Dark Reasons Ch. 01

This is a repost of another of my stories. I've been so busy working on edits and rewrites I haven't had a chance to get much original work done. So, I figured I'll repost this so you guys don't forget who I am. Thanks muchly,

Danielle

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She sighed deeply and leaned against the light pole, lifting her foot to relieve the ache that four inch spike heels put on her arch and toes. Something caught her eye and she glanced up to catch just the tail end of a flash of lightening between the tall buildings. Thunder rolled ominously across the sky a few seconds later.

"Great, just fucking great," she grouched.

There was a burst of static in her ear. "You know, leather shrinks when it gets wet." Her partner, cozy, comfortable and cool in the surveillance van, laughed over the electronic piece in her ear.

She stood, balancing unsteadily, yanking down on the short, leather skirt that barely covered what was legal and left a long expanse of tanned stomach bare. "Next time, you get to wear these heels and come out here and shake your ass, Justin," she hissed, knowing that her words would be picked up by the tiny receiver hidden in the pitiful excuse for a vest she wore over her breasts.

Detective Justin Swope, her partner for the four years she had worked homicide, laughed again. "But you do it so well, Jenna."

She turned and surreptitiously flipped off the surveillance van, hearing the chuckles of the morons inside.

"Hey, we could have gotten a uniform to do it. You volunteered."

Jenna ignored the truth of his words and walked the sidewalk, trying to pretend that her feet weren't killing her and her head wasn't buzzing from exhaustion. She had to close this case or it was going to kill her.

She caught the evil glares of the others that were walking this stretch of sidewalk. The people, both male and female, that were out here trying to turn a trick, to earn rent or money for food, or for that next fix. She tried to ignore the kids that were out here also, selling their bodies because it was better than the alternative of what they had at home. A life that they considered much worse than life on the streets. And no matter how the city tried, there just wasn't enough money, enough time or enough man power to completely fix a situation so overwhelming.

It was enough to break hearts, seeing how skinny they were, or the dazed drugged look in their eyes.

Jenna heard the loud blast of a defective muffler before she saw the car. Loud, raucous music blared out the open windows. The bass was up so loud that it vibrated against the earpiece. She heard the whine of feedback and swore loudly.

One of the three boys in the car had his head out the window. "Hey babe," he yelled as they passed Jenna. "How about a freebie? It's my birthday."

"I don't do ten year olds," she yelled back. "Go home to your momma."

"Bitch!" he yelled back at her as they roared off.

"Why wasn't that kid in bed?" she muttered, mostly to herself.

"I think that was the point," Justin chuckled.

Jenna ignored him and glanced down the street. Her eyes caught and then focused on an aging hooker bent over talking to an ancient man in a BMW. She was old enough to be grandmother to Jesus, with skin like a prune and about the same color. She had on a skirt in bright red that made Jenna's look positively prim in comparison. A fake gold lame halter barely contained breasts that hung to her waist and swung with every movement. She had a full head of impossibly curly, impossibly red hair that hung almost to her waist. She laughed, a cackle that reminded Jenna of the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Jenna turned her purse so that the tiny camera concealed in it's straps caught the old woman's image.

"Justin, I thought you told your girlfriend to stay off the streets." She heard the hoots of laughter from the two other cops in the surveillance van down the street over her earpiece.

"Hey," Justin replied without hesitation. "Take out her teeth and she gives the best head around."

"Pervert."

"Yep, and proud of it."

Jenna turned to walk back to her light pole when she felt the first drop of rain splash on her bare shoulder. The sky flashed and rumbled.

"We should pack this up Jenna," Justin told her. "Come on, I'll buy you a beer and rub your feet for you."

She considered it and was starting to walk down the street to the motel where they had set up part of this sting when a long, black sedan pulled up next to the curb. It kept pace with her for a minute until she looked over. Adrenaline pumped through her system, fast and furious as she recognized the make and model as being the same as what their one and only witness had given them.

The owner of the black sedan was wanted in connection to several murders that had been plaguing the less affluent neighborhoods. Seven girls, all street hookers, had been picked up off the streets. The last girl's body had been found just last week. The damage done to her had been severe. She had literally been torn to pieces. Cause of death, as far as the medical examiner had been able to deduce, had been blunt force trauma. Her skull had been caved in with something like a steel bat.

Prior to death, though, she had been raped, assaulted and tortured.

But they had caught a break. Her friend and roommate had been with her when she had been picked up and had identified the car.

This car.

The passenger window slowly rolled down as Jenna turned to the car. There was a burst of static in her ear.

"It looks like the right car. Same procedure, Jen. Get him to go to the motel room. We'll take him there."

Jenna smiled and snapped her gum as she strolled over to the window. She bent at the waist to look in, giving the driver a long view of very nice cleavage.

"Hey, how are you tonight?" She drawled the words, making them sound like sex in her throat.

"How much?"

