THREE TIMES A LADY (27 page)

That said, snapping mentally wasn’t an option for Dana at this point.  Not now and not ever again.  The only option left now was the one where she made everything right again – by
not
playing by the rules, if necessary.  Dana needed to restore proper order to the world.  To bust the bad guys asses so hard their
grandchildren
felt it.  To make sure they paid for their crimes until it hurt.  To make sure they paid for their crimes until it hurt their
descendants
.  Hurt them all the way down to their goddamn
souls
.  And not the good kind of pain, either.  The other kind of pain.  It’s exactly what the killers and drug dealers and child molesters deserved. 

Not to mention the motherfucking, piece-of-shit rapists.

Dana shook her head violently and cursed a blue streak beneath her breath while she tried desperately to organise her jumbled thoughts.  Once again, an unspeakable nightmare had just invaded her life and reinforced her entire purpose for breathing.  As an FBI agent, Dana had been tasked with making sure that the human trash piles littering the world rotted away in prison for the rest of their natural-born lives.  As a woman who’d just been raped, however, she needed something more than that.  Needed to make the animals hurt like they’d made her hurt.  No other option remained.  No matter how much it might seem that way sometimes, the bad guys weren’t in charge here.

Or, in this case, the bad
girls
.

Dana clenched her fists into tight balls at her sides and resisted the urge to throw punches in the air, once again fighting back the insistent tears pooling in her eyes and feeling angry with herself for even
considering
tears at this point.  Tears were for weak people, losers, schoolchildren.  Still, how another woman could take part in the violation that had just been savagely foisted upon her was completely beyond Dana’s comprehension, beyond her ability to understand. 

With more than a quarter-million rapes reported across the world each year, Dana knew that she wasn’t alone.  Not even close.  Still, that knowledge didn’t make her feel in the least bit better about what had just happened to her.  How could it?  Nobody on the Titanic had taken comfort in the knowledge that so many others were sinking down to their watery graves with them, had they?  Hadn’t taken solace from the fact that they’d have plenty of company in their icy tombs for eternity.  Not unless they’d been complete fucking assholes who’d deserved to die anyway.

Worse, the astronomical number of reported rapes didn’t even scratch the surface of the problem.  One National Crime Victimization Survey showed that just thirty-nine per cent of all rapes and sexual assaults in the United States were reported to law-enforcement officials each year.  And less than ten per cent of all male-on-male rapes were ever reported, with the victims most often believing it was a personal matter or fearing reprisal from the assailant.

Dana stretched her neck, feeling like a prizefighter preparing to enter the ring.  She knew
exactly
how those other victims felt.  But she didn’t fear reprisal from her primary assailants in the least little bit.  They were
dead
, after all – killed by the woman dressed in black.  What Dana
did
fear, however, was what she’d to do to the sadistic bitch who’d killed the rapists when she finally caught up with the conniving whore. 

Horrible thoughts crept into Dana’s mind.  Thoughts of how she might murder another human being in cold blood and actually get away with it.

First things first, though.  Before she could do anything else, Dana needed to find the woman.  Luckily for her, though, as an FBI agent, that’s precisely what she was best at doing.  The best in the entire world, according to
Newsweek
’s recent cover story.

Dana clamped her teeth together until her jaw began to ache.  Rape had always been a crime that she’d despised almost as much as murder.  And why not?  It was practically the same thing.  Rapists took lives, too, even if their victims survived the brutal attacks.  There were lots of different kinds of deaths, after all.  The death of innocence.  The death of a getting a good night’s sleep.  The death of knowing that you could walk freely around your fellow man without becoming a victim.  In Dana’s mind, the perpetrators of rape deserved nothing less than the death sentence.  Or, at the very least, total castration.  And their accomplices – cowardly jackals like the woman in black – should be held every bit as accountable as the hyenas that had performed the animalistic acts of invasion in the first place.

