Black Death (A Sam Rader Thriller Book 4) Read online

  Grace knew it was the best course and thus had given the go-ahead, offering Clive the usual sum for the impeccable service. Once Grace answered the advert and received a response, Clive set the wheels in motion, paving the way for Grace to go in and do her thing.

  The Lucky Tavern appeared as anything but lucky, resembling something that could only be described as used up. The outside of the place looked like it hadn’t been painted in decades, with half the windows along the second floor smashed. There was fluorescent sign hanging above the door, but the word BAR was missing the B and half the A, leaving the part that actually glowed looking like some strange foreign symbol.

  Inside, the view didn’t get much better and as Grace walked through the front door, first felt the foul stench smack her in the face, followed by some weird guy that was talking with a lisp.

  “You here for a job?” he asked, half limping towards her.

  “Yes, I am. Here to see Norm?”

  “Out back,” the guy said, spittle flying from his tongue as he pointed towards a curtain behind the bar. “Help yourself.”

  A woman working behind the bar eyed her suspiciously, then pointed to the curtain as if to remind Grace of the direction.

  “Second on the right,” and then after snickering a little, “Hope you brought knee pads.”

  Grace ignored the comment and pushed through the thin piece of fabric that felt like an old bedsheet. The stench of stale beer was more pronounced in the dark hallway, laced with the unmistakable scent of dope. She knew what she was in for even before knocking on the door and prepared herself for the worst.

  “Come,” Norman called out once Grace knocked. She opened the door and stepped inside the moderate office. There was a desk, behind which Norman was sitting, with a couch off to one side. Grace knew the purpose of that couch and wondered whether this prick intended to have her on it before the interview was over.

  “You Grace?”

  “Yes, Sir.” He grinned a little, enjoying what he heard. Grace watched his eyes undress her, slowly running up her long legs, focusing on her crotch for a moment, before continuing up to her cleavage.

  “You said you’ve worked behind a bar before?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ever offer more than just drinks?” He wasn’t beating around the bush and Grace immediately recognized his self-confidence.

  “Sometimes,” she lied.

  “What I need is someone to run the bar three till late, Mondays through Thursdays. Bitch that had the job shot through without notice. Think you can handle it?”

  “I can handle it,” she replied, noting his eyes dropping down to her bust line again.

  “So why should I hire you?”

  This was it, Grace thought, the question to try and get her naked. She wasn’t prepared to drop to her knees, not for anyone. She knew getting topless was part of her act, but other than that, this prick would get nothing else from her.

  “Because once I have my post-shift drink, I need something to warm me up.” It was the best she could come up with and wasn’t sure whether it would work. But just as he was about to answer, the phone rang and once Norman picked up the call, found his attention pulled in another direction.

  “Stanley, my man, how they hangin?” He remembered the woman in the room, pulled the receiver from his ear and said, “Work tonight’s shift and we’ll see how you go.” He waved her away, not bothering to wait for an answer, simply turning his chair and facing the rear wall.

  Grace nodded slightly, looked up at the camera watching her and hoped Clive had come through. She took a final look over her shoulder before walking through the door, watching the man she intended to kill within just a few hours. If everything worked the way she hoped, Nancy Prescott would never have to endure her husband again.

  The Lucky Tavern failed to live up to its name, the night filled with the type of clientele Grace loathed. The men were mostly middle-to-late-aged, out to escape from whatever woman they kept at home. Others came simply to sit and drink their sorrows away. The women who did come in were either paid to be there, or reliant on free drinks for a service their chaperones hoped for at the end of the night.

  The staff working the bar were angry almost all of the time, simply filling orders without any sense of politeness or sensitivity. They slammed the drinks down on the bar, snatched the money and most of the time failed to make change.

  There were three women working the floor and one would always be missing, Grace assuming they would be out the back earning an extra kick into their pay packets. There was also a room upstairs and all three took turns to escort drinkers to the second floor for a brief session.

  Grace worked the bar as best she could, despite never having spent time behind one before. Thankfully, this wasn’t the sort of place where drinks had fancy names, most simply ordering beers and shots of basic spirits. Despite her lack of in-depth knowledge, none of the other staff were any wiser.

  One thing she did take great care with was her appearance. Grace donned a short wig, one suitable enough to hide the bald head underneath. Hair had always been one of the first and foremost identifying features police noted down and Grace had shaved hers off months before her first murder, relying on a number of wigs to alter her appearance.

  She also had a prosthetic piece for her nose, adding a hint of a bump to the bridge of it. There was also the fake scar she painted onto her chin, barely an inch long, but still prominent enough to be noticed. As she worked the bar, she hoped that the heat of the room wouldn’t impact her appearance.

  Norman only made two appearances the whole night. Once around seven, when a local pizza store made a dinner delivery and the second right on closing, as if smelling his opportunity to inspect the new employee first hand. Grace watched as he emerged from the curtain just as the floor girls bid farewell, leaving just her, the boss and one of the final bar staff.

  As if to highlight his true character, Norman went to the tip jar, took out the notes and pocketed them, leaving behind coins which he didn’t care for. The other woman barely paid it attention, not seeming to care as she finished replacing the spent bottles with fresh ones from a crate brought up earlier.