So much for verbal foreplay.

"Depends on what you want, sugar." She snapped her gum provocatively.

"I want to fuck. How much?"

Boy he was a charmer. She sized him up. Tall, bulky big. Running to fat, but still big enough to do major damage, especially to the body type of the women he picked. Dark straight hair under a dingy ball cap, dark glasses, even at one in the morning. A bulky black overcoat covered his clothing with the collar turned up so that she couldn't get a real good look at his face.

"Fifty for a half hour, anything more, we renegotiate. Sound okay to you, sweet buns?"

He grunted and tapped a button on the steering wheel. The door she was leaning on unlocked and unlatched.

"Don't get in that car, Jenna." She almost rolled her eyes at the unneeded order. She wasn't that stupid.

"Nope, baby. I'll meet you around the corner." She named the motel and started to back away.

"Get in." He turned and looked at her through those dark lenses.

"That's not the way I work, sugar. Meet me at my motel and I'll give you...."

"No."

Shit. Damn. She stood indecisive. He tapped a button and the door closed and latched, the window started to roll up.

Fuck it. "Wait, baby." She reached for the door handle and sent a mental apology to Justin.

"Jenna, God dammit. Don't you get in that car."

The door swung open and she slid onto the leather seat, barely getting her feet in before he was closing it on her. She heard the ominous sound of the lock being engaged. She turned and ran a hand along the leather, using the move to put her closer to the door and away from him.

"Nice. Where we going? I can't be away from my corner long or some bitch will take it over." She slid her purse on her lap and felt inside for her nine millimeter. With it's familiar grip in hand, she felt a little steadier.

The man stared straight ahead, ignoring Jenna now that she was in his car. He drove with one hand, the other tapping out a rhythm that only he could hear.

"We're behind you Jenna. And I am personally going to kick your ass when I get you out of this."

Yeah, yeah. Like she hadn't heard that before.

She looked around, noting the changing landscape. The street they were on would take her to the city limits in a couple of miles, becoming less populated more deserted. Right now, he still had traffic to contend with. They were away from hotels and motels, quickly leaving fast food places behind and starting toward the warehouse district on the outside of the city.

She turned to look at him and saw he was now grinning, a huge scary twist of his thick lips. He reached out with one massive hand and grabbed the blonde curls on her head yanking hard.

Jenna had the momentary satisfaction of seeing the look of surprise on his face when the wig came off her head and stuck in his grip. He stared at it and then back at her, noting the short black hair that wisped around her face. He threw the wig in the back seat of the car and reached for her again.

Jenna pulled her nine millimeter out of her purse and aimed it at him. "Police, you son of a bitch. Pull it over."

He looked at her for just an instant, then his foot slammed down on the accelerator, his hands came off the wheel and reached for her, one hand gripping the gun and turning it toward her. He backhanded her with the other hand, a hard blow across her cheek.

She felt like the entire side of her face had exploded. But even stunned by the blow, she managed to retain hold of her weapon. She saw the next blow coming and managed to duck down and under it as he growled in rage.

Jenna was in the struggle for her life. She strained with everything she had but wasn't strong enough to turn the gun back around or to get it out of his hand. She fought to keep his finger off the trigger but that wasn't working either. Everything slowed until each movement seemed intricate and separate from everything else. She saw his finger pull on the trigger an instant before he did it and shoved her hands up. The bullet that should have gone into her head instead went through the window next to it, shattering glass.

She could hear Justin in her ear shouting for back up just above the ringing from the gunshot. But she knew it was going to be too late. She let go with one hand and smashed the heel of her palm against his nose, feeling it break. The blood spewed out, almost too red to be real. The gun pointed her direction again, even as he roared in pain and anger.

The bore of the weapon seemed huge. A big black cavern that she could climb into and hide. Seconds seemed like hours while she watched as death stalked ever closer to her.

She heard the shriek of metal on metal and felt the car shudder before it ricocheted off the bumper of the car ahead of them. The jolt pushed Jenna into the dash and her head cracked against the window. Then she was flying over and over in the car as it rolled. It stopped in an intersection and Jenna looked out the window, dazed. She saw the ancient SUV before it rammed them. She heard someone scream. And then it was black.

Justin heard the gunshots, heard Jenna scream and couldn't remember how to breath. He saw the car flip in the air and come down on it's roof, sliding into oncoming traffic in the intersection. He watched in absolute horror as the big truck rammed into the passenger side door of the car.

"Oh God," he breathed. Then he was out the door of the van and running to the turned over car, yelling into his radio. "Officer down. Officer down!" He could hear the call coming out of the van also, and heard the address being relayed. He dropped his radio and tried to yank open the passenger door but it was caved in. The driver of the SUV opened his car door and started to step out, stopping as Justin turned, gun drawn.

"Get in your truck." He didn't look to see if the man had obeyed. Instead, he dropped down, ignoring shards of glass and metal and crawled through the window.

