In Your Name, page 15
‘You need to trust me, Mr Silverton. I will deliver these men’s heads to you on a silver platter, but first I need to know where they are. Can you make that happen?’
‘Leave it with me,’ he said gathering up the pictures. ‘And the message is very clear to my guys – leave well alone or you’ll blow their fucking heads off. Sounds a little strong but okay.’
Silverton went into the other room to make his calls.
Mechanic left to prepare for war.
35
Next day Lucas was up and out of the motel the early. He’d had a dreadful night tossing and turning while Harper slept the sleep of the dead and snored non-stop. Getting a separate room had to be a priority for today.
He pushed open the Perspex front on the news-stand and removed a copy of the Bulletin. Walking back to the hotel he felt energised and on top of his game. This was what he’d been dreaming of for so long. For the entire time of his convalescence, during his therapy sessions, and even during his disastrous meeting with his boss, his head was only ever full of one thing: catching the bitch and making her suffer. This was his day.
He sat with a coffee and opened the paper, flicking through the pages, scanning down the personal columns. Nothing. He moved to a table with better light and repeated his search. Absolutely nothing. He flipped over to the front section to see if her response had been misprinted in the business section. No, there was nothing.
He checked the date on the top. Sure enough it was today’s edition. Where was Mechanic’s acknowledgement?
He left his coffee and returned to the room. Harper was cleaning his teeth while peeing in the toilet.
‘There’s nothing here.’ He threw the paper onto the bed.
‘Have you checked them all?’ He said showering the wall with toothpaste.
‘Yes, I’ve checked them all.’
‘Let me see.’ Harper emerged from the bathroom, picked up the paper and donned his glasses. Several minutes later he folded the paper and placed it to one side.
‘You’re right, nothing there.’
‘Why would Mechanic not acknowledge?’
‘Maybe she missed the deadline for the ad.’
Lucas sat on the bed deep in thought.
‘Yes, that’s probably it. She missed today’s edition.’
‘Relax Lucas. Focus on what we’ve achieved. We have Jo in a place where Mechanic can’t reach her. We’ve made first contact and she’s going to be flapping around not knowing which way is up. Her sister’s gone and she’s on the rack. She’ll be in complete turmoil, man, and not thinking straight. That’s what we want isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘We want her crumbling under the pressure. Right?’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘Let’s pick up Bassano and get some breakfast. We got an exchange to plan.’
Across the city in a luxury suite Mechanic was far from crumbling. She was nowhere near a state of turmoil or flapping. Mechanic knew exactly what to do.
Silverton’s men had worked wonders overnight.
‘No one has made contact?’ she asked looking at the scribbled note in her hand.
‘No. It’s as you requested.’
‘I’m impressed, Mr Silverton.’
He bowed his head in mock acceptance of the compliment.
‘Apparently though, these guys may not be as hot as you made out. They weren’t exactly keeping a low profile when my men eyeballed them. They were having dinner at Hooters.’
‘You’re sure they didn’t clock your boys?’ Mechanic asked.
‘I’m positive, but then I told them you’d blow their heads off if they did.’
‘Thank you.’
‘When are you going to make a move?’
‘Already started.’
36
It was pitch black when Mechanic pulled into the car park. There was no moon and the courtesy lighting spilled a watery glow across the front of the building. She stepped out of the car and made her way along the walkway in front of the ground-floor motel rooms.
She glanced through each window as she went. Nothing took her interest. Then she passed a room with a semi-clothed man lying on the bed watching TV, a beer bottle resting on his belly. The woman sat at the dressing table brushing her hair. They were both early twenties and were probably taking advantage of a dirty few days in Vegas. Room G46fitted the brief perfectly. Mechanic returned to her car and settled down for a long wait.
After an hour the light went out in the room but the dancing flicker of the TV screen still played across the partially closed curtains. Forty-five minutes later the room went dark.
A further hour and the clock on the dash said 01.34am. It was time to move.
Mechanic staggered and swayed along the walkway with her head bowed, bumping into the wall and tripping over her feet. When she reached G46 she knelt down to tie her shoe and unzipped a flat, rectangular pouch. She laid it on the floor and removed two thin metal implements. Mechanic slid the slender tension pick into the lock followed by the Bogota rake. There was a faint metallic scratching as she pulled the rake back and forth, setting the pins inside the lock. Mechanic felt a soft click as it disengaged. She withdrew the tools and replaced them in the wallet.
