Addicted In Cold Blood (14 page)

“Goddamn it!” She stormed out of her apartment and made her way over to the crime scene. The area crawled with cops and one FBI Agent that she hadn’t met previously. Agent Jordan immediately introduced himself.

“Hello, Officer Knight. I understand you were following up on a lead last night?” He smiled all knowingly, causing Jayme to pause. Shoving her budding ’tude away, she nodded. She wasn’t in the mood for a fight and he was picking with that smirk and tone. So she was becoming a joke—as if they’d done any better...

She looked at the disturbed earth and the body lying on the ground with a white sheet over it. She’d been up all night, going over notes, researching on the computer, trying to put pieces of the bloodied and fragmented puzzle together. It was in times like these she knew she was close, just when she was about to throw in the towel.

“Our guy here may have been at the wrong place at the wrong time,” he explained. “We’ve got tire tracks over there, like someone peeled out. He has one to the head, but it’s not a bullet... more something like a cork screw with a motor.”

Jayme cocked her head to the side.
Now this was different...

“There is no ‘XXX’, but a star is burned on him, with a similar tool. We don’t know what that means yet but we’re on it.” He paused, waiting for her reaction but she kept her calm, not allowing her facial expression to forsake her. “It sounds like we’ve either got an attempted copy-cat, or he is changing his symbol which is doubtful, or it is code for something else. We hope you can continue to scour the area, talk to people and find out what anyone knows.”

“I most certainly will,” Jayme said as she cautiously made her way through the small team of medical professionals and fellow police. She bent down on one knee and peeled the sheet away to see the victim’s face.

“Oh my God.” She dropped the sheet in horror and stifled her cries. Nausea roiled in her stomach. Acting fast to quell the emotion, she got ahold of herself, but felt herself die a little inside. Her heart pounded in her ears and she tried to steady her nerves, but the ashen bluish tint of the corpse’s skin stayed ever present in her mind.

No, Owen! Not you, too!

Owen was known to hang with Andre, and he toured the college campuses, scouring potential buyers and simply ‘being available for service’, should the time arise. He also had been a little boy Jayme used to babysit back in the day, and though he’d succumb to the dangerous lifestyle, he seemed to fight with the demon on his shoulder on a daily basis. So many times, he swore up and down with conviction that he was done and on his way to bigger and better things, but then within a wink of an eye, he’d be pulled back in and the vicious cycle continued.

His mother worked two jobs, trying to support him and his brother, but he’d been lost to the streets at an early age. Owen wasn’t big time though, not by a long shot. If you wanted some weed for your party, he was your man, but other than that, he was definitely low on the drug retail food chain. This didn’t match the other murders; those were either drug lords or big time sellers, and Jayme knew instantly, from that alone, the killer knew it as well. Owen had been marked with a ‘star’, differentiating him from the rest, but what did it all mean?

****

Jayme sat in her car on the side of East Baltimore Avenue, hours after the scene had cleared of people, blaring sirens and the all-too-familiar red and blue spellbinding lights. The yellow caution tape stayed up like a beacon, causing her pain every time she’d glance in that direction. She immediately made calls, one of which helped. One man, Owen’s best friend, Rick, agreed to meet with her. Now, the dealers were no longer afraid of the police but rather searched them out, practically begging for protection. Some had moved out of state, but no one was safe, and everyone knew it. This guy was touring the entire country, known to double back for seconds and thirds in a game of hide and seek, and the dealers were always found...

The glamour of the fast life morphed into a blood stained stigma. More and more bodies piled up, and the few times the maniac was apparently caught slipping, he corrected the problem pronto by annihilating all extra eyes upon him. Jayme leaned back in the seat, staring out of the window, hoping and praying to catch a glimpse of something, anything to run after and chase. Wishing that this time, it would finally lead to something she could sink her sharpened teeth into...

Just then, there was a soft tap at the side of her passenger door. When she unlocked it, a burst of cold air bustled through as the athletically built dark skinned youth climbed into her car. He placed his hands to his lips, blowing on them to try to warm himself. By the sullen look on his face, he was in the beginning stages of mourning and now, the two had something in common.

“Jayme, I don’t wanna believe it.” His voice quaked as he removed his black skull cap in one swoop of the hand, exposing his carefully cropped fade. “Not Owen.”

Jayme patted his back, trying her best to not join him in the tear brigade. “I know...but I saw him with my own eyes.”

“Who’d do something like this? I mean, shit, I know it ain’t no playground out here, folks get smoked every day, but this is way extra, man! This is crazy! Owen ain’t do shit to nobody!” His lips moistened with saliva, his eyes brimmed with more tears that fell silkily down the contours of his rawboned ebony face.

“Did Owen tell you of anything going on? I know he had two other friends around here doing  the same thing he was, but I haven’t been able to catch up with either of them yet.”

“Tony and Man?” Rick rolled his eyes and frowned. “Jayme, their asses been gone for weeks. Left down south. Everybody leavin’ who can afford to. Everybody scared. I don’t deal.”

“I know you don’t...”

“I never have. You see where it gets you? They killed my boy!” he screamed, rubbing his face with the palms of his hands.

Jayme continued to sit there, allowing the nineteen year old to lament, travel memory lane and curse the person responsible. People slowly drove up and down the street, some pausing at the protected crime scene, then carrying on their way. Car after car, she watched as they passed by. The prostitutes began to slowly migrate onto the street after an hour, as if the only crime committed were a child being robbed of candy earlier that day. They mewed down the pavement, coming out of the recesses of dark doorways and alleyways like wisps of colorful smoke. A depressingly surreal sight, and the traffic increased as bravado returned. Jayme continued to people watch as she spoke with Rick. He’d given her a little information to go off of, and she knew she’d be up for another day of calling and canvasing the area.

