Call Me Killer Read online

  “He's got a gun. Just drive. Please.”

  I don't take orders from anybody, especially strange women, but another whack of whatever the crazy man had in his hands helped me make up my mind. I didn't have a weapon, and I could hear yelling and cursing behind me. I couldn't see the asshole with the shovel, but it sounded as if he was foaming at the mouth.

  “Go, go!” she cried, turning around in the seat looking out through the pouring rain. There was a boom that sounded like a shotgun. The girl threw herself on her belly on the seat, her head practically in my lap. “Fuck! He's gonna kill us!”

  I hit the gas, and we sped out of the parking lot. I drove us up the road and swung back toward the highway. “Who is that guy? Has he got a car? Is it just the one or are there more of them?”

  “Yeah, he has a car, but I disabled it. You gotta lose him. He's fuckin' crazy.”

  I wanted details. If some crazy dude with weapons was gonna be on my ass, I needed to know how soon. “Disabled it how?”

  “When he went in to pay and buy some smokes, I ripped his keys out of the ignition.” She held up a set of keys. “I don't know if he has a spare.”

  “Let's assume he does.” I didn't see any pursuit, though. I found the on-ramp back to the highway as quick as I could and took it. Once we were up to speed and getting farther away from the psycho every minute, both me and the girl started to relax.

  I scowled at her. She had moved away from me, settling into the passenger's seat like she belonged there. “Can you turn the heat on? I'm freezing.”

  I ignored the request. “Why was that guy chasing you? Did you rob him?”

  She shot me a wary glance. Her hair was all mashed down across her face, so she combed it away with her fingers. More rainwater splattered around. She wasn't as young as I'd first thought. Not a kid, although I wouldn't say she looked much like a woman, either, given how small and skinny she was; no curves, all angles.

  “No, I didn't fucking rob him.”

  “So why's he after you?”

  She pushed more sopping dark hair out of the way—she had a full mane of the stuff—and considered me. Her eyes were large and round, like a curious owl. I saw no trace of the eye makeup gunk that most women use. She looked alert and intelligent and maybe a little calculating. “He's Mom's client or boyfriend or something.”

  “Client?”

  “She's a whore,” the girl said.

  “Your mom is a whore.” Yeah, I was sarcastic. I wasn't sure how much of this I was buying.

  She grinned. It completely changed her face—she had a huge smile that made her look both charming and cute.

  “She prefers the term sex industry worker. Or Negotiable Pleasure Engineer, that one's even better.” Her smile turned to a husky laugh. “'Hello, I'm your Negotiable Pleasure Engineer for the evening. You want me to blow you or fuck you? Anal's extra.'“

  I cleared my throat. I hoped she was quoting “Mom,” and not making me an offer. “How old are you?” Maybe I could drop her off at the nearest office of teenager welfare, or whatever it was called. Except I didn't think any welfare offices were likely to be open at this hour of the night.

  “Don't worry, dude, I might not look it, but I'm legal. I even got ID to prove it.”

  “Sure you do. I can take you to a bar where everyone in the place has ID, even though most of them are underage.”

  “Well, I don't drink or shoot up or take pills or any of that shit anyway, so chill.”

  “How old?” I snarled.

  “Jeez, take it easy. I’m a fucking adult.” She dug around in her pants pocket and pulled out a beat-up wallet. I wondered if she'd stolen it. Out came a Massachusetts driver's license that looked real enough. She handed it over and I took a quick glance. It was clearly her picture. The DOB put her at twenty, turning twenty-one this summer. The name on the license was L. Rory McKay.

  I handed it back. “You don't look that old.”

  “Yeah, well, I feel about thirty-five.” She shot me a curious glance. “How old are you?”

  I didn't answer. If she was trying to get friendly with me, forget it. I was already regretting letting her in my car, and I wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible.

  Digging out her license seemed to remind her of something. She had a battered backpack with her, and she began to root around inside it. She pulled out a cell phone and pried the cover off.

