Sleight of Hand

CHAPTER Forty

Dana headed home after leaving Tiffany Starr’s apartment. She was pulling into her driveway when her phone rang. Dana parked and fished the phone out of her pocket.

“You owe me a dinner, Cutler,” Andy Zipay said.

“I thought this was a freebie.”

“Yeah, the work is. You’re paying for the honor of being in the presence of pure genius.”

“Okay, you get dinner . . . if your info is good.”

“Good? It’s great! I have a contact from the old days who works at an intelligence agency which shall remain nameless. He did an in-depth search using some software from outer space. You couldn’t find out anything about Benedict before he went to college because Charles Benedict didn’t exist until two years before he registered at Dickinson. His admission application to college shows that he never graduated from high school. He has a GED under Benedict.”

“Dickinson is a pretty decent college. How did he get in with a GED?”

“Well, that is interesting. My buddy got into his college file. Benedict had close to perfect scores on his SAT exams. But that wasn’t the most interesting thing my buddy discovered. The year before he got the GED he changed his name legally to Benedict from Richard Molinari, and Richard Molinari’s name came up in a newspaper story about a double murder in Kansas City.”



Dana ate a hasty dinner, then went on her computer and read the story to which Zipay had alluded. Twenty-five years ago, two drug dealers had been tortured and murdered in Kansas City. Their bodies had been found in an abandoned barn in the countryside. The police theorized that they had been killed for the money they were going to pay for cocaine. Richard Molinari had been arrested shortly after the murders but he had been released.

Dana found a few more references to the case but learned nothing new. She was about to try a different approach when the cell phone with the “Loren Parkhurst” number rang.

“Barry Lester is lying,” a man said.

“Who is this?”

“Not on the phone. I must meet you.”

Dana hesitated. Then she asked, “Where?”

The man told her before disconnecting. Dana sat back and thought. Tiffany Starr was the only person connected to the Blair case who had this number, so the man had to have gotten it from Tiffany. Who would she have told? Charles Benedict was a possibility, but the man who called had an accent, possibly Russian. He wanted to meet in an industrial park, which would be deserted at night. That was not a good sign. Still, Dana could not pass up a possible lead, so she collected several weapons and headed out the door.



Dana braked Jake’s Harley, stopping at the curb in front of a vacant lot. She took off her helmet and hooked it on the motorcycle’s handlebars. The lot was in the middle of an industrial park. Darkened warehouses and deserted offices crowded around the rubble-filled space. A cold wind whipped through the empty streets. Dana did not like the setup. Just as she was wondering if she should leave, the headlights on a parked car came on and the car’s engine started. Moments later, a black Cadillac Escalade parked in front of her bike and a man got out.

Dana’s first thought was that he was huge and thick, like a professional wrestler. Then he raised his head and she saw the ski mask. Before Dana could react, Gregor was on her. She kicked at his leg but the blow had no effect. Gregor punched Dana in the chest. Her motorcycle jacket absorbed some of the blow, but it was so strong that she found herself on the ground gasping for air. Gregor pulled her to her feet. When she was standing, he wrapped a thick, gloved hand around her throat and pushed her against the side of the SUV.

“Nice,” he said. His voice was low and sensual, and the sound made Dana’s skin crawl. Then Gregor’s tongue flicked out of the hole in the ski mask and he licked her cheek.

“You are tasting very sweet, very f*ckable.”

Dana’s heart surged in her chest. Nightmarish memories of the gang rape flooded her. Gregor’s other hand found its way between Dana’s legs and he began to rub rhythmically.

“This is feeling good, no? You are getting hot. Soon you will be wanting me to f*ck you, no?”

Definitely Eastern European, maybe Russian, Dana thought as she slipped her hand behind her back.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered, words she knew her attacker wanted to hear.

“Listen good.” Gregor tightened the grip on Dana’s throat. “You have been asking questions about Barry Lester. This you do not do no more. If you don’t stop putting your nose where it do not belong I will f*ck you until you bleed. You understand?”

“Please,” Dana begged.

Gregor grabbed Dana’s crotch hard and she winced.

“You no like pain? I like pain. No more questions, understood? No more Blair case for you, understood?”

Gregor loosened the grip on Dana’s throat.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” Dana said.

What Gregor did not understand was Dana’s natural reaction to being accosted sexually. The last four men who had done that to her had died hideously, their bodies chopped in pieces by ax blows.

“If I hear you have not obeyed me, I will come to your house in the middle of the night and I will—”

Gregor stopped making sense as his threat became a high-pitched scream. His hands fell away from Dana and he staggered backward. Dana’s knife was jammed to the hilt in his crotch and she followed him, twisting the blade viciously before pulling it free.

Gregor lurched backward. He was in shock. The pain was unbearable. Dana smashed her fist into Gregor’s nose. She didn’t know if it was the blow itself or the pain that brought him to his knees. She didn’t care. She kicked him in the temple with the steel toe of her boot, then stomped his head against the sidewalk until she was certain that he was unconscious. She was about to land a blow that would finish Gregor when she stopped in mid-strike. She wanted to kill, but the time she’d spent in therapy at the mental hospital saved Gregor Karpinski’s life. The man was not planning to kill her or rape her. He was a messenger sent to scare her, and that crime did not carry a death penalty.

Dana’s chest heaved and she brought her breathing under control. Her attacker’s crotch was damp with blood and she knew he would die if he didn’t get medical help quickly. Dana couldn’t use her own phone because the call could be traced to her. She searched the man’s jacket pocket and found a cell phone. She used it to call for an ambulance.

What should she do next? If she stayed and the man died, she would be out of commission for as long as it took for the DA to decide that her use of force had been justified. She could not afford to be idle. She had to find out who sent her attacker.

What would happen if she left? She was wearing gloves, and the man had not drawn blood, so there would be no prints or DNA to connect her to the scene. If the man died, she would be home free. If he lived, he wasn’t going to give her up. To do that, he would have to confess to attacking her.

Leaving was a no-brainer, so Dana straddled her bike and drove off. When she felt safe she called Frank Santoro.

“Who is this?” the detective asked. His angry tone told Dana that Santoro had been asleep.

“We have to meet right away,” Dana said.

“It’s after midnight. I just fell asleep.”

“Tough. I just escaped being raped by someone connected to Horace Blair’s case.”