THREE TIMES A LADY Read online

  Spinks shrugged, but the look on his face let Dana know that he wasn’t especially pleased with her answer. Still, he knew that unless he invoked the Baker Act and kept her on a forty-eight-hour psychiatric hold that he didn’t have any real authority in the matter. Dana knew it too.

  That being said, it didn’t mean Spinks wasn’t disappointed with her decision. Far from it, as a matter of fact. As Dana’s primary attending physician, he most likely would have been kept in the loop on some of the juicier details of her story – sort of his ‘Barney the Orderly’ to her Hannibal Lecter. And that represented exactly the kind of information everyone seemed to be dying to know lately. Only there was no quid pro quo involved this time. People wanted things from Dana, sure – they wanted lots of things from her – but nobody seemed to be offering her anything in return.

  Dana bit down gently into her lower lip and considered her options. There weren’t many. From what the chatty orderly had told her, the national television networks had been lighting up the hospital’s switchboard nonstop for the past three days now – ever since she’d first emerged from her coma. And in their frantic quest to score the initial interview with her, the local press had turned the hospital’s parking lot into their own personal Holiday Inn. No one seemed willing to give Dana a chance to catch her breath, to unwind, to relax for an hour or two. Not that it surprised her all that much. After all, in today’s cutthroat world of 24/7 journalism, even tomorrow’s news was yesterday’s news. The press wanted their interview from Dana and they wanted it from her now. And Dana knew that they wouldn’t let up until they got it from her. It just wasn’t in their nature.

  Spinks stretched his muscular neck six inches to the right and let out a deep breath. Despite his obvious misgivings about the matter, though – whether self-centered or not – to his credit, he recovered quickly. Probably because he knew that he’d still be a highly sought-after interview for the next month or two in connection to Dana’s story, which would in turn afford him the opportunity to continue citing medical privacy laws in a solemn voice to the hungry reporters who hung on his every last word like ravenous wolves waiting impatiently for their daily ration of bloody red meat.

  ‘Completely understandable, Agent Whitestone,’ Spinks said now, and actually did a passable job of sounding like he meant it. ‘Makes sense to me.’

  He blew out another slow breath as he finished coming to terms with the fact that his prized patient was holding most of the cards right now since there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her – physically, at least. ‘So let’s get those stitches out of you and get you home,’ Spinks finished up. ‘After we figure out a way to get you out of here unseen, of course.’

  Relief flooded through Dana’s being. A thousand-pound weight lifted off her chest. She didn’t even care that Spinks was getting an obvious kick out of the chance to participate in what he most likely perceived as a high-stakes game of cloak-and-dagger with the press. Let him have his fun. All Dana cared about was getting the hell out of this hospital bed.

  Besides, Dana knew for a fact that she’d need Spinks’s help in getting out of the hospital undetected. So what in the hell did she care if he went home and told his wife all about his interesting day? Still, she knew that the good doctor should probably be a little more careful about what he wished for. He just might get it.

  Just like Dana had when she’d joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  CHAPTER 11

  It had taken about a hundred days for Nicholas’s wound to heal fully. More than three months of walking bowlegged around the house and feeling like an overworked cowboy who’d spent a long day of busting broncos on his isolated ranch out in Wyoming with no one else around to lend a helping hand. More than three months of not daring to step so much as a high-heeled foot outside the confines of his and Annabeth Preston’s oh-so-peculiar domestic living arrangements. More than three months of having his mother clean his private parts with a solution of rubbing alcohol mixed with water while he sat on the toilet in front of her with his legs splayed wide.

  The burning sensation Nicholas had felt when the rough cotton cloth made first contact with his horribly blistered skin had been intense – no debating that simple fact – but it had been absolutely nothing compared to the searing gratitude he’d felt inside for the kindly woman who’d been kneeling before him.

  A concerned look of concentration had coloured in Annabeth Preston’s gorgeous face as she’d lovingly tended to his injury. God, how Nicholas adored her. She was his own personal angel of mercy; had showed him unimaginable generosity by giving him life for a second time. Because, cheesy as it might sound – and even Nicholas knew it sounded terribly cheesy – he’d truly been born again, only this time as a woman. And thank the heavens above for that. Lord almighty, thank the heavens above! Finally, his outside matched the way he’d always felt deep down on the inside, down in that special place between his legs where he’d never felt especially comfortable before. Finally, he’d found the warmth on the outside of his body that he could never seem to find there when he’d been eight years old, no matter how hard he’d looked.

  Things weren’t all good for him as a woman, though. Far from it, actually. Through a lot of trial and error on his part, he’d found out the hard way that women didn’t bitch just to bitch, after all. And there were plenty of obstacles for him to overcome after the system-shocking transition. As with all newborns – and not so much different from people who’d been temporarily paralysed in horrific car crashes, Nicholas supposed – he’d needed to learn how to do everything again for the first time. Needed to master control of his strange new shell. Silly little things like learning how to pee while sitting down and getting used to the uneven trickle that sprinkled forth from between his legs now as opposed to the steady flow of urine that had come from his penis. Silly little things like learning how to mop up the excess moisture with toilet paper as opposed to the way he’d done it before with a few quick shakes of his sinful, dangling appendage.

