“I don’t plan to pull a gun on them and interrogate them. I know how to be normal.”
“Good. I don’t want you scaring the shit out of them.”
When he smiled at her, there was something very wicked behind it. Normal was a relevant word.
Chapter Twenty Seven
El Loco sat out of sight, watching the neighborhood through a pair of binoculars. The smart thing to do would have been to get the hell out of Dodge. El Loco was beginning to show the attributes of a serial killer. Serial killers loved to return to the scene of a crime. All the chaos and the response of the authorities was enough to give any criminal a high. He was smarter than they were. Now, he wasn’t just a hired killer, he was a man that was eluding the brightest of minds. Men and women who had been trained to catch killers couldn’t unravel a simple disorganized killing—he was destined for greatness. Imagine if he took his time and organized each detail of a murder. When he finished with Page, he would have to get right on that. Playing with the police was more fun than playing with one woman. She was a snack. They were a fucking smorgasbord.
His heart started hammering against his ribs when he saw her come out the front door. He fingered the panties in his pocket. When that wasn’t enough, he pulled them out and smelled them. She added scent to her laundry detergent. It was just another thing that added to her perfection of cleanliness. He’d never met a woman that compared with her—so clean—so innocent.
He could see the worry on her face. He almost felt bad knowing he was the one who had caused it. Maybe he’d been too hard on her. Perhaps she was just a do-gooder who wanted to tell the story of those less fortunate. He was getting soft. That had never happened to him before, but there had never been a woman like her. He knew there would never be another one, either. She was one of a kind. As the days went by, he was more focused on her abduction than her destruction. He wondered if that was how Mano started out. If she had fallen in love with him and he wanted to destroy her, maybe she could fall in love with him too.
He knew if you held a woman captive, there would come a time when she needed you. Isolation caused a woman to need whoever was meeting their needs. Like an animal who counted on its master to feed and water them. He liked the sound of that: master.
He watched as they walked across the street. They stood on the porch talking and then rang the doorbell. An old lady answered the door. Maybe he should kill her next. He hated old people. It never entered his mind that he would be old one day. Maybe karma would bite him in the ass when he least expected it—he deserved no less.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Page stood on the porch of her neighbor Mrs. Miller. “Do not scare this woman. I have to live here, Mano. I know you think that shit is funny, but these people scare easily.”
His lopsided grin caused her to soften, “I live here too—with you.”
“And so do Judy and I. Be good!”
“I’m always good, and when I’m bad I’m so much better.”
“Ha, ha,” Page reached out and rang the bell.
“That was a sarcastic laugh.”
“For a sarcastic man.”
They heard the sound of feet shuffling, and a small dog with a bark that sounded more like a yip. “Well hello, honey, and you brought a friend with you today, a very handsome one, I see.”
“Hello Mrs. Miller.”
“And who are you?” Mrs. Miller’s attention was clearly on Mano.
“Page didn’t tell you she had a fiance?” There was that cocky, lopsided, trouble making grin again. She couldn’t help but love him regardless of how incorrigible he was.
Page looked at Mano like he was crazy, in return she got a shit-eating grin. He loved yanking her chain and nothing was going to change that. He did have a way of keeping her mind off all the drama going on, and she appreciated that. Laughter was good medicine for all the shit she was going through.
“Well come in, come in. I have a chocolate cake I baked yesterday, and it has your name on it.”
Page reached down for the chihuahua who was still yipping at her feet. “Tobalito, you know me.” Page turned and smiled at Mano, “I named him.”
“You named him Christopher?”
“I liked the sound of it.”
Mrs. Miller turned around from where she was cutting cake at the counter, “I knew she spoke Spanish, so I asked her to name him. The whole neighborhood knows she’s bi-lingual and she’s so sweet to help us when we need it.”
The older woman shuffled over to the table and set the plates in front of them. She poured coffee and sat down across from them.
“No cake for you Mrs. Miller?” Page asked.
“No, I have to watch my girlish figure,” she winked at Mano.
“You’re beautiful just the way you are,” he gave her his most endearing smile.
“And you’re a smooth talker. No wonder Page fell for you so quickly. Now, I may be an old lady, but I know you two are here for a reason. I’d be willing to bet it’s about the death of Mrs. Boxley.”
“You know I would have come to visit you anyway, but yes, this time it’s because of bad news.”
Mrs. Miller patted Page’s hand, “I know you look out for me. I’m not offended. I was expecting you. I was hoping you’d come by because I’ve been so worried. I just don’t understand how something like this could happen in our neighborhood.
Once again Page felt a tinge of guilt. Her neighbors were being subjected to the cartel because of her. These people didn’t know how to deal with street issues. They’d been protected in the suburbs all their lives, and now they were getting a crash course in crime.
“Did you see anything?” Page didn’t want to tell her El Loco had been in her house. She didn’t want to alarm the woman any more than necessary. The only way out was through this. She would take down El Loco by herself if she had to.
“I do keep an eye on things. The only thing I noticed was a red truck. It looked like the back of it had been wrecked—like somebody ran into the back of him. Probably somebody doing that texting they do nowadays.”
Mano took a minute to glance at Page but didn’t say anything. Like Page he didn’t want to scare the woman. El Loco had no reason to come for Page’s neighbors so there was no need to warn them.
“This is one time I should have been nosier. If I’d been watching my friend would still be alive,” Mrs. Miller dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex she had in her pocket. Now Mrs. Miller was feeling the guilt Page felt was reserved for her.
“Do you know how she died?” Page hadn’t wanted to ask her such a candid question right away, but she had to ask. If anyone in the neighborhood had heard the scuttlebutt it would be Mrs. Miller. It was the reason they’d come here first.
She leaned in like she was sharing a horrifying secret, and it was. This was a safe neighborhood. Things like this didn’t happen here. It had shocked everyone, including Page.
“I heard a man choked her to death,” she dabbed at her eyes again. “It’s just terrible. I can’t imagine how scared she was in the last minutes of her life. You should be careful living next door to her. I just can’t imagine why someone would want to kill an old lady.”