Khan (19 page)

It was a grand affair, one she knew that
forever would be the greatest day in both their lives. The staff at the White
House had gone all out for their wedding feast and by the time the wedding cake
was rolled out, she was so full she thought she’d need a cart to take her out.

Along with tomato bisque, there was rare
roast beef with new potatoes, green beans with ham, and grilled onions. Grilled
asparagus with butter was accompanied by rolls so fluffy that biting into them
was heavenly. Fresh fruit and small almond cookies graced the table as well as
center pieces made from marzipan that had been shaped into small Christmas
trees decorated with tiny candy canes and little brightly-colored balls.

The cake, however, was a masterpiece. Three
tiers of white frosting that were decorated for the coming spring. Flowers and
butterflies with the same cranberry of her dress, cherry trees with small
blossoms ready to open. But it was the artwork across the bottom that had her
smile. Panthers ran around the entire cake, chasing and jumping over logs and
the forest grounds. And in one corner were a white Bengal tiger and a large
orange one as well. She kissed both men on the cheek when she saw them there
with her family.

“We couldn’t just let the black cats
have all the fun. Besides,” Warren told her with a hug, “you’re as much part of
our family as the rest of them. I do hope you enjoyed your wedding day. Khan worked
very hard on pulling this off.”

“I did. Very much so. And thank you for
everything. Not many people can say that they were married at the White House.”
And, of course, she couldn’t either. There were strict rules about this sort of
thing. So they had said it was simply a party to celebrate their day.

As the band started playing, she went to
find her husband. It sounded strange to say that and couldn’t wait to be able
to sign her name officially as Monica Bowen. She found Khan in the rose garden
with his brothers.

As soon as she kissed them all and they
welcomed her to the family, they left her and Khan alone. He pulled her into
his arms and began dancing with her in the moonlight. It was cold, but he kept
her very warm.

“I love you very much.”

She smiled at him when he told her.

“I have one more gift for you.”

“You’ve done so much for me today. I
love you very much.”

He kissed her again and reached into his
pocket. “It’s been in my family for generations. I think for about fourteen or
so.” He took the necklace out of the long box and had her turn around. “Every
leader of the family has a small stone added to it. The addition will mean
something to him and he gives it to his mate so she can remember him.”

He showed her the small stone that was
his. It was a bright amethyst as purple, he told her, as her eyes when she looked
at him.

The necklace was on a braided chain,
chain mail, he told her, so that if it were ever worn when the wearer shifted,
it wouldn’t break as easily. The pendent was a beautiful carved panther. Under
his face was a large decorative “B” for the family name. The stones were
balanced on either side and she noticed that hers was the only purple one. The
one opposite of hers was a moonstone, white with caramel-colored veins running
through it.

Just after midnight, they went back to
Walker and Caitlynne’s home. She and Khan were to go to a hotel, but they ended
up at the house with everyone else when Caitlynne got word of another murder.
They wanted to be close in the event that Barr wasn’t finished for the night.

“We have to do something. He’s not going
to stop.”

Monica agreed with Caitlynne.

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’re going to sit
down with a team and we’re going to figure out a way to find him and bring him
in. Short of that, we’re going to have to put you somewhere safe. Where he won’t
find you ever.”

Neither she nor Khan wanted to go into
hiding.

Tony lay where he was for several
minutes. He could move. He just didn’t have a clue where he was. Or for that
matter how he had gotten there. It was bright out, he knew that much. And he
was out of doors because he was freezing cold. Rolling over so that he was face
up, he opened his eyes slowly.

He was between two buildings. An alley,
he supposed. There was something near him, blue and metal; he looked at it and
realized it was a dumpster. One much like they had at one of the homes he’d
been in. Tony sat up. There was snow thick on his body. So he had been out
there for some time. Either that or someone had piled it over him. He looked
around more and realized that he’d been wherever he was for some time because
there were no prints leading up to his body. After brushing off the snow, he
saw that, once again, he was covered in blood.

“No, no, no, no.” Closing his eyes didn’t
help; he still saw it. Looking at himself again, he saw that not only his
clothes were covered, his hands were as well. Burying them in the snow, he
tried to wash it all away to see if he’d injured himself and found that, while
he did have a few cuts, nothing to explain the amount of blood he had on him. That’s
when he noticed the knife.

It wasn’t like the one his mother used
when she cooked. This one had a handle that he knew the blade fit inside of. He
didn’t pick it up immediately, but studied it. The serrated edge was covered in
blood and things he wasn’t going to think about. He knew a little about
switchblades, enough to see that this one was an out the front type of knife
and longer than most. The blade itself looked to be at least nine inches long.
A custom job, he thought.

Looking around, he reached down and
picked it up. It wasn’t heavy like he’d expected, and the handle had carving in
it. Without having to wash off all the blood first, he would say it was of a
skull. The blood added to its macabre look. He pushed the tab on the side and
the blade slid easily into the handle.

He’d been bad again.

Tony leaned back against the dumpster
behind him and felt the pain of his headache coming on. He didn’t know what he’d
done, but something that had him covered in blood. Yesterday was a blur and
last night was gone. He lay there and cried. He just wanted to show Monica that
she’d hurt him.

Standing up, he pulled his coat around
him. He had no idea what his face looked like so he reached down, grabbing hands
full of snow, and scrubbed his face with it. When it dripped red from his hands,
he did it several more times until it rained down clear. Stuffing his hands in
his pockets, he stepped out of the alley.

There weren’t that many cars around, but
he didn’t recognize where he was. He tried to find a street sign, but there
didn’t seem to be any where he was, so he started walking. He wondered what day
it was.

