scrambled for the Dumpster.

Boom! Thud!
A shot roared and a muted muzzle flash lit the dark alley. Brick shards sprayed and pinged off metal.
Boom! Thwack!
A second blast, and the meaty thump of lead hitting flesh resonated down the alley. And Jess heard a pitiable groan behind her.

The shotgun had done its damage—and so had Alexa.

Alexa hadn’t come to kill, but if these men were intent on using deadly force, she knew how to respond. Her prime objective was to stay alive and get Jessie to safety. With her first round, she’d aimed over their heads, raining brick down to get their attention. And with the second, she drew blood. This time when she pumped the shotgun, the men would have a choice.

She stepped closer and aimed the barrel between the eyes of the bully with the fists. He had fallen to the asphalt when he got hit.

“That last one was birdshot. You won’t sit for a while, but you’ll live. The rest are double-ought buckshot and deer slugs. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s open season. You wanna see if I’m bluffing?”

The man glared, but she saw his fear.

“No, I’ll take your word for it, but this ain’t over.” He tried a weak attempt at bravado for his friend’s benefit, but a load of lead in his ass had taken the fight from his eyes.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with. You mess with us, and the CIA will take it real personal. You got that?” To make her point, Alexa flashed a badge. “If you don’t want feds crawling up your riddled butt, you better let this one go.”

The man’s eyes grew wide as he stared at her badge and picture ID. He cursed and stumbled to his feet with the help of his buddy, then turned to limp away. Knowing the area, they took a different way out of the alley, through the shadows behind them.

And with relief, Jessie watched them go.

“Hold on,” the blonde called out before they got too far. Alexa grabbed her Colt Python from No Neck’s belt. “And you might consider taking your friend to a veterinarian. They’ve got plenty of experience picking birdshot out of mutts.”

“I don’t care who you are. This ain’t over,” Pinzolo spat, venom in his eyes. Jess knew that look, had seen it up close. And his eye twitch was back.

“Then you’re dumber than you look.” Alexa stared him down. “Now move it.”

She watched them go, and the blonde made sure the fight was over before she got down to business.

“You sure know how to pick ’em, Beckett. But looking at you, I think we can make a good case for self-defense if the local law comes calling.” Alexa picked up her spent shell casings as she spoke. She wouldn’t leave evidence behind. “Come on. Let’s go before we draw a crowd. I’ll drop you off at your van, but I’m following you home. We need to patch you up.”

“I thought you didn’t have wheels.” She wiped blood from her brow, feeling every new ache.

“It’s a rental. Figured I could use it.” Alexa pocketed her shells. “Any bones broken? Can you walk?”

“My pride is a little bent. Help me up, will ya?” With a hand from her new friend, she winced and struggled to her feet, stretching her bruised muscles and stiff joints. “Ow, damn it. How’d you find me anyway?”

Jess steadied herself, making sure she could stand before she took a step. Once she got her wind, she hobbled alongside her tall companion, heading for the lights coming from the street. After a quick glance, Alexa returned her Colt Python and stared straight ahead, her blond hair wafting in the faint breeze. She noticed the woman shortened her long strides to let her keep up.

“Old habits die hard. When I hitched a ride in that monstrosity you call a vehicle, I put a tracking beacon on it. You have a habit of going off the reservation. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a little insurance.”

Alexa had done that once before, a few months back. The woman was neck deep in high-tech spy gear. And she knew when and how to use it.

“But tracking me in the middle of the night? What’s up with that?”

“I couldn’t sleep anyway. And Conan O’Brien was a rerun.” She glanced over her shoulder as she hobbled a step behind. “Besides, I didn’t like your odds this time.”

“I could’ve taken ’em.” She moved her jaw, making sure it still worked. “I was wearin’ ’em down.”

“Yeah, their knuckles will be real bruised tomorrow. I know how hard your head is.” Alexa smiled and raised an eyebrow. “I hope you realize I didn’t have to tell you the truth about that tracking beacon. And I probably messed up a perfectly fine manicure for you. Consider this my way of bonding.”

“Yeah? Well, next time…let’s go bowling instead.” Even aching, she forced a smile, pondering what had just happened. “And what’s with the CIA badge? On St. Lawrence Island, you were wearing FBI gear.”

The blonde shrugged. “A girl has to know how to accessorize.”

Jess knew she wasn’t going to get any more out of her. But as she turned to get a better look at the woman, she took stock of the black trench coat with matching Kevlar. It felt good to have someone backing her up, even if the woman had a flair for drama.

“So what’s with the Matrix knockoff, Trinity?”

“A little over the top?”

“Maybe.” Jess shrugged. “But it worked for Keanu Reeves.”

Alexa grinned. “Damned straight.”