  Once she was done, the woman nodded at Norman, ignored Grace and headed for the door. She didn’t look back and once she was gone, Grace knew her time had come.

  “Join me?”she said, reaching for a bottle of Jack Daniels.

  “Never say no to a beautiful woman holding alcohol in her hand,” he croaked, flicking a cigarette into his mouth and sparking a match. As he chased the tip with the flame, Grace poured two drinks, plonked the bottle on the table and upended her glass as Norman dropped the spent match. She pretended not to pay him attention, slammed the glass down and wiped the side of her mouth.

  As Norman reached for his glass, Grace poured herself a second, then repeated the ritual, not bothering to acknowledge her drinking partner.

  “You know, we could take this party upstairs,” he half-whispered at her. Grace could smell his body odor from where she stood and couldn’t for the life of her think of why anyone would want to get near him.

  “Sounds good,” she said, grabbed the bottle and glasses and headed for the stairs. Norman watched her walk past, focused on her tight buns, then slowly followed, remaining far enough behind to appreciate the view before him.

  The start of her routine happened just like it did with all the others. Men were so predictable. It took all of thirty seconds for Grace to remove her top and for Norman to start treating her nipples like Jolly Ranchers. His teeth felt vulgar enough for Grace to flinch, but she managed to hang on to the back of his head long enough until he passed out.

  The real conundrum came once she had him tied naked to the bed. He looked disgusting, smelled of rank body odor and piss, plus had some sort of genital herpes. Grace imagined taking a photo and posting it to the board where she knew Clara would still be waiting for word.

  But what Grace really struggled with was e
nding him. A knife to the chest seemed too simple for a beast who inflicted such horrible pain on Nancy and God-knows how many other women. He was a piece of shit in every sense of the word and what he needed was to suffer. It was the least he could do to repay what he owed.

  Grace stood in the corner of the room and waited. It was a sequence she had adopted ever since the first, watching her target lying unconscious before her as she let the thoughts run though her mind, those that fueled her rage. It was those very thoughts that made what she did possible. It was them that removed any humanity from her and turned her emotions into a brick. While Norman Prescott enjoyed his final dream, Black Death contemplated how best to end him.

  It normally took them at least an hour to sleep the drug off before briefly returning to the land of the living. When it came to Norman, he was still out of it almost three hours after losing consciousness. Grace began to worry about daybreak hitting before he woke, maybe some of the staff returning to clean, or maybe even some early morning delivery.

  But just as she contemplated simply stabbing him while he slept, she saw his fingers slowly curl, as if trying to grab something in mid air. A groan rumbled somewhere inside him and then his eyes began to flicker.

  “What the fuck…,” he whispered, sounding as if he’d swallowed sandpaper. He pulled on his restraints, the cuffs jangling on the bedhead. It was a decent timber frame, one Grace knew wouldn’t break, given the man tied to it.

  “Welcome back, Norman.”

  He peered up at her, trying to focus, but the light was still too bright for his sensitive eyes. He blinked repeatedly, still trying to make sense of the situation. Grace stepped forward, leaned down and lifted the man’s underwear. He finally found her and stared back, the anger rising in his gaze.

  “What the fuck are you doing, cunt?” he roared and Grace gave him an uppercut to the base of his noise. She felt the tender skin split beneath her fist, then thrust his underpants into the open mouth as it struggled to scream in pain.

  Norman gagged as his own scent hit him, now coming from so close to his broken nose. Grace couldn’t imagine it tasted any better, but focused on more urgent matters. She knew her plan was already of course, but now wondered how far her anger would take her. She hadn’t experienced this type of rage in a long time and not while a target was directly before her.

  “Nancy sends her regards,” she whispered, leaning down close to get right by his ear. Norman began to shake his fists at her, trying to break the bonds that would hold him for the rest of his life.

  Grace could feel the rage continue to build as she mentioned Nancy’s name. Her hands were visibly shaking and she was sure Norman could sense his days were over. As if trying to somehow control her emotions, Grace briefly closed her eyes, but all she could see were the words from the medical report.

  He had raped his pregnant wife with a baseball bat and it was a vision Grace was unable to shake. She opened her eyes, briefly locked on to Norman’s, then brought the knife down into his scrotum with a single thrust. Norman’s eyes bulged as his body tensed, the gravelly scream locked into his throat, his underwear refusing to budge.

  Grace’s rage refused to plateau, continuing to rise as her very vision began to change, everything before her taking on a deep shade of red. She pulled the knife out, dropped it onto the bed and reached for the bottle of Jack. A moment before Norman realized what was about to happen, he tensed once more, doing his best to bring his legs together.

  “Remember Nancy?” Grace hissed at him, feeling the tears flow freely as the anger took hold of her, shaking the woman to the very core. She stood beside Norman as he tried to pull away, but it did no good as his executioner brought the butt of the bottle out before her, then thrust it down and out as hard as she could.