"Jenna!" he shouted. She wasn't in the seat. Their suspect, unconscious, was still belted in, hanging upside down in his seat, the air bag limp white plastic in front of him. He felt for a pulse. Strong and steady. He grabbed his cuffs and used them on the suspect before crawling further into the car and sliding between the seats to the backseat.

He saw one long slender leg showing beneath junk from the backseat. He heard her moan. Justin pushed debris off of her, careful to not hurt he more. He finally uncovered her face, hidden by the same blonde wig she had been wearing. Her cheeks were bloody, a gash at her temple responsible for most of it. Her eyes were closed.

"Jenna?"

He pushed her hair away from her forehead and scooted closer to her. "Come on, sweetie. Talk to me."

She moaned and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He watched as her eyes fluttered and then opened. She jerked and then moaned as pain registered. "Justin?"

"Yeah, partner." She tried to move again and he put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't move, Jenna. I've got people coming. You just stay still until we can get you out of here."

He took her hand and held it.

"Did we get him?"

The question didn't surprise him. The woman was a fanatic about her job. And she had been doggedly hunting this killer down since she stood in the first crime scene with the scent of blood and worse in her nose. She stood tough while cops were puking in the bushes. She put herself in jeopardy without a second thought. It was the job.

"Yeah, Jen. You got him. Of course, it took an SUV to finish the job."

"When I get out of this car, I'm gonna hurt you," she moaned. "He hit me. Felt like a brick. I'm gonna kick his ass after yours."

"Uh, Jenna, I hate to burst your bubble, but he's twice," he glanced at their suspect. "No, make that three times your size, half pint. I think you might want to wait until your back in shape." He laughed as she cursed under her breath.

He lifted his head at the sound of sirens coming. It sounded like they had sent out everything they had. Of course, when the call comes in of officer down, everyone drops everything and comes running. This sounded like the whole east side was on it's way. He heard doors slamming and finally saw someone else wiggling at the driver's side door.

"He's cuffed," Justin said. "Consider him dangerous."

"Is this him?" The man, a paramedic, asked. He'd been at the crime scenes to pick up bodies. "Is he the guy that's been killing hookers?"

Justin glared. "Get his ass out. I got a cop back here and she's hurt. Get your damn thumb outta your ass and help her."

"That told him," Jenna managed to whisper, her voice weak. She was starting to shake. "Next time, you get to wear this outfit. I want to sit in the van."

The outfit in question was ripped and bloody. "I don't think either of us is going to be able to wear it." He looked down and laughed. "And I hate to break your heart, Jen, but the shoes are a loss."

"Damn," she breathed. "I wanted to borrow them for my next date."

He shifted out of the way as the paramedic came back with a big neck collar and a backboard.

"Nice outfit, Detective," he said to Jenna.

"He's third," she said to Justin.

"Any pain in your neck and back? Can you move your feet?"

"She hurts all over, get her out of here."

"This would be easier on all of us if you would wait outside," the paramedic groused to Justin and then kept a pointed stare on the man until he finally scooted out, muttering inventive curses involving the paramedic under his breath.

"Can he really do that?" the paramedic asked Jenna. "I would think it would be almost impossible to get into that position."

"That's the fun part," she hissed and then moaned, her eyelids fluttering as he moved her to put on the collar.

"Come on, Detective. Try and stay with me now." He lowered her back down after securing the collar. "I don't want you to move, let me do all the work."

After some struggling and some inventive curses on Jenna's part, she was strapped to the board and on her way out of the car. She could hear Justin shouting orders, calling for a crime scene unit. Then he was next to her again, holding the hand that was securely tied down to the board.

"Hey, partner. I need to get one of these set ups for the next time I tell you to do something and you don't." He eyed the board, the collar, the braces that tied her head down. "Maybe then you'd have some respect for orders from a superior officer."

They loaded her onto a gurney and then into an ambulance. When Justin tried to get in the back with her, the paramedic he had bullied got in his face. "You'll have to follow us." He named the hospital and then waved as his partner slammed the doors almost in Justin's face.

The trip took forever, or it seemed to as Jenna was tied down to a gurney, bouncing around. When the back doors opened again, Justin was there. He had appropriated a black and white from somewhere and had managed to beat the ambulance there, much to the chagrin of the paramedic. He took Jenna's hand as they rushed through the doors and would have followed her into the curtained off area except he ran into a brick wall. A nurse, built like the entire defensive line of a college football team, stopped him.

"Waiting room. Down the hall. To the right."

Justin got out his badge and flashed it at the nurse. She crossed her arms over massive breasts and stared him down.

"Waiting room," she said again, never raising her voice. She pointed. "Down that hall right there, to the right. Coffee machine inside."

Justin gave up, heaved a huge sigh. "Could you let the doctor know that I'll be in there waiting?" At her nod, he trudged off, checking his pockets for change for the coffee machine.