Dana stopped pacing when the squad cars and ambulances finally came racing up to the scene, sirens screaming and blue-and-red lights flashing.  Two uniformed cops emerged quickly from the lead vehicle and ushered the looky-loos who’d come outside the coroner’s office to see what was going on back inside the building.  Five minutes later, yet
another
squad car pulled up to the scene.  This one held Gary Templeton inside and brought the total number of emergency vehicles in the parking lot to more than twenty. 

Dana immediately took Templeton to one side and gave him her fabricated version of events while Templeton’s boss set up a perimeter around the crime scene.  Even in a city as violent as Cleveland – a city with a homicide rate that had shot up eighteen per cent in the past year – no less an authority than the chief of police himself had rolled out of his warm, cosy bed to brave the frigid winter conditions when he’d been informed that two men had been brutally murdered in a municipal parking lot, an incident that marked the fourth multiple-victim murders of the year in the besieged city.  If Dana had her way, though, there would have been
three
dead bodies here tonight instead of just two.  And she sure as hell wouldn’t have been one of the ones they’d be zipping up into a body bag. 

Dana closed her eyes.  After all these years on the job and of never quite understanding how a human being could take another’s life without remorse, she was starting to see exactly how you could be
driven
to murder.  Hell, she was practically getting a limo ride there herself.

Dana refused Templeton’s offer to go inside the coroner’s office building where it was warmer.  More heat was the last thing in the world she needed right now.  The intense rage boiling in her chest could have powered all of Ohio’s nuclear power plants for an entire year, if not longer.

‘At least let me get you a blanket,’ Templeton persisted, huge puffs of foggy breath issuing from his mouth as he spoke.  ‘It’s fucking freezing out here.’

Dana shook her head.  Like she’d noted earlier, the cold couldn’t touch her now.  Nothing could touch her now.  And she was sorry to say that she didn’t give a shit what anybody else was feeling at the moment, including Gary Templeton.  Whatever petty problems they had – including something as insignificant as being
cold
– couldn’t compare to her problems right now.  ‘I said I’m fine, Gary,’ Dana snapped, not even attempting to keep the sharp knife-edge of irritation out of her voice. 

Templeton lifted up his eyebrows on his forehead, no doubt remembering Dana’s promise from earlier in the day to keep things professional between them from here on out.  ‘Whoa, take it easy, Dana,’ he said, holding up his hands with his palms facing her in a placating matter.  ‘What’s wrong?  Other than these two dead bodies here, I mean.  Is everything else OK, though?  You’re acting really fucking aggressive right now.’

Dana took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.  No matter how hard it was for her to accomplish, she couldn’t let Templeton suspect what had
really
happened to her here tonight.  This shit was
personal
now.  She didn’t need anybody getting in the way of her revenge.  ‘I’m sorry, Gary,’ she said, shaking her head and dropping her gaze to the pavement.  ‘It’s just that…’

The words died in Dana’s throat when her gaze landed on the gold hoop earring that was lying on the ground near Templeton’s feet.  Her heart stopped beating dead in her chest.  Her mouth flooded with stomach acid.

Templeton followed Dana’s stare down to the ground but didn’t notice the earring lying there.  Thank God for small favours.  Lifting up his gaze again to meet hers, he asked, ‘What?’

Dana held Templeton’s stare and forced herself to not look down at the earring again.  If everything went well for her, the earring was one piece of evidence that would never make it into the official record.  ‘It’s nothing, Gary.  I’m just completely fucking exhausted right now.  It’s been a really long day and an even longer night.  Can’t I just give you my statement and go home?  I really need to sleep.’

Templeton pursed his lips, looking annoyed.  Luckily, though, he didn’t push the issue.  Something in Dana’s eyes must have told him that it would have been the wrong move at this point.  ‘Of course,’ Templeton said, removing a pen and notebook from the pocket of his trench coat to record her statement.  ‘So, what happened here, anyway?  What did you see?’

