Kill Me Once Read online

  Six hours later Dana awoke with a start and stared at the clock on her bedside table.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ she yelled, hauling herself out of bed. What was wrong with her? How could she fall asleep now? She couldn’t miss her flight – she had to get to Chicago on time.

  She rushed into the bathroom and slipped out of her clothes, letting them fall to the floor in a pile at her feet before stepping inside the shower and turning the hot water up full blast. She had to wash the filth of her memories out her hair, out of her nostrils, out of her skin.

  Without warning, a low gurgling noise sounded deep in the pit of her stomach. A split second later a rainbow of vomit exploded from her mouth and covered her naked body. The Jack Daniel’s, coupled with exhaustion and a whole lot of other shit she was carrying around with her.

  Gagging with dry heaves now, Dana twisted the shower off – it made a metallic squeak – and stepped out onto the tiled floor. She stumbled to the sink and brushed her teeth for five solid minutes. She gargled for another two before finally using a clean white towel to wipe the steam away from the mirror. Still nauseous and shaking, she gripped the sides of the sink and peered at her reflection.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she told herself. ‘You really look like shit, sister.’

  She towel-dried her hair and quickly dressed in a pair of hip-hugger jeans and an oversized green turtleneck before strapping her Glock into the holster around her waist and checking the mirror again.

  Much better.

  She glanced down at her watch. Only thirty minutes until take-off. She’d really have to hustle.

  Tossing a couple of changes of clothing, her notebooks and some toiletries into a second overnight bag, Dana bolted down the fire-escape stairs toward the parking lot. No time to wait for the elevator, and Eric and Oreo would just have to miss out on their goodbye kiss tonight.

  Down in the parking lot two minutes later, she switched off the car alarm with the keychain control and slid behind the wheel of her silver Mazda Protégé before cranking the engine to life.

  Five minutes later she was on Interstate 90, headed back to Hopkins for her second plane trip of the day. Ten minutes after that she was hurrying her way through the crowded terminal again. As she was signing for her ticket, a voice came over the intercom to announce that her flight was now in its final boarding phase.

  Dana looked down at her watch again and let out a deep breath. She’d cut it pretty close, but she’d made it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Nathan’s flight from Wichita passed entirely without incident, serving its intended purpose of transportation while he whetted his enormous appetite for murder with a dog-eared paperback copy of Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter balanced on his knee. He’d easily sidestepped the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office deputies at the airport, but that came as no surprise. He’d waited a full day to leave and the officers had grown bored with the hunt, just like he’d known they would. Like everything else, that step had been planned right down to the tiniest detail. And even if that photo had ever made it out of Cleveland there was no way that anyone would have recognised him from it.

  He leaned back in his first-class seat, wishing like hell he’d brought his scrapbook along for reading material. Inside, Dana Whitestone’s entire career had been intricately chronicled through newspaper clippings and photographs. Still, there was no way in hell that he would’ve been stupid enough to bring incriminating evidence along with him, so he’d just have to rely on his exquisite memory to amuse himself on the ride.

  As the plane streaked deep into the cold black night, he imagined the voice in his head filling the delightful role of Charles Manson in Bugliosi’s book. He, of course, would play the part of Tex Watson.

  The man who got things done.

  Nathan smiled. Obtaining the plane ticket hadn’t posed the slightest problem. Nobody had given him any trouble along the way, not so much as a sidelong glance. His fake driver’s licence had worked perfectly both times he’d been compelled to produce it, and that didn’t surprise him in the least. Years of meticulous planning simply awaited careful translation into perfect execution now. Everything the voice had foretold was coming to pass – everything was proceeding exactly according to schedule – and he had every confidence in the world that events would continue to unfold in the precise manner prescribed.

  Three hours after his plane touched down at O’Hare, he pulled up to the guard shack protecting the western entrance of Loyola University in downtown Chicago and pressed the button to activate the power window in the rented blue Acura. The black-tinted window slid down with a mechanical whine and he smiled up at the frail old codger manning the booth, saw the half-empty bottle of vodka wedged into one corner, only half-hidden by a leather book bag.

  ‘Welcome to Loyola University, sir,’ the guard said. ‘May I help you?’

  Nathan slid his prescription-free glasses down the bridge of his nose. ‘Yes, sir. I’m certainly hoping you can be of some assistance. I’m here to see a friend of mine.’

  The old guard smiled brightly. ‘Name?’

  ‘Ted Jansen.’

  ‘I meant your friend’s name, sir.’

  Nathan’s cheeks flushed as he quickly turned up the wattage on his own smile. ‘Of course, sorry about that.’ He told the guard the girl’s name.

  The old man squinted down at his clipboard – probably a visitor’s log – then back at Nathan. ‘Right-o, sir, here it is. Do you have an authorised visitor’s pass?’

  Nathan handed him the pass he’d paid a student down the street twenty bucks for – beer money, no doubt – and the security guard waved him through with a cheery ‘Have a great night, sir!’

  As the gate slowly creaked up and Nathan eased the Acura carefully over an irritating series of huge yellow speed bumps, he reached out a hand and punched a button on the tape player. A moment later the narrator’s perfectly pitched voice filled the car.