  “I don't want anybody tracking me.” She unscrewed part of the casing with one of her long, black-painted fingernails and jerked out the SIM card. “These things are like your own personal NSA beacon,” she said, still fiddling with the device. The next thing she removed was the battery. She dropped these two items plus the now-dead phone back into her pack.

  “You got feds after you?”

  “Nah. I just wanna be off the grid for a while.” She glanced over at me again. “You know my name now. What's yours?”

  I felt the reluctance that always hits when someone asks my name. I'm infamous around these parts. No point in scaring her by telling her she'd jumped into the car of a psycho killer. So instead of saying Jeremiah Griffin O'Malley, which was an accused murderer's name, I said, “Folks call me Griff.” Which was true enough.

  Then I wondered why I'd even told her that much.

  “Griff? I like that.” She reached forward, found the heat, and turned it up. “It's different. Rory's kinda different, too. I hate those girly names like Jennifer and Ashley and Megan.”

  Like I cared. I'd been checking the rear-view mirror, and there was no sign of pursuit. “Looks like you've escaped. Where am I dropping you?”

  She tipped her head back against the headrest. “No idea. Where're you headed? New York City would be good if you're going that far. I can lose myself there.”

  “Not going to New York.” No way. I had to work tomorrow.

  “Well, how far are you going?” We were driving west. “Worcester? Springfield? Chicago?” She laughed. “Shit, I'll go anywhere as long as it's far from here.”

  Great. “I took the first on-ramp to get you away from the guy with the shovel and the shotgun.”

  “Yeah, that was a freaky combination, wasn't it? We could both be six feet under by now.” She laughed softly. “I got nine lives, but I should warn you I've used a few of them up already.”

  “You must have somewhere to go.”

  She shrugged. “I kinda don't. I was supposed to crash with a friend, but she took off.” She yawned deeply, and then glanced over at me with that appraising look. I wasn't sure if she was checking me out, or just trying to figure out how much bullshit she could sling in my direction. Probably the latter.

  “If your mom's a sex worker in that part of town,” I nodded back in the direction we'd come from, “how come you're so—” I gave her the once-over “—you know, white?”

  She launched that big boisterous laugh again. “Mom's not my real mother. That's just what everybody calls her, because she takes care of folks. Her real name's LaVerle.”

  “So where's your real mom?”

  Her laugh died away as if a door had slammed on it. “She's the one I'm trying to get away from.”

  She obviously didn't want to talk about that, so I asked her anyway. Yeah, I'm a dick. I was sheltering this runaway, for the moment, anyhow, so I figured I had a right to know what I was dealing with. “Why? What did your mother do to you?”

  She didn't say anything for several seconds. She shifted uneasily in the passenger seat. Then she combed some of her wet hair away from her face in a gesture that was already becoming familiar and said, “Okay, you wanna hear what she did when I turned seventeen? She tried to auction me off to a bunch of creepy guys she was in business with. There may have been a chick or two in the mix. I guess they thought I was a virgin. Some old dude offered her $10,000 for me, and, man, was she pissed when she couldn't take him up on it.”

  10K? Bullshit! For this scrawny little thing? She started laughing again and I felt myself cracking a reluctant sm
ile. I knew my next line, so what the hell, I spoke it: “And why couldn't she take him up on it?”

  “'Cause the stupid bitch didn't know that I'd already held my own virginity auction. I didn't get 10 big ones, though. Should have held out for more.”

  Yeah, right. The girl was a liar, but I had to give her this much: she had a certain flair.

  Truth was, I didn't know what to do with Rory. Her clothes were soaked through, and despite the blasting heater, I could see her shivering. If she didn't warm up soon she might get hypothermia.

  She was also hungry, given the way she tore into a packet of crackers she found in my glove compartment. I hated to think how old they were, but she didn't seem to mind.

  I could have dropped her off at the nearest police station, but my experiences with cops have not exactly made me a fan. No way I was entering a cop den of my own accord. And I wasn't going to drive back to Boston just to dump her off on some rainy street there.

