A Deeper Grave

Four

New Orleans

11:30 p.m.

Nick Shade waited in the darkness for another full minute. The shotgun house he’d been watching for the past two weeks was dark. The woman who called the place home was always in before dawn. Like a vampire, she didn’t make public appearances during daylight hours.

He had been tracking the Executive Executioner for two months. Finding her had been a little trickier than he’d estimated. The Big Easy was the forty-year-old former schoolteacher’s preferred hunting ground. She’d left victims all the way from Houston to Tallahassee, but New Orleans apparently held some significance for her. It wasn’t her hometown though. Adele Pratt was from Jackson, Mississippi. She had been a daddy’s girl all the way up to the day he’d dropped dead in his office. Her father had been a low-level ad man at a major firm where he worked ridiculously long hours in an attempt to keep the boss happy. Adele had been murdering ruthless businessmen like her dead daddy’s boss for nearly a decade.

Nick reached above his head and stretched his back. He’d been waiting and watching for hours, day in and day out. It was almost time. His prey was on the verge of taking her next victim.

Adele Pratt didn’t know it yet but she was finished.

For the first thirty years of her life she’d never shown the slightest reported penchant for violence, and then one of her students shot herself right in front of Adele. Something happened to her in that moment when a fifteen-year-old decided she couldn’t deal with her demanding and ironically high-level executive father for a moment longer. Adele’s family hadn’t heard from her since that day. They all thought she’d gone off somewhere and taken her life. But that wasn’t the case. Nick had found poor, sweet, reserved Adele. She had been busy giving all those demanding men like her father’s old boss and her former student’s father what she believed they deserved—a truly nasty death after hours of slow torture.

She had lured in her latest prey and, if she followed her usual MO, tomorrow night she would make the kill. Oil tycoon Race Cashion had no idea what a lucky man he was. Adele, aka Alana Jones the Executive Executioner, was about to retire permanently.

The day’s thick humidity had eased a little with the darkness, but the air was still far too suffocating for Nick’s liking. Halloween was approaching and the city had spent the entire month celebrating death in all its grim beauty. Nick stood and stretched again. The rocking chair he’d vacated eased back and forth once, then twice. The elderly man who lived in the house Nick used for a vantage point was sleeping off his nightly drunk. He generally started around five and by ten or so he was down for the count. Nick had to give him credit, he had good taste. The bourbon he inhaled night after night was some of the best the average man could buy and likely exhausted the biggest portion of his retirement check. Each night Nick tucked ten bucks into the coffee can over the stove. The old guy had cut a hole in the lid and used the can like a piggy bank where he kept his change. By the last week of the month the mound of quarters, nickels and dimes was probably all he had left. This month when he removed that lid he was going to have a nice surprise. It was the least Nick could do for the use of his back porch.

He picked up his backpack and slipped across the narrow yard, using the overgrown shrubbery for cover. There were a few preparations he needed to make before Adele returned home. He approached her back door, listening for any sounds of trouble. Picking the ancient lock was too easy. People who renovated historic homes should never rely on the security of a century-old lock. He silenced the alarm and then reset the system with the code she’d written on a sticky note and stuck to the wall above the keypad. It wasn’t that Adele was too dumb or flighty to recognize the recklessness of leaving the code in plain sight. Not at all. The woman was highly intelligent. She simply wasn’t afraid.

Maybe she really wanted someone to come in and end her misery.

The house was quiet. Adele didn’t own any pets and she never had company. No friends, not even her targets were allowed in her home. Nick had searched the place thoroughly and discovered the photographs and trophies from her kills. During that thorough search he’d memorized the layout of the interior, which allowed him to move about inside now without the aid of light. The back door entered into a small laundry room, which led into a long narrow hall. Beyond the two doors in that hall, one leading into a bathroom and the other to the master bedroom that had once been two bedrooms, was the remaining space that served as the kitchen, dining, and family room. If the lady of the house followed her usual routine, she would arrive home shortly and take a bath. After a long soak in the tub she would go to bed.

Adele lived lavishly. Fine clothes and jewelry and a top of the line Lexus. The men she murdered supported her in high style and they had no idea they were paying their own murderer. Nick removed his backpack and started to unzip it when the purr of her luxury sedan broke the silence.

She was early. He shouldered his backpack and took a position in the elaborate bathroom. Down the hall the key turned in the lock with a concise click. As soon as the door swung inward the alarm began its urgent warning. She entered the code, silencing the system.

Her soft laughter filled the air. “You are too wicked,” she teased.

Nick stilled. Was she speaking on her cell phone?

“You bring out the devil in me.” The male voice was deep and slurred.