  ‘Jeremy Bryan Jones,’ the man intoned. ‘Jeremy Bryan Jones was a smooth-talking, extremely handsome psychopath who raped and murdered more than two dozen women, bragging that he could “talk the panties off a nun”. ’

  Arriving at the library three minutes later, Nathan parked the car in an open space and hurried inside. The tape was enough for the time being, but what he really needed right now were his precious books.

  Five minutes of poking around the shelves finally produced what he was after. Brand-new hardback copy of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood firmly in hand, he staked out an empty table near the Medical Sciences section and opened the book, sighing contentedly.

  Twenty minutes into his tale about the unfortunate Clutter family, who’d so foolishly decided to call their remote Kansas farmhouse home, the young woman from the Lonely Hearts Club settled into a chair two tables away, looking even more beautiful than she did in her profile pictures, if that were possible.

  She looked up and smiled shyly at Nathan when she noticed him staring. Anticipation slammed in his chest as he smiled back.

  She was absolutely fucking perfect.

  Lowering his eyes, he flipped a page in his book and began getting into character mentally, infinitely happy that the time had finally come to recreate Richard Speck’s deliciously unforgettable crime once and for all.

  2010-style.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Ahn ‘Annie’ Howser felt ridiculous as she smiled at the tall man two tables away. He was handsome enough, sure, but he must have been at least twice her age. Maybe even three times, considering how young she was.

  At nineteen, the Vietnamese girl was three years younger than even her best friends at Loyola. But having skipped the tenth and eleventh grades in high school when standardised testing revealed her IQ to be in excess of 170, she now found herself in the same graduating class as Lindsey McCormick and Liza Alloway. And thank God for that.

  Outwardly, the three girls seemed to have little in common. A casual observer passing them on the street might have
even remarked to a companion that they were among the unlikeliest trios he’d ever encountered. Actually venturing such a comment, however, would have been roughly akin to mentioning that the summer skies of Montana often seemed quite blue.

  Lindsey was the cheerleader of the group – bright, pretty, peppy and cheerful. A straight-A student and everybody’s best friend. Liza was the tomboy of the bunch – rough-and-tumble, loud and boisterous from her days of growing up on a cattle ranch out in Deer Trail, Wyoming. The kind of girl who was never afraid to speak her mind about anything.

  A shy, quiet girl by nature herself, Ahn had forged a slow friendship with the American girls after they’d bumped into her – quite literally as it had turned out – in between the towering reference stacks at the campus library.

  They’d all been in search of the same single copy of a nursing techniques guide that day, a book that the school – for whatever arcane reason – would only allow to be utilised under the disapproving glare of the reference librarian, a woman infamous on campus for always strangling her brittle silver hair in a mercilessly tight bun with never the slightest concession to season or occasion.

  Four hours of intense studying followed. The trio of budding nurses carefully examined heart rates and blood pressure; thoughtfully discussed ocular inspections and platelet counts; and delicately attempted to unravel the intricate mysteries of blood-cell variations – all while trying to ignore the pointedly disgusted looks coming from Loyola’s very own answer to Nurse Ratched.

  When they’d finally had enough of both the books and the looks, the girls decided to unwind by grabbing a quick beer at Sparky’s Place, a local watering hole popular on campus for its notoriously lax policy on checking IDs.

  At the bar a single beer magically turned into three and three into five before their little group finally managed to drag themselves down off their stools and drunkenly hail a cab back to campus.

  They’d had an absolute blast that night, and their relationships had subsequently developed to the point where Ahn now considered the American girls to be the sisters she’d never had. Lindsey and Liza felt the same way about the Vietnamese girl, anglicising her name to ‘Annie’ when she’d timidly asked them for a nickname that would help her feel more American.

  Ahn smiled to herself. No, she guessed skipping those grades in high school hadn’t turned out so badly, after all. But that was the past and this was the present – and right now she had to go meet up with her sisters. They were expecting her.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Twenty minutes passed before Nathan peeked up at the girl over the cover of his book again.

  There she was, just as lovely as ever.

  His skin prickled. He’d waited a long time for this night to arrive – too long, really – and now that it was finally here he was itching to take the next step.

  His thoughts briefly went to Kelly and Jennifer, missing them so badly that he thought he would break down and start crying right there in the middle of the library.

  I love you, girls. Daddy will be home soon.

  Nathan smiled with the knowledge that Dana Whitestone would be the one to send him on his way to their joyful reunion. And – as was befitting their special relationship – he’d take her along for the ride, of course. It was only fair, after all. She’d stolen his life and now he’d steal her life in return.

  Over the years he’d lived in his mind the night that now lay ahead a million times over, the terror of the dead nurses springing to life each time he closed his eyes. Now all that remained was the careful execution of the script.

  Another ten minutes passed before the young woman rose from her seat and collected her things. She smiled a polite goodbye at him, and Nathan returned the favour before waiting a full sixty seconds by the smooth sweep of the hand of his Rolex watch and following her outside at a discreet distance. Looking up into the night sky, he saw that it was very dark.

