Livia Lone (Livia Lone #1)(4)

So he planted his left foot firmly on the ground and reared up, at the same time pulling his left arm back and cocking it into a fist, a fist he was going to smash down into her face and never mind leaving marks on her, he was past that now and she deserved the lesson. But she reacted so quickly, it was almost like she’d been expecting the move. She jerked his right arm across his body and shot her right leg into the air, past his left ear, crashing the crease of her knee down on the back of his neck. Billy saw stars and felt an adrenalized surge of rage. He tried to say, Bitch, but the word wouldn’t come, because now she had wrapped her free leg around the foot of the leg that had come down on his neck, and she was scissoring his throat or figure-fouring it or something. The pain was ungodly, Billy couldn’t breathe, he felt his tongue protruding, being squeezed forward by the pressure, and he tried to jerk his arm free so he could access his knife, but the bitch was holding his wrist so tightly it was like she knew the knife was there, and he couldn’t get loose, and there was a crazy ringing in his ears and he tried to reach around his back with his left hand to get to the knife, the knife, but the bitch took hold of his sleeve and stopped him, and he panicked and tried to stand but the bitch twisted and broke his balance and he collapsed on his side, eyes bulging, legs churning, lungs screaming, his brain feeling like it was going to explode out of his head, and he scratched at her leg but the material on the damn yoga pants was slippery and his fingernails grazed right over it, and the moonlight and shadows on the grass began to disintegrate into gray, and the ringing was receding now, too, fading into a quiet, dying buzz, and he felt his bladder let go, and his vision darkened, and the world shrank to a pinprick, and his last thought before everything went black was Too good to be true.





2—NOW

Livia knew less than five minutes might be inadequate, so she kept the strangle in place, breathing steadily to slow her heart rate, craning her neck from side to side to ensure they were still alone. But she wasn’t unduly concerned. At this hour, what park wouldn’t be deserted? Deserted was why Billy had wanted to come here. And what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander.

While she waited, she ran her fingertips over her hands and face—the only parts of her that weren’t covered in thick Lycra. She didn’t think he’d managed to even once touch her skin, but it was best to be sure. She detected no scratches, meaning no DNA left behind under his nails. The wig was still in place, too, and beneath it, a hair net. So no telltale hairs anywhere, either.

She knew from his file—the same file that had told her where she could find him—that Billy wasn’t exactly the most popular member of Hammerhead. He was a dependable soldier, true, but his penchant for rape was creating liabilities the gang didn’t welcome. Another arrest, and he’d be looking at a fall long enough so that maybe he’d be willing to testify about some of the higher-ups. Said higher-ups might have decided to make that kind of thing impossible. That would be her own theory, anyway, and she was a damn fine cop.

And beyond Hammerhead, Billy had gambling debts, drug debts, and enemies from prison, too, so the list of suspects for Marysville PD to run down would be long. But how hard would they really try? White supremacist rapist ex-cons who wound up quietly dead tended not to command a maximum of investigative attention. They’d check out Ray’s, of course, and they’d hear about an Asian girl with platinum hair, or maybe a wig. But so what? Even if by some chance the detective assigned to the case was motivated enough to try to collect physical evidence, the only thing Livia had touched in the bar was the stem of her wineglass, which she’d discreetly wiped with a napkin before leaving. She’d taken the glass with her to the restroom after her last sip and cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide wipes, on the admittedly remote chance that anyone might try to recover DNA from the mystery woman’s saliva. If Billy had asked why she was taking her wineglass to the restroom, she would have smiled and told him she’d heard too many stories about date rape drugs to leave her glass unattended in a bar. But he hadn’t seemed to notice or care. And there was a security camera over the entrance to the place, but she’d been careful to keep her face down when passing it. Anyway, beyond the wig, there was all the makeup, the nonprescription eyeglasses, and the fact that she looked and was playing it a decade younger than her actual thirty years. No, the platinum-haired Asian girl would be a dead end. The working theory would be that whoever she was, she had functioned as a decoy, a honey trap, sent to Billy’s favorite bar by an enemy to lure him into the park, where a waiting accomplice had approached from behind and strangled him.

When she was sure there was no longer even the remotest chance of revival, she relaxed the strangle and eased out from under the body. She stood and glanced around, ready to grab her gear and take off if necessary, but the park remained still and silent. She looked down at his face for a moment, pale in the faint moonlight, the eyes staring sightlessly past her, the mouth agape in a pantomime of astonishment. She felt strong. Satisfied. Triumphant. Alive.

But it was too soon for feelings. She still had to focus.

She pulled the hydrogen peroxide wipes from the backpack and quickly went over his fingertips, making sure plenty of the liquid got under his nails. Just a precaution and probably unnecessary, but she was adrenalized from the encounter and it was possible he’d scratched her without her feeling it, even now. Then she stepped back into her flip-flops, picked up the backpack and her sweatshirt, and walked briskly across the park to a maintenance shack in the northwest corner. She circled it to confirm she was alone—no teenagers hooking up, none of Marysville’s homeless using the spot for the night—then paused on the side farthest from the street to look and listen. Nothing.