  Silly little things that – added altogether – had transformed Nicholas into a living, breathing lady.

  Home schooling had been the answer to hiding his physical transformation from the school authorities. Over countless cups of tea, Nicholas and his mother had passed long afternoons learning the same information they taught the other children – the so-called ‘normal’ children – in the public schools.

  Annabeth Preston had tutored him extensively in English and math; chemistry and engineering; history and philosophy. In addition to that, they’d also learned about such famous castrati as Farinelli, the stage name of Carlo Maria Broschi, an Italian man who’d become one of the most popular singers of the 18 century despite – or rather because of – his unusual deformity. Nicholas and his mother had also learned about how revered musical geniuses such as Handel, Gluck, Mozart and Beethoven had each composed masterpieces specifically designed for people like Farinelli and him: girls, for all intents and purposes, who’d been born as men.

  Not that Nicholas had any plans of becoming a singer in order to achieve his fame, though. Not even close. Where in the hell would lay the challenge in that? These days, any old fool who found themselves in the finals of American Idol or The X-Factor or any one of the other equally inane ‘talent’ shows out there had somehow been deemed a ‘great’ singer, no matter how truly awful they sounded.

  Besides, that method of achieving fame was much too pedestrian for people of the Prestons’ refined tastes, much too ordinary. Instead, according to his mother’s carefully crafted plans, Nicholas’s future lay in stripping people of their undeserved fame. People like Timmy who hadn’t possessed one iota of talent inside their worthless bodies yet got by in life simply because some cosmic force out there (or the fork-tongued Simon Cowell himself) had randomly decided they were somehow better than the rest of world. More deserving.

  But that shit was about to change. In a big way. And Nicholas considered himself just the girl to change i
t.

  Exactly how he’d do it had been another subject that he and Annabeth Preston had discussed in great detail over their countless cups of tea – just a couple no-nonsense girls engaged in a bit of small talk while the rain beat down hard against their kitchen windowpanes on stormy Sunday mornings. Afterward, they’d also discussed in great detail exactly how Nicholas would get away with his bloody crimes long enough for their plan to reach its natural conclusion, ensuring Nicholas’s name a place of honour in the roster of fame for which it had so obviously been destined. Fame that would no doubt go down as unparalleled in the history of the recorded universe.

  A complete sex change – complete with perfect silicone breasts featuring his own God-given nipples and the fashioning of a vagina out of the skin left over from his brutal castration – had completed Nicholas’s stunning transformation. Thanks to Timmy and all the money he’d made in his stupid television commercials – commercials that to this day still brought in residual checks every six months or so – the cost of the operation up in Canada had been surprisingly affordable.

  Estrogen treatments had eventually replaced the testosterone shots, making Nicholas’s voice higher and more feminine-sounding in addition to the added bonus of softening his skin, a feature that he maintained by applying copious amounts of moisturising lotion all over his body each night, slathering himself in the stuff until his pores could take no more. For more years than he cared to remember, Nicholas had needed to continue shaving his face and legs every day – twice a day – but the monthly visits to the clinic in downtown Chicago for electrolysis treatments had slowly removed that aggravating inconvenience from his life as well.

  Now, all these years later, Nicholas was finally an honest-to-God, real-life girl. And life was certainly good when you were a girl, wasn’t it?

  It sure as hell was. As a matter of fact, life was very good when you were a girl. Especially when you were a girl like Nicholas: a self-sufficient, take-no-prisoners sort of gal who could slip effortlessly back and forth between the genders without anyone becoming any the wiser.

  Stylish male wigs in a breathtaking variety of colours and Ace bandages wrapped tightly around his newfound bosom allowed Nicholas to appear as a man whenever he chose – not that it was a route he chose to travel very often, mind you. Being a man was an inconvenience, after all, a pain in the ass, something to be done only when it was absolutely necessary to further his and Annabeth Preston’s wonderfully thought-out plans. And now, twenty-five years later – at the relatively ripe old age of forty-eight – Nicholas finally had a list.

  Nicholas stared down at the tattered sheet of paper in his trembling hands and felt his heart sing with joy. The first name on his list had already been checked off. A warm-up act, really. By closely following the script his mother had provided him with, he’d brought down the curtains on the insufferable woman and her glittering lifestyle of thoroughly undeserved fame once and for all.

  Now, four more names awaited his undivided attention:

  1. Dinah Leach

  2. Penelope Hargrave

  3. Amber Knightly

  4. Annabeth Preston

  5. Dana Whitestone

  Nicholas shuddered a full-body shudder as he read through the list again, a delicious quiver snaking down the length of his spine at the memory of his first kill. A woman out in Atlanta, one of those ‘real’ housewives who wouldn’t have known the meaning of the word reality had it jumped up and bitten her directly in her big, fat ass. After forcing his way into her opulent Buckhead home while the powerful hurricane had raged on outside, he’d struck down the undeserving whore in a manner exactly befitting the worthless pig she’d been. And now that Dinah Leach’s name had been safely crossed off his list, Nicholas could now turn his attention to the spoiled heiress out in New York City who’d never worked a single day in her life yet somehow possessed a net worth larger than several third-world countries combined. Hell, the world would cheer him for that one.

