Nest

  He rounded on her faster than she expected. She felt the stunning blow to her face. It knocked her back, sprawling across a front lawn beside the sidewalk.

  She rolled onto her feet again before he could throw himself on her. Her face stung and felt numb at the same time.

  He slowed for just a moment, assessing her with those cold, deadly eyes, apparently deciding on how to change up his attack in order to put an end to her resistance once and for all.

  Kate remembered her instructor’s words, words that at the time had seemed like emotionless theory. Now those words were her lifeline.

  Don’t defend. Attack. In a life-and-death situation with a bigger enemy who intends you harm, there is no such thing as defending. There is winning or losing. Life or death. She knew that if she was to survive, she had to come at her attacker with superior aggression and violence of action. Size and pure muscle power weren’t the only things that mattered. She couldn’t let him control what she did. She couldn’t react. She had to act.

  By favoring his injured ear, he left the other side open. Without pause, she stepped into the strike. Using her fist, twisting her hips to put all her weight behind the blow, she cried out with the effort of her strike to his mandible on the opposite side of his injured ear. She heard the bone crack as the blow knocked his head sideways. As he swung back around toward her she met him with an elbow to the center of his face.

  She kept it a tight, close-in fight, because she knew that was her only chance. By limiting his ability to extend his arms in a fully developed blow, she denied him his strength. She knew better than to let him back her up, because that would give him all the advantage of distance, weakening her attacks. With his longer arms, retreating would let him fight using his strength advantage and he would overpower her in mere seconds. So instead she kept getting inside his attacks, staying on the attack herself, keeping him off balance, striking right into him from up close, where she could fully extend her shorter arms to full effect.

  She aimed for vulnerable places when she could. She didn’t try to remember forms or proper sequences; she simply took advantage of whatever worked in that instant.

  He caught her behind her neck with his wrist and drove a blow into her midsection. It was unexpected and it knocked the wind from her. She staggered back a step, but made herself reverse back at him before he could take full advantage and dominate her movements. The next time he reached out to catch her the same way, she ducked, spun, and kicked his knee, buckling him for a step so she could press in at him again.

  By staying in close, she kept him from extending fully for a devastating blow, changing the dynamics to her advantage.

  When the heel of her hand connected with the middle of his face, he reacted with a cry of rage and threw his weight at her. Rather than backing away or absorbing his energy, she dove in toward him, using his weight to increase the power of ramming her knee into the center of his gut. As he staggered back a step, he somehow landed a fist on the side of her head.

  Trying to ignore the dizzying blow, she saw that he was still favoring his right jaw. She saw an opening. Kate struck with lightning speed, bringing her fist down to break his collarbone.

  His other fist, which had been covering his ear, whipped out and caught her in the side of her head, knocking her sprawling.

  Kate crawled away, determined to stay out of his reach as she fought to remain conscious.

  It was hard to believe the injuries she was sure she had inflicted hadn’t stopped him. He had to be running on pure adrenaline. She knew that a person running on adrenaline, like men injured in battle, would frequently not feel the pain of injuries and keep fighting.

  She was running on adrenaline, too, but she was near the end of her endurance.

  Kate forced herself to get to her feet. She knew that she was not going to be able to escape him.

  She looked into his eyes, remembering AJ lying on her living room floor, dead. She knew that he had far worse planned for her. AJ and her family were merely the warm-up. A taunt. She was the main event.

  This was not a predator who would ever give up.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FOUR

  As Kate staggered back a few feet, her vision narrowed to a dark tunnel. Her muscles were spent.

  She fought to hold on to her vision, to remain conscious. She knew without a doubt that if she blacked out, when she woke up she would find herself in the middle of the agonizingly painful ordeal of being the man’s next victim.

  Kate shook her head as she struggled to lift the leaden weight of her hands. She told herself again not to chase his arms but to concentrate on doing as much damage as possible as swiftly as possible. She needed to degrade his ability to fight more than she had already managed to do. That was all that mattered.

  While he was bigger and stronger, she knew that some of the injuries she had inflicted had evened the fight to some degree, and while she wasn’t sure how much, she knew it wasn’t enough. She knew that she couldn’t waste time wondering. She also dared not count on it to slow him. He was still dangerous in the extreme. It was up to her to decide if she was going to live.

  She realized that the reality was that she had to put him down and make sure he was no longer breathing.

  It was an odd kind of clarity, knowing that her singular goal was to kill this man in order to live.

  There was something primal about that clarity, a kind of liberating realization that the laws of civilization no longer applied. This was survival at its simplest. Kill or be killed.

  The man’s eyes gleamed with murderous intent as he took the measure of her. Blood ran down his chin, dripping off in long strings.

  “What do you see with those eyes of yours? What do you see, Katie girl? I think you see too much.” He spit blood off to the side. “It doesn’t matter, really. I’m going to bring you everlasting darkness, just like I did to Johnny boy.”

