The mistake didn’t matter, though. There was no pulse, as she had known there wouldn’t be, and the victim’s skin was cool and sticky with dried blood.
Gina turned away, angry with herself and Tommy Mitchell, unable to put her finger on exactly why. She glared at Tommy, an act that seemed to have no effect on him but made her feel marginally better, and then stepped back to the front door and checked the hallway once more. It would be very bad form to have the killer return and get the drop on them as she and Tommy were busy inside, and securing the apartment from the outside would be the first piece of business to accomplish while waiting for the homicide detectives to arrive.
The hallway was still empty.
She began to pace, waiting for the homicide dicks and the crime scene techs to begin arriving. She hoped it wouldn’t take too long; the prospect of cooling her heels here for longer than a few minutes with nobody to talk to but Tommy Mitchell was almost as depressing as finding the body of the victim had been.
CHAPTER 41
Milo used the dead cop’s uniform shirt as a towel, pinching material between his fingers and sliding the knife blade through the gap. Blood sluiced off the stainless steel and ran down his fingers. The shirt’s cotton wasn’t terribly absorbent, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, as the old saying went, and besides, after a moment the blade was nearly as good as new. A little blood on his hands didn’t bother Milo Cain.
He reached behind his back and placed the knife carefully between his belt and his jeans, leaving it hanging down off his ass like a razor-sharp tail, exactly as he had done when the doorbell rang.
Then he knelt down and hooked his arms through the armpits of the dead cop. He rose to a semi-crouch and dragged the still-warm corpse around the corner and into the living room, turning the body sideways and dropping it across the doorway like a fallen log. Its head struck the floor with a teeth-rattling thud, hard enough to cause a concussion had the man been alive. Milo felt confident the interfering flatfoot was beyond such concerns now.
He flashed a bright smile at the younger woman, the one he was going to have so much fun with in a couple of minutes, and then glanced at the old hag to make sure she was still tightly secured in her chair. She was. The duct tape appeared intact.
He had taken a chance dealing with the knock at the door before securing the younger bitch to a chair. Had she been thinking clearly—and quickly—everything could easily have gone to shit for Milo in a matter of seconds. But based on the dynamics he had observed during his disturbing visions of these three people and the short time he had spent here in person, he had anticipated that when he went around the corner and answered the front door, the rattled younger woman would be so concerned about her injured boyfriend she would run to his aid, not even giving a thought to releasing the older woman or rushing to the kitchen for a weapon or to grab the phone.
And he had been right. The pretty young thing was even now crouched over the man Milo had stabbed, thus blowing any chance she might have had to get away.
Because now it was too late.
And she wouldn’t get another chance.
And the best part of all—the delicious cherry on top of this exciting dessert—was that her desperate efforts to assist the man were clearly going to be futile. The boyfriend was still breathing but it was obvious to Milo, who had plenty of experience in this particular arena, that the guy was well on his way to checking out. His skin was bedsheet-white and his lips were turning blue and his breathing was shallow and ragged.
Milo nodded to himself, impressed with his handiwork. All that damage from one knife wound! Granted it was accidental, the result more of luck than skill, but the end result was all that mattered, and this was something to be proud of in any event.
Now that he had a moment to catch his breath, he thought back to what the cop had said at the front door, and how it might affect his plans. A call from a neighbor concerned about the resident at this address. A resident who happens to be a lady.
Apparently the neighborhood wasn’t quite as deserted as he had originally thought. Someone had seen him enter the house and had alerted the police. And killing a cop, although every bit as satisfying as he had always dreamt it would be, had ensured that he would receive a visit by more of the fucking cockroaches before long.
A lot more. And they would be angry.
But Milo wasn’t concerned. He had three hostages with which to bargain. Well, two, once you eliminated the chair-smashing hero, who was clearly not long for this world. One, actually, now that he thought about it, because after he finished with the pretty young thing currently blubbering over the unmoving body of the chair-smashing hero, she wouldn’t be worth a damned thing as a bargaining chip. She was the reason he had come here in the first place and he had every intention of finishing what he started, law-enforcement cockroaches or no law-enforcement cockroaches.
But one hostage was plenty, anyway, and if it turned out that the authorities weren’t in a bargaining mood, so be it. It wasn’t like he had never considered the possibility of taking a bullet to the head. People with his…unusual…interests were universally misunderstood, and Milo had always accepted the possibility he would one day go out in a blaze of glory. If that day happened to be today, he was ready. He wasn’t particularly enamored of the idea, didn’t consider himself suicidal, wasn’t looking forward to dying, but found that the idea of going out in a dramatic showdown didn’t bother him all that much, either.
The woman crouching next to her boyfriend looked up at the sound of the cop’s head striking the floor. She had removed the injured man’s shirt and used it as a makeshift bandage, rolling it up and fastening it around the injury, then closing the gash by tying the sleeves together. It was clever, Milo had to admit, and seemed to have done a pretty good job of slowing the bleeding.
It wasn’t going to make any difference.
“Well, ladies, that was exciting, wasn’t it?” He turned his smile in the direction of the trussed-up old bitch in the wooden chair, but she had screwed her eyes shut. She sat rigid and unmoving, seemingly trying to disappear into thin air through sheer force of will. He shrugged. Oh well. It would have been nice to get a reaction, but she wasn’t the reason he was here, anyway.
“Your boyfriend is one brave motherfucker,” he said to the younger one, whose eyes were fearful but also watchful and wary as she gazed up at him. “Stupid as all get-out, there’s no denying that, but he’s brave. Unfortunately for him, his pain will be emotional as well as physical when he sees what I have in store for you.”
“He can’t see anything,” she spat back. “He’s unconscious, you stupid bastard.”
Milo narrowed his eyes and glared at her. The hatred he had felt the moment he saw her in the first vision ratcheted up a little higher. He was used to commanding submission and fear, but while this one was clearly afraid, she didn’t seem to understand her place in this hierarchy. She would find out soon enough.
He held her stare for a moment, then turned and stalked into the kitchen. He grabbed another chair to replace the one the unconscious hero wannabe had broken over his back, and returned to the living room where he set it down next to the old biddie. Then he nodded at the man on the floor. “Put him in this,” he said.
“He’s too big, I can’t move him.”