Kill Switch: A Vigilante Serial Killer Action Thriller (Angel of Darkness Suspense Thriller Series Book 1) (10 page)

Blondie reached in and felt it, then nodded to herself. “Hmmm. Bullet vest.” She looked up and stared into Tess’s eyes, as if judging her in that very moment. Finally, she said, “You bad woman?”

Tess stared back. “An absolute nightmare.”

The artist leaned back from his work, the portrait finished under Blondie’s guidance. Tess took a photo of the drawing with her phone. The guy they were looking for was a remarkably handsome man. If he had the charm to match his looks, it was no wonder he could lure women into danger.

A trumpet sounded.

Tess turned to St. Mary’s Church on the edge of the square. High in the tallest of the two red brick towers, the trumpeter abruptly ended his signal after only a few notes, leaving the melody unresolved. Legend said that in the thirteenth century a sentry had sounded the alarm by trumpet call, warning the town that rampaging Mongol hordes were close by. Unfortunately for him, they were far closer than he thought – an arrow hit him in the throat, cutting his warning call short. Despite that, his warning saved the town. All these centuries later, on the hour every hour, a trumpeter sounded his short call to commemorate his sacrifice.

Just as the sentry’s warning had come last-minute but had still saved Krakow, so Tess hoped her call to action hadn’t come too late and she’d still manage to save Cat. She turned away from St. Mary’s silent tower, praying that such a rescue would not demand the same level of sacrifice as that of the sentry.

With the picture rolled up and in a cardboard tube, they left, Blondie led the way, this time. Her attitude had changed since discovering Tess might be as bad as the bad man. Even more so after witnessing Tess’s cleverness in turning a complete stranger into a fair representation of the man they were hunting. Maybe she’d started to believe Tess really could get such a dangerous man off the streets. Unfortunately, while they had a picture of him, they’d still no idea how to actually find him.

Back on the street on which they’d found her, Blondie pointed down a narrow alley which served as access to the rear of some of the buildings.

She said, “This where I see his car sometime.”

Other than wheeled refuse bins, the alley was empty.

“What kind is it?” asked Tess. That wasn’t helpful now, but it might be later.

Blondie didn’t blink. “Mercedes S500, 4.7-liter twin-turbo V8. Black. 2015 model.”

“Oh.” Tess had expected a color, a reference to its size and maybe if they were really lucky, even a manufacturer. That would teach Tess for stereotyping. And it left the door open to expect even greater treasures. “I don’t suppose you got a license plate?”

“What is license plate?”

“The car number.” Tess pointed to a delivery truck on the street. “The number and letters on the front and back.”

“Ahhh. Er… it have two and five. What else…” She shrugged she didn’t know.

That was better than nothing. “So when he’s not in this part of the city, where is he?”

Blondie shook her head and shrugged again.

“Would your manager know?”

“No.”

“Would any of your friends know? They must want this guy off the street as much as we do.”

“Meh… Maybe. Maybe no.”

“Please,” said Elena, panting for breath, “time is running out for my Catalina.”

Blondie held up a hand, gesturing for Elena to wait, and then took out her phone. She scrolled through her contacts.

Tess looked at Elena. The lady was slouched and gasping for air even though they were standing still.

“Do you need to rest?”

Elena shook her head. “I can rest later.”

Tess pointed to the café at which they’d met Blondie. “At least sit and get your breath back while we work out where we’re going next.”

Gasping for air, Elena nodded and staggered a few steps toward the café.

Tess turned to Blondie, who was now talking in Polish on her phone. “We’ll be outside the café.”

Blondie nodded.

Fearing Elena would fall, Tess took her arm and helped her over to a chair.

“Order whatever you like.” Tess reached out to put some cash on the table, but Elena caught her hand.

“I still have a little money,” Elena said. “You’re already doing so much.”

“But I need you to translate. So eat, rest and get your strength back. It could be a long day.”

“Are you eating?”

“Maybe,” Tess said. “But I want to try something first.”

“So, I’ll wait.”

Tess took out her phone and selected the cell phone number they had that belonged to the man they were hunting. Every time they’d called it, they’d gotten nothing but a ring tone. Maybe the guy screened his calls and only took those from numbers he recognized. That was fair. But maybe there was another way they could reach him.

On her phone, she attached a photo of the drawing they had of him to a text message, then handed the phone to Elena. “I need you to type something in Polish.”

Taking the phone, Elena said, “Okay.”

Tess dictated slowly enough for Elena to translate and type, “We know who you are. We know where you are. Release Catalina Petrescu or we’re coming for you.”

Elena finished typing and Tess sent the message.

The man screened calls to avoid speaking to people, but he might be curious enough to glance at a text because there was no direct interaction. That was all she needed – get his attention with a little bluff backed up with an image of him.

Elena sat up in her seat, her breathing coming a little easier. “Do you think it will work?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She slumped again and her expression dropped. “Then why are we doing it?”

“Like I said, it’s just an idea. I don’t know if it will work, but it’s worth trying.”

There was no way Cat would be released following such a simple threat. But those who had her might now keep her safer than they otherwise would because she might be of use as a bargaining chip. After all, they had no idea who had sent the text and the photo. For all they knew, it could be a much bigger gang with a lot more firepower. Keeping Cat safe was suddenly in their best interests.

Also, it might finally open the lines of communication. After seeing the photo from Tess’s phone number, he might be more willing to take her call. If he did, maybe she could bluff her way into a meeting.

Tess waited a couple more minutes and then phoned the number. She listened to it ring and ring and ring.