  I could take her to my place for the rest of the night, feed her, get her warm, give her a couch to sleep on. But after everything I'd gone through with detectives, investigators, FBI agents and so on, I wasn't real comfortable with the idea.

  For all I knew, she might be underage. I wasn't convinced by her ID, genuine though it looked. She might be a runaway, or even a felon. How long before the authorities came after me?

  Still, it was closing in on midnight, and I couldn't think of anything else to do with her. She had leaned her head back and curled up, and I could hear her gently snoring. It had been a long time since any female had felt trusting enough to fall asleep in my vicinity.

  Granted, Rory didn't know who I was yet, this stranger with whom she had recklessly taken a ride. She must have been running away from something kickass scary if she felt so comfortable with me.

  Chapter 3

  Griff

  The waif fell so deeply asleep that she didn't wake when I shut off the car in my driveway. I went round and jerked open the passenger side door and shook her shoulder, which felt small and delicate in my palm.

  “Wake up. We're here.”

  “Where's here?” she asked on a yawn, pushing herself upright.

  “My place. You can curl up on the sofa until you get warm, then I'm kicking you out.”

  “Sounds fair.” She climbed out of the car. “As long as you're not an ax murderer or a rapist or some other kind of pervert.”

  “I doubt I'd use an ax. Too messy.”

  She laughed. “That's reassuring.” She followed me to the door, shaking herself like a wet puppy. “Seems pretty quiet here,” she noted as I unlocked the front door and ushered her into my first floor apartment.

  It was quiet, all right—the second floor apartment was empty; the owners had been having trouble renting it. Word gets around, and most people don't want to share a house with a suspected killer. It was also kind of a dump, although I tried to keep my half of the house tidy and well-maintained.

  The building was old. It had been converted to two apartments decades ago. It happened to be the last house on a dead end street, which suited me fine.

  Beyond the house were some woods—conservation land. I liked to go hiking in there sometimes. Or at least, I used to enjoy the woods before the cops scoured the area with dogs, digging up all sorts of spots, looking for Hadley's body.

  The front door opened into a small vestibule, from which stairs went up to the empty second floor. Another door led to my living room, which was sparsely furnished with a sofa, some cheap wooden chairs, a couple of bookcases and a table in the far corner where I kept my computer.

  The desktop computer had been pretty sweet a couple years ago, when I'd been a serious gamer. I'd saved up for a prime graphics card. It was probably slow compared to the new hardware, though. I'd also had a cheap laptop that I'd used when I was taking college classes at night. But the cops had confiscated that and never returned it.

  Anyway, I'd stopped taking courses after Hadley had vanished. I'd stopped doing a lot of things.

  Rory arrowed straight for the computer, slapping her wet fleece jacket on the floor behind her as she went. She dropped into my desk chair. “You don't mind if I check my email, do ya?”

  “Yeah, I do mind.” The computer was password-protected, as she quickly discovered. The cops had taken the big computer, too, but at least they'd returned that one. I didn't expect to see my laptop again.

  I stalked over to the desk and pulled her away by the scruff of her neck. “Get your drenched ass off my only comfortable chair. And take off your boots.”

  She looked back at me over her shoulder and grinned. Her damn grin was irrepressible. “Sorry.” She kicked off the heavy brown boots she was wearing. They looked like something from L. L. Bean or some other outdoorsman-chic place—probably fashionable as hell even though they were ugly. “You got a towel or something I can lay over the seat?”

  “Your email is that important?”

  She shrugged. She was studying my hardware. “You're a gamer, huh? Your rig's okay, but a bit out of date.”

  “What makes you think I'm a gamer?” She had said it so confidently that I wondered if she had a reason, or if she thought all guys my age gamed.

  “Your keyboard. The letters on the WASD keys are all worn off, but that keyboard's pretty new.”

  “You some kind of smartass?”

  Ignoring me, she made her own quick tour of the apartment. It didn't take long, given that the place only had three rooms—living room, bedroom, and kitchen. She found the bathroom, from which she removed two towels. She folded one carefully and laid it over the seat of my desk chair, and used the other to rub futilely at her long, wet hair.

