First class to New York City, my pre-Hamptons destination, is full of two types of people: rich, pompous asses who look down on everyone in coach and people who want to get sloshed and go to sleep with leg room. I kick off my shoes and stretch out my jean-clad legs, hoping the seat next to me remains as empty as it is right now.
“Drink, Miss Love?”
I glance up at the sound of the question laced with a Texas twang to find a middle-aged, bleached-blonde flight attendant, her hair puffed and frozen with excess hairspray. “Bloody Mary, heavy on the Mary,” I say.
“Pardon me,” she says, “but what does ‘heavy on the Mary’ mean exactly?”
Is she fucking serious? “Mary,” I repeat. “Heavy on the Mary.” This earns me several mascara-laden blinks, and I grimace. “The bloody is obviously the tomato juice, which means the Mary is . . .” I hold a hand out, certain she will be amazed by my brilliance, allowing her to reply with awe, but all I get are another few blinks. “Vodka,” I say. “Just bring me vodka on the rocks. The rocks would be ice.”
She laughs nervously. “Of course. Coming right up.” She hurries away and my cell phone buzzes from the pocket of my brandless black backpack that will soon be scandalously unacceptable. I reach down and grab it, glancing at the message from Director Murphy:
I type my reply and hope it ends the conversation.
My phone rings. “Damn it,” I whisper, tapping the Answer button. “Agent Love,” I say.
“Agent Pain in My Ass, at the moment. The Hamptons might be home to you, but we have procedures to follow. When do you arrive?”
“I land in New York City at seven. I’m taking the train into the Hamptons from there.”
“I have higher powers all over me about our dead body. Take a chopper.”
“That’s expensive.”
“So is bad press and a community in panic. I want you there now, not later. Get me answers. I’ll e-mail you reservations and have the locals waiting on you when you land. And I expect to hear from you tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, Director Murphy. I will call you once I make contact with the locals.”
“That’s more like it. Have a safe flight, Agent Love.” He ends the connection.
I shove my phone back in my backpack just in time to be handed a glass of vodka. I down it and grimace. Damn, it sucks without the tomato juice. What the hell was I thinking? “Now I’d like a Bloody Mary,” I say to the attendant.
“Extra . . . Mary?”
“Just a Bloody Mary,” I say, letting my head sink back against the cushion and hoping like hell a little more booze is enough to put me to sleep. I have enough to deal with when I get home. I don’t need to deal with it on the way there as well. My damn cell phone rings again. I pull it out of my bag, note Rich’s number, and turn it off. He probably just found out I’d left, and I can’t focus on his misplaced outrage right now. I grab my case file, which now has the data from the local murders inside and the assumed-to-be-connected case in New York, as well as my MacBook. I pull down the tray table and flip open the file. I’m immediately staring at the image of today’s victim, a man who shares two things in common with my attacker from years before: he’s Mexican, and he’s got the same ink on his arm. I thumb through the photos and find a shot of the tattoo, confirming that, yes, it’s the exact same image I remember: the Virgin Mary, bleeding from the mouth. And since I’ve googled and researched that image many times, I know that there is no documented gang or organizational affiliation, despite my certainty there is one.
My drink appears beside me, and I glance up to find the flight attendant, “Texas,” I decide to call her, standing beside me, rambling on about something in a sticky-sweet voice. I really hate sticky sweet. It reminds me of the Hamptons. I nod, having no idea what I’m agreeing to, and then down my drink. And thank the Lord above, she responds by walking away.
Shoving the documents back into the file, I shut it and stuff it in the side of my seat, letting my head settle on the headrest behind me, my lashes lowering, as I wish I were on a jog, which is where I do my best thinking. Execution-style does not mean assassin, but every instinct and piece of training I own tells me it does. This could be a hit list, and some—or maybe just one—of the victims could just happen to be a part of a gang or group that the tattoo represents. My mind goes to the tattoo on this morning’s body, and then instantly I am back on the beach, back underneath that man. I shove the bitch of a memory aside and do what I’ve learned rescues me from me: I force myself into my first gruesome crime scene memory—its horror making it more vivid than any crime scene memory prior to it—and suddenly, I’m two years in the past.
I blink and sit up, realizing Texas is leaning across the seat and grabbing my arm, looking quite mortified. “Oh God,” I murmur. “Did I scream out?”
“Yes,” Texas confirms. “Quite loudly.”
“Fuck me,” I gush out and then hold up a hand. “I mean. Sorry about that. Are we about to take off?”
“We’re about to land. You slept through the flight,” she gives me a disapproving look and moves away.
I shift in my seat, and the file falls to the ground, the contents spilling out. Bending over, I reach for it, stuffing the contents back inside, and the tattoo photo catches my eye. I stare down at it and flash back to me lying on that beach, with my attacker on top of me, my gaze on his arm etched with the Virgin Mary, blood dripping from her mouth. I never knew who he was or why he came for me. I’d run instead, but I can’t run now, and I don’t want to, anyway. I have a killer to catch. One that seems to have more than one connection to me and my past.
