The Cleaner (Born Bratva Book 4) (7 page)

Cop Killer

I stand outside the precinct headquarters, blending in with the hum of activity on the streets. The light mist of rain makes it easy to conceal myself beneath my umbrella. Not that they would recognize me now. It was easy enough to change my hairstyle and hair color, and learn how to use makeup artfully to transform my features into someone new. They never paid attention to me anyway. They’ll regret that soon enough.

For now, I’m watching the precinct entrance as I wait for two cops to come out for their morning coffee run. It’s almost too easy, really. They follow such a steady routine that it’s child’s play to insert myself into their daily schedule.

I fall into step behind them, my umbrella pulled low and tilted forward to conceal my features from view. I’m close enough that I easily catch snippets of their conversation as they stroll through the rain to the Starbucks on the corner.

“I’m telling you, this shit is making me paranoid.”

“It’s making us all paranoid, Ramsey.”

“Yeah, but when you start taking that paranoia home with you, it can’t be good.”

“What are you sayin’?”

“I’m saying I think I’m going crazy. I’m saying I feel like someone’s watching me. Seriously, I think someone has been inside my house. No one lives there but me and, I swear, things that I know I haven’t touched have been moved around.”

“You’re letting the fact that you’re a blonde female make you overly suspicious. We have no idea if this guy’s singling out single, white blondes. He said it himself, he’s a cop killer, so every single one of us is in his line of fire. He’s probably not bright enough to think through a strategy like that anyway. With all this stress, maybe you’re sleepwalking, who knows? Seriously, Linda. Stop giving him so much credit.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s good to have friends who have your back. That’s what makes this so hard. Karen was one of my best friends, you know? But thanks, I appreciate the reality check. I don’t know if it’s gonna help me sleep at night, but I know I’ve gotta keep my head in the game if we’re going to catch this guy. He’s an animal so we’re going to track him down like an animal.”

“You got that right. Hey, why don’t you take one of the K9s home with you? Then you’ll feel safe enough,” he chuckles, as if it’s the answer to all her problems.

They continue to laugh about police dogs and mysteriously moving toiletries as they stroll down the sidewalk. I follow close behind, seething at their self-righteous comments. Ramsey has a lot of fucking nerve talking about having friends. She has no idea what the word even means. She proved that to me a long time ago.

When they head inside to order their fancy coffee, I chuckle right along with them, because those two morons just laid out the perfect plan for my next kill. I’ll show her exactly how it feels to be treated like an animal. Yes, I think a little demonstration is in order.

Nikita

“So Dad’s interested in establishing some new business ventures. The legal kind.”

Unlike the completely illegal maneuver my fiancé is undertaking as she picks the lock on the dead cop’s apartment door. Nobody can pick a lock like my baby. I remember her dad giving her the kit she’s using right before he died. Hell of a gift to give to a kid, yeah, but we put it to good use during our childhood by picking every locked door we could find in the mansion. Occasionally that didn’t go over too well, of course. Some doors are locked for a reason.

She glances up at me, her eyes twinkling. No doubt she’s amused because we both know my father has never done anything legal in his life. Hell, he even secured a wife under duress, although everyone agrees that it worked out well for all concerned.

My mother and father are devoted to each other beyond all reason, and my father basks in the intellectual superiority of their offspring. (His words, not mine.) He is still a vigorously healthy, relatively young man, but I think he’s increasingly aware of the passage of time. Let’s face it, even the Pakhan can’t elude death forever – no matter how god-like he is considered to be within our cell. Not that my father would ever go completely legit. Then again, my father can do anything he puts his mind to.

“Nobody else knows but me,” I tell her as she gently manipulates the lock, “so don’t breathe a word of it.”

“All your secrets are safe with me, you know that.”

“All of them?” I tease. It’s true, Natasha has been my priest of sorts, my port in the storm. We’ve always shared our deepest, darkest secrets with each other.

Watching her tiny hands manipulate the lock has me remembering how those same hands were working my cock only hours ago. This is no time to be sporting wood, but I can’t take my eyes off her fingertips as they roll over the end of the small pick she has inserted into the lock mechanism, searching for the perfect angle. I remember exactly how those fingertips felt as they rubbed slick streams of pre-cum down the length of my shaft--

“Every last secret of yours is sacred to me, Nikita,” she murmurs, interrupting a perfectly good wet daydream in progress. It’s for the best, though. This is hardly the time or place for a hard fuck, but I’ll be sure to treat her to one later tonight.

“They always have been,” she continues absently as she closes her eyes and frowns as she bites her lip, listening for the telltale click that signals success. “Ahh, bingo,” she says with a gratified sigh that does nothing to help me tame the beast in my pants. 

She turns the door knob with a gloved hand, which reminds me to put mine on. I have no intention of making a rookie mistake by leaving physical evidence behind. My father would have a shit fit if he knew I was breaking into a house anyway. As the Sovietnik, I’m expected to walk the straight and narrow, which is only making this more of an adventure for me.

She cuts through my thoughts when she hands me a pair of medical booties to cover my shoes.

“You’ve really got this shit down to a science, don’t you?”

“Damn straight.”

“Looks like I’ve been missing out on all the fun.”

“Well, you’re knee deep in it now, Nikita. I guess this is one time I’m in control. Try to keep up, okay?” she taunts me.

“Yeah, well, this is one time I’ve got no problem with that. As you can see,” I say as I pointedly glance down at my crotch, “no problem at all.”