She twisted the handle and pushed open the door. Cool air hit her face as the noisy buzz of the air-conditioning unit provided useful cover. She stepped inside and closed the door.
The sallow glow from outside seeped through the tatty curtains and partially lit the room. The couple were sound asleep. The bedspread moved up and down in time with their breathing. The woman lay on her side with her back to him, he was curled around her with his left arm draped across her shoulder. Mechanic watched them from across the room.
How cute, she thought.
She removed the gun from the side of her belt and walked slowly to the bed. The newly carpeted floor made her footfall completely silent. Mechanic’s usual preference would be to have some fun, but on this occasion it was strictly business.
She levelled the silenced weapon and blew a neat hole in the guy’s temple. The woman stirred as her boyfriend’s body jolted under the impact of the bullet. Mechanic reached across the man’s body and popped the next shell into her brain.
Mechanic went to the bathroom, picked a hand towel off the floor and returned to the bodies still hugging each other in bed. She rolled each one onto their back, opened their mouths and unwrapped an object from her pocket. The clinical steel of the scalpel glinted in the dark.
Taking the towel she grasped the tip of the man’s tongue, pulling it out towards her. The blade cleaved through the muscle and she sliced it off. The woman was next. Mechanic opened her mouth and carved out her tongue.
Blood pooled in the depressions of the pillows and ran onto the floor. A ground-floor room had to be the target. No risk of scaring the folks below when the claret seeped through ceiling.
Mechanic held the woman’s tongue and dipped it into the blood.
‘Let’s see how the fuckers like this.’
Ten minutes later Mechanic left.
Her advert in tomorrow’s Bulletin would now make perfect sense.
37
The hotel finally came up with a cancellation, which Lucas jumped at. A room on his own was hugely preferable to one with Harper in it. The privacy gave him the opportunity to call his wife. It was late and he lay on his bed in the dark watching the digits click over on the clock. He hated the way their previous conversation had ended and wanted to make it right.
Lucas lifted the phone and dialled his house. The phone rang but there was no answer. He flicked through his billfold, pulled out a scrap of paper and punched in the numbers.
‘Hi Heather, sorry it’s late.’
‘Come on, Edmund, it’s God knows what time here. I thought Darlene was clear the last time you two spoke, she doesn’t want to talk to you.’
Lucas tightened his grip on the receiver. Heather was making far too much of her guard-dog role.
‘I need five minutes, Heather. That’s all. Please tell her I’m on the line.’
‘She knows.’ There was mumbling in the background as Heather handed over the phone.
‘Hi.’ It was Darlene.
‘Hi.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I needed to hear your voice.’
‘Is it something important? Because if not I’m hanging up.’
‘I miss you. I needed to talk.’
‘Really? Well here’s what I need.’ Darlene choked back the tears. ‘I need you to come home to me. And that’s not the same as you showing up at the house, sticking your key in the lock and hollering “Hey honey, I’m home”. I need you to come back to me. But instead you sit in the living room and I know your head is in Baton Rouge or Vegas or wherever the hell you think she is. I can’t do that anymore.’ The flood gates opened and she began to sob.
‘I love you, honey, but I have to do this.’
‘I know you do, and you need to understand that I need to do this. I can’t be with you until you want to be with me. Why can’t you be like other men and screw around with hookers, or spend your nights at the titty bar? I’d know how to deal with that. I could fight that. But I can’t fight a woman who occupies your head twenty-four hours a day, I can’t win.’
His eyes were moist and his throat was dry.
‘We’ve got a strong lead and I gotta take it. This could bring the whole fiasco to an end.’
‘It’s already ended.’
Darlene hung up.
Lucas slept very little and woke way before his alarm. He lay in bed turning the conversation with his wife over in his head. It certainly hadn’t gone the way he intended. At least now he had a room to himself. No heavy breathing, no snoring or early morning farting. This was a welcome relief. He could try Darlene again later.
It was 7am and he couldn’t wait to get his copy of the Bulletin. Despite Harper’s reassurances it bothered him that Mechanic hadn’t posted an acknowledgement. He understood the logic behind Harper’s explanation but couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that something wasn’t right.