The way he took Owen down...What the hell? Who puts a perfectly drilled, circular hole in someone’s dome, with no bullet, then burns a star into their skin? Who the hell am I chasing and why can’t the FBI catch him? Shit is not adding up...

She quickly pushed the sullen thoughts out of her mind, needing desperately to stay on task.

This guy is good, that’s why. They need inside intelligence. I understand it, but...

She drifted away once more, her mind racing at the speed of light. Looking back into traffic,  she met eyes with a man driving slowly past in a dirty white Honda Accord. His gaze made her heart pulsate. Dark, so dark, in an unnatural way and one sparkled, as if a tiny flash of a camera had come directly from the pupil. Jayme rubbed her eyes in disbelief.

“I’m tired. I am going to definitely have to go to sleep soon,” she whispered as she looked over at Rick, who was now half asleep himself, leaning back in the seat. She pulled away from the curb and made her way to his apartment complex, dropping him off. He disappeared into the building and thus blended in with the city surroundings. After waiting a while, making sure he was safely inside, she returned to
Baltimore Avenue, and parked across from where she originally was. She looked back at the yellow tape, then turned away from that sight in angst. She spoke to a few local hookers she knew, one of which said she’d seen Owen the day before. Jayme continued to write notes, yawning occasionally, and there it was again...the dirty white car with the light-complexioned man. The dark eyes, matching thick eyebrows and one sparkling eye, looking as if it were filled with small black diamonds...

As he made his way up the street, Jayme pulled from the curb and followed him from a safe distance.

Either he’s looking for sex or drugs, but I’ve never seen him before until tonight... Right now, everyone is a suspect. Time to find out what he’s doing...

****

Xzion felt as if he’d lost his mind. He’d spotted the same woman from the strip club, the cop, as he searched in vain for his next hit. He’d come out to get his number two, and no one would think someone would be so brazen as to murder someone, return to the scene of the crime, and do it all over again. But he was. He’d done it before, many times, many places, and this was no different.

His target had vanished from the streets, however, like the coward that he was. Despite the situation, Xzion hated killing witnesses; it always made him more susceptible to police involvement. The neighborhood cried a bit more when some seemingly innocent bystander was mowed down, but the damn kid came out of nowhere, and brandished a gun.

The young man shot him, causing Xzion to have to duck. Bullets hurt, and though most shots were easily healed from, one in the wrong spot could cost him a lot of blood. In the best case scenario, they could slow him down, and he had shit to do. He was thankful for his fast reflexes, or he’d been dead years ago when he had to fight a pack of wolf like creatures on the planet Kizsute.

He shrugged, disliking the whole mess about the kid that shot at him. After apprehending the youth, he administered the small drill from his finger and bore into him rapidly. Despite what it looked like, under the conditions, it was relatively painless and quick. Finally, he left his star tag for people just like that boy...the regretted kills, the ones that had nothing to do with his mission, but had inadvertently made themselves part of the fabric. They weren’t law officials or agents, hell, not even security guards. As he lamented over what had transpired, he saw her...

She’d entered an apartment building. He was supposed to go home, let the scene relax then return, but instead, he dragged around, circling the blocks. After too much time had passed, he relinquished his quest, and returned to his house only to leave and finish what he’d started. The coast was clearer, there was a chance...but he knew he was only fooling himself. He wasn’t there for the goddamn dealer. He was there for
her.

He hadn’t been able to get the cop out of his mind and it unnerved him. Now, here she was again. Certain that the universe was playing a cruel trick on him, he tried to look away, to not search for her gaze, but he couldn’t—and now, as he looked into his rear view mirror, he knew his newfound weakness aided in his undoing. She was on his tail, scoping him out. The hit wouldn’t happen tonight for she’d be on his ass all damn evening, and there was nowhere else to go but home.

Xzion turned down his subdivision and looked casually back into his mirror. She was a safe distance away, two cars between them, but still hanging on.  He immediately opened his wrist, calling Aton.

“I have a situation.”

“Yes, what is the problem?”

“I have a
Baltimore police officer that has been following me. I have seen her before, but not under these conditions.”

“Is she aware that you know she is there?”

“I’m not certain. This has been going on for over thirty minutes and she is now out of her jurisdiction. She’s a sex buster. She goes after prostitution rings.”

She must think I was searching for whores... That’s her job, to chase johns and pimps. Back the fuck off, lady. If you stay around too long, there will be dire consequences.

“What are your intentions?”

Xzion hesitated,uncertain what Aton meant. Fear washed over him—fear that he was becoming apparent, that this all had happened because of his own inadequacy. He’d become sexually aroused and semi-obsessed with her, and now an issue with no easy solution had arisen.

“I am going to play it cool...let her follow, act oblivious. However, my hit for Mr. Lennox will have to be postponed.”

“Fine. If she doesn’t disappear,
make
her disappear.” And the call went dead.

His eyes narrowed as he pulled into his driveway and watched her slow and pull over to the curb. Huffing, he got out of his car and slammed the vehicle door before entering the house to be flooded in bright blue light...

*
***

Jayme sat outside of the house, frustrated. She’d ran his tags, and he came up clean. The house was freshly built in the nice area of town, and according to the records, his name was Cristiano Hernández and he didn’t even have a parking ticket, let alone a history of buying pussy or dope.

What the hell were you doing on
East Baltimore? What every guy like you is over there for, no doubt...or maybe it’s more than that.

He was all that she had and despite the disappointment of his stellar record, Jayme was not prepared to let go. She had a hunch, and she was going to ride it into the ground.

With all the crime going on there, the robbing and recent surge in murders, strangers aren’t coming there now...yet you risked your life, Mr. Hernandez. Strange...very strange indeed. You may be home now, but I’ll be back.