“To us?” Ryan asked.

  “To the johns,” Jessie replied. “She wants identifying them to be challenging. She wants their names out there. And she leaves them naked, vulnerable. She wants them shamed, both as they’re dying and forever afterward. This is personal. This is payback.”

  “Like payback against these two guys?” Ryan pressed.

  “No. I think it’s payback against all guys.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hannah woke up with a start.

  She could have sworn she heard something. But, other than the sound of the settling house, there was silence in the basement. She glanced up at the small window in the corner and saw total darkness, indicating that it was the middle of the night. Even the neon strip club sign that glowed in the distance had been turned off.

  She slowly sat up, trying to orient herself. She felt groggier than usual and wondered if Bolton had slipped some kind of sleeping pill in her dinner. Considering how much leeway he’d given her in the last day, it would have been a surprise. Had something happened to make him feel he had to drug her?

  The question made her apprehensive. If he’d drugged her, that meant something had changed, and most of the changes she’d dealt with in the last week had been bad. Was this a sign that he’d grown tired of her and just wanted to keep her sedated until he got rid of her?

  But why? In the last day, he’d let her go upstairs to use a real restroom; he’d allowed her to take a shower. He’d put obvious effort into all of her meals. He’d spent hours asking her questions about her life and seemed genuinely interested in the answers.

  But now, for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, he’d felt the need to change the dynamic. It was almost certainly a sign that time was running out for her. Maybe that meant it was time to do the thing she’d increasingly talked herself out of in recent days: try to escape.

  If Bolton thought she was out cold, he might be more lax in his security measures. This might be her best opportunity to get out before…whatever he had planned next.

  Hannah scrambled from a seated position to her knees, allowing a second for the subsequent head rush to subside. She was preparing to get to her feet and see if she’d missed some flaw in her captor’s plan when she heard something. It was so quiet that she thought she might have imagined it. But then she heard it again. This time she was able to identify it. The sound was a sigh.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded.

  There was no response. But a second later she heard a click and a light came on. The sudden brightness was blinding and she covered her eyes until they could adjust.

  “Sorry for the drama, Miss Hannah,” a familiar voice said.

  When she could see clearly, she looked in his direction and saw Bolton Crutchfield sitting on a folding chair in front of the stairs. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t alone.

  Sitting beside him in a heavier wooden chair was another man. He was unconscious and had blood streaming down his forehead from an open wound near his hairline. His glasses were broken and his pudgy face was chalky white. His polo shirt was untucked and a bit of his plump stomach flesh poured out over his tan Dockers. He was gagged and his arms and ankles were tied to the chair with ropes. Hannah had a flashback to several months ago, when the serial killer, Xander Thurman, had put her in the exact same position.

  “What is this?” she asked slowly.

  “It’s a second chance,” Bolton said with a chipperness that didn’t fit the moment. “But before I explain further, you’ll need to give me a moment.”

  Then he removed a large hypodermic needle from a bag at his feet and, without preamble, jammed it into the man’s neck. Hannah gasped. Almost immediately, the man’s eyes popped open. He made a desperate attempt to suck in air. But with the gag, he found it difficult and ended up coughing violently for a good fifteen seconds.

  “This,” Bolton said with an elaborate hand flourish, “is Robert Wilford Rylance. But his friends, to the extent that he has friends, call him Rob. Have you ever heard of him, Miss Hannah?”

  Hannah shook her head. The man began to struggle at his ropes.

  “That’s okay,” he continued, untroubled. “There’s no reason you should have. Robert, Rob, I personally prefer Robbie—is a programmer for a well-known gaming company in Ontario. He’s also a pedophile who traffics in child pornography. Isn’t that right, Robbie?”

  Robbie stopped struggling for a second, long enough to look over at Hannah pleadingly as he shook his head.

  “They always deny it,” Bolton said in his unhurried southern drawl. “But the physical evidence is overwhelming. This is what I found in files on his computer.”

  He tossed a sheaf of papers onto the floor in front of Hannah. They scattered but several small figures were clearly visible. Hannah could only look for a second before she turned away, gagging. The images bored into her skull, as awful as the sight of her own parents being slaughtered right in front of her. She tried to shut out what she’d seen, clenching her eyes shut tight. But it was too late. The memory of those children, even seen only fleetingly, would be there forever.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard Bolton say softly. “I’m sorry to have shown you that. I’ve made killing people my life’s work and even I find this sort of thing distasteful. I can honestly say that among the dozens of people I’ve cut down, none has been a child. And I would certainly never consider doing…those things to an innocent. But I felt you had to know what we’re dealing with here. You had to understand fully before I gave you this opportunity.”

  “What opportunity?” she finally managed to get out, despite the bile in her mouth.

  “The opportunity to right this wrong; to bring righteous vengeance upon this perpetrator; to rid the world of a creature so vile that he doesn’t deserve to draw breath. In short, Miss Hannah, I’m giving you the opportunity to end him.”

  With that, he removed a second item from the bag at his feet. It was a long hunting knife. He turned it over slowly. The blade gleamed in the overhead light.