He got out of bed, dressed, and made his way to the news-stand down the street. On his return he sat in the motel reception skimming through the columns of the personal section.
Midway down on the left was a short message. It jolted him upright in his seat. It was for him, no mistake.
LUCAS
WHAT COMES NEXT IS IN YOUR NAME
He crumpled the paper in his fist and dashed to Harper’s room, stopping only to make a call to Bassano to get his ass over here now.
Twenty minutes later Lucas sat with both of them trying to make sense of what was happening.
‘What the hell …’ Harper said a little too loudly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lucas reading it out loud for the hundredth time. ‘I don’t get it’
‘Okay, let’s step through this logically,’ said Harper. ‘How does Mechanic know it’s you?’
‘It must be from talking to the Huxton woman,’ said Bassano. ‘She probably described us, and Mechanic pieced it together from there.’
‘Shit!’ Lucas paced around the room with the paper in his hand.
‘I’m not sure this changes anything. So she knows it’s us, so what?’ Harper was still trying to be logical. ‘It doesn’t change what we do. Let’s not forget, we still have her sister and that’s our big advantage. That’s our leverage.’
Lucas and Bassano considered the analysis.
‘She knows it’s us and she knows we’re in Vegas. Those two points are definitely not in our favour.’ Lucas was rattled.
‘We need to be extra vigilant in where we go and what we do. Travel separately and not be seen together, that sort of shit.’ Harper was determined to pursue his glass half-full approach. ‘We need to—’
A woman screamed outside. It was not the type of scream which said ‘I’ve stubbed my toe’, it said ‘I’m going to die’.
Lucas opened the door to see what was happening. A couple of people were running to a maid who had collapsed on the walkway near her trolley. A man reached her and called for help while another shouted to call 911.
‘Call the cops, someone call the cops.’ The woman was hysterical.
Lucas gestured to the other two. ‘Wait here.’ He made his way over to the commotion.
He saw a man come out of a doorway and vomit on the floor. The maid was still screaming for the cops and pointing at the room. Lucas skirted around her, creaked open the door and looked inside.
A young couple lay dead in bed with bullet wounds to the head. The sheets were sodden with blood. On the bedside cabinet lay two pieces of purple flesh and above the headboard was written in bold block capitals:
IN YOUR NAME
The scrawled letters were streaked red where crimson rivulets had run down the wall. It was written in blood.
38
Moran eased her car into the Lucky 6 motel. The previous day had not ended well. She’d been expertly sidelined by Mills and was kicking herself – after all it wasn’t as if she hadn’t encountered this before. Being the smartest in the class doesn’t come without its downside.
Her boss had taken time out of his ‘running around like a headless chicken’ diary to speak to Mills, which resulted in her being dropped from the case. Mills even gave her back her page of inconsistencies and across it he’d written ‘That’s Vegas, baby’. What a dick.
She was angry and resented being ignored, but Captain Brennan wasn’t interested, he was too busy. She had resigned herself to smouldering at her desk for the rest of the day but snapped out of it when Despatch told her to attend a murder at the Lucky 6. She leapt from her seat, the adrenaline was pumping once more.
Moran pushed her way through the pack of chattering onlookers. The uniform boys had set up a yellow taped cordon around room G46 and were holding back those looking for a thrill. The inside of the hotel room flashed bright white with exploding camera flashes. She lifted the tape, waved her badge and stepped inside. She was flying solo on this one.
The bloody mess lying naked on the bed stopped her in her tracks.
‘Detective Moran.’ She screwed her face up and introduced herself to the medical officer. ‘What have we got?’
‘A particularly nasty one,’ he replied looking up from his notebook. ‘James Kelly and Kathy Spink, aged twenty-four and twenty-three respectively, both from Layton, Utah. Both shot once in the head, with no sign of a struggle. Looking at the blood patterns they were probably asleep. I estimate the time of death around two this morning. They were due to check out early today and the maid discovered them when she came to clean the room.’
Moran studied the letters daubed on the wall. She took out a pen and poked the purple lumps of flesh on the bedside table. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
‘That depends. If you think it’s a human tongue, then you’d be right. The killer removed them from the vics, probably post-mortem, and if I’m right used them to do this.’ He waved his arm at the writing daubed across the wall above the bed. ‘Like some grotesque magic marker.’
‘Seen anything like it before?’ Moran asked.
