Girl, Unknown, page 2
Grant stepped into the hallway and headed up the stairs. His destination was apartment forty-nine, the one directly above Margaret’s domain. It was odd that Margaret reportedly knew very little about her neighbor above, especially when she knew the life stories of all the other residents in the building. Perhaps that was why Margaret had been so quick to call the police. Unfamiliarity bred suspicion. To Margaret, a few scratches against the floorboards was never mice or the trappings of a DIY project. Her mind always jumped to the worst-case scenario.
Apartment forty-nine came into view, with its freshly painted door and welcome mat that declared THE NEIGHBORS HAVE BETTER STUFF. Grant knocked on the door, waited, got nothing in the way of a response. He knocked again and said, “Police, open up.”
He brushed his feet against the doormat, if only to keep his limbs busy while he waited for the occupants on the other side to finally give in. If this was one of the classic dysfunctional couples that seemed to permeate this building, their hushed whispers usually followed a standard template. First they’d talk about hiding, pretending they weren’t home. Then they’d realize that doing so could give the officers reason to come back at another time, so this was the point they usually gave in and opened the door.
But a minute later, Grant was still on the wrong side of the door.
“Miss Parkinson, we’ve had reports of a noise disturbance. We just want to check everything’s alright.”
Grant leaned against the door frame and pressed his ear to the wood. No sound inside. Not even the sounds of a frantic heartbeat or anxious scuffling. After thirty years in the game, you developed an innate ability to sense life and movement in your proximity, even if your vision was obscured by doors and walls. Presences alerted your senses, and distressed presences doubly so. Grant could hear nothing of the sort, so he decided to chalk this one up to bad timing. The occupant – or occupants – must have fled in the twenty minutes between report and arrival. Not uncommon, Grant thought.
He breathed a heavy sigh then checked his watch. Just past eleven p.m. Might as well call it a day, he told himself.
But then Grant felt something beneath his feet. As he was leaning against the door frame, he began to gently slide backward. The welcome mat skidded underfoot, and as it gradually parted from the entranceway, it revealed a long streak of dark blood.
“Jesus,” Grant gasped. His heart doubled in speed. He backed away, gripped his weapon, and pulled the mat back with his foot.
A pool of blood, fed by a trickling stream running beneath the door.
Grant clicked his radio on and shouted, “Medics needed at forty-nine, Heaven’s Gardens, Cedar Road, urgently.”
He grabbed the door handle, shunning the surging dread as his fingers wrapped around the cool metal. He hadn’t expected it to be open, but one yank instantly granted him entrance to apartment forty-nine.
His vision followed the blood trail, captivated by its serpentine course from the doorway to the living room. He didn’t have to step beyond the threshold to find the source of the snaking liquid, because it stood out like the room’s grim centerpiece.
Grant rushed in, feet colliding with the hardwood floor as he approached the mess. His stomach tied itself in knots as the visual hit him like a tidal wave. It was a middle-aged woman lying on the ground, completely still, her eyes frozen open in a cruel parody of life. Grant grabbed her pulse, and prayed for a heartbeat, but all the signs pointed to the worst.
On his radio again. “I need backup, forensics, coroner, immediately,” he shouted.
Two brutal murders.
Two nights.
What was going on?
Grant needed the help of an old friend. Time to call in a favor. “And get me William Edis at the FBI.”
CHAPTER ONE
The man's face appeared at the door of the Black Horse Inn, his expression a mix of apprehension and determination. He checked in both directions with a quick glance, and when he saw no one, he opened the door ever so slowly, inching it until he could slip inside. He wasted no time in locking it and ensuring the blinds were fully closed.
”Dennis?” he called. “I’m here. Where are you?”
