Rachael approached the closed curtain that covered the window overlooking the street below and peered outside. The street was empty. Those gangbangers were gone now.
An idea was forming in Natsinet’s mind. She crossed the apartment to the bathroom. Rachael’s clothes were piled in the sink where she’d put them after Natsinet took them off her prior to dismembering her. Her purse lay on the floor. Natsinet picked up the purse and rifled through it, finding a set of keys. Her fingers ran across the black surface of a car alarm key fob.
Keys in hand, Natsinet went into the second bedroom where she was sleeping while taking care of her charge. She dressed quickly, pulled on a pair of tennis shoes and, as an afterthought, picked up the gun, which she’d left in the room. She’d wiped Rachael’s blood and strands of hair off it earlier in the evening. She slapped a full clip in and made sure the safety was on, then jammed it in the front pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. Then, with Rachael’s keys in one hand, her own keys in her front jeans pocket that contained the key to the apartment, she stepped outside, locking the door behind her.
She knew she would have to make this quick if she wanted to avoid detection. She darted out of the building and, holding the key fob in front of her, began pressing the disarm button. She turned left, heading east, walking down the sidewalk, key fob pointed at the cars parked along the curb as she pressed the button, trying to see which vehicle might be Rachael’s.
Nothing.
Come on, come on, you had to have parked somewhere, Natsinet thought. She made it to the end of the block, looked both ways. The coast was clear. Making a random guess, she turned left again and headed up the street, depressing the disarm key and five houses later she got a reply: a blink of headlights.
Sighing in relief, Natsinet ran up to the car, pressed the key fob again. This time she heard the disengaging of the car’s locks. She took a quick look around and was surprised to see nobody out. She approached the driver’s side door and got it open quickly. The vehicle was a Toyota Camry, a nice one. If it wasn’t brand new, it was well cared for. Somebody would appreciate this car once they saw it. Moving quickly, Natsinet leaned inside, inserted the keys in the ignition and turned the key one notch to power on the electrical system. That not only confirmed these keys belonged to Rachael’s car, it would allow her to roll down the driver’s side window to make the bait more enticing.
She pressed the button of the power windows, let them go down halfway and stopped. Then she pulled the keys out, shut the door without locking it, and headed back toward the apartment.
Her nerves were on fire when she let herself back into the apartment. She leaned against the locked door, trying to catch her breath. Natsinet was positive that Rachael’s car would be stolen by eight o’clock. Probably by one of the punks that was hanging out in front of the house last night. Next step was to work on getting the rest of her body out of the apartment.
Natsinet glanced at the clock. Two fifty a.m. Only a few more hours until daybreak.
Figuring she’d better make the best of it, Natsinet stripped her clothes off in her room, and headed back to the bathroom to resume her work on Rachael.
By four o’clock, Rachael’s blood and most of her soft tissue organs except for the stomach and intestines had been poured down the sink, ground up in the garbage disposal, and flushed down the toilet.
By five o’clock Rachael’s torso was cleanly bisected below the fifteenth lumbar vertebrae, and the limbs themselves were wrapped up in newspaper and ready to be stored in the freezer. Fifteen minutes later, the bisected torso was wrapped in plastic garbage bags; the head now sat in the kitchen sink, ready to be bundled up for storage.
Natsinet stood in the kitchen, her muscles screaming in agony. She’d never been put through such a heavy workout in her life. She knew that most of her exhaustion probably had to do with the stress. She was looking out the kitchen window, trying to track what had to be done next when it suddenly came to her. No sense taking the body out now. People are already out and leaving for work. They’ll see you take a bunch of garbage bags out to the dumpster. No, your best bet is to wait until tomorrow night real late, two or three in the morning. Get rid of her then. Besides, waste management will show up six hours later to pick it up. Then you’ll be free and clear of her.
Free and clear.
Natsinet ran her fingers through her dirty, sweaty hair. She was beat. And she needed a shower.
She stepped into the bathroom, which was more or less spotless even after all the work she’d done to take apart another human being, and took a long, hot shower. Then she checked on Adelle Smith, gave her another shot of Demerol, and went into her room to lay down on the unmade bed. She was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
Chapter Seventeen
Tonya didn’t realize she had a message on her cell until she was at work, getting ready for the first of a series of meetings with the firm of Deloitte & Touche for a surprise audit of their accounting system.
As usual the past few weeks, it had been hectic getting Tess out of the house. The little girl was at the age where she was trying to test her limits with her parents. She and Gerald were always quick to correct Tess, but lately she’d been trying both their patience. This morning had been worse. Tonya had lost her temper and swatted Tess’s rump, something she swore she’d never do. Not that she had anything against a good swat on the rump, just that she believed it should never be done in anger. She’d apologized to a crying Tess in the car and told her that even though she was sorry, she wanted Tess to understand why she’d gotten swatted. Tess had nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Yes momma, you swatted my butt because I wasn’t listening to you and daddy…I wasn’t getting ready for school.”
So they’d talked about it on the drive to school, and after dropping Tess off with a hug and a kiss, she’d driven to work and started stressing out about her job. She’d forgotten about the surprise audit, and normally she would have used the morning commute to prepare herself mentally for it. Instead she’d been distracted by the family havoc. God, she wished she didn’t have to work. Gerald was working two jobs—his day job as an administrator for an insurance company and his night job, his dream job, as a professor of History at Penn State. That was what Gerald Brown really wanted to do; be a teacher. His specialty was American History, including pre-Columbus history, and a course in African American History, a course he’d laid out the syllabus for himself. The drawback was the teaching gigs were part-time, and Gerald was working his ass off to impress the Department Chair. One of the tenured professors was retiring this year and Gerald was up for the job. If he could get it, Tonya could either quit her job or take a less demanding position elsewhere. And when Gerald gained tenure…
In short, they were overworked and overextended and Tonya knew it. If they could only have more time for themselves…for family…
Tonya quickly dialed her voice mail as her colleagues filed into the conference room. When Mike’s voice came through she didn’t recognize it at first, then a spike of alarm went through her. She quickly rose to her feet and left the conference room.
She listened to the message a second time to confirm what she’d just heard.