Buena Vista Motel
Off Madison Street
4:20
A.M.

Even at this hour, the Eisenhower Expressway droned, nothing more than white noise to urban sprawl as Ray Garza drove by Garfield Park on his way to another murder. He pulled into a motel parking lot after spying the rotating red-and-blue beacons of police cruisers and the Mobile Crime Lab on the scene. ET-South drew the short straw, and evidence techs were hard at work as he walked through the police barrier, past the curious onlookers who had already gathered outside the yellow tape. And the usual media crews were on duty, making the most of the show.

“Detective Garza, can we have a word?” a woman reporter called to him, holding out a microphone with camera rolling and bright lights.

“Yeah, have two. No comment.” Avoiding the bright lights, he never bothered to look to see who’d asked the question.

With his badge clipped to his belt, he didn’t need an introduction to the beat cops who’d secured the scene. Too many déjà vu scenes like this had played out before, giving them the inside track on depravity no one should have to witness firsthand.

He nodded a greeting and headed for the motel room, the one with all the traffic. As he got closer, a young cop in uniform heaved the contents of his stomach onto the asphalt sidewalk two doors down. Worse timing on his part, and he might have caught the splatter.

“Hey, watch the shoes,” he said as he walked by.

Rousted in the middle of the night, Ray wore a navy polo shirt and jeans with running shoes and a CPD windbreaker. When he walked over the threshold, a wave of stench hit him as he hit the door. Moldy stale air mixed with the metallic tang of blood, excrement, and other bodily fluids, the rank smell of violent death. He kept his expression blank as he looked onto the scene, but he never got used to it.
Never
.

The day he did, that would be the day he’d quit.

A woman’s nude body lay sprawled on the bloodstained and soiled mattress. Her skimpy clothes were tossed onto the floor, nothing more than a heap of spandex and torn lace. From where he stood, her face was partially covered by a pillow. Deep gouges cut into her flesh, too many to count with all the blood, especially around her neck. And blood splatter streaked the walls and ceiling, a grisly tableau.

Dim lighting in the room had been a blessing until an evidence tech took photos. Every time the camera flashed, the harsh light assaulted the body and added another stark image to his memory.

“What do we have, Nigel?” He breathed through his mouth and pulled out his notepad and pen. “Talk to me.”

“Dead hooker. Killer used a knife, but we haven’t found the murder weapon.” His partner, Detective Nigel Walker, gave him the lowdown. “Castoff suggests there was a lot of rage involved once the killer got into it. TOD is estimated at no more than two hours ago. Around two, I’d guess.”

Tall and lanky with thinning hair, Walker had the drawn face of a human basset hound. And his slow Southern drawl came from Texas, but his eyes took in every aspect of a crime scene. The man was thorough and knew his stuff.

“Who found the body?”

“The night manager,” Walker replied. “He got a complaint about a TV playing too loud. When he didn’t get a response from his knock, he used his key. He phoned 911 after he backed out of the room…said he didn’t touch anything.”

“He didn’t come in and turn off the TV?”

“No. It was still on when I got here. I turned it off myself.
Twilight Zone
reruns give me nightmares.”

The man’s deadpan expression didn’t flinch. Ray might have chuckled at his dry sense of humor, but he shifted his focus back to the body. No amount of training ever prepared him for a scene like this. And no one deserved to die in such a brutal way—naked and degraded. Whoever had done this wasn’t stable—at least that’s what he preferred to believe.

“We get any bloody prints?” he asked.

Fingerprints in a motel room could be easily explained away unless they were marred in blood or confirmed as part of the murder scene.

“Mostly smudges, but we’re still workin’ it,” Walker replied, and added, “Hard to tell with all the blood, but it looks like she’d been beaten recently. New stitches and all. M.E. will tell us more. And here’s something you should see.”

His partner pointed to a series of shallow wounds to the victim’s stomach.

“These don’t appear to be very deep,” Walker said. “M.E. will have to make the final determination, but it looks like the killer jabbed and poked her.”

Ray had seen this type of wound before—and recently. Apprehension twisted his gut.

“She didn’t die fast,” his partner continued. “She was mutilated and tortured. And these shallow punctures don’t look postmortem either. You ready to have a look?”

Without answering, Ray stepped closer to the bed and leaned in as Walker lifted the pillow off the dead woman’s face. He stared into glazed dead eyes, sightless and wide with terror. Her mouth gaped open.

Despite the horror on her face that distorted her features, he recognized her. He’d seen her booking photo.

“DL says her name is…” His partner read from a driver’s license taken from a purse on the nightstand.

“I know who she is.” Ray straightened up and shook his head. “Camille Regan, aka Jade. And, Nigel, things just got more complicated.”