“Holy shit, Nik,” she purrs as her eyes take in the full extent of my not-so-little problem. “You’re, um, I mean…damn. Okay, never mind,” she says as she shakes her head abruptly.
“Listen up. I want you to start in one corner of the room with me and then work your way around, follow my lead. You’re looking for personal items that might be relevant. I don’t want to know superficial shit. I want to know her deepest, darkest, dirtiest, secrets. This woman pissed somebody off. Granted, it may have something to do with her being a cop, but it might go a whole hell of a lot deeper than that.”

“Are you going on gut instinct with that assumption?”

“No, I’m going on the governor’s gut with this. As much as I hate to admit it, I think he’s right. It takes a certain kind of temperament to kill a cop -- balls of steel, baby. This guy killed up close and personal. Anyone with that kind of confidence has more than a passing knowledge of the logistics of law enforcement. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a cop, but he’s probably got ties to the force.”

I check inside the coat closet and don’t see anything of interest until I root around behind the coats. Fucking contractors, they’ll cut corners wherever they can to save a few bucks. Whoever built this place couldn’t even be bothered to tack down the linoleum in this space. I know it’s just a closet, it’s not like anyone’s going to ever see this section of the floor anyway, but I despise professionals who gloss over details and can’t be bothered to do a job well.

I can’t resist kneeling down and pressing the corner of the flooring down, intending to tuck it underneath the baseboard. I scowl when my fingertips encounter empty space and not the usual wooden subflooring. Curious, I peel back the vinyl. The subflooring appears to have been cut away, leaving a small space, just big enough to fit the 12”x18” lock box that’s hidden there. Bingo.

“Hey, I found something, come check this out,” I call out urgently. Natasha peers over my shoulder, her eyes widening as she takes in the sight of the lock box nestled in the hole in the floor.

“Whoa,” she whispers reverently. “You sure you don’t want to embrace a life of crime, baby? Because you definitely have the instincts for it. I think you might be wasting your talents as an attorney.”

“Very funny. Scoot back, let’s see what we’ve got here. Up for picking another lock?” I ask as I lift the box out of its hiding place and set it in on the floor just beyond the closet door.

“Absolutely,” Natasha chuckles as she starts working the box’s lock mechanism. It’s a matter of seconds before she’s lifting the lid to reveal a stack of notebooks.

“Well, damn,” I mutter, disappointed. “I thought we were on to something.”

“Oh, we are,” she declares as she starts flipping through the notebooks. “These appear to be somebody’s diaries. I say we take them with us. Who knows, they could be the break we’ve been waiting for in this case.”

“Works for me,” I reply with a grunt as I lean over and put the linoleum back in position. I stand and join Natasha as she walks over to the answering machine.

“Hmm,” she says quietly. “No new messages but it looks like there’s one saved message. The fact that the answering machine is still here tells me the local PD missed this little detail. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

This place is proving to have a wealth of potential evidence that detectives appear to have missed when they searched it after the murder. I’m not surprised. Since this would be considered a secondary location of interest in the case and not the primary crime scene, the search would have been delegated to some lowly uniformed cops.

She presses the ‘Play’ button and we wait expectantly.

“Hey, I’m here. Sorry. It’s really me, just ignore the answering machine. What’s up--”

“I need your help, Karen. He’s going to kill me this time and no one believes me, no one will help me.”

“It isn’t that no one believes you, they do. That isn’t why people are steering clear of this. Were you able to get the restraining order?”

“I can’t get a judge to sign off on it. They’re all in his damned pocket.”

“Listen, maybe you need to think about leaving the area. You can always get a job, someplace that has nothing to do with law enforcement. Just disappear.”

“I shouldn’t have to move, damn it! And I wouldn’t have to if you people would help me!”

“You know Linda and I wish we could help, but it’s just not that easy right now. I’m up for a promotion and--”

“I’m so glad you’ve got your priorities straight, wouldn’t want to interfere with your career,” the caller says in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Maybe I’m not the one who needs to disappear. Fuck it. You know what? Forget it, just forget I even asked. Just remember, what goes around, comes around.”

The line goes dead with no clue of the caller’s identity. The machine beeps and announces that the message was saved a little over six months ago. The only reason we were even lucky enough to listen to the conversation is because Karen picked up the phone after the answering machine had picked up, so it recorded the whole conversation. If she saved it, she must have thought it was important. And if it was important to her, then it’s important to me.

“Who the hell is so powerful that a judge wouldn’t sign off on a restraining order against them?” Natasha asks.

“A cop, that’s who. You know how that shit works.”

“Enough said. Let’s grab the answering machine, the lock box, and her computer. Sometimes people will write down what they won’t say. It’s the one time they open their soul and bleed. Pen and paper never lie. I’m pretty sure you found a goldmine today.”

“Oh, really? Have you got a diary I should know about?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“I’ll find it. You aren’t supposed to be keeping secrets from me.”

“Chill out, you have all the dirt on me.”

“I
am
your dirt, baby.”

“Yeah, you’re a dirty bastard, aren’t you?”

“I’ll show you just how dirty I am later.”

“I’m counting on it.”

We continue to banter as we finish our search of the place and come away with an impressive amount of evidence to go through. As we speed through the streets of Louisville on our way back to the Glazov compound, Natasha breaks the silence.

“It’ll be interesting to see what color of ink this woman bleeds with her innermost thoughts. We all bleed when we pour our heart out on paper. But no matter the color, there’s always an element of truth.”