  The grating sound of his voice made her knees weak. She couldn’t imagine the devil himself having a more terrifying voice. She remembered John saying that if she ever looked into the eyes of the devil, she would know it.

  It was bone-chilling when the man smiled at her. It was as if, behind that smile, he was thinking of exactly what he was going to do to her once he had her and while she was still alive.

  Before she could move, she saw a dark shadow come out of the night, flying at the killer from behind.

  In a blur of motion, what looked like a leg whipped around the man’s head. The torso of the shadow came up, spinning around, led by the arcing swing of the leg. A coat flew behind like a billowing cape.

  As the dark shape spun, driving the killer to the ground, Kate heard a sickening snap.

  The night fell silent. The killer lay still on the ground, the shadow over him with one hand balancing himself on the ground.

  Finally, as the shadow rose up, Kate saw that it was Jack.

  She staggered gratefully into his arms, panting, out of breath, letting herself sag under the weight of her relief as he held her up.

  “It’s okay,” he said, holding her tight. “He can’t hurt you now.”

  Her face was starting to throb in pain. She could taste blood and felt the warmth of it dripping from her chin.

  Kate pushed away and then slapped him across the face. “Why did you make me go alone! You knew there was a killer out here and you sent me out alone like bait!”

  Jack nodded, understanding her emotion. “I know. I’m sorry. But you were never alone.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was behind him every step of the way. I was watching the whole time so I could step in to end it if I needed to.”

  Kate slapped him again, harder this time. “You bastard. You let him attack me? You left me to fight him alone when you could have helped? I was scared to death. I thought I was going to die!”

  Jack caught her wrist when she tried to slap him a third time. “I had to know what you would do. I had to know if you would f
ight or simply shut down and let him kill you.

  “I’ve learned through bitter experience that I can’t help people who won’t fight for their own life. Some people simply give up and surrender to death. I can only help those who have it in them to survive.

  “Once I saw that you were going to fight for your life, I needed to know how you would do, how you would fight, and how good you are so that I know what more I need to teach you.

  “It had to be real. I needed to see it. I was doing what I had to do so that I know if I can help you stay alive. I didn’t like letting you fight him alone, but it’s the only way I can help you to survive what’s coming for you.”

  Kate stood glaring at him, still catching her breath. “You needed to know how good I am? You let me think I was going to die? That’s why you left me to fight him alone?”

  He nodded. “You were really good, Kate. You really were.”

  “Then why step in now?” Kate asked, still panting to catch her breath, still angry. “Why wait until now before you helped?”

  Jack gestured down at the man on the ground. “Did you see him pull out a knife?”

  Kate blinked. “Knife?” She looked down at the dark mass slumped on the ground. She saw the glint of a blade not far from his outstretched right arm. With a sickening sensation she realized that that was why the man had smiled.

  “I never saw a knife,” she admitted.

  “He deliberately distracted your attention by talking to you, taunting you, to help cover what he was doing.”

  Kate didn’t know what to say.

  “Did you notice that Mike’s throat had been cut?”

  Kate swallowed at the horror of that memory as she looked up at Jack. “No … I guess I didn’t.”

  “Did you see that AJ’s throat had been cut?”

  “No,” Kate admitted in a quieter voice. “There was so much blood and other things he had done to her that I … I guess I didn’t really notice that part of it. I thought that Mike had been killed by having that big sharp piece of the baluster driven through his chest.”

  “No, that had been done after he was already dead, probably on the killer’s way out. It was an act of spite, an act of hatred meant to demean him.”

  Kate’s gaze drifted to the ground in shame. As an investigator, she should have paid more attention to all the evidence right there in front of her. She prided herself on catching details when others didn’t. This time, it had been she who hadn’t noticed critically important facts. It had been such a shock, and such a bloody scene, that she had been overwhelmed and failed to see what was right there in front of her. Still, she knew that was no excuse.

  She had made a mistake. If not for Jack being there, it likely would have been a fatal mistake. The knife that cut Mike’s and AJ’s throats could just as easily have cut hers.

  With a finger, Jack lifted her chin. “There was a lot to take in, Kate. That was something you weren’t prepared to deal with. Few people ever are. Don’t be hard on yourself.

  “But for future reference, had you seen that their throats had been cut, you would have known that the killer had a knife and you would have been on alert for it and mentally prepared to deal with it. Bullet holes in them would have told you he had a gun. You have a chance to handle a predator with a gun as well as one with a knife if your mind is on top of the situation.

  “You didn’t see him pull that knife. I did. I couldn’t take the chance that he would cut you with it, so I had to put him down.”

  Kate swiped strings of sweaty hair back from her face. She looked at the dead man again. She looked at the knife again.

  “Thanks, Jack. I’m sorry I slapped you.”

  He dismissed it with a wave. “You were doing good. I think that you might have been able to finish him, but I could see that the fight had gone on too long and you were running out of energy. I didn’t want to allow a mistake to get you severely injured or killed after you had fought so well. You fought really well, Kate, so give yourself some slack.”

