Kill Me Once Read online

  ‘I just moved in myself,’ he’d said. ‘I thought it might be kind of nice to have a friend in the building.’

  It had been, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

  Dana looked at the beers and smiled. ‘Crack those open and I’ll go see if I’ve got anything in the kitchen for us to munch on.’

  Eric chuckled, keeping things light. ‘Don’t hurt yourself in there on my account, Martha Stewart. I know you’re world-famous for your culinary skills and all, but there’s no need to whip up one of your signature feasts.’

  Dana laughed – his easy banter was just what she needed right now. She went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, peering in. Several more Coronas, a week-old container of Chinese takeout and half a block of Swiss cheese stared back at her. Other than that, though, it was a ghost town inside. She was amazed she didn’t actually see tumbleweed blowing across the empty second shelf.

  ‘Cheese and crackers OK?’ she called out to Eric. ‘I haven’t got anything else.’

  She heard him pop the tabs on the beers out in the living room. ‘Sounds great. I’m starving. Haven’t eaten a thing all day.’

  Dana sliced the cheese up into reasonable facsimiles of squares with a long knife – whose blade hadn’t seen the light of day in months – from the wooden block on her kitchen counter and in the pantry found some Wheat Thins that hadn’t gone completely stale yet. Putting them on a plate, she returned to the living room and placed the food down on the coffee table before lowering the volume on the stereo with the remote control and taking a seat on the couch three feet away from Eric, who was now stroking a wildly purring Oreo curled up in his lap.

  Dana reached over and scratched the cat behind his pointy white ears. ‘Traitor. You act like I never give you any attention at all.’

  Eric looked over at her and smiled. ‘Hey, he just loves his daddy, that’s all. Don’t be so jealous all the time.’

  Dana felt another twinge in her heart, once again wondering how different things might have been between them if Eric’s sexuality hadn’t been what it was; if they ever could’ve had a future together; what their kids would have looked like.

  She shook the thought off, feeling selfish. From the very beginning Eric had been entirely upfront with her about his feelings for men so it was unfair of her to try to make him into something that he so obviously wasn’t. Besides, some people might always have Paris but she and Eric would always have Oreo, and in the grand scheme of things that wasn’t such a bad deal, after all.

  Eric leaned forward and topped a Wheat Thin with a slice of Swiss cheese before popping the combination into his mouth. He searched her expression with his gaze. ‘What’s going on, Dana?’ he asked gently. ‘You look exhausted.’

  Dana took a sip of her beer. ‘I haven’t been sleeping well lately,’ she admitted. ‘This case.’

  Eric frowned. ‘I heard about that murder on the east side today. Another dead little girl. It’s disgusting. Seriously, Dana, I don’t know how you do it.’

  ‘Neither do I sometimes.’

  Eric popped another cracker into his mouth, thoughtful now. ‘This guy’s really got to you, hasn’t he? He’s a real slick son of a bitch, huh? Do you want to talk about it?’

  Dana knew she shouldn’t technically be discussing cases with Eric, even in the most general sense, but ever since her partnership with Crawford Bell had broken up Eric had been her only outlet, the only person in her private life she felt comfortable confiding in. Besides, he was her only family now and she trusted him with her life. Sometimes the rule book just had to take a back seat to actually living – even for a stickler like her.

  ‘Slick and obviously very well educated,’ she said. ‘Probably by guys like you.’

  Eric grunted and took a long swallow of beer. As a member of the media, he knew that these days killers had their pick of any number of the different educational programmes out there to help them hone their craft. Law & Order; Law & Order: Criminal Intent; Law & Order: SVU – not to mention the ubiquitous show’s many other offshoots. CSI – both the New York and Miami versions. Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice on truTV. Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis on A&E. Hell, they were all practically instruction manuals on how to commit murder and get away with it.

  Don’t want the bullet traced to a particular gun? Hell, just jam a screwdriver down the barrel to alter the grooves. Problem solved. Thanks, A&E.