The man was around fifty, athletic frame, a large cap covering his forehead. A few days ago, he was one of the men entrusted with dispatching the young FBI agent, but he’d failed in his mission, and failure meant extreme measures had to be taken. He was part of the most prolific underground group in Virginia, and they couldn’t even take out a young, single female? The chief had given him an earful, threatened to lock him in the compound with nothing but maggots for a few weeks to teach him a lesson. The man resisted, promising to do better next time. They didn’t have tabs on the girl at the time, but Dennis – the owner of the Black Horse Inn – had called him not one hour ago with a new lead. A few days ago, the angelic-looking Dennis had set the whole plan in motion by convincing the girl to check out an old, abandoned factory. There, they’d tried to jump the girl, but she’d managed to best them, escape, and leave the Red Diamonds looking like fools.
Now, Dennis wanted to talk. He presumably had a lead for them to follow. They’d been watching the girl’s home but she never seemed to be there. That meant they needed eyes everywhere, because the longer she was alive, the more of a threat she posed. She’d seen some of their faces, and if she could somehow uncover their identities, their group was as good as perished. One toppled domino could collapse everything.
“In the office,” Dennis shouted. The man followed the voice across the restaurant area, around the counter, into the back of the inn.
“Dennis?” he called, still not seeing his man anywhere. “You know you’re not supposed to call me directly. I haven’t told the boss about this because I don’t want to get you in…”
Then the man froze. Glued to the ground, nails through his feet. He had sudden recollections of attacking the girl in the old factory, how she’d battled him and his companions out of some superhuman desperation and fought off three much larger men. The girl clearly had the brawn, and the memory of being bested by someone half his size still stung like a pit of nettles.
The incident in the old factory had been an anomaly. No one outsmarted the Diamonds. No one, no matter their strength or status, could escape them.
But as he looked at old man Dennis tied to a chair, he realized he’d been wrong.
“Dennis, what the f….”
From behind, a mass of arms wrapped themselves around him, brought him crashing down onto his back, spine against a solid floor. Two women appeared in his clouded vision, two pistols jammed against his temples.
“Ugh!” he screamed upon impact. The force knocked the wind out of him, sent him dizzy. He reached in a vain attempt to fight back, but the gun barrels against his temples made him reconsider. “What the hell?”
Dennis was the first to offer an explanation. The bound old man, writhing and struggling in his restraints, looked a sorry, pathetic sight. “I’m sorry Nathan. They made me do it!”
The girl had beat them again.
He’d walked right into her trap.
***
Agent Ella Dark wasn’t in this tavern on business. She didn’t have a gun to this man’s head for the good of law enforcement. This wasn’t an active FBI case.
This was personal.
Twenty-five years ago, Ella Dark witnessed something no five-year-old ever should. She found her father dead in his bed. Murdered, despite what the autopsy reports and police files said. For years, she’d agonized over the incident, replaying it over and over like a movie reel and torturing herself for answers. Some people told her it was all in her head, told her she was trying to draw blood from a stone. But the blood she saw as a naïve five-year-old was perfectly real, splattered across the floor of her father’s bedroom, only to find later that the official report had labeled Ken Dark’s death as cardiopulmonary failure.
But Ella had followed the trail, from items in her father’s locker to an abandoned building where she’d been jumped by three mysterious attackers. Now, she and her partner, Mia Ripley, had put a plan into action to capture one of these nameless assailants.
And their plan had worked.
She and Ripley had snuck into the Black Horse Inn after hours, subdued the owner, Dennis, and made him call one of his contacts under the pretense of discussing business. Dennis had been the one to lead Ella to the old factory where she’d been attacked, and only in retrospect did she realize Dennis had been part of this little underground group all along. Dennis hadn’t expected her to connect the dots, but she had.
Now she had one of her attackers at her mercy.
“Nathan, huh?” Ella said as she pulled his cap off and threw it across the room. “You’re one of the little shits that jumped me, aren’t you?”
Nathan showed his palms in surrender. People always showed their true colors with a gun barrel in their face.
“I do what I’m told,” he yelled. “Please, don’t kill me.”
