THREE TIMES A LADY (25 page)

Nicholas hit the flashers and sirens again and backed the ambulance carefully down Dinah Leach’s driveway, turning on the windshield wipers full-blast to whisk away the torrential rain. 
God, it was a mess out here.
 

And he fucking
loved
it.

Nicholas pursed his lips and concentrated on navigating the road in front of him while the frenetic sound of the wipers filled his brain like a million swarming mosquitoes.  The only other vehicles on the streets right now belonged to emergency responders on their way to various points of trouble all around the besieged city,
exactly
the reason that he and his mother had chosen to put their beautiful game plan into action under these very specific conditions and on this very specific night.  With law-enforcement officials and emergency responders already stretched to the point of snapping dealing with all the fallout from Hurricane Allison, Nicholas could really take his time here and get everything exactly right.  Not only was he a kid in a candy store right now, he was a kid in a candy store with what amounted to an unlimited budget. 

He could take
whatever
he wanted.

An Atlanta PD patrol car whizzed by in the opposite direction at seventy miles an hour, its blue-and-red lights flashing and its powerful sirens screaming, letting everyone in the vicinity know that the men inside the vehicle were in a goddamn
hurry
here.

Nicholas smiled until his jaw began to ache.

Hey there, officers!  Got some pretty interesting cargo in the back of my rig here if you’d care to take a look.  No?  You’re too goddamn busy right now?  What about a murder?  Would something like that pique your interest at all?  How about if the victim is famous?  Still no?  I see.  Well, I understand.  Have a nice day, officers.  Thank you so much for your service to our community.

Nicholas shook his head and adjusted the police scanner to the correct frequency, listening in joyfully as the reports crackled in over the electrified airwaves.

‘Flooding at 187 Mockingbird Lane.  Infant trapped in an upstairs bedroom.  Mother’s frantic, crying and screaming that she can’t get to her baby.

‘Broken leg and multiple contusions at 23 Jamaica Way.  Address belongs to City Councilman Bryan Manlow.  If you’re a Republican, head over that way.’

Nicholas winced at the joke. 
There
went somebody’s job.

‘Call regarding a ninety-one-year-old man having trouble breathing at 19420 La Serena Drive.  History of heart problems.  Better hurry.’

Twenty minutes later, Nicholas pulled the ambulance over to the side of the road about half a mile away from the hospital.  Stooped over in a half-crouch, he made his into the back of the vehicle and unzipped the body bag.  A hot rush of adrenalin bolted through his veins at the sight of her face. 

There she was, just waiting for him.

The woman was conscious now, but just barely.  The reality-television star gasped for air through the soiled panties covering her face, but was too woozy to do much of anything else. 

Nicholas slid up the panties onto Dinah Leach’s forehead.  She widened her bright green eyes in confusion.  ‘What’s happening?’ she breathed.  ‘Who are you?  Where am I?’

Nicholas smiled down at her.  She looked so goddamn
beautiful
in this state that he couldn’t resist the urge to lean in for a quick kiss, tasting her expensive lipstick on his tongue.  Once again, much like the woman’s jeans and perfume, she’d obviously bought the good stuff. 
Estee Lauder
, judging by the flavour of it. 

Nicholas broke the kiss and slid the panties back over her face, zipping shut the blue body bag constructed of industrial-strength rubber once more.  No need to make a big show over their good-byes, right?  Didn’t want anyone to feel embarrassed here.

Making his way back into the driver’s seat up front, Nicholas traded in his bloody clothes for a pair of brand-new scrubs.  He needed to the look the part here, after all.  Hell, that was half the battle.

Ten minutes later – having given Dinah Leach sufficient time to suffocate inside the body bag – Nicholas wheeled the vehicle up to the emergency-room entrance of the hospital and took his place waiting in line. 

The scene around the hospital was an absolute
madhouse
, but it wasn’t very long before three EMTs hustled up to meet him.

‘What do we have here?’ one of the EMTs asked, shielding his eyes from the pounding rain that was pouring down from the heavens.

Nicholas shook his head sadly and told the man the bad news.  ‘I’m afraid this one is just a drop-off for some post-mortem work.  Forty-two-year-old female.  It’s that Dinah Leach chick from the
Real Housewives
show.’

The EMT lifted up his eyebrows on his forehead in surprise.  ‘Holy shit.  You’re kidding.  How’d she die?’

‘Overexposure.’

‘To what?’

Me
, Nicholas thought.

Out loud, he said, ‘Hell, I don’t know, pal.  Too much excitement, I suppose.  Heart gave out on her, is my guess.  Anyway, the docs are going to have to cut her open to find out for sure.  They don’t pay me enough to make those kind of calls.’

The EMT laughed.  ‘Yeah, I hear ya there.  Me either.’ 

The man paused and studied Nicholas’s face.  ‘You new around her?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.’

Like everything else in Annabeth Preston’s exquisite plan, Nicholas had prepared his lie well in advance.  ‘Just helping out,’ Nicholas said, another good ol’ boy commiserating with a colleague deep in the heart of Dixie.  ‘Studying to become an EMT at the community college.  They wanted me to get some real-time experience, lend a hand because of the storm and all.  Pretty exciting job you’ve got, huh?’

The EMT nodded.  ‘Yeah,
too
exciting sometimes.  Anyway, pop the locks on the back doors here and we’ll take her off your hands.’

Nicholas did as he was instructed.  The other two EMTs extracted Dinah Leach’s body and slammed shut the doors before wheeling her into the hospital.

The remaining EMT pounded once on the ambulance’s roof to let Nicholas know he could take off.  ‘Thanks a lot, buddy.  Good luck in school.  I guess I’ll see ya around when you graduate.’