  Afraid your purchase of rope and a shovel at the local Ace Hardware might be traced back to you after you’ve strangled your wife and buried her in a shallow grave? Shit, just pay in cash and wear a disguise to hide your identity from the security cameras. Problem solved. Thanks, truTV.

  Oh, and don’t bother trying to clean up the crime scene after you’ve bludgeoned your mother to death and jammed her bloated body into an industrial-sized basement freezer, either. Haven’t you ever heard of Luminol before? No matter what you do, the blood spatter’s going to show up just as clear as day under a black light.

  Dana tightened her lips. ‘He’s definitely better than most of the other killers I’ve come across in the past,’ she said. ‘Certainly smarter, at least. For the life of me, I just can’t seem to figure him out.’

  Eric nodded. ‘Well, you’re smart too. You’ll get him. Just don’t let it take you over, Dana. I know you. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll catch a break soon.’

  ‘That would be nice. I just hope it isn’t in my neck.’

  Eric winced and drained the last of his beer. ‘Don’t even joke about it.’ He rose to his feet and leaned down to plant a kiss on Dana’s cheek. ‘Well, it’s late – I’m out of here, honey. Just wanted to say hello and have a quick beer, see you were OK. Get some sleep now – you look like you could use it.’

  He glanced down at her book on the coffee table. ‘And don’t stay up reading that goddamn thing all night, OK? You need your beauty rest.’

  Dana raised her eyebrows at him; glad he’d lightened the mood again. ‘Is that a fact?’

  Eric chuckled and kissed her again. ‘Nah, you look beautiful already. I’m the one who needs my beauty sleep. These bags under my eyes aren’t doing a thing for my social life, I’ll tell you that much. Anyway, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, all right? Sweet dreams, kiddo.’

  When Eric had left her apartment, Dana read Kubler-Ross for another half-hour before finally snapping the book shut and tossing it back onto the coffee table. To hell with it. She’d reached stage five of her research now.

  She accepted the fact that she still didn’t have the faintest goddamn clue what made the Cleveland Slasher tick. She also accepted the fact that the beer just wasn’t cutting it any more.

  Not even close.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  South Central Los Angeles – 12:43 a.m.

  The world to which Mary Ellen Orton awoke forty minutes later wasn’t the safe haven of her dreams. No longer was she lost in a champagne-soaked realm where she passed dizzying hours each night folded into the arms of the most handsome young men in the ballroom. The world to which she now awoke was very different.

  When she finally understood that the figure’s black outline wasn’t simply a benign construct of her dreams, a violent spasm of fear abruptly slammed her heart out of rhythm. One hard beat was immediately followed by two stronger beats, repeating the discordant thumping until she was afraid it would simply stop. Her doctors had been advising her for years now to get a pacemaker implanted but she’d always refused the procedure – thought the whole idea rather silly, really. She certainly didn’t want a ridiculous chunk of metal protruding from her brittle breastbone and making an absurd little bump in her thin floral dresses. People would know.

  But now she wished she had listened to the doctors. How she wished she had just listened to them.

  As her watery vision gradually cleared, she could see that the figure was simply standing over her bed, his huge arms hanging limply by his sides.

  He was a
n extremely large man, much larger than Jerry. Much larger than even Ed had been, and Ed had been a rather big, strong man in his day. She couldn’t quite make out his face in the darkness, but his deep voice was exceptionally calm when he finally spoke.

  ‘Don’t scream, Mary Ellen,’ he warned softly. ‘Don’t even move, OK? Because if you make a noise – or even move, for that matter – I’m going to have to hurt you very, very badly. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

  Stunned, Mary Ellen could only nod dumbly in response, part of her not sure if this was even real yet. A dozen questions raced through her mind before suddenly slamming into each other and shattering into an indecipherable jumble of useless letters.

  Who was this man? How had he gotten into her apartment? Most importantly, what was he going to do to her?

  She tried to speak but no words would come out. The fear had completely paralysed her vocal cords, robbing them of all their strength.