“What’s that?” Elena said, frowning.

Tess looked at her. “Hmm?”

“That. That noise.”

Tess took her phone away from her ear so she could try to pick up on the sound Elena was hearing.

She listened, then walked a few paces away from the café back toward the alley where the man sometimes parked his car. The noise got louder. A phone was ringing.

Tess homed in on the sound, walking over to a green trash can on the roadside. She pawed away flyers, newspaper, fast-food packaging, bottles…

A gray plastic phone lay there. Ringing.

She picked it up. Looked at the display – her number.

“Oh, Jesus.” She looked back at Elena.

“What is it?”

Tess hung her head.

“What is it?” Elena repeated, her voice wavering with worry.

“It’s a burner.”

“Sorry, but what is ‘burner’?”

Tess held up the cheap phone. “It’s a burner phone. A cheap cell phone criminals use a few times and then throw away so no one can trace them through it.”

Elena cupped her hands to her face and shook her head.

Tess could imagine what she was seeing in her mind – Cat beaten, gang-raped, maybe even dead. Or pumped so full of drugs, she didn’t care how many took her, but wished she was dead when she crashed down off her high.

Okay, they’d caught a break getting an image of Cat’s abductor, but nearly a million people lived in the city. How the hell could they find just one of them from a drawing?

There had always been the possibility that they might find Cat dead, or never even find her at all, but Tess had always believed there was a chance she could save her. Now? Now there was no way there was going to be a happy ending to this story.

Marching toward them, Blondie waved, shouting, “I have place!”

Elena pushed up and doddered over to Blondie, moving faster than Tess had seen since they’d found confirmation Cat had been in the area.

Blondie handed her a piece of paper. “Fifteen minute ago, he here.”

Tess took a corner of the paper Elena was holding and turned it so she could see, but it was handwritten Polish – utterly unintelligible.

“This place in Nova Huta,” said Blondie. “Is maybe twenty minute taxi.”

With a renewed sparkle in her weary eyes, Elena looked at Tess. “What are we going to do now?”

“Do now?” said Blondie. “You go. You go.” She waved at a taxi coming toward them, which saw her and pulled in.

Elena hugged Blondie. “Thank you for all your help.”

“Is nothing. You go. You find.”

Tess held out the wad of cash she’d promised Blondie. “Thank you.”

Blondie pushed it back at Tess. She locked eyes with Tess one last time. “Be nightmare. Be very, very nightmare.”

Tess and Elena got into the taxi and it pulled away.

Finally, they had a solid lead on finding Cat. Finally, they had a real glimmer of hope. She glanced back at Blondie watching from the curb, without whom they’d never have gotten this far.

Nightmare? Man, the scum that had Cat wouldn’t believe just how much of a nightmare one woman could be.

The man sipped his coffee.

Holding a pair of pocket-sized binoculars, Tess bobbed back down beside the rear panel of a blue pickup truck which was parked in the shade of a massive apartment building.

Was that Jacek Grabowski?

She quickly scanned the building’s lower windows for faces, to check they weren’t being spied on themselves. Five stories of cold gray functionality over style and aesthetics, the concrete monstrosity was one of the biggest apartment buildings Tess had ever seen – it just went on and on, weaving its way along streets and around corners. Strangely, all Nova Huta’s buildings had a mirror image on the opposite side of the central square, so from above, Nova Huta stood a geometric marvel.

No one peered out at them.

Tess held up her phone with the drawing of the bad man on it, then turned to Elena huddled next to her. Elena nodded. Tess nodded back.

Tess again peeked through one of the gaps in the building supplies piled in the back of the pickup.

In the sun across the street, a man wearing mirrored sunglasses lounged on a bench with a newspaper open before him. He looked remarkably like the man in their drawing. To passersby, however, he would have looked like just some guy reading a newspaper, especially as he regularly turned pages.

But he wasn’t reading – the angle of his neck was all wrong. It wasn’t bent for him to look directly at the pages, but bent only slightly so as to give the impression he was looking at his paper while his actual eyeline was straight over the top of it. No, he wasn’t reading – he was hunting.

If a woman with a half-decent figure strolled by between the ages of sixteen and forty, he’d smile and say something to them. Most replied, but none went to sit with him, even when he beckoned.

Tess and Elena had spent nearly an hour wandering the streets, scrutinizing every man they came across, but finally they’d found him. They hoped. Yes, he looked like the drawing. But how could Tess be sure it was the right man? She didn’t want to beat an innocent guy to a pulp.

Tess’s heart pounded and adrenaline charged her body as mental images of the impending confrontation lit the fuse in her subconscious.

She closed her eyes for a moment and drew a long slow breath.

It wasn’t time for that yet.

Now, she needed clarity. Clarity until it was time to flip the switch.

She looked at the man again, struggling to visualize what he’d look like without sunglasses hiding so much of his face.

The man took a drink from a cup of coffee he’d bought at a local café and then placed it back on the bench beside him.

Tess stared at him. Was he someone of pure evil who was currently taking a coffee break from abducting women, or was he merely an ordinary guy relaxing with a drink as he watched the world go by?

Not that that was the only problem.

If he was their target, Tess had to formulate a plan whereby they could isolate him and get the information they needed. If she attacked here, on a busy street on such a beautiful day, people would raise the alarm. When the police came, he’d have the contacts to buy his way out, while she… Hell, what hole in the ground would he ensure she was buried in?

No, they had to do this carefully. But how?

She sank back down to crouch leaning against the car.

Merely bending over, unable to crouch fully, Elena said, “So how do we do this?”