  “We both know that justice is hard to come by in this world,” Bolton continued. “You know it better than most, Miss Hannah. It’s rare that one gets a chance to so completely right a wrong. And I can’t pretend this justice is complete. The children Robbie hurt in the past will suffer until they leave this world. We can’t prevent that. But we can stop him from subjecting other little ones to the same fate. We can salvage the future of untold youngsters he might otherwise destroy. We can do that, Miss Hannah. You can do that.”

  “How?” she asked, though she already knew his answer.

  “Simply take the knife and do what needs to be done.”

  Robbie looked at the knife and then at Hannah. His eyes were bulging now and he was yelling through his gag, though his words were unintelligible. He was shaking his head violently and rocking back and forth in his chair. The force of one particularly aggressive rock sent him careening backward and he slammed to the floor. Hannah heard his head hit with a thud.

  That seemed to momentarily stun him as he didn’t struggle when Bolton, after placing the knife on the ground, lifted the chair back upright. Hannah stared at the weapon, unable to pull her eyes away from it.

  “It’s beautiful in some terrible way, isn’t it?” Bolton said, watching her. “Full of majestic violence. It’s time to embrace the justice it can provide.”

  He picked up the knife and held it out to her.

  Robbie was starting to regain his equilibrium again. He looked at her. He was no longer struggling against the ropes but his eyes were filled with confusion and fear. Something stirred inside her. It took her a moment to identify it as an unusual combination of satisfaction and pity. She chose to focus on the latter.

  “I can’t do it,” she finally said.

  Bolton stared at her for a long second, then pulled the knife away. He seemed truly disappointed.

  “I understand,” he said sympathetically. “It’s a burden to do the hard work of striking down the wicked. Perhaps I expected too much of you. Sometimes knowing the right path and taking the first step on it are very different things. So I will take up this burden for you...this time.”

  Then, without another word, he turned to Robbie and pushed the knife into the right side of his stomach. He did it slowly and casually, like he was closing a troublesome dresser drawer that needed an extra shove.

  Robbie’s face widened in surprise at the unannounced action, then erupted into agony. Hannah heard a muffled scream escape his lips, before it turned into a long moan. Bolton removed the knife, looked at the deep red stain along the blade, and wiped it clean on Robbie’s jeans.

  Then he jammed the knife in again, this time a little harder. It entered right above Robbie’s belly button. Bolton left it there, staring as it rose and fell with each increasingly labored breath from Robbie. Hannah turned away.

  “Keep watching, Miss Hannah,” Bolton instructed firmly. “Or you’ll miss the most important part.”

  Despite her desperate desire not to, she returned her gaze to the scene in front of her. Robbie was breathing only intermittently now. Blood poured freely from his stomach and his eyes were getting dull.

  “Here it comes,” Bolton said with awe in his voice. “Watch for it. Watch for the moment when his life force leaves his body. Allow yourself to feel it enter ours.”

  And then it happened. Robbie’s eyes turned glassy and his body slumped over, just as her foster father’s had.

  “I know that was hard, Miss Hannah,” Bolton said gently. “But it was for the good. It had to be done. Now allow yourself to feel his life force become ours. Allow his energy to enter our cells.”

  But Hannah didn’t feel any life force enter her.

  All she felt was sick.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jessie was faking it.

  It was her job to always have something to go on. If not a hard lead, at least some sense of the motivation and mindset of the person she was after.

  But as she stood in the District on the Bloc bar at the Sheraton Tower Hotel, waiting to talk to her second bartender of the night, Jessie had the distinct impression that most of what she’d surmised about Blue Eyes was what the killer wanted her to think. She had no confidence that the profile she was building was even close to accurate.

  So she was faking it, pretending she had a strong sense of the woman in the hope that it might actually eventually prove true. She knew Ryan could see through the charade. But everyone else seemed to be buying it, which gave her a little space to operate. She took advantage of that space to review what they knew.

  “So,” she said to herself as much Ryan, “based on the surveillance video, it doesn’t look like she followed the same routine as last time.”

  “Right,” he agreed. “This time she hooked up with the victim in the same hotel where he picked her up rather than having them meet up at a second one later. What does that mean? Why would she change things up?”

  Jessie had been wondering the same thing. Only minutes earlier, they’d reviewed the footage from the security office. To their surprise, they found that Blue Eyes had been loitering in the bar since about 8:30 p.m. Furthermore, based on their body language, it was pretty clear that she and Schumacher hadn’t met before he tapped her shoulder in the bar.

  Of course, just as confounding as the inconsistent methods Blue Eyes seemed to be using to snag her victims was the inconsistency of her appearance. Had they not seen Schumacher on the video talking to her in the bar, they wouldn’t have realized that she was Blue Eyes at all.

  Her hair was long and raven black. Unlike the comparatively demure dress that she wore with Gordon Maines, the one she had on tonight was much more revealing, with a plunging neckline and a slit nearly up to her hip. It was also a much bolder color—bright yellow instead of the more muted violet she wore the last time.