Nick swore silently. He recognized the voice—Race Cashion. Had she moved up her timeline? Why deviate from her MO and bring the man she intended to murder here? Maybe she had a little something extra planned for Cashion. Nick mentally ran a couple of adjustment scenarios and decided on an alternate plan of action of his own.

More playful back and forth echoed through the house. Cashion was obviously inebriated. Adele’s actions didn’t make sense. She never murdered a victim in her home. Like a fox she hunted and slept alone with the two being mutually exclusive. Maybe tonight was about a last-minute opportunity to milk this kill for more money—retirement money perhaps. Whatever the case, Nick’s task had just grown considerably more complicated.

Adele led her prey to her bedroom, not turning on a single light. Suited Nick fine. His eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. He spent the next fifteen minutes listening to frantic, drunken sex. When Cashion muttered something about the bathroom, Nick readied to put him out of commission.

He moved soundlessly to the side of the door as it opened. Cashion shoved it closed as he reached for his dick. Nick closed one hand over the man’s mouth and simultaneously wrapped an arm around his throat in a sleeper hold. Cashion struggled for three or four seconds, but he was far too wasted from the alcohol and physically spent from the sex to put up a real fight. Nick lowered his naked, unconscious body to the floor and eased back to the door.

Adele would be waiting. To deviate from her usual pattern was not unheard of, but to commit the murder where she lived was risky. Perhaps she was ready to move on, adopting another alias and home. Or maybe she had sensed someone was watching her and decided to act out of character just to see what happened.

Nick opted to wait and let her come looking for her lover.

A full minute elapsed before she called out her lover’s name. When Cashion didn’t answer she flipped on the light in her bedroom and came to the bathroom door, pushing it open. She stood naked in the open doorway staring down at the man.

“Fucking useless bastard,” she grumbled as she moved toward him.

Nick slipped behind her and she stalled, her body going rigid as his shadow fell over her.

“Hello, Adele.”

Before she could whip around and charge him, he grabbed her and pulled her against him, one hand closing over her mouth.

She kicked and elbowed frantically as he carried her back into the bedroom. She squirmed and twisted, but her slight frame was no match for his. On the bedside table he spotted the hypodermic needle she used to disable her victims. These days more serial killers than not used drugs on their victims. The ease of purchasing injectable drugs on the internet or even on the streets made their work far less complicated. Clearly she had planned to finish Cashion tonight. As if she’d read his thoughts, she stilled in his arms. It wasn’t necessary to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking, but he wouldn’t use the drug on her. The risk of overdosing was far too great. Adele wasn’t getting off that easily.

“When did you notice you were being watched?” he asked, curious. He dared to loosen his hold on her mouth.

“I didn’t.” She inhaled a big breath, her breasts moving against his arm. “Yesterday my neighbor thanked me for the money I’d been leaving in his coffee can.”

Nick laughed. That was what he got for trying to help the old guy out.

“Who hired you?” she demanded. “Let me go and I’ll pay you twice whatever you’re being paid.”

Keeping a firm grip on her, Nick moved toward the bed. She squirmed, elbowed and kicked in earnest. “I’m afraid,” he said between her attempts to head butt him, “you can’t afford me.” He tossed her on the bed.

“I could scream,” she warned as she tried to scramble away.

“You could—” he snagged her easily “—and the police would likely be summoned. Then I’d have to show them all those trophies you’ve kept from your kills.”

When he started to cover her mouth once more she clamped her teeth down on his hand. He growled and yanked his hand away. As he shouldered off his backpack, she fought even harder and spewed curses. He manacled her slim wrists in one hand and kept her pressed against the mattress with his forearm as he fished for the duct tape in his pack. He grabbed the edge of the tape with his teeth and pulled.

“Bastard,” she muttered. “What are you? Some sort of bounty hunter?”

“Not exactly.” He flipped her onto her belly. She tried to squirm away, but he held her in place. He wrapped her wrists tightly in duct tape, binding them together. She muttered more curses against the pillow as he ripped off another length.

He reached for her legs. She quickly spread them apart and arched her butt upward. “Don’t you want some of this before you do whatever you came here to do?” She laughed. “They all want it so badly until they realize just how much it’s going to cost them.”

“No, thanks.” He pulled her legs together and bound her ankles tight despite her wiggling. With her arms and legs secured, he rolled her onto her back and readied to place a strip of tape over her lips.

“Who are you?”

“No one you know.”

Nick pressed the tape over her mouth while she glared at him. Then he rolled her to her side and wound several layers of tape around her neck. He pulled her calves toward her back, forcing her body into an arch, and then wound more of the tape around her ankles, effectively hogtying her. She groaned and grunted and struggled but couldn’t move more than an inch or so without choking herself.

That would do.

He returned to the bathroom as Cashion was struggling to his feet. Nick put him down again. “Tomorrow you’ll understand that this was the luckiest night of your life.”