Nicholas nodded and pressed down his foot against the accelerator.  Heart thrumming gleefully in his chest, he pulled away from the absolutely perfect final act of his absolutely perfect first murder.

See me around?
Nicholas thought.

Not if you’re lucky, pal.  Not if you’re fucking lucky.

TROPICAL DEPRESSION

‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: In My wrath I will unleash a violent wind and in My anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury.’

 
Book of Ezekiel, chapter 13, verse 13.

Four months after his exquisitely flawless murder of Dinah Leach down in Atlanta, Nicholas Preston sat in his rental car outside the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office in Cleveland, Ohio, on a snowy winter’s night, idly thumbing through a slender copy of
People
magazine while listening to Boy George work his way through a soulful rendition of
The Crying Game
. 

The cover of Nicholas’s magazine featured a very pretty woman about ten years younger than himself.  Short blonde hair framed a beautiful face punctuated by a pair of pale blue eyes.  Her milky-white skin would have looked right at home in a Noxzema advertisement within the glossy pages of his magazine.  A small brown mole sat just above the right side of her mouth.  Her lips were thin but kissable – if you were into that kind of thing, which Nicholas most certainly was not.

    But Dana Whitestone was a good-looking woman, no two ways about it.  Shit, she was
almost
as beautiful as Annabeth Preston. 

Almost as beautiful as Nicholas himself. 

According to the article he was reading at the moment, the FBI agent had never been married.  He wondered why.  Someone as attractive and successful as her should have been hitched
years
ago.  The combination of her youthful good looks and decidedly cerebral nature would have presented quite the catch for most men: a real piece of arm-candy with a highly functioning brain to match.

Nicholas shook his head.  Wasn’t any of his business why she’d never gotten married.  He was sure she had her reasons.  Still, Dana Whitestone was another one of those people who didn’t quite deserve all the publicity she’d been getting lately.  For what?  For doing her fucking
job
?  So she’d caught a few serial killers over the past couple of years and had bumped her head in a minor plane crash where hardly anybody had died at all.  Big goddamn deal.  What was all the
fuss
about? 

Nicholas pressed his painted lips together in irritation.  It would take more than just a few magazine articles singing her praises as the top law-enforcement official in the country to escape
his
special list. 

Though Dana Whitestone didn’t know it yet, she’d be the one to ultimately ensure Nicholas’s
own
fame.  And Nicholas knew exactly how she’d do it, too.  Exactly
when
she’d do it, as well.  His mother had spelled out everything for him in excruciating detail; right down to killing blow.  And it was an absolute beauty.  A worthy conclusion to this thrilling ride.  Pretty soon, Dana Whitestone would know how it would all end, too.  Know it until she begged Nicholas to put her out of her misery already and just let sweet, sweet death take her away.

Nicholas narrowed his beautiful eyes when the celebrated FBI agent finally stepped out of the coroner’s office twenty minutes later, punching in a number on her cellphone as she did so.  No doubt the dumb bitch was giving yet
another
interminable interview to the press.  He swallowed back the acrid flood of stomach acid that rushed into his mouth as Dana Whitestone gleefully recounted her hopelessly boring story for the billionth goddamn time, grinning like the goddamn Cheshire Cat the entire time. 

Big mistake, honey.  I’m not the sort of woman you should fuck with.  Neither is my mother, for that matter.

Nicholas chuckled softly.  He just couldn’t help himself.  He was feeling especially catty tonight, no doubt about it.  As catty as he’d ever felt in his entire life.  And why not?  He was looking
good
tonight.  His dress and shoes and jewellery had been selected precisely for the occasion, as had his hair, makeup and underwear – a bright pink Victoria’s Secret thong worn in honour of the late and not-so-great Dinah Leach.  Any way you looked at it, he was
ready
for this. 

Still, Dana Whitestone represented the
last
name on his list.  If she was really lucky, she might survive the night due to that annoying little technicality.  No guarantees, though, of course.

For now, though, Nicholas would simply have to content himself with watching Dana Whitestone from a distance.  Watching her and waiting.  When the time was absolutely right, that was when he could spring out from the shadows like a rapist in the night and catch her completely off-guard.  Teach her the lesson that Annabeth Preston had taught
him
so well all those years ago.

Pride cometh before a fall.

That said, it didn’t mean Nicholas couldn’t have a little bit of fun
right now
, did it?  Of course it didn’t.  Why should he wait any longer?  Why not get the festivities under way while he was looking this
good
?

Stepping out of his rental car, Nicholas approached the two men in overalls who were loading boxes into the back of the coroner’s office building while Dana Whitestone gabbed into the cellphone at her ear, much too preoccupied with her own story to notice Nicholas’s movements.  The men’s pupils widened in admiration as they took in Nicholas’s stunning feminine beauty, causing him to shake his head in bemusement. 

Men.
  They were all the same.  Only interested in one thing.  Eight years old or eighty, some things never changed.

‘Hey there, boys,’ Nicholas said, sounding
exactly
like the confident woman he’d always dreamed he’d be.  ‘You two interested in making a little bit of money tonight?  If you play your cards right, there might even be a couple of blowjobs in it for you, too.’

***

As the older and taller of the two workers present in the parking lot of the coroner’s office – not to mention the
tougher
of the pair – Larry Randle spoke first. 

At fifty-seven years old and on work release from prison for the ninth time, he’d begun to suspect lately that working for a living just wasn’t going to cut it.  Too much bullshit to deal with.  Too many asses to kiss.  Hell, being in prison was actually
easier
than living in the real world.  He
wanted
to go back to the joint.  After all, three hots and a cot certainly weren’t anything to sneeze at.