  Heart pounding madly in her throat, she swallowed dryly and tried again. ‘How do you know my name?’ she finally breathed. ‘Who are you?’

  Amazingly the large man actually smiled. She knew this only because she could see his bright white teeth gleaming at her through the darkness. They were unnaturally phosphorescent, sharp, pointed – like a vampire’s.

  By way of introduction, he removed the cap from his head and bowed quickly to her with the exaggerated flair of an accomplished actor, moving with a speed that belied his considerable size. ‘Why, don’t you know me, Mary Ellen? My name is Richard Ramirez. I’m the Night Stalker.’

  For a brief moment she was thoroughly confused.

  Richard Ramirez. The Night Stalker. She remembered the name. The serial killer. But wasn’t he in prison? Or dead?

  The large man in her room dismissed the question on her face with a quick wave of his hand. Turning to his side, he carelessly flung his baseball cap like a black Frisbee over into the corner, where it landed softly on a large pile of dirty clothes. He shook his head as though he didn’t approve. ‘You really should clean this place up, you know. No offence, my dear, but it’s pretty fucking disgusting.’

  Mary Ellen didn’t answer him, couldn’t have answered him if she’d tried. Her badly labouring heart was now pumping so much blood that she was sure she’d used up a week’s worth of beats in the past minute alone. She wondered hazily how many she had left, wondered if the pacemaker might have saved at least a few of them. After all, every little bit probably counted now.

  Silently praying to God, she slid a trembling hand beneath Ed’s pillow, feeling for the gun she knew wasn’t there. Ed was gone, had been for more than a decade now. His gun, too.

  ‘Looking for something, my dear?’

  Mary Ellen shook her head weakly, badly tweaking a tendon in her neck and sending an electric jolt of pain shooting down her left arm. A heart attack?

  If only she were so lucky.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘I don’t have any money. Are you going to kill me?’

  Through the darkness she saw him shake his head slowly again, looking almost disappointed with her question, disappointed with her. His look shamed her.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he grunted, the smile gone now. ‘Of course I’m not going to kill you.’

  But the words had barely left his mouth before he was suddenly lunging out for her throat in a black flash of movement. Recoiling in horror, Mary Ellen squeezed her eyes tightly shut, mortified to feel her badly swollen bladder burst in a warm, wet rush of urine that flooded her cotton underwear and completely soaked the threadbare sheets below. Somehow she managed to feel even more shame through her terror. She was embarrassing herself badly, she knew, and she had always prided herself on the ability to make a good first impression.

  Unbelievably, she felt absolutely no pain at all as she was brutally being murdered. Not even a pinprick. Odd. Whenever she’d watched similar stories on Cold Case Files, she’d always thought it would hurt like hell.

  Tentatively opening one eye into a tiny quivering slit, to her complete astonishment she saw that he was still standing over her bed, had only been reaching for the lamp on her bedside table, not her throat.

  He clucked his tongue in disapproval. ‘I told you I wasn’t going to kill you, Mary Ellen. I’ll tell you what, my dear – you’re really going to have to try to be a bit more trusting if you expect us to get along here tonight. I haven’t even made you swear your love for Satan yet and this is how you treat me?’

  In the pale yellow light of the bedside lamp, Mary Ellen finally saw his eyes. Brown. Glittering. Insane.

  A lifelong devout Catholic, in that instant she no longer believed in a God or a heaven. But hell was a completely different matter altogether. She had no trouble believing in that at this exact moment. She was there now, she knew.

  With the devil.

  The huge lump of fear clogging her throat was making it impossible to breathe. She desperately tried to swallow it away, but knew she might as well have been trying to swallow away a softball at this point.

  Even the smog would be a welcome relief now, she thought hazily. Big, hot, poisonous lungfuls of it.

  Anything was better than the nothingness she was choking on now.

  Mary Ellen watched numbly as the large man removed a sharp knife from the leather sheath on his belt and slowly twisted the black handle back and forth in his palm so that the silver blade glinted in the soft glow of her bedroom lamp.

