sense as his threat became a high-pitched scream. His hands fell away from Dana and he staggered backward. Dana’s knife was jammed to the hilt in his crotch and she followed him, twisting the blade viciously before pulling it free.
Gregor lurched backward. He was in shock. The pain was unbearable. Dana smashed her fist into Gregor’s nose. She didn’t know if it was the blow itself or the pain that brought him to his knees. She didn’t care. She kicked him in the temple with the steel toe of her boot, then stomped his head against the sidewalk until she was certain that he was unconscious. She was about to land a blow that would finish Gregor when she stopped in mid-strike. She wanted to kill, but the time she’d spent in therapy at the mental hospital saved Gregor Karpinski’s life. The man was not planning to kill her or rape her. He was a messenger sent to scare her, and that crime did not carry a death penalty.
Dana’s chest heaved and she brought her breathing under control. Her attacker’s crotch was damp with blood and she knew he would die if he didn’t get medical help quickly. Dana couldn’t use her own phone because the call could be traced to her. She searched the man’s jacket pocket and found a cell phone. She used it to call for an ambulance.
What should she do next? If she stayed and the man died, she would be out of commission for as long as it took for the DA to decide that her use of force had been justified. She could not afford to be idle. She had to find out who sent her attacker.
What would happen if she left? She was wearing gloves, and the man had not drawn blood, so there would be no prints or DNA to connect her to the scene. If the man died, she would be home free. If he lived, he wasn’t going to give her up. To do that, he would have to confess to attacking her.
Leaving was a no-brainer, so Dana straddled her bike and drove off. When she felt safe she called Frank Santoro.
“Who is this?” the detective asked. His angry tone told Dana that Santoro had been asleep.
“We have to meet right away,” Dana said.
“It’s after midnight. I just fell asleep.”
“Tough. I just escaped being raped by someone connected to Horace Blair’s case.”
Chapter Forty-One
“Come on in,” Santoro said as soon as he opened his front door.
“Do you have any scotch?” Dana asked.
Santoro filled a glass with a little bit of ice and a lot of Johnnie Walker and handed it to Dana. She sat on the sofa in the detective’s living room and downed half of the glass.
“Are you ready to tell me what happened?” Santoro asked.
“Can you promise me you’ll forget you’re a cop?”
Santoro hesitated. Then he nodded
“I might have killed someone tonight.”
Santoro stayed calm. “Might have?”
“He was alive when I left but there was a lot of blood.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what happened?”
“I talked to Tiffany Starr yesterday but she wouldn’t tell me anything. Around eleven I got a call from a man who told me he would prove Barry Lester was lying if I met him at an empty lot in an industrial park. When I got there he threatened to rape me if I didn’t stop investigating the Blair case and Barry Lester.”
“What did you do?”
Dana looked down. Now that the adrenaline had worn off she felt sick about what had happened.
“Dana?”
“I stabbed him in the crotch.”
“Holy shit!”
Dana’s head snapped up and she looked fierce. “I did what I had to do to save myself, and I’d do it again. It was a clear case of self-defense, but I would have been answering questions and put on ice for who knows how long if I’d stayed, and I can’t afford that.”
“So you just left him to die?”
“No. The man was just a messenger. I called 911, but I left before the ambulance arrived, so I don’t know what happened to him.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I have to find out who sent the man who attacked me so I can neutralize the threat.”
Santoro had done some checking on Dana Cutler, including a look at the police file that detailed how Dana had dealt with the bikers who had kidnapped her. There were crime-scene photos in it. Santoro had seen some bad shit over the years, but these photos almost made him