Jessie pulled behind a stopped truck and watched as he parked on the street and climbed out of his car. For the first time, he looked nervous. Edgy. He glanced around.
She leaned behind the truck to avoid being seen.
He walked between two of the houses and opened a rusty metal gate and walked through to the backyard.
Shit. Jessie hit the kickstand and jumped off her bike. She ran to a gate two houses down and tried it. Locked. She gripped the top of the fence and swung her legs over. She crouched and moved along the yard’s tall bushes until she could see, two yards over, Hagstrom on the elevated porch. He was still casting furtive glances around.
Afraid of something, buddy?
The back door opened a crack. But only a crack. Hagstrom slid inside and closed the door behind him.
Jessie stood up straight. Okay, that was weird, but not necessarily murderous. She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the back of the house.
What now? Just wait around and see if he notched another victim on his knife handle?
It wasn’t like she could just barge inside, especially without any proof of wrongdoing. And any such attempt would only tip him off to the fact that he was now under scrutiny.
Well, if she couldn’t go inside, at least she could get closer.
She hopped the two fences that separated her from the house Hagstrom was visiting. She moved from window to window, trying to see around the blinds that covered each opening.
Sealed up tight.
She rounded the corner and moved down the side, checking more windows until she found one with an out-of-skew vertical blind. She leaned close and peered inside.
It was dark inside. She appeared to be looking at a small bedroom, furnished with an unmade bed, a small table, and two straight-backed chairs.
The wooden door was open, but she saw nothing beyond.
Wait. There was something …
Movement.
Was that…?
“Hey!” A strong voice yelled from behind her.
She spun around. It was a large man, late-thirties, wearing a threadbare black tee shirt that read, in fiery letters, HELL IS WHERE I BURY YOU.
He was coming from the backyard, and he was holding a club.
Jessie was still staring at the shirt’s lettering. “A little obvious, don’t you think?”
He raised the club menacingly. “Keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers.
The guy was getting closer by the second. If she was going to make a break for it, she needed to— “Got her covered, Eddie?”
Oh shit. Another voice, this one from the street side. She turned and saw another man even bigger than the first. He had tattoos covering both arms.
She was now boxed in.
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “And thanks for telling her my name, dickhead.”
Jessie cocked her head toward the tattooed guy. “Great. Now I know his name. Would that be Mister Dickhead or just plain ol’ Dickhead?”
Neither of the men smiled.
She shrugged. “Come on, that was a little funny.”
Eddie slapped the club into his palm. “You need a warrant to be poking around on private property. I don’t suppose you have one of those.”
She wrinkled her nose. “A warrant? You think I’m a cop?”
At that moment, a third man appeared from the backyard, pulling Hagstrom along with him. The man wore a scowl and a bushy beard.
Jessie shook her head. This was getting worse by the minute.
The bearded guy shoved Hagstrom against the wall of the house. “Who in the hell is she?”
Hagstrom looked genuinely rattled. “I … I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!”
“I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
“You’re lying.”
Hagstrom looked pleadingly toward Jessie. “Tell him. We’ve never met.”
Jessie quickly studied Hagstrom. As he stood there trembling, she found it difficult to believe that this could be a psychopathic killer who’d murdered over two dozen people.
“Tell him!” Hagstrom begged.
She nodded. “He’s telling the truth. We’ve never met.”
The bearded guy punched Hagstrom in the stomach. “I don’t believe you. Either you’re narcs or you’re here to rip me off.”
Hagstrom doubled over in pain. “No,” he wheezed. “I promise, I just came here to do some business.”
Jessie closed her eyes. Of course. Hagstrom was just here for a drug buy. Shit.
The bearded guy turned toward Jessie. He was clearly the leader; his other two men looked to him for guidance. “You expect me to believe it’s a coincidence she turned up at the exact same moment you did?”
She shrugged. “I just came here to try and score some Adam. I wanted to scope the place out and see what I was getting myself into.”
The bearded man glared at her. “What makes you think you can get ecstasy here?”
“A guy I met at a club said you could hook me up.”
“What guy?”
“A tall skinny guy with longish hair. His friends call him Chewie.”
“Doesn’t sound like anybody I know.”
“He said he knew about you. Or at least this house.”
Hagstrom tried to stand straight, but he was obviously still reeling from the punch to his midsection. “Look, I don’t know why this woman’s here. But I’m telling you, she’s got nothing to do with me. You three got a problem, take it up with her. I need to get to work.”
The bearded guy shook his head. “Oh, we’re way beyond that.”
Jessie took a moment to try and size up her opponents. Of the three, Eddie looked like the one most likely to run like hell when the shit hit the fan. The other two would be another matter entirely.
He looked over at his tattooed friend. “See anyone else on the street?”
“No. No one. All clear.”
“Okay, at least that’s something. We’ll take them inside and sort this out.” He grabbed Hagstrom and pushed him roughly toward the backyard.
Jessie adjusted her jacket. “I won’t be going in there with you. That would be really stupid.”
The three men looked at each other. The bearded guy chuckled. “The choice isn’t yours, little lady.”
Jessie flexed her arms and stepped back to keep all three men in her line of vision. But then there was also Hagstrom, who was still a wild card.
Three tough guy drug dealers and a possible psychopathic killer. Oh, what a beautiful morning.
The bearded guy nodded at Eddie and Dickhead.
Jessie half-smiled. “I like the dumb little nod. Was that your clever ‘okay boys, grab her!’ signal?”
Eddie and Dickhead rushed her and she whirled around with a bullet kick to Dickhead’s face.
He went down. Hard. Blood splattered where his face hit the sidewalk.
Eddie leaped over his fallen comrade, but she grabbed his jacket collar and slammed his head onto the pavement.
Both men tried to stand, but she grabbed each by their hair and slammed their heads together.
Lights out.
The bearded guy looped his arm around Hagstrom’s neck in a choke hold. “Okay, lady. Come with me or else I’ll snap this guy like a twig.”
She sighed. “Again. We’re not cops and I don’t know this guy.”
He tightened his grip. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I broke his neck.”
“Well, that’s not something I really want to see happen to anyone.” She looked down at the two unconscious men. “Except to these guys. Or you, maybe.”