Page 51 of Kill For Me Kill For You
She could fight back or die.
She raised her arms, allowing the axe to arc, and as it did so she let her right hand slide down the shaft. Using the momentum of the swing for power, she pulled, guiding the weapon, twisting at the hips, using all her strength.
The axe buried itself in the center of Quinn’s chest, knocking him from his feet. He landed on his back. His legs and arms spasmed and then he lay still. His dead eyes stared at the night. Amanda didn’t stick around for another blow.
The job was done.
She grabbed the hammer, limped to the back gate and struck the lock twice before it broke off, allowing her back into the cool darkness of the alley. Dropping the hammer, Amanda stumbled away quickly, the sirens growing louder all the time.
When she reached the end of the alleyway, she stood up straight, headed back toward her car. She limped along the blocks until she saw her car parked up ahead.
And the car parked behind it.
A black Escalade. Facing away from her and parked on the other side of the street, right behind her Saab. She could see the outline of a figure in the driver’s seat.
Amanda stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. The sirens also ceased, just as abruptly. She guessed the cops had arrived at Quinn’s home.
Amanda glanced around the street. There were ample places to park. A good thirty feet of open space behind the Escalade. Her old Saab was maybe twenty feet from the entrance to an apartment building, just up ahead from where she’d parked. There were spaces outside the building. No reason for someone to park so close to her car. It was the same Escalade she’d seen earlier, close to Quinn’s house.
Amanda turned and walked back the way she’d come. She didn’t like the look of that car, but had no idea who might be inside. Maybe a friend of Naomi’s? Someone to make sure Amanda went through with the job. Or maybe someone who was watching over Quinn. Or maybe just a regular member of Joe Public, going about their business. Either way, it didn’t matter. Amanda didn’t want to take the chance that the driver would recognize her as someone who had driven past Quinn’s house, twice.
She was four blocks from the subway. Amanda raised her trembling hands, pulled up the collar of her coat and walked away. Checking the time on her cell, she saw it was just past ten o’clock.
As she turned the corner, she heard, behind her, the sound of a heavy car door slamming shut.
23
Scott
That electric panic stayed with Scott the whole time he was shopping. He doubted he would ever calm down. It felt very much like a current, low level, passing through his body, making it shake, allowing him only shallow breaths.
Scott knew that most of what he needed to get away with murder could be bought over the counter in a Target. He was walking to the store around the corner. Thinking with every step. Thinking helped. It always had. No matter what kind of situation Scott was in, if he thought about it, he could see a way through. He was a rationalist with a blinding temper. The logical part of his brain always saved his ass.
First thing he needed was a backpack. He chose the largest, not the cheapest. Eight-gallon capacity. Sixty bucks. He had one-hundred sixty dollars in cash and needed to keep fifty for cab fare. No way did he want any of these purchases showing up on his bank account.
Next on his list was a roll of trash bags, a carton of disposable latex gloves and two three-gallon bottles of strong bleach. A hooded sweater, jeans, underwear, socks and sneakers.
He put all of it in the backpack, paid in cash. The lady at the register didn’t bat an eyelid at his purchases. They were innocent enough.
Ten minutes later, he was climbing the hotel stairs and took a break halfway. The twelfth floor was a long way up. When he pushed the door open into the hallway on that floor, he was covered in sweat and breathing hard. After checking there was no one else around, he moved theDo Not Disturbsign so the card reader could recognize the key card. The beep let him in, and he made sure the sign was secure before he closed the door.
There was a smell from the dead man on the floor. Blood, mostly, but Scott guessed his bowels and bladder had emptied too.
Scott opened the carton of gloves and put on a pair before he did anything else. No need to spread his fingerprints and DNA any further around the crime scene. Bending down, he checked the man’s hip pocket, found a wallet.
Five hundred-dollar bills, a stack of credit cards and a New York State driver’s license.
Patrick Travers.
The name meant nothing to Scott. He memorized the address, took the cash and left the cards before throwing the wallet on the bloody floor. Scott stepped over the body, put his backpack on the bed and got to work.
His bloodstained clothes went from the tub into a trash bag. He popped the cap on one of the bottles of bleach and scattered some over the shower tray. He then ran the shower to make sure no trace of him could be found. The rest of that bottle went on the carpet and then Travers. He made sure to soak the bottle protruding from Travers’s eye socket. There would be a lot of trace DNA and fingerprints on it. He knew the bleach would do the job of eradicating trace evidence. There wasn’t enough to cover Travers, so Scott opened the second bottle.
When he thought he’d covered every surface his skin had touched, Scott went into the bathroom, got out of the dead man’s clothes, put them in the trash bag along with the bloody clothes and dressed in his new clothing from Target. Tying the trash bag tightly, Scott then stuffed it into his backpack. It just about fitted.
Scott checked his own pockets. He had his cell and his wallet. Didn’t want to leave those behind. He glanced at Travers’s empty wallet on the floor.
With any luck, the NYPD would think this was a robbery.