  After the heiress, Number Three would come in the form of the requisite pop singer – Amber Knightly, who’d gotten her big break on The Disney Channel when she’d been just eight years old. And why not? Nobody liked those packaged, plastic entertainers, did they? Not anybody who enjoyed real music, at least. Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, One Direction, the entire cast of High School Musical: untalented hacks, each and every last one of them. The world would be a far better place if they were all simply erased. And with the upcoming murder of Amber Knightly, that’s exactly what Nicholas planned to do. Symbolically, at least.

  Nicholas paused when he came to the fourth name on his list, a name that, for obvious reasons, he’d secretly added without his mother’s knowledge or consent:

  Annabeth Preston.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and stretched his long neck, fiddling nervously with the silver Tiffany necklace hanging around his throat. Could he really do it? he wondered. Really take the life of the woman who’d given him his own? Twice? Strike her down in the same manner she’d struck down Timmy? Cross off her name from his wonderful list once and for all?

  Nicholas sat up straighter in his seat and pulled back his shoulders. Of course he could do it. Needed to it, as a matter of fact. There was no other option. No room for mercy here. After all, it was only fair after what she’d done to poor Timmy. What’s more, he’d enjoy it.

  At least, that’s what he told himself now.

  Nicholas shook his head again and returned his attention to his list. At least there was no ambiguity about the fifth name there. Dana Whitestone would mark a worthy foil for him – no debating that simple fact – so he’d need to be extremely careful with her. The woman’s unofficial label as ‘America’s top cop’ would no doubt prove the stiffest test of his own greatness. Because killing vapid reality stars and other undeserving fame whores of their ilk was once thing, but besting a woman like Dana Whitestone at her own game was quite another. If he could pull it off, though, Nicholas knew that his name would go down in history as one of the finest killers of all time. John Wayne Gacy. Andrei Chikatilo. Ted Bundy. Gary Ridgway. David Berkowitz. Jeffrey Dahmer. Richard Ramirez. Nicholas Preston. And any way you cut the mustard, that wasn’t a bad goal for which to shoot.

  Nope, wasn’t a bad goal for which to shoot, at all.

  Nicholas’s bright green eyes burned in their sockets as he read through the names on his list once again. Surely there were no four women on the face of the Earth more deserving of death than these four. And these four would mark just the start of things. It didn’t even count the collateral damage he planned to cause along the way.

  Pushing back his chair with the loud scrape of wood against tile, Nicholas took a moment or two to smooth his red Armani dress around his long legs before he made his way into the guest bathroom of their house at 969 Turning Oaks Drive while his mother slept peacefully in the master bedroom a hundred feet away, completely oblivious to the fact that her own name had been added to his special little list. Closing the door behind him, Nicholas peered into his beautiful reflection in the vanity mirror above the sink and nodded approvingly at the pleasant image that stared back at him. Flipping over his long brown hair to one side, he smiled at himself. Right on cue, his reflection smiled back.

  Nicholas widened his smile even further, studying his high cheekbones, his piercing eyes, his perfectly straight white teeth. No two ways about it – he was absolutely gorgeous. Stunning beyond his wildest dreams. Just like Annabeth Preston had assured him he would be all those years ago. And where was the great surprise in that? After all, apples – even the rotten ones – never fell too far from the tree.

  Nicholas leaned in even closer to the mirror and blotted at his lipstick with the tip of his right pinkie, sighing contentedly and drifting back in time to his first kill. After all, no matter how much time had passed, you never forgot your first time, now did you?

  Of course you didn’t.

  The first time was always the sweetest.

 
; PART II

  LADIES FIRST

  ‘Naming hurricanes is a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. Natives of the West Indies named storms after the particular saint’s day on which they occurred. In 1953, the National Weather Service began using female first names for hurricanes, but it wasn’t until 1978 that men’s names were included too.’ – Laura Wiener, Hurricane History: Fascinating Facts

  CHAPTER 12

  Two hours after her hasty negotiations with Dr Spinks concerning her discharge from the hospital, Dana almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. She just couldn’t help herself. Still, she had to admit that it was kind of fun, too. Playing cat-and-mouse really could be a thrilling game when you were the one trying to avoid detection rather than the sick feeling you got deep inside the pit of your stomach while you were in the process of hunting down a deranged serial killer, knowing that any one of your many mistakes could cost innocent people their lives. Would probably cost innocent people their lives.

  That said, Dana felt a lot like Chevy Chase in Fletch right about now, dressed up as a doctor in a white lab coat and holding a medical chart in front of her nose while a group of orderlies crowded around her to escort her past the press that had set up camp out in the hospital’s parking lot.

  The reporters barely glanced up at them as they strolled by. Not a single Dan Rather in the entire group, and thank God for that. Not a single Nathan Stiedowe in the entire group, either – and thank God twice for that.