  The blood from his wound created the perfect lubrication and Grace pushed the bottle into his rectum with all her might. He screamed again, began to convulse in pain and passed out. Grace didn’t pause, leaving the bottle where it was wedged. She reached for the knife and brought it down on his chest. Once it was embedded up to the hilt, Grace pulled it out and brought it down a second time and then a third.

  Crying and groaning with uncontrolled emotion, she repeatedly stabbed the deceased corpse again and again, her tears falling with each thrust. Only when a drop of blood hit her in the eye did she pause, holding the knife above the body, as if waiting to plunge it a final time.

  But the blade slipped from her fingers, bounced on the battered corpse and came to rest on the mattress beside him. Norman’s eyes we half-open and staring back at her, his sins paid for in full.

  Grace silently wept as she looked at the mess she had created. This was not what she came for and felt ashamed by her actions. She had always promised to remain the person she was, willing herself to absorb the emotions instead of letting them out.

  As she began to clean the scene as best she could, Grace quickly realized that there was nothing she could do to make it look like a regular Black Death murder. So, instead of placing the card in his hand and the rose on his chest, Grace simply looked at both of her totems, then let them slip from her fingers, both landing between Norman’s feet like discarded trash.

  Tonight, she couldn’t be Black Death. Tonight, she was just a regular woman that had been scarred by too many incidents. What she needed was to get out and get out quick. Without hesitating, Grace packed up everything she needed to, took a final look at the scene of destruction and left the room.

  As she walked down the short corridor, she suddenly froze as something moved beside her. Grace turned and locked eyes with a man standing in the doorway of one of the rooms. She recognized him as the cellar guy. He stared at her with horror in his eyes and she suddenly remembered the stabbing frenzy. What he could see was a woman covered in his boss’s blood.

  She was sure he must’ve heard everything that happened and for the moment, didn’t know what to do. It was the man who made the first move, raising his hand and offering her a towel. Grace looked at it for a moment, then took it, neither of them speaking. As she turned and continued towards the stairs, she began to wipe at her face, doing her best to remove away the last remnants of her explosion.

  8

  “They think there’s been another one,” Tim said as Sam returned from her shower that morning.

  “They think?”

  “Mumma said the body’s pretty beaten up. Definitely not as clean as the rest.” Sam finished drying her hair, dropped the towel on the chair and eyed him for a moment.

  “So, what? They think a copycat?”

  “Maybe not, The card and one were still there, but the body?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, he body is kinda messed up.” Tim whispered the final two words, trying to enunciate the horror Mumma had described.

  “Messed up how?”

  “Messed up, as in a bottle of Jack Daniels jammed up his butt messed up and his chest cavity turned into some kind of shredding party.” Sam looked at him horrified.

  “A bottle of…,” she began, her own words reduced to a whisper as she tried to comprehend the image building in her mind.

  “I know, right?”

  “Do we know the victim?”

  “Norman Prescott, 52. Married to Nancy Prescott and, surprise surprise, Mrs Prescott has a significant history of domestic violence injuries, most notably raped by a baseball bat that killed the six-month old fetus she was carrying. Here, check this out,” Tim finished, pressing play on the news article and spinning the screen towards her.

  Sam watched in disbelief, listening to the reporters firing questions at the recently-released Prescott.”

  “They let him go?” Sam asked, her voice filled with the shock experienced by many others.

  “They did indeed. Seems he had quite a few friends in places that mattered and my guess is, called in a few favors at the right time.”

  Sam sat at the table in disbelief, running through the information she had been handed in such a
short amount of time.

  “Do we go and speak with this Nancy Prescott?” Tim raised his eyebrows in quick succession, signifying he had something up his sleeve.

  “No need to. Turns out god ol’ Mumma Bear hit a little bit of pay dirt last night.”

  “Tell me?” Sam said, sitting up a little.

  “Good old ‘End the Pain’ kind of pay dirt.”

  “What did she find?”

  “Someone talking to Black Death herself. Someone calling themselves MuffinMaker.”

  “MuffinMaker?”

  “Who knows. Anyway, there’s not much to go on conversation-wise. But the person keeps referring to her sister being with a man she married who was eighteen years her senior. Norman Prescott was eighteen years older than his wife. Plus,” Tim continued, raising a finger to highlight the importance of his next point, “he caused his wife to suffer two miscarriages, the second through rape with a baseball bat.”

  “That’s pretty specific.”

  “And Nancy only has a single sister, Clara Buchanan.”

  “So, I’m guessing we’re going to pay Ms Buchanan a visit?” Tim rose from his chair, gave her the flick-and finger-point, and nodded.

  “Knew you were the smarter one of the team.”

  Clara Buchanan lived in a small town an hour south of Chicago and Tim took the wheel as Sam continued scrolling her way through the information Mumma had sent. More pages kept hitting her inbox, each time a little ping anouncing the new arrival. Traffic was almost nonexistent and Tim fumbled the radio as he drove.

  He thumbed the scan button and sorted through a few of the radio stations, but for the first few stations, nothing worked for him. It was only when he heard the familiar tones of Evermore blasting out ‘Running’ that he left it alone, tapping the wheel as he settled in for the cruise.