‘No. This is a new one on me.’
‘Any idea what the message means?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Do you need me for anything else?’
‘No thank you, I’ll take it from here.’ Moran put on a pair of thin latex gloves and picked her way through the contents of the room. She called to one of the uniformed officers by the door. ‘Can you get me the hotel manager and tell him to bring the guest list.’ The officer nodded and shot off in the direction of reception.
The SOCO team were still snapping away ensuring every inch of the room appeared in one photo or another. ‘Can we remove the bodies now, ma’am?’ asked one of them.
‘Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be with the manager, if you find anything out of the ordinary let me know.’ As if two dead people with their tongues removed and a bloody message on the wall wasn’t out of the ordinary enough. Moran marched across the car park to the door marked reception.
Lucas, Harper and Bassano were sitting together in one room. The atmosphere was tense, no one made eye contact, each one staring into the distance.
‘She knows we’re here,’ said Lucas. ‘In your name. That’s what she wrote in the paper and that’s what’s written on that fucking wall.’
‘If she knows we’re here, then why isn’t it us with bullets in our heads?’ asked Bassano.
‘Because that’s not the game. If she wanted us dead, we would be,’ answered Lucas.
‘The game? What game? I don’t get it. We have her sister. We’re the ones in control. I don’t understand what Mechanic’s playing at.’ Bassano got to his feet and made his way to the window. Blue flashing lights and people in uniform filled the car park outside.
Harper was equally struggling to get a grip on events.
‘Mechanic doesn’t know where her sister is being held. Her goal has to be her safe return, right? She could take one of us, torture him half to death and extract the location. Why do this? Why kill two innocent people instead?’
‘Because it’s a game.’ Lucas put his head in his hands.
‘What game?’ Bassano was not catching on.
‘Think it through. Mechanic knows there’s an easy option to locate her sister but she’s chosen not to take it. She wants us to know she could kill us. Mechanic wants us to know that two people are dead because of us. She’s playing a game.’
‘What do you think her next move will be?’ asked Harper.
‘She’s shifting the power towards herself. I think she will kill again and keep killing until we return Jo.’
‘What! Like there’s going to be more of these?’ Bassano waved his hand at the commotion outside. ‘More people are going to die? But we have her sister, doesn’t that count?’
‘Leave it with me,’ he said gathering up the pictures. ‘And the message is very clear to my guys – leave well alone or you’ll blow their fucking heads off. Sounds a little strong but okay.’
Silverton went into the other room to make his calls.
Mechanic left to prepare for war.
35
Next day Lucas was up and out of the motel the early. He’d had a dreadful night tossing and turning while Harper slept the sleep of the dead and snored non-stop. Getting a separate room had to be a priority for today.
He pushed open the Perspex front on the news-stand and removed a copy of the Bulletin. Walking back to the hotel he felt energised and on top of his game. This was what he’d been dreaming of for so long. For the entire time of his convalescence, during his therapy sessions, and even during his disastrous meeting with his boss, his head was only ever full of one thing: catching the bitch and making her suffer. This was his day.
He sat with a coffee and opened the paper, flicking through the pages, scanning down the personal columns. Nothing. He moved to a table with better light and repeated his search. Absolutely nothing. He flipped over to the front section to see if her response had been misprinted in the business section. No, there was nothing.
He checked the date on the top. Sure enough it was today’s edition. Where was Mechanic’s acknowledgement?
He left his coffee and returned to the room. Harper was cleaning his teeth while peeing in the toilet.
‘There’s nothing here.’ He threw the paper onto the bed.
‘Have you checked them all?’ He said showering the wall with toothpaste.
‘Yes, I’ve checked them all.’
‘Let me see.’ Harper emerged from the bathroom, picked up the paper and donned his glasses. Several minutes later he folded the paper and placed it to one side.
‘You’re right, nothing there.’
‘Why would Mechanic not acknowledge?’
‘Maybe she missed the deadline for the ad.’
Lucas sat on the bed deep in thought.
‘Yes, that’s probably it. She missed today’s edition.’
‘Relax Lucas. Focus on what we’ve achieved. We have Jo in a place where Mechanic can’t reach her. We’ve made first contact and she’s going to be flapping around not knowing which way is up. Her sister’s gone and she’s on the rack. She’ll be in complete turmoil, man, and not thinking straight. That’s what we want isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘We want her crumbling under the pressure. Right?’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘Let’s pick up Bassano and get some breakfast. We got an exchange to plan.’