  The words seemed strange to hear. “I fought well?”

  “You ruptured his eardrum first, which made it easier to inflict more damage. You were systematic about inflicting injuries and reducing his ability to fight.”

  Jack checked the area to make sure there was no one around before he squatted down. He used a finger to push the man’s jaw down, opening his mouth. Kate could hear the crunch of bone.

  “You knocked out his front teeth. Did you know that? You broke his mandible. It takes a blow of about forty or fifty pounds to break the mandible. A powerful blow delivered in just the right place can do that. I suspected you knew that, and that’s why you went for that spot when you saw an opening?”

  Kate nodded when he looked up. “Yes, I knew.”

  “You also broke his collarbone. That only takes about eight pounds of pressure, but you need to have just the right opening to take that shot. Again, you saw an opening, took it, and broke his collarbone.”

  He looked up at her. “Do you still have your front teeth?”

  Kate wiped her bleeding lip and felt her teeth with her tongue. “Yes.”

  “Do you have any broken bones?”

  “No,” she said, finally feeling in control of her breath.

  “I’d say that’s pretty much the definition of fighting well.”

  “I guess I didn’t know I had it in me,” she said. “I only knew that if I wanted to live, I had to stop him.”

  “I think you have more in you than you’re aware of. This is a man who just murdered an ex–Army Ranger and a trained policewoman. I think that what you did to a man like that took an avenging angel. That’s the way you fought, that’s what made the difference, and you stopped him when they weren’t able to.”

  Kate didn’t think she was an avenging angel. But she did feel like something within her had changed.

  “Now that I know you have that inner will to survive, I can provide you with the rest of the knowledge and skill you will need.”

  Kate gestured down at the crumpled heap. “Did you break his neck?”

  Jack nodded.

  This was a man who not only had killed her brother, but had just slaughtered an innocent family that she cared about.

  “I kind of wish I could have been the one to break his neck.”

  Kate looked both ways and saw that the streets were empty. She could hear the distant music coming from the party. She squatted down beside the dead man. The man’s face was bloody. She was pleased to see that she had also broken his nose.

  “Can I see your flashlight?”

  Jack fished it out of his pocket and handed it over. Kate clicked on the light and looked into the man’s eyes. They were terrifying, just like the photos of killers that AJ had shown her. Even in death, the man’s eyes betrayed his evil and gave her a primal chill of fear.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jack told her. “But first look through his pockets on that side and see what he has on him that might help us.”

  Jack pulled a wallet out of the man’s back pocket and without looking in it slipped it into his own jacket. Kate reached into the nearer side pocket and felt two fat cylinders of something. She pulled them out.

  Each was a tight roll of hundred-dollar bills with at least a half dozen rubber bands securing it.

  Kate held them up for Jack to see. He didn’t look surprised. “There will be ten, twelve thousand in each roll.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked as Jack pocketed a phone.

  “Just put them in your pocket and keep looking for what else he has on him.”

  Kate pushed her hand into the other back pocket and felt something flat and smooth, like a stack of irregular cards. She pulled it out. In the dim light from a streetlamp down the block, Kate was shocked to recognize the photos.

  “These are photos of me.” She shuffled through them, looking. “These are the photos of me that were on John’s refrigerator. These are the photos missing from his house.”

>   Jack didn’t look at all surprised. “Put them in your pocket. We want to take anything he has on him.”

  Kate held up the photos. “This is the man who killed John. This proves it.”

  “He’s likely the one who killed Everett as well.”

  “So he killed Everett, came here and killed John, then came looking for me?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  Kate reached across the corpse and gripped Jack’s sleeve to make him look up at her. “Then this means it’s over. Now that he’s dead, this ends it. The nightmare is over.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “But he’s dead. The killer who did all this damage and came after me is dead. How can that not end it?”

  Jack looked away from her eyes. “It’s not that easy, Kate.”

  “Why isn’t it that easy?”

  “It has to do with a nesting period we’re in. This isn’t about catching a murderer. This is about something much bigger.”

  “You said that before—‘nesting period.’ I don’t know what that means. Why don’t you think this ends it?”

  Jack gestured with a rolling motion of his hand, urging her to hurry. “We need to get away from here. I’ll explain it all later. For now, see if he has anything else in his pockets.”

  Kate found some keys. “These too?”

  “Everything,” Jack said as he glanced over his shoulder, checking the empty street. “We need to get going. We can’t risk someone spotting us with the body. We can’t risk being connected to any of this.”

  In the distance Kate could hear the wail of sirens. “It sounds like the police will be here in a minute or two.”

  Jack nodded as he stood. “Let’s get to your car and get out of here.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FIVE

  As they reached Kate’s car, the piercing wails of police sirens racing toward the scene at the Janek home were only a block or two over. It sounded like half the Chicago police force was coming to the rescue.