  Jessie wondered if she was changing up her look based on the type of guy that frequented the bar. The Gallery Bar, where she’d met Maines, catered to a more conservative, professional crowd—bankers and political types. This one attracted a younger set with lots of models, actors, agents—all more drawn to shiny objects. If so, it suggested an even greater level of cunning than Jessie already credited her with.

  “Jessie,” Ryan repeated, snapping her out of her thoughts, “do you have any guesses as to why she would kill the guy in the same hotel where she met him? It seems reckless to me.”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “She was so patient last time. Maybe her taste for killing has escalated beyond her ability to control it.”

  “Maybe that’s why she got rid of the blonde wig,” he suggested. “She’s not as interested in hiding her identity anymore.”

  “That could be it,” she agreed. “But remember, she wore gloves the whole time. If she didn’t care about her identity being revealed, why do that?”

  Before they could continue the conversation, the bartender walked over. The guy projected an entirely different vibe from Brad. He was older—probably mid-thirties—and had the beginnings of gray in his black hair, which he made no effort to hide. He wore jeans and a worn, collared shirt, a far more casual look than the bar’s patrons. He was good-looking in a rough, unfussy way that Jessie suspected worked a spell on many of the female customers.

  “I’m Nick,” he said, extending his hand to each of them. “My manager said you have some questions for me.”

  “Thanks for making the time,” Ryan said.

  “No problem. I was due for a break and I was told this took priority anyway.”

  “Right,” Jessie said, pulling up her phone with the footage the security office had sent her. “We wanted you to look at some surveillance video from earlier tonight and tell us what you remember about these people.”

  She unpaused the clip a few seconds before Schumacher approached Blue Eyes and tapped her on the shoulder. They spoke for a minute before she gestured for him to take the unoccupied seat next to her.

  “Okay,” Nick said, without prompting. “The guy is Devin. I forget his last name—Schuman, Schuster—something like that. He’s an agent at some big Hollywood firm, works out of their satellite office downtown.”

  “I feel like you’re holding back, Nick,” Jessie said, sensing the guy had more to share.

  “Well, there’s also the fact that he’s an asshole, and not just because he’s a crappy tipper. He’s grabby when he’s drunk, sometimes even when he’s sober. He also got into at least two shoving matches that I can think of. I’ve had to threaten to kick him out a couple of times because of complaints.”

  “And the girl?” Ryan asked.

  “I’ve seen her around but only a few times. I think she’s new to town.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jessie asked.

  “Hard to explain. Just a feeling. After doing this job for so long, you just get a sense of people. She didn’t seem sure of herself or her surroundings, although that could just be because she was new to the bar.”

  “Did you see her interact with other folks before tonight?” Ryan asked.

  “Sure,” Nick answered with a jaded look. “I don’t want to cast aspersions. But I’m pretty sure she was a working girl.”

  “What makes you think that?” Jessie pressed.

  “Part of it is like my guess about her not being local; just a vibe. But also, she never came with friends, always alone. She always paid cash. She always left with a man, invariably one who had money to spare. And she had a very businesslike demeanor about her. She didn’t seem nervous, like the girls who are hoping to meet a cool guy. She seemed like she was…doing a job.”

  “Could she have not been nervous because she was confident that she could meet anyone she wanted?” Ryan asked. “She is pretty attractive.”

  “That’s understating it,” Nick replied. “The video doesn’t do her justice. She’s breathtaking, especially with those blue eyes. They’re magnetic. But in my experience, and as I’m sure your partner there can tell you, even the most beautiful woman in a room can feel self-conscious. She didn’t seem to have that issue. And I think it’s because she probably wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. She was looking for a payday. That eliminates a lot of the insecurity.”

  “Did you ever talk to her?”

  “Only in passing. I served her tonight, as you can see from the video. She nursed one drink the whole time she was here so I didn’t focus on her much. It gets pretty crazy in here so long conversations are hard to come by and she didn’t seem interested in those anyway. I think she called herself Lexi. Maybe it was Sexy? That’s a little on the nose, right? Either way, if I’m right about her line of work, I’d be surprised if that was her real name anyway.”

  Jessie tended to agree.

  “Anything else you can recall?’ Ryan asked.

  “Not really. But if the rumors I’m hearing are true, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  “What rumors?” Ryan asked.

  Nick shrugged.

  “Word gets around,” he said. “And the word is someone killed Devin. If that’s true, I wouldn’t just point the finger at a possible escort he met in a bar. He was the kind of guy who lots of folks would have happily killed if they thought they could get away with it.”

  “Should we count you among them?” Ryan asked, his eyebrow raised.

  “Nah,” Nick said. “He was actually good for my business. Other folks saw what a jerk he was to the bar staff and gave us sympathy tips. It was almost worth putting up with him for that. Are we good? I can see that our other bartender is starting to get swamped.”

  Jessie couldn’t think of any other questions. Ryan looked satisfied too.

  “We’re good for now,” he said, handing over his card. “Just make sure to call if you see her again. Obviously, she’s dangerous.”

  Nick nodded and hurried back behind the bar. Ryan turned to Jessie.

  “I’ve got a sinking feeling Blue Eyes was long gone before we got here.”

 

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