“Your pleas are no good here, buddy. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me who you guys are, how you know me, why you tried to kill me. Then, if you’re lucky, I might not put a bullet in your head. You understand?”
Nathan violently agreed. Spit collected at his lips in fright. “Yes. Please don’t shoot.”
Ella hauled the man to his feet, threw him against the corner. The back of his head collided with the wall but Ella didn’t care. When this conversation was over, even she wasn’t sure if she’d let him live or not.
“Who are you?” she screamed.
“I work for the Diamonds,” Nathan said. “The Red Diamonds.”
Ella already knew. The Red Diamonds were at the heart of D.C. and Virginia’s criminal underworld. They’d existed for as long as Ella had been alive, and their name was usually whispered during conversations of missing people and mysterious deaths. They had a wide range of establishments to their names – casinos, loan companies, liquor stores – that helped them launder cash and hide in plain sight.
“Why did you lure me to that building?”
“Him.” Nathan pointed at Dennis. “He gave us the tip-off that you’d be there.”
Ella looked over at Dennis, pathetically bound to his chair. She’d trusted that man, assumed he was nothing more than a lonely old man looking for companionship. She should have known better.
“Let it all out,” Ella said. “When this is done, Dennis is going headfirst in that river back there, so feel free to throw him under the bus.”
Dennis squirmed in his seat, lifting his chair off its feet, and toppling to one side. He began to cry, but Ella didn’t have time for sympathy. This was twenty-five years in the making and she was going to make it count.
“Shut the hell up,” she shouted. “Now, Nathan, your little friend at that building told me you know about my dad. Is that true?”
“Yes. It’s true.”
‘So tell me everything.’
“He was right,” Nathan quivered. He shrank down into the corner, struggling not to stare at the two gun barrels pointed at his forehead. “Your dad wasn’t who you think he was.”
“Oh no?”
“No. He was a thief.”
Ella’s aggressive demeanor quickly faltered. She lowered her pistol. “He was what?”
“A thief. A very good one, apparently. Look, I never met the man, but I know the stories. He was one of us.”
“One of you? My dad worked for the Red Diamonds?”
“Yes,” the man nodded. “He was one of the best. A fantastic thief.”
Ella lunged closer, a pistol against Nathan’s forehead as she bounced his skull off the wall. “Stop saying that. My dad wasn’t a criminal.” Ripley stepped in and pulled Ella back.
“What do you want me to say?” Nathan’s hands shot up in surrender. “That’s what I know.”
“He was a good man. He wasn’t some run-of-the-mill burglar.”
“Not in your lifetime. When you came along, he tried to back out. I was only just starting around that time and I remember it well. Ken tried to leave the Diamonds, promised he wouldn’t tell a soul about us. But once you’re in the Diamonds, you can never leave.”
Ella took a deep breath. She had to remove her finger from the trigger in case her emotions took over. “So, what did you do?”
Nathan trembled on the spot. His lips moved but no sound came out. It seemed even he didn’t want to speak the words aloud.
“I think you know,” he said finally.
“You killed him,” Ella said.
Silence engulfed the room. Nathan said nothing, but his reaction said more than words ever could. Ella stepped away, paced around the room a little and counted to ten. At last, she had confirmation, but it didn’t make hearing the fact any easier.
“Who did it?” Ella asked.
“Our assigned… guy.”
“Your guy?” she yelled. “You wanna die in here or not?”
“Logan Nash. We call him the Cleaner,” Nathan cried. “Been in the Diamonds since the eighties.”
“Who is he?”
“No one other than the top boss knows his identity. Logan Nash might not even be his real name.”
“Are you sure about that?” Ella said, edging closer again. She jammed the barrel of the gun into Nathan’s lips. He turned and spat.
“Okay, it is his real name, but I swear I’ve never met him. Never seen him. He’s our last resort. Our killing machine. A pure, merciless psychopath. Lifelong contract killer, must have taken forty, fifty lives over the years. Don’t try and find him, because you won’t.”
