The Killing League - By Dani Amore Page 0,41

consistency that that made him loved by many, and hated by a few.

As he climbed the first hill and felt his heart rate immediately begin to climb as well, he thought not of his career, but of his children. He had a daughter and son, both adults themselves now. They were all planning to get together for a family reunion in the summer, kind of a loose tradition. They sometimes found a cottage to rent on a lake and would spend a long weekend eating, drinking and laughing.

He checked his Ironman watch and noted the distance as well as his pace. He was moving quite well this morning.

He didn’t hear the car that came bearing down on him nearly thirty miles per hour over the speed limit. He briefly heard the roar of an engine before he felt himself lifted into the air and thrown forward.

Dr. Mueller landed awkwardly, his hip twisted nearly all the way around, shock and pain racketing through his brain. A man approached him. Dr. Mueller tried to explain what the man needed to do, that he was a doctor, but there was something about the man’s face that stopped him.

The man was smiling.

He had dark hair, slicked back, and large hands with bulging knuckles. In those hands was a large butcher’s knife.

The man put his hand on Dr. Mueller’s head, pushed it backward, and raised the large, gleaming knife.

Dr. Mueller thought he got the definite smell of freshly butchered meat.

54.

Nicole

“You’re doing what?” Tristan said.

Nicole felt her face get warm. They sat on the small patio behind Nicole’s house, each with a glass of chardonnay. It was one of those perfect southern California days: warm, dry and sunny. A slight breeze from the Pacific.

“I’m just going to have a friend check him out,” she said.

In the time after the attack, when she was putting her life back together, Nicole had from time to time sought and used the services of a private investigator. Now, she felt guilty about one of them, anyway. She had run a background check on Jay Lucerne. The report had proven what she assumed, that he was a straight shooter with no criminal history. No financial swindles or lawsuits.

“And this friend is a private investigator?” Tristan said.

Nicole nodded.

A woman in Los Angeles, Mary Cooper, had done work for Nicole and now, Nicole had called her again.

“I just like to be safe,” Nicole said.

She had prepared a document with Kurt’s full name, a brief physical description, and the tidbits she had gleaned from him during their two outings.

Nicole felt conflicted about running a background check on Kurt. She wasn’t really sure why she wanted to. Maybe it was that look of near anger on his face when she refused his kiss, or the way he roared off down the street when he left.

But as Nicole fired off the email to Cooper Investigations, that small part of her heart that had grown steel during the aftermath of her attack and recovery stayed strong.

She had learned that it was never a good thing to ignore your instincts.

That was certainly one thing Jeffrey Kostner had taught her.

You can never be too careful.

“So what will you do?” Tristan said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if it comes back clean, what will you do? And if he comes back dirty, what will you do?”

Nicole sipped the wine. “If she finds out that he’s got no priors I need to worry about, we can still be friends and classmates.”

Tristan raised her eyebrow.

“And if it comes back that he’s got a checkered past, or he knows about my past and is not who he’s pretending to be, then obviously I won’t see him again and I’ll try to get him removed from my class.”

Tristan laid her head back, let the sun catch her exposed throat. Her eyes were hidden behind big Ralph Lauren sunglasses.

“You know what’s best for you, Nicky,” she said.

Nicole thought that was true.

Right now, however, she didn’t feel good about it.

55.

Lady of the Evening

Patrick Tomlinson couldn’t believe his luck. He’d gone to the bar with one plan, and one plan only: to get face down drunk in some good whiskey. And he’d been halfway there until a voice spoke into his ear.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” the woman’s voice had said. Tomlinson turned and looked into the eyes of a beautiful woman. With a journalist’s trained eye, he pegged her as late thirties, with plenty of mileage on her. But she was gorgeous, he was sure of that. He