Nick bound Cashion as he had the woman in the other room. When that was done he went to her walk-in closet and removed the faux drawer that hid her keepsakes. He brought the photos and the trophies into the bedroom and spread them around her on the satin linens. No matter how she pleaded when the police arrived the photos and newspaper clippings would tell the tale.

Nick used her cell to call 9-1-1. He gave the operator the address and left the phone line open as he tossed it onto the bed. Three minutes later he was in his car and headed away from her street. He hadn’t driven a mile when blue lights barreled past him heading toward the scene he’d left behind.

Tomorrow the Executive Executioner’s capture would fill the headlines, print and electronic. Nearly a dozen homicide cases would be solved.

One less serial killer to take lives.

Nick pondered the other names on his ever-growing list. His cell vibrated before he could decide on his next hunt. He dug the phone from his pocket and checked the screen. The name gave him pause.

Malcolm Clinton.

He’d only met Clinton on one occasion and that had been two months ago. Clinton was a guard at the prison where Randolph Weller resided in far better circumstances than he deserved. For an agreed-upon fee, Clinton had promised to call Nick with the names of any visitors beyond the usual FBI profilers who wanted to pick the monster’s brain. This was the first time Clinton had called. The idea that his father hadn’t had the first visitor who wasn’t FBI in all that time made Nick inordinately happy.

Or, even better, maybe the bastard was finally dead.

He accepted the call. “You have an update for me.” His pulse reacted to the anticipation pumping through his veins.

“Yes. Dr. Weller had a visitor this evening. I had to pull a double shift so I couldn’t call until now.”

“I’m listening.”

“It was a woman his attorney called for him. A detective from Montgomery.”

Tension slid through Nick.

“Detective Bobbie Gentry,” Clinton said.

“How long did she stay?” Why the hell would Bobbie visit him? Nick couldn’t fathom any reason she would visit Weller.

“Not more than fifteen minutes. She seemed a little distracted or unsettled when she left.”

Nick glanced at the time on the dash. “What time was this?”

“About five thirty.”

“Thank you.” Nick ended the call before Clinton could say more. He tossed the phone onto the seat. “What’re you up to, Bobbie?”

He’d kept up with her since he left Montgomery. As hard as he’d tried to forget her, he could not. She showed up in his dreams when he slept and in his thoughts when he didn’t. He’d learned Bobbie had a new partner, a Detective Steven Devine. Nick had done a thorough search of Devine’s background and found nothing troubling except that he was single and close to Bobbie’s age.

The idea of her spending long hours each day with the guy grated on Nick. He’d watched her interactions with Howard Newton—the partner she’d lost. The bond had been palpable. Would she forge that same sort of bond with the new guy? Wasn’t that what cops did?

None of your business.

He shook off the thoughts. He had more pressing concerns. Why would she visit Weller?

There had to be something going on. He’d been mostly out of touch the past forty-eight hours. When he closed in on his prey, it was important that he not be distracted. Even a major homicide case wouldn’t explain why Bobbie would go to Weller. Whatever had happened, it had to be specific to a serial killer she believed Weller would know, and even then the FBI would likely insist any questions be funneled through their channels.

Nick glanced at his phone and resisted the temptation to call her. Five or six times in the past two months he’d pulled out the one video of her he’d kept and watched it just to hear her voice. The video had been made before her abduction by the Storyteller. She’d been in the backyard with her husband and child—the husband and child the Storyteller had stolen from her. Nick kicked himself every time he watched. What kind of fool was jealous of the life a dead man had lived? And yet, Nick watched the video over and over, the life depicted in those captured moments making him yearn for things he could never have.

“This is your life,” he reminded himself. There was no need to pretend otherwise. Feeling sorry for himself wouldn’t get the job done.

Nick made the trip across town to the low-rent motel he’d been staying at since his arrival in New Orleans. He backed into the parking slot directly in front of his door. Inside, the dark room smelled musty but it was cool and quiet, two things he required on a hunt. He closed the door and turned on the light.

The reports and photos he had gathered on the Executive Executioner lined one wall. He knew many things about Adele. Where she was born, where she’d lost her virginity, how she lured her prey. His research was always in hard copy. He didn’t have to worry about a housekeeper stumbling upon his work since he always made an arrangement with motel management. He cleaned up after himself and picked up fresh towels and linens at the front desk. There was some risk using this method but not nearly so much as leaving electronic tracks for his friends in the FBI to follow.

Now that the hunt was done, he would pack up his research, drive to some place well outside the city and burn the whole lot. But first he had to know why Bobbie had visited Weller.

He opened his laptop, entered the passcode and then searched the news for the Montgomery area. The first headline to top the Google search gave him the answer.