Ella had stopped listening. She was done here.
Logan Nash.
She had the name. The name of the man who’d killed her father twenty-five years ago.
It was time to finish the story.
“Okay boys, it’s closing time.” She clocked her pistol, moved her target between the two men. Nathan still had his hands up in surrender, Dennis looked as though he was about to have a heart attack at any second. A pair of cowards, Ella thought. Only tough when they had their little buddies to back them up. It took a surge of willpower to not plant bullets in them right here and now, but to do so would be foolish and immoral. She couldn’t avenge death by dispensing more of it. Plus, these two men were invaluable sources of information.
“Don’t shoot us, please,” Nathan said. “I have a family.”
Ella turned to Ripley. “You get all that?” she asked.
Ripley pulled out her phone, showed Ella the voice recording screen. “Every word.”
Everything documented. Proof, an insurance policy.
Ella clinked a pair of handcuffs out of her pocket, chained up Nathan and hauled him to his feet. Ripley took the old man.
Ella never had any intention of harming either men. She just wanted them to think their lives were in danger. If there’s one thing she’d learned so far in this game it was that the prospect of death was a great motivator.
“Don’t worry,” Ella said to Nathan, “your family can visit you in jail.”
CHAPTER TWO
Ella had been at it all night - her laptop screen illuminated the dark kitchen table like a beacon of hope. She was engrossed in her new research, and the hours melted away like the melting wax of a candle.
She and Ripley had taken the two captives down to a Virginia police station and told the officers just enough facts to put the two men in custody. They were members of the Red Diamond group – Virginia’s most notorious criminal organization – and had tried to attack Ella due to her FBI affiliation. These facts were enough to keep them locked up for a while, especially as law enforcement was happy to take any Diamonds off the streets.
But Ella had kept certain details to herself. She hadn’t mentioned her father’s murder, because if she welcomed police investigation into that avenue, it could cross-thread with her own investigation. The chief had assured her that the new captives wouldn’t be going anywhere until they’d been before a judge, because not only were they fully-fledged Diamonds, but their criminal history spoke for itself. Once Ella had finished her story and tracked down her father’s killer, she’d hand over all the details to help keep Nathan and Dennis inside for a long time.
Now, she had the name of her father’s supposed killer: Logan Nash. What had Nathan said about him? A killing machine. A pure, merciless psychopath. Lifelong contract killer, must have taken forty, fifty lives over the years. Don’t try and find him because you won’t.
The Diamonds were indeed adept at covering their tracks. They’d been in operation for decades and police never managed to unearth members, but Ella had captured two in one sitting, and she tracked down killers on a weekly basis. Whoever Logan Nash was, he wouldn’t stay hidden for long. She’d come too far to fail now. The end of the journey was in sight; she just needed that little push to reach it.
Ella clocked the time as she connected to the FBI database. Three a.m. She was meeting Ben in seven hours, but the adrenaline from tonight’s fracas was still surging through her veins, leaving little room for sleep. Better to use the time wisely rather than ruminating on the events of earlier this evening then waking up even more exhausted than she was before she finally dozed off.
Her usual resources had proven futile in locating anyone named Logan Nash. There were only a handful of people by that name in both Virginia and D.C., none of whom fit the profile. Nathan had said this man was a lifelong contract killer, and if he was taking lives twenty-five years ago, that would put him in his sixties at the youngest. The only people by that name she could find were sub-thirty, which meant one of three things. Either Nathan had lied about the man’s name, Logan Nash had since changed his name, or Logan Nash had ways of keeping himself in the shadows.
Her last resort was VICAP – the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. It listed all known serial, violent, and sexual homicides throughout the United States, even ones that hadn’t been officially investigated at the federal level. She searched for the man’s name and got fifteen hits dating back over thirty years.
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