Dinah Leach. Any way you looked at it, he was ready for this.
Still, Dana Whitestone represented the last name on his list. If she was really lucky, she might survive the night due to that annoying little technicality. No guarantees, though, of course.
For now, though, Nicholas would simply have to content himself with watching Dana Whitestone from a distance. Watching her and waiting. When the time was absolutely right, that was when he could spring out from the shadows like a rapist in the night and catch her completely off-guard. Teach her the lesson that Annabeth Preston had taught him so well all those years ago.
Pride cometh before a fall.
That said, it didn’t mean Nicholas couldn’t have a little bit of fun right now, did it? Of course it didn’t. Why should he wait any longer? Why not get the festivities under way while he was looking this good?
Stepping out of his rental car, Nicholas approached the two men in overalls who were loading boxes into the back of the coroner’s office building while Dana Whitestone gabbed into the cellphone at her ear, much too preoccupied with her own story to notice Nicholas’s movements. The men’s pupils widened in admiration as they took in Nicholas’s stunning feminine beauty, causing him to shake his head in bemusement.
Men. They were all the same. Only interested in one thing. Eight years old or eighty, some things never changed.
‘Hey there, boys,’ Nicholas said, sounding exactly like the confident woman he’d always dreamed he’d be. ‘You two interested in making a little bit of money tonight? If you play your cards right, there might even be a couple of blowjobs in it for you, too.’
***
As the older and taller of the two workers present in the parking lot of the coroner’s office – not to mention the tougher of the pair – Larry Randle spoke first.
At fifty-seven years old and on work release from prison for the ninth time, he’d begun to suspect lately that working for a living just wasn’t going to cut it. Too much bullshit to deal with. Too many asses to kiss. Hell, being in prison was actually easier than living in the real world. He wanted to go back to the joint. After all, three hots and a cot certainly weren’t anything to sneeze at.
‘Hell yeah,’ he said, digging his elbow into his partner’s ribs. ‘Some cash and a BJ sounds just about right to us. What do you need from us, honey?’
CHAPTER 27
When Dana’s world finally swam back into focus fifteen minutes later, she found herself bent forward over the driver’s-side seat of her Protégé with her jeans and underwear ripped down around her ankles.
Cold winter air froze the backs of her exposed thighs. She tried to straighten but found she couldn’t. She’d been pinned down hard beneath a heavy weight.
Vomit rocketed up Dana’s throat and burned the thin lining of her esophagus before flooding into her mouth and wearing away the enamel on her teeth. One of the men in blue overalls who’d been loading boxes into the back of the building when she’d been speaking with Bill Krugman on the telephone had positioned himself between her legs and was pumping himself furiously in and out, shredding Dana’s insides and grunting hard with his efforts like a wild beast in heat.
Dana choked on the contents of her stomach. Hot tears sprang up into her eyes and blurred her vision, burning her retinas and making it impossible to see clearly. She again tried to straighten but the man on top of her shoved her face back down into the leather of the car seat.
‘Just stay down, bitch,’ he hissed, wrapping a thick handful of Dana’s hair in his fist to keep her in place. ‘Just stay down and try to enjoy yourself.’
Dana closed her eyes and tried to ignore the searing pain between her legs, still fighting with every last ounce of energy she possessed. She kicked her legs. She bowed her back. She gritted her teeth. Tears streaked down her cheeks and dropped down into the grooves of the car seat, sliding down the leather and collecting in a saltwater pool at the bottom of the backrest. She wondered briefly if this was what her mother, Sara Whitestone, had felt when Nathan Stiedowe’s father had raped her over a church altar way back in 1957. A feeling of complete and utter hopelessness. A feeling of complete and utter violation. A feeling of complete and utter hatred.