Page 5 of Praying Mantis

“Where?” I stand up, putting on my jeans quickly. My week off just ended.

“Denver. Get Tony and get to the airport now. I’m booking you on the ten a.m. flight.” I check the clock on the nightstand; it reads seven-thirty. It’s going to cut us close. “You two are primary on the case since you caught the first one, and this is what, the fourth?”

“Yeah, this would be the fourth and we’ve been to every one of them. I’ll let you know what we find, but it won’t be anything. This killer is smart.” He hangs up.

“You’re leaving?” Diana sits up, letting the sheet fall from her perfect tits.

“Yeah, duty calls. If I’m ever in LA again.” I wink at her before leaving. Tony’s room is next to mine, so I bang on his door. I hear him calling whoever is banging on the door a mother fucking cocksucker.

“What?” he yells in my face.

“Dude, your breath reeks.” I cough. “We got another body of the headless kind.”

“Fuck! Thirty minutes and we meet downstairs?” I nod.

Arriving at the Four Seasons in Denver, Colorado sends a chill up my spine. This killer has left five headless bodies and no clues. The killer cleans the body with something that removes all DNA, fibers, hair, and even dirt. The room gets sprayed with something, so there is no smell either. The beds are DNA-free, including skin cells. I’ve never seen a mastermind like this before and it’s pissing me.

“Do we have details on the killer?” I ask, riding up to the fourth floor.

“Nick Santiago. He lives in Boulder with his wife and two kids. She didn’t even know he was coming here last night. According to her, he’s a cheater, so he was probably hooking up with someone.”

“Male or female?” I question Tony, hoping the officer who broke the news to Mrs. Santiago would know to ask a question like that, so I don’t have to meet with her. The families are the toughest part of this job. I struggle with telling them someone has died or we couldn’t find the killer. The screams they let out cut through me like a knife.

“Female, but she can’t be one hundred percent. She didn’t even know they fired him from his job until the officer informed her.”

“Damn. So we can’t rule out either.”

“Do you really think a female could do this?” Tony asks as we move out of the way to let a beautiful woman get on with us. I nod and smile at her. She winks at me.

“Oh, I thought this was going down.”

“Sorry ma’am going up,” I answer her.

“I prefer to go down.” She flirts with me. Before I can open my mouth, the doors open on the fourth floor.

“Have a nice day.” Tony pushes me out. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“I said nothing.”

“Get your ass in the room and do your damn job.” I laugh because he hates when women flirt with me and ignore him. I can’t help the Irish good looks I’m blessed with, so he can keep bitching at me all he wants. As we enter the room, we show our badges. There’s some grumbling from the state police because they hate sharing cases, especially with the FBI.

“Agent Fortin and Agent Randall.” I point to myself, then to Tony for introductions to everyone. “We found the first murder victim and have been to every scene since. We’ve been actively pursuing this killer. We’re not here to take over, but to help build the case to bring this sick bastard to justice.” I try to smooth out the ruffled feathers, but some just have a stick up their ass about us. I ignore the talking about us while we’re in the room as I walk around. “Let me guess, you found nothing.”

“Yeah,” the one CSI, crime scene investigator informs me. “We swept the entire room and even the body.”

“We’ve been running into a dead end on what the killer is using to subdue the victim, clean the victim, and clean the room. By the time we get to everything, it’s all untraceable.” I stand looking around the room. “Does he have a cell phone or anything?”

“It’s right here. They wiped last week clean.” The tech answers as he holds it up.

“The killer must be a hacker or know a hacker because everything is gone on the phones. So Nick here must’ve been talking with the killer for a week to have them go back an entire week. Tony, have them check the emails and phones we have back in Boston as well.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know yet, but my gut is telling me we’re looking for a woman.” I stare out of the window of the suite. The only way to get this killer is more bodies and I hate that but eventually, he or she will fuck up and give us something.

“A woman? She has to be built like a linebacker. This guy is huge.” I can’t agree more with him.

“He isn’t into men as far as we know, and we all know men lower their guard around a pretty woman.” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. I don’t know where the fuck to go from here.

---