said the taller of the two men. ‘What’s a fine piece of ass like you doing out here all by herself on a night like this? Don’t you know that it’s dangerous out here?’
Dana shot her hand inside her jacket for her Glock 17, but by then it was already too late. The smaller of the two men shot out his own hand and twisted her left wrist around hard. A searing jolt of pain rocketed up Dana’s arm as the taller of the pair moved forward and pressed a damp white cloth over her mouth and nose. A medicinal smell filled her nostrils. Her brain went fuzzy. A moment later, everything around her went pitch-black. Chloroform, Dana supposed – a favourite prop of all the bad guys in the movies.
As Dana’s world slowly floated away, in her mind’s eye she and Jeremy Brown were riding through New York City’s Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage. Jeremy was just leaning in for their first kiss when an even sharper pain between Dana’s thighs replaced the agonising pain in her arm, snapping her mind back into the horrifying present.
A horrifying present in which two men dressed in blue overalls were brutally raping her in the otherwise-deserted parking lot of the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office.
PART III
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
‘Named for Huracan, the Carib god of evil, hurricanes are amazing and destructive natural phenomena that occur 40 to 50 times worldwide each year. Hurricane season takes place in the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Central Pacific from 1 June to 30 November, while in the Eastern Pacific the season stretches from 15 May to 30 November.’ – Matt Rosenberg, in his article, Terror of the Coasts.
CHAPTER 22
Directly to Nicholas’s right, Dinah Leach leaned her lithe body over the bar at Johnny’s Hideaway and attempted to catch a bartender’s attention.
He studied her face closely from the corner of his eye before stealing a quick peek down the front of her blouse. From the look of things, she was trying to trade in on her small measure of notoriety for some faster service. Presumptuous bitch. Did she really think she was better than everyone else in the nightclub? Better than him? If so, then she’d better enjoy it while she still could. Because pretty soon she’d never feel anything again.
Nicholas cocked his head in Dinah Leach’s direction as she leaned her glistening body even farther across the long bar, showing off her impressive cleavage to a male bartender. Worked like a charm. Then again, where was the big surprise in that? Good boob jobs tended to draw their fair share of attention, and Dinah Leach had a great boob job. Twenty thousand bucks, at a bare minimum, and Nicholas would know. Smart business move for her when you looked at things honestly.
Nicholas strained his ears and caught the whore’s words above the deafening music. She was ordering just one more drink before tabbing out for the night.
‘Vodka and Red Bull,’ she shouted, favouring the bartender with a seductive smile and a slight shimmy of her silicone hooters. ‘Easy on the Red Bull.’
The bartender nodded, then stole his own furtive peek down the front of her blouse before moving away quickly to prepare her drink. Thirty seconds later, the reality-television star was throwing back her head and draining the booze in four quick swallows.
From this distance, Nicholas could actually hear the ice cubes banging up against her veneer-covered front teeth. He cut his gaze down to the bill lying on the beer-soaked bar and lifted up his eyebrows. Two hundred and twelve bucks, not counting tip. An impressive night of drinking by anyone’s measure.
Curious, he watched Dinah Leach fill in the line for the gratuity. Another forty bucks for the leering bartender. And why not? What did she care? It was all just dirty paper to her, right?
With the woman standing no more than two feet away from him now, Nicholas realised how much older she looked in person than on television. Her face a little more haggard, her features a little more drawn, the wrinkles around her mouth a bit more pronounced.
Still, there was nothing at all wrong with the way Dinah Leach smelled. Not even close. Her light and fruity perfume floated up into Nicholas’s nostrils and made him dizzy, sending a delicious wave of olfactory delight flooding through his system.
Nicholas breathed in deeply and savoured her sweet smell, mentally handing it to her. Even after all that frantic dancing, Dinah Leach