Dana relayed the lie she’d mentally rehearsed while waiting for the cops to arrive.  Lying to people was something she seemed to be getting awfully good at lately.  First Dr Spinks, and now Templeton.  But sometimes the truth hurt too much to share with others.  Sometimes honesty
wasn’t
the best policy.  Sometime honesty could just go to hell, for all she cared.

And right now was definitely one of those times. 

‘I came out of the coroner’s office and these two men were lying dead in the snow with their throats slashed open,’ Dana told the Cleveland cop, gesturing to the rapists, who were now being photographed on their red-and-white background by Doug Freeman, the forensic photographer who’d also worked with Dana on the Cleveland Slasher case.  Hell, it was starting to look like a regular class reunion around here.  All they needed to do now was to dig her brother’s dead body out of the frozen ground and they’d be halfway home to reassembling the original cast of characters.  ‘I called you guys right away when I saw them,’ Dana went on, returning her stare to Templeton.  ‘I canvassed the area for any possible suspects at that point but I didn’t see anybody.  Then I waited for you guys to arrive – a little bit longer than I cared to, to be perfectly honest.  Anyway, now I’m
talking
to you guys.  That’s the whole story.  That’s all I’ve got for you.’

    Templeton flashed Dana a sympathetic look, but he still had a job he needed to do.  ‘You didn’t see
anybody
when you came out of the building?’ he asked.  ‘Nobody leaving the scene?  Do you remember any cars exiting the parking lot when you came out of the coroner’s office?’

Dana tried her best to keep her voice even.  ‘No, Gary.’ 
How many goddamn times did she have to say this crap?
  ‘I didn’t see anything or anybody except for the dead bodies.  I don’t know what else to tell you.  I’m sorry, but I just don’t have anything else to give you right now.’ 

Templeton cast a weary eye at the crisscrossed tire tracks that were lacing the parking lot like the stitches on a freshly autopsied corpse.  Then he stared up into the dark sky above their heads, from which yet
another
heavy snow had begun to fall.  The snow was wet and sticky, of course – the kind of snow that did an excellent job of blanketing crime scenes and destroying evidence.  ‘I doubt that we’ll be able to trace a fucking
thing
in this mess,’ he said, sighing heavily.  ‘Hell, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.’

The law-enforcement part of Dana’s brain empathised with Templeton, but right now she had other thoughts on her mind. 
Murderous
thoughts.  It’s why she hadn’t wanted Templeton to see the gold hoop earring and why she hadn’t yet told the Cleveland cop about the woman in the autopsy-room video – even though she knew that Templeton would find out about it eventually.  Probably sooner rather than later.  Like Jeremy Brown had been, Templeton was a damn good cop, as well.  One of the best Dana had ever worked with. 

‘I’m really sorry, Gary, but I just didn’t see anything useful,’ Dana said, wanting to get this conversation over with already so she could start plotting her revenge in earnest.  ‘Just the dead bodies.  Like I said before, I wish I had more for you, but I just don’t.’

Templeton nodded and clicked shut his ballpoint pen.  Flipping closed his spiral notebook, he shoved it back into the pocket of his trench coat.  ‘OK, Dana.  Anyway, I know you’re tired and all, but is there any way you could stick around and help us out for a little while?  Half these guys out here are rookies.  They’ll probably end up destroying more evidence than they uncover.’

Dana resisted the urge to reach out and grab Templeton by his throat.  This was just getting tedious now.  She needed to
get the fuck out of there
.  ‘Nope, can’t do it,’ Dana said, shaking her head emphatically to underscore her resolve and grinding her teeth back and forth in her mouth until she thought that a tooth might chip.  ‘Not tonight, anyway.  I’m too fucking exhausted.  I really need to go home and sleep.  Tomorrow morning I’ll get back to work on finding out who attached the photograph of my brother to Christian Manhoff’s body.  This is your jurisdiction, anyway.  There’s no need for federal involvement that I can see.  Give me a call if you find out something that changes that.’