  Already in character, it was time to change into his uniform now. After all, it was of vital importance to recognise those who had come before him, now wasn’t it? To remember those who had paved the way.

  To thumb his nose at them.

  As he followed the girl back to her dorm, Nathan drifted back in time to one of his earliest study sessions as a young boy, remembering the story of the man he would soon become.

  Born 6 December 1941 in Kirkwood, Illinois, Richard Franklin Speck at the age of nineteen visited a tattoo parlor and had BORN TO RAISE HELL inked into his arm. At twenty-four, he broke into a townhouse at 2319 East 100th Street in the Jeffrey Manor neighbourhood of Chicago and systematically butchered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital. On 5 December 1991 – exactly one day shy of his fiftieth birthday – he died of a massive heart attack at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet after complaining of chest pains.

  Nathan sighed. No matter. In this case, death was only a temporary thing. Thanks to him, tonight Richard Speck would finally be reborn in all his glory to finish off what he’d started more than forty years ago.

  After following the girl back to her dorm at a safe distance, Nathan hustled back to the Acura on foot to get dressed in his work clothes. Once he was properly attired, he shoved the ski mask deep into the side pocket of his heavy black coat and slid behind the Acura’s leather-wrapped steering wheel before cranking the engine to life.

  As he drove back across campus, the narrator’s deep voice once more filled the car.

  Finally reaching the parking lot of the girl’s dorm three minutes later, Nathan parked the car in an open space and swung his booted feet out onto the snow-covered pavement. He removed his coat and affixed the temporary tattoo to his left biceps. Again, it was the details that mattered most here. In addition to everything else they had in common, he and Richard Speck now shared the same ink.

  He almost laughed out loud at the thought. Brothers-inarms.

  A moment later the girl simply walked right out the back door. Head down, she began cutting quickly across the campus quad.

  Nathan’s mouth dropped wide open. She’d passed within twenty yards of him and hadn’t noticed he was there, hadn’t even bothered to look up.

  Silly fucking rabbit.

  To be sporting, he gave her a five-minute head start before he got out of the car. On his way through the parking lot he swiped a parking citation from beneath the windshield wiper of a beat-up Chrysler Sebring and shoved it into the side pocket of his black jeans. Just another breadcrumb for Dana Whitestone to follow.

  As he silently tracked the Asian girl along the deserted pathway, Nathan gave thanks to the dark gods for his exceptionally sharp eyesight. She was just fifty yards ahead of him now, and he was closing fast.

  A moment later he’d halved the distance, then halved it again.

  At ten yards he was jolted by the sudden noise of a vehicle on the cart path behind him. Heart slamming in his throat, he leaped quickly behind a stand of landscaped bushes and watched in complete astonishment as the security guards came driving around the bend in their ridiculously modified golf cart.

  With every ounce of energy left in his body, Nathan fought the overpowering urge to leap from the bushes with a blood-curdling scream and strangle the life out of them with his bare hands. He took several deep breaths and forced himself to calm down. His emotions were running far too hot, and that was always a dangerous sign. Angry men made stupid mistakes, and he had much bigger fish to fry at the moment – even if the nasty little gook had just wriggled off his hook. So he simply gritted his teeth and watched helplessly while the dark night slowly swallowed the Asian girl alive.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The bitter winter wind sliced hard through Ahn’s coat as she walked across campus to join her friends for their planned study group, swirling up around her thin legs a maelstrom of dead leaves and debris that looked and acted just like a miniature tornado. Each gust, more powerful and painful than the last, only reminded her that Loyola was largely deserted now, most of the
students and staff having long since headed home to the spend the Thanksgiving holiday with their loved ones. Though it made her feel silly and self-conscious to do so, she nonetheless made the sign of the cross against the faceless evil she felt hovering all around her in the chill night air. Ahn wasn’t quite sure what she believed on the spiritual side of things, but she did know that she didn’t want to think she was all alone in this world with no one to watch over her. That thought was too horrible even to comprehend.

  She heaved a grateful sigh of relief when she finally came to the outside of Lindsey’s dormitory building ten minutes later. Quickly ascending the metal stairs on the outside of the building two at a time, her heart nearly exploded in her chest when a heavy footstep sounded on the landing directly behind her.

  She spun around frantically, her eyes desperately searching the night for the source of the noise, but found only the darkness and howling wind in pursuit. She wrestled nervously with another powerful gust of wind in her effort to open the heavy steel door on the second floor.

  Finally winning the battle, she stepped inside and paused to shake off the cold before taking several deep breaths and quickly making her way down the hall to Lindsey’s door.

  Despite her overwhelming anxiety, a slow smile spread across Ahn’s pretty face as she came to the outside of Lindsey’s room. From inside, she clearly heard the familiar sound of Liza Alloway swearing up a blue streak about something or other. More likely than not the swearing was connected to the complicated list of trauma procedures they were expected to memorise for their finals. Although Ahn never swore herself, she couldn’t blame her friend for doing so in this instance. It was tough stuff to get a handle on – ‘a real bitch,’ as Liza might say.