  “Password?”

  I shook my head, amazed at her gall. “Why the fuck would I tell that to you?”

  “You let me into your house. And your car. Why not your computer? Anyway, no problem if you don't want to tell me. I'll bet it doesn't take me long to crack it.”

  I figured it was time to get a couple of things straight. “Look. You seem to have decided I'm a good guy. I'm not. I'm pretty much of a dick. So get the fuck away from my computer and into the shower. You smell like a wet dog that's been rolling in a swamp.”

  Her face fell. Actually, she didn't smell bad at all, but I was tired of being nice.

  She looked down at herself, wiped away some rain that had streaked her cheeks, checked out a soaking hank of her hair, and then nodded wryly. “I am kind of a mess.”

  “Here.” I tossed some additional towels at her. I had a bunch of them because my mother was some kind of linen freak who kept giving me new sheets, towels and dishcloths. I think she believed that when I dirtied a towel, I threw it away. “There's a dryer in the bathroom. You can dump your wet clothes in it so you'll have something dry to wear in the morning.”

  She studied the towels. “And what? Wrap myself in these? Like the seven veils?” She held one up in front of her and sashayed around the place in a hip-swaying dance. It didn't look as ridiculous as it ought to have looked, probably because of that big, mischievous grin of hers. “Got some old clothes I can wear? Maybe some sweats?”

  “I'm bigger than you are.”

  She looked me over as if she were seeing me for the first time. She made a face. I wasn't sure if it signaled approval or disdain. “You're one tall fucker, aren't you? Lean though. Don't you eat? Which reminds me, I'm starved. I hope you have some food in that kitchen.”

  She walked over to the bathroom and inspected the door. “Not much of a lock,” she sniffed.

  I made a disparaging sound. “Unless there's a real hottie under all that grime, there's no danger of me busting in and molesting you.”

  She took the towels, went into the bathroom and slammed the door. “You are pretty much of a dick,” she called through it.

  I found an old track suit and dropped it on the floor just outside the bathroom. I could hear the shower running and my water pipes clanking. I hoped the hot water would hold out. I
'd like to grab a shower too before falling into bed.

  While she was busy in there, I made a pot of coffee. I knew I shouldn't drink any, since I needed a few hours' sleep, but I couldn't resist the smell. By the time Rory found her way out, smiling with the pleasure of being clean, I'd laid out some bread and a jar of peanut butter. She was swimming in my sweats and her long brown hair was less matted now, but just as wet.

  She took the coffee mug I handed her, inhaled the steam gratefully, and gulped it down.

  “Make yourself a couple sandwiches. I tossed a blanket on the sofa in there. Get some sleep. I'm going to bed.”

  She sat down at the kitchen table and dug into the peanut butter. “What're you gonna do with me?”

  Probably because she didn't look half-bad now that she was clean, I had an image of inviting her to finish the blowjob that the killer-lover-freak had started earlier. Rory didn't seem like she was interested, though. She hadn't been sending any vibes my way. In fact, I was pretty sure that if she had a choice between peanut butter and cock, the peanut butter would win.

  “There's a train station in town. Train'll take you into Boston. You can stay there or make your way to New York.”

  “Okay.” For the first time she sounded uncertain.

  “Or you can go back and deal with whatever you were running away from. Call the cops on that dude with the shotgun before he kills somebody.”

  “No cops.”

  Hell, I couldn't disagree with that. I fucking hated cops. “Fine. Whatever. I don't care where you go as long as it's far away from me.”

  “Right,” she said morosely, staring into her coffee, like she'd heard it all before.

  I headed for the bathroom. Fuck it. I was not going to feel sorry for her. I had enough problems of my own.

  By the time I'd finished with my shower, she was asleep on the sofa, curled like a kitten under my old woolen Army blanket. She looked young and defenseless, which was not how she projected herself when she was awake and talking. I was surprised to feel a slight sense of protectiveness, as if I needed to be responsible for this stray.