Across the city in a luxury suite Mechanic was far from crumbling. She was nowhere near a state of turmoil or flapping. Mechanic knew exactly what to do.
Silverton’s men had worked wonders overnight.
‘No one has made contact?’ she asked looking at the scribbled note in her hand.
‘No. It’s as you requested.’
‘I’m impressed, Mr Silverton.’
He bowed his head in mock acceptance of the compliment.
‘Apparently though, these guys may not be as hot as you made out. They weren’t exactly keeping a low profile when my men eyeballed them. They were having dinner at Hooters.’
‘You’re sure they didn’t clock your boys?’ Mechanic asked.
‘I’m positive, but then I told them you’d blow their heads off if they did.’
‘Thank you.’
‘When are you going to make a move?’
‘Already started.’
36
It was pitch black when Mechanic pulled into the car park. There was no moon and the courtesy lighting spilled a watery glow across the front of the building. She stepped out of the car and made her way along the walkway in front of the ground-floor motel rooms.
She glanced through each window as she went. Nothing took her interest. Then she passed a room with a semi-clothed man lying on the bed watching TV, a beer bottle resting on his belly. The woman sat at the dressing table brushing her hair. They were both early twenties and were probably taking advantage of a dirty few days in Vegas. Room G46fitted the brief perfectly. Mechanic returned to her car and settled down for a long wait.
After an hour the light went out in the room but the dancing flicker of the TV screen still played across the partially closed curtains. Forty-five minutes later the room went dark.
A further hour and the clock on the dash said 01.34am. It was time to move.
Mechanic staggered and swayed along the walkway with her head bowed, bumping into the wall and tripping over her feet. When she reached G46 she knelt down to tie her shoe and unzipped a flat, rectangular pouch. She laid it on the floor and removed two thin metal implements. Mechanic slid the slender tension pick into the lock followed by the Bogota rake. There was a faint metallic scratching as she pulled the rake back and forth, setting the pins inside the lock. Mechanic felt a soft click as it disengaged. She withdrew the tools and replaced them in the wallet.
She twisted the handle and pushed open the door. Cool air hit her face as the noisy buzz of the air-conditioning unit provided useful cover. She stepped inside and closed the door.
The sallow glow from outside seeped through the tatty curtains and partially lit the room. The couple were sound asleep. The bedspread moved up and down in time with their breathing. The woman lay on her side with her back to him, he was curled around her with his left arm draped across her shoulder. Mechanic watched them from across the room.
How cute, she thought.
She removed the gun from the side of her belt and walked slowly to the bed. The newly carpeted floor made her footfall completely silent. Mechanic’s usual preference would be to have some fun, but on this occasion it was strictly business.
She levelled the silenced weapon and blew a neat hole in the guy’s temple. The woman stirred as her boyfriend’s body jolted under the impact of the bullet. Mechanic reached across the man’s body and popped the next shell into her brain.
Mechanic went to the bathroom, picked a hand towel off the floor and returned to the bodies still hugging each other in bed. She rolled each one onto their back, opened their mouths and unwrapped an object from her pocket. The clinical steel of the scalpel glinted in the dark.
Taking the towel she grasped the tip of the man’s tongue, pulling it out towards her. The blade cleaved through the muscle and she sliced it off. The woman was next. Mechanic opened her mouth and carved out her tongue.
Blood pooled in the depressions of the pillows and ran onto the floor. A ground-floor room had to be the target. No risk of scaring the folks below when the claret seeped through ceiling.
Mechanic held the woman’s tongue and dipped it into the blood.
‘Let’s see how the fuckers like this.’
Ten minutes later Mechanic left.
Her advert in tomorrow’s Bulletin would now make perfect sense.
37
The hotel finally came up with a cancellation, which Lucas jumped at. A room on his own was hugely preferable to one with Harper in it. The privacy gave him the opportunity to call his wife. It was late and he lay on his bed in the dark watching the digits click over on the clock. He hated the way their previous conversation had ended and wanted to make it right.
Lucas lifted the phone and dialled his house. The phone rang but there was no answer. He flicked through his billfold, pulled out a scrap of paper and punched in the numbers.
‘Hi Heather, sorry it’s late.’