  An impotent whimper escaped her cracked lips. ‘You said you weren’t going to kill me,’ she sobbed.

  Another disgusted look and Mary Ellen felt the hot shame rush into her cheeks again.

  Was it possible to die of sheer embarrassment?

  ‘Oh, I was telling the truth about that,’ he grunted, his throaty voice suddenly charged with an unmistakable sexual energy. ‘You see, my dear, it’s not me who’s going to kill you; it’s Richard Ramirez who’s going to do the deed. But first he’s going to rape you. Don’t take it personally. We certainly don’t find you sexy or anything. It’s all just part of the script.’

  ‘Part of what script?’

  Everything happened so fast from there that Mary Ellen didn’t even have time to scream. Quick as a rattlesnake he struck out, launching his enormous body through the air and landing down hard on top of her.

  She finally heard herself screaming as her fragile pelvis exploded into a thousand jagged pieces beneath the crushing impact of his two-hundred-pound frame. Bright white stars of agony danced in front of her eyes and a sudden burst of vomit erupted from her mouth, completely drenching the front of her thin nightgown. In the very next instant his heavy fist crashed down hard into her brittle eye socket, caving it in on itself like an eggshell beneath his thick knuckles. More stars came, these ones purple and green. With preternatural speed he tore the thin sheet from her weak grasp, roughly forced her trembling, varicose-veined thighs apart with his powerful legs and drew back his well-muscled arm.

  With terrifying fluidity the knife violated her again and again. That was when the shock set in.

  Through the haze of mind-numbing terror, Mary Ellen somehow remembered the Life Alert. With the last ounce of energy she had left in her dying body – as the razor-sharp knife viciously shredded her most intimate parts – she frantically pressed the button for help just a moment before her world went completely black.

  As she slowly floated off into the inky darkness of her eternal dreams, Mary Ellen Orton was dancing again, back in Ed’s strong arms as they moved across the dance floor.

  She’d always saved the last dance for him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fear and excitement gripped Nathan Stiedowe’s heart when the sirens came wailing up outside several minutes later. Sputtering, he realised this wasn’t just a fantasy any more. This was really happening and he had to execute the plan perfectly from here.

  He’d been watching the headlines out in Cleveland with great interest for
three months now and couldn’t help wondering how they’d report this murder in the LA papers. Maybe he’d finally start getting the recognition he so richly deserved. Maybe he’d finally get a decent moniker, too.

  About fucking time.

  He leaped off the old woman’s broken body and rushed to the bedroom window, flinging the curtain aside. The metal fasteners screeched across the rod and crashed in his ears like the screams of a thousand tortured souls.

  An ambulance?

  Medical techs frantically wheeling a gurney in front of them over the cracked sidewalk were rushing toward her door and loudly calling out her name. ‘Mary Ellen? We’re coming, sweetheart! Just hold on, ma’am!’

  Nathan had to act fast. Heart slamming in his throat, senses on fire with the importance of the moment, he raced over into the corner of the room and scooped the AC/DC baseball cap off the pile of dirty clothes before dashing into the living room and tacking a plastic convenience-store bag onto the wall. Latest round of breadcrumbs dropped, he managed to pull himself up through the same window he’d entered an hour earlier just a split second before they burst inside.

  Phase One complete.

  The rental car would be abandoned – part of the plan and the beginning of Phase Two. The most important phase. If he did this correctly, the Night Stalker’s unforgettable murder would leap through the years and land on the top of the front page again.

  The story of Richard Ramirez’s downfall flashed through his mind as he tried to control his hammering heart.

  After traveling to San Francisco to kill the ridiculously named Peter Pan – a sixty-six-year-old Chinese man from Lake Merced – the Night Stalker had moved on to Mission Viejo for his next kills. When he was unsuccessful in his attempt to murder twenty-nine-year-old Bill Carns and his twenty-seven-year-old girlfriend Renata Gunther, the girl had caught a glimpse of his licence plate as he sped away.