There were several papers in trashcans
along the way. But each of them had a different date on them. Frustrated, he
turned to the first person he saw and asked him what the date was. The man
grunted at him and kept walking. Tony was half tempted to pull out the bloodied
knife and ram it though the rude man’s heart, but he didn’t. That would get him
into trouble again.

The next person he asked told him it was
the twenty-second. He thanked him and went back to the trashcan. There was one
newspaper in it for today. Taking it out. He started to enter a coffee shop and
saw that it was occupied with several men in blue. He wasn’t going to get
himself into trouble if they saw what was on his shirt. Moving down the block,
he entered another alley and sat near another dumpster, this one rust-covered,
and read the first page of the paper.

The word “MANHUNT” screamed across the
headline. He read the article, hoping it was about his parents and maybe this
time someone had finally remembered him. But it talked about how there had been
a string of murders and it had begun with his parents. Reading the entire
article twice, he tossed it away.

“Why hasn’t she told them about me? Why
is she not telling the police that I’m their son?” He kicked out at the paper
again and reached to grab it up. There she was. Right there.

“Mr. and Mrs. Khan Bowen were married
last night, bringing one of the most eligible bachelors to his knees.” Tony
looked at the picture of the man and woman before continuing on with the post. “Monica
Preston Bowen, bride to the fortune five-hundred topper, was wearing a
cranberry gown handmade for her by Alice Combs of
Alice on the James Specialty
Shop
. The couple will be residing at the home of his brother, another
topper on the list of rich men, and his lovely wife Caitlynne Bowen, who were
married late last year.”

The article droned on, but Tony stopped
reading. How could she do this to him? How could she just ignore the fact that
he and his mother were planning this big wedding for this month? And wouldn’t
she want to honor his parents even though someone had murdered them? Tony got
up and paced.

She really was a slut. As soon as he
couldn’t find her, she’d gone off and found herself someone else just like
that? Apparently, she had never loved him at all. She’d been using him. He didn’t
like to be used. He didn’t like it one bit. He was going to find her and tell
her that too. He was going to find her right now.

Walking along the streets, he looked for
his car. He didn’t have a clue where he’d left it and was getting very afraid
that someone had taken it thinking it was the car that Bowen woman had showed
on the news. He was just stepping by a bar when he heard his name. Not his
first name, but his last. He entered, but kept back in the darkened corner and
ordered a beer.

He held it in his hand, not touching the
nasty stuff, looking at each patron there. He didn’t know any of them and was
ready to leave when he glanced up at the television hanging crookedly over the
back of the bar.

“…last night. This is the fourth murder
like this one in just under two weeks. The police are working tightly with the
CIA as well as other bureaus to bring this crime spree to an end. According to
the police, they are looking for the same man. They said that he is in his mid-thirties
with dark blond hair. He will be strong and he is considered armed and
dangerous. Here is a sketch of the man that a witness has given us.”

Tony looked around the room again, this
time not looking to see if he knew anyone, but if they recognized him from the
drawing. He was the man in the drawing. Including the scar on his lip he’d
gotten when he was a child. He threw money on the bar and backed to the door.
No one turned, no one said anything, but he moved as if every eye in the place
were on him. As soon as he stepped out, he took off running. He ran until he
couldn’t run any longer.

They thought he was the murderer. That
he’d killed four people. Who would have told them such a thing? Who was this
lying witness that was working to get him framed for something he’d not done? Terrified
out of his mind, he tried to think. His head was pounding and he reached into
his pocket and touched the gun with his left hand while his right wrapped
around the knife. With a sudden clarity that calmed him, he knew what he had to
do. He needed to find Monica and kill her.

He smiled. Yes, that’s what he had to
do. And he started thinking of how to find her as if the information was there
all the time just waiting for him to be calm enough to use it. Walking into the
street again, he spotted his car. He knew now that he was on the perfect
course. Why else would he find what he needed when he needed it?

Before getting in, he gathered all the
trash from the interior. Every fast food bag, box, and napkin, every empty
water bottle, cup, and cap. The coffee that had ended up in his car somehow was
tossed away too, as were the extra things of aspirin and other headache
remedies that had never worked. When he emptied the car of all trash, he folded
the three blankets he’d acquired somehow and put them neatly on the seat. Taking
out the mats, he shook each of them, including the ones in the front. When he
was satisfied with his results, he got in, started the car, and waited for the
warmth from the heater to penetrate his frozen body. By the time he pulled into
traffic, he had it all worked out.

His first stop was to find a hotel. He
didn’t get the most expensive this time, but he did want one that had a lobby.
Using the driver’s license in his pocket that sort of looked like him, he
handed it to the clerk. He didn’t have any idea where it had come from, but now
he didn’t worry. He had a plan.

He loved lobbies in hotels with their
shops and people coming and going. He got a room on the seventeenth floor and
told the clerk that his luggage was coming later; he had a servant coming to
bring it to him. After being shown his room, he left again. He had things to
do.

He stopped at Wal-Mart and purchased
some cheap jeans and some other things he needed. Underwear, socks, and t-shirts.
He also picked up shampoo, soap, and a single piece of luggage. When he paid
cash for these things, he realized that whatever he did, he had to do it
quickly. He was down to his last hundred and forty dollars. Moving to the car
again, he loaded everything in his luggage and went to the hardware store.

Here he purchased rope, pliers, tape,
and nails. He wasn’t sure what he needed them for, but when he’d walked by them,
he had felt the need to pick them up. By the time he’d loaded these things into
his case, he was down to less than a hundred dollars. Time to play.