‘Come on, Edmund, it’s God knows what time here. I thought Darlene was clear the last time you two spoke, she doesn’t want to talk to you.’
Lucas tightened his grip on the receiver. Heather was making far too much of her guard-dog role.
‘I need five minutes, Heather. That’s all. Please tell her I’m on the line.’
‘She knows.’ There was mumbling in the background as Heather handed over the phone.
‘Hi.’ It was Darlene.
‘Hi.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I needed to hear your voice.’
‘Is it something important? Because if not I’m hanging up.’
‘I miss you. I needed to talk.’
‘Really? Well here’s what I need.’ Darlene choked back the tears. ‘I need you to come home to me. And that’s not the same as you showing up at the house, sticking your key in the lock and hollering “Hey honey, I’m home”. I need you to come back to me. But instead you sit in the living room and I know your head is in Baton Rouge or Vegas or wherever the hell you think she is. I can’t do that anymore.’ The flood gates opened and she began to sob.
‘I love you, honey, but I have to do this.’
‘I know you do, and you need to understand that I need to do this. I can’t be with you until you want to be with me. Why can’t you be like other men and screw around with hookers, or spend your nights at the titty bar? I’d know how to deal with that. I could fight that. But I can’t fight a woman who occupies your head twenty-four hours a day, I can’t win.’
His eyes were moist and his throat was dry.
‘We’ve got a strong lead and I gotta take it. This could bring the whole fiasco to an end.’
‘It’s already ended.’
Darlene hung up.
Lucas slept very little and woke way before his alarm. He lay in bed turning the conversation with his wife over in his head. It certainly hadn’t gone the way he intended. At least now he had a room to himself. No heavy breathing, no snoring or early morning farting. This was a welcome relief. He could try Darlene again later.
It was 7am and he couldn’t wait to get his copy of the Bulletin. Despite Harper’s reassurances it bothered him that Mechanic hadn’t posted an acknowledgement. He understood the logic behind Harper’s explanation but couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that something wasn’t right.
He got out of bed, dressed, and made his way to the news-stand down the street. On his return he sat in the motel reception skimming through the columns of the personal section.
Midway down on the left was a short message. It jolted him upright in his seat. It was for him, no mistake.
LUCAS
WHAT COMES NEXT IS IN YOUR NAME
He crumpled the paper in his fist and dashed to Harper’s room, stopping only to make a call to Bassano to get his ass over here now.
Twenty minutes later Lucas sat with both of them trying to make sense of what was happening.
‘What the hell …’ Harper said a little too loudly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lucas reading it out loud for the hundredth time. ‘I don’t get it’
‘Okay, let’s step through this logically,’ said Harper. ‘How does Mechanic know it’s you?’
‘It must be from talking to the Huxton woman,’ said Bassano. ‘She probably described us, and Mechanic pieced it together from there.’
‘Shit!’ Lucas paced around the room with the paper in his hand.
‘I’m not sure this changes anything. So she knows it’s us, so what?’ Harper was still trying to be logical. ‘It doesn’t change what we do. Let’s not forget, we still have her sister and that’s our big advantage. That’s our leverage.’
Lucas and Bassano considered the analysis.
‘She knows it’s us and she knows we’re in Vegas. Those two points are definitely not in our favour.’ Lucas was rattled.
‘We need to be extra vigilant in where we go and what we do. Travel separately and not be seen together, that sort of shit.’ Harper was determined to pursue his glass half-full approach. ‘We need to—’
A woman screamed outside. It was not the type of scream which said ‘I’ve stubbed my toe’, it said ‘I’m going to die’.
Lucas opened the door to see what was happening. A couple of people were running to a maid who had collapsed on the walkway near her trolley. A man reached her and called for help while another shouted to call 911.
‘Call the cops, someone call the cops.’ The woman was hysterical.
Lucas gestured to the other two. ‘Wait here.’ He made his way over to the commotion.
He saw a man come out of a doorway and vomit on the floor. The maid was still screaming for the cops and pointing at the room. Lucas skirted around her, creaked open the door and looked inside.
A young couple lay dead in bed with bullet wounds to the head. The sheets were sodden with blood. On the bedside cabinet lay two pieces of purple flesh and above the headboard was written in bold block capitals:
IN YOUR NAME
The scrawled letters were streaked red where crimson rivulets had run down the wall. It was written in blood.
38
Moran eased her car into the Lucky 6 motel. The previous day had not ended well. She’d been expertly sidelined by Mills and was kicking herself – after all it wasn’t as if she hadn’t encountered this before. Being the smartest in the class doesn’t come without its downside.
Her boss had taken time out of his ‘running around like a headless chicken’ diary to speak to Mills, which resulted in her being dropped from the case. Mills even gave her back her page of inconsistencies and across it he’d written ‘That’s Vegas, baby’. What a dick.
She was angry and resented being ignored, but Captain Brennan wasn’t interested, he was too busy. She had resigned herself to smouldering at her desk for the rest of the day but snapped out of it when Despatch told her to attend a murder at the Lucky 6. She leapt from her seat, the adrenaline was pumping once more.
Moran pushed her way through the pack of chattering onlookers. The uniform boys had set up a yellow taped cordon around room G46 and were holding back those looking for a thrill. The inside of the hotel room flashed bright white with exploding camera flashes. She lifted the tape, waved her badge and stepped inside. She was flying solo on this one.
The bloody mess lying naked on the bed stopped her in her tracks.
‘Detective Moran.’ She screwed her face up and introduced herself to the medical officer. ‘What have we got?’
‘A particularly nasty one,’ he replied looking up from his notebook. ‘James Kelly and Kathy Spink, aged twenty-four and twenty-three respectively, both from Layton, Utah. Both shot once in the head, with no sign of a struggle. Looking at the blood patterns they were probably asleep. I estimate the time of death around two this morning. They were due to check out early today and the maid discovered them when she came to clean the room.’
Moran studied the letters daubed on the wall. She took out a pen and poked the purple lumps of flesh on the bedside table. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
‘That depends. If you think it’s a human tongue, then you’d be right. The killer removed them from the vics, probably post-mortem, and if I’m right used them to do this.’ He waved his arm at the writing daubed across the wall above the bed. ‘Like some grotesque magic marker.’
‘Seen anything like it before?’ Moran asked.
‘No. This is a new one on me.’
‘Any idea what the message means?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Do you need me for anything else?’
‘No thank you, I’ll take it from here.’ Moran put on a pair of thin latex gloves and picked her way through the contents of the room. She called to one of the uniformed officers by the door. ‘Can you get me the hotel manager and tell him to bring the guest list.’ The officer nodded and shot off in the direction of reception.
The SOCO team were still snapping away ensuring every inch of the room appeared in one photo or another. ‘Can we remove the bodies now, ma’am?’ asked one of them.
‘Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be with the manager, if you find anything out of the ordinary let me know.’ As if two dead people with their tongues removed and a bloody message on the wall wasn’t out of the ordinary enough. Moran marched across the car park to the door marked reception.
Lucas, Harper and Bassano were sitting together in one room. The atmosphere was tense, no one made eye contact, each one staring into the distance.
‘She knows we’re here,’ said Lucas. ‘In your name. That’s what she wrote in the paper and that’s what’s written on that fucking wall.’
‘If she knows we’re here, then why isn’t it us with bullets in our heads?’ asked Bassano.
‘Because that’s not the game. If she wanted us dead, we would be,’ answered Lucas.
‘The game? What game? I don’t get it. We have her sister. We’re the ones in control. I don’t understand what Mechanic’s playing at.’ Bassano got to his feet and made his way to the window. Blue flashing lights and people in uniform filled the car park outside.
Harper was equally struggling to get a grip on events.
‘Mechanic doesn’t know where her sister is being held. Her goal has to be her safe return, right? She could take one of us, torture him half to death and extract the location. Why do this? Why kill two innocent people instead?’
‘Because it’s a game.’ Lucas put his head in his hands.
‘What game?’ Bassano was not catching on.
‘Think it through. Mechanic knows there’s an easy option to locate her sister but she’s chosen not to take it. She wants us to know she could kill us. Mechanic wants us to know that two people are dead because of us. She’s playing a game.’
‘What do you think her next move will be?’ asked Harper.
‘She’s shifting the power towards herself. I think she will kill again and keep killing until we return Jo.’
‘What! Like there’s going to be more of these?’ Bassano waved his hand at the commotion outside. ‘More people are going to die? But we have her sister, doesn’t that count?’
