Blood Bath (FBI Agent Jade Monroe Live or Die #15)

Chapter 1

An hour would pass before he left with her—he didn’t want to be seen by anyone. The later the better, and that meant after midnight to be on the safe side. It was Saturday night, and most people were hitting the bars, not the marina.

His guest would be dead soon, if she wasn’t already, since severing the carotid artery caused death in a few short minutes. Yet it was the before-death and after-death prep work that took time.

For the moment, she remained in the bathtub, where her blood was contained to one spot and could easily be washed down the drain later after she was lifted out. He gave the scene a nod then left the room.

Alex Trent had moved to Milwaukee from Michigan several months back due to a contract he’d accepted.

Taking on a monthly lease with a clause for an extension was working out perfectly.

The luxury apartment was convenient to everything Milwaukee’s lakefront had to offer, plus the view from his twelfth-floor balcony was to die for.

Lying low while in the building was his motto.

He avoided the neighbors and the twenty-four-hour security guards stationed in the lobby.

Alex wore a ball cap and glasses to alter his appearance when in public, and he usually left the building using the garage elevator that exited outside on the ground floor.

Alex returned to the bathroom to check on her progress.

He knelt at the tub and looked the woman over.

Her eyes were open. Her skin had turned porcelain white—nearly as white as the bathtub itself—her lips were blue, and the water had turned from clear to a crimson red.

It wouldn’t be long. Alex was a master of his craft, an occupation he’d enjoyed for years.

He had worked with well-known clients where secrecy was key and the payout was high.

That night’s unlucky woman, Beth Morrow, was number two on the contract he was fulfilling, and he would eliminate two more people before finishing his client’s kill list. He was told that the last person would be the most important kill of all.

Before agreeing to complete all four, Alex had demanded and received the promise of an enormous payout when his client got proof of each person’s demise.

Yet to successfully pull them off, he would have to remain extremely careful, stay invisible, and never dump a body in the same place twice.

As a secondary precaution before any payment was made, Alex had to show his client proof that he had an alternative ID, a post office box, a bank account, and a credit card all in that other name.

Those had to be the only forms of identification and payment he carried on his person while doing anything related to the contract.

Taking a seat on the chair directly across from the tub, Alex stared at the scene before him.

Streaks of blood, dried by then, had run down the outside of the bathtub to the marble floor, a stark contrast to what was normally an entirely white room.

Her face and neck were blood-smeared from frantic flailing, and the spray that had pumped from her carotid artery had coated the wall next to the tub.

I could strangle each of them and save myself a lot of cleanup, but I have to show my client proof that they are indeed dead, and a bloody scene with a dead body is proof.

As Alex sat and waited, some long-ago childhood memories made him smile. He thought back on the day he’d drowned the neighbor’s white cat in a pail of red paint. The bathtub visual and his childhood memories were similar.

As a troubled youth, Alex hadn’t been helped by threats or counseling. He was an evil seed—always had been, always would be—and that suited him just fine. He was a true psychopath, making his chosen profession easy and enjoyable.

After opening the linen closet, he pulled out an oversized black towel and placed it on the floor in front of the bathtub.

Alex tipped his wrist. It was time to get busy before her body stiffened.

With his phone in hand, he snapped three pictures of the dead woman and the bathroom, then he began removing her legs where the femur and hip connected.

That significantly shortened her body so it would fit snuggly into his duffel bag.

Next, he removed all of her organs and placed them in a garbage bag.

He cut off her fingertips and smashed her teeth to prevent law enforcement from ever identifying her if she was somehow discovered.

He flushed the remnants down the toilet.

Everyone on his list had been, and would be, processed in the same manner.

Beth’s weight had been reduced substantially, and her torso and legs would easily fit into his duffel bag.

Alex lifted what was left of her out of the bloody water—she was literally skin and bones.

He placed the legs inside her torso opening, wrapped her in the towel, left her where she was, and exited the room.

In his office, Alex took a seat at the desk, opened his laptop, and checked the lake conditions.

The easiest way to dispose of a body and organs was to take them out two miles and dump them overboard.

The body would sink because the organs had been removed.

That eliminated the problem of gases causing the body to rise.

Usually, large fish and crayfish nibbled on the rest, but if the body, or parts of it, happened to wash ashore, nobody would know where it came from or who it was.

The lake-condition report showed Lake Michigan as calm that night. It would be smooth sailing, so to speak, and with any luck, he would arrive home before dawn.

Alex kept his boat moored at the marina in Manitowoc, another ploy in throwing off law enforcement, at least for that particular contract.

He lived in Milwaukee temporarily, but distancing himself from the site where each body was dumped was always wise.

Plus, he had Sheboygan County and Ozaukee County between Milwaukee and Manitowoc as buffers.

Nobody would ever know where the body came from if any of the women ever washed up on one of the local beaches.

Securing anchors around their necks would keep that from happening.

The drive to Manitowoc would take well over an hour, but with the money he’d already been fronted, Alex didn’t mind. Going that distance was well worth his safety—and the cash he would continue to receive until the job was complete made the drive easy.

Using his members-only marina key card, Alex would swipe it, continue beyond the locked gate, and access his boat any time he wanted.

Walking in with a duffel bag and midsize roller cooler wasn’t so unusual.

He could have food and fishing gear in them, but what was actually inside that duffel bag was the body, and the cooler contained the bag of organs.

Alex was well aware of the marina cameras and where each one was located. As soon as he swiped his key card, records would show that James Smith—the most common male name in the United States—had passed through the gate.

Maybe the next disposal should be during the daylight hours. I’ll even bring a fishing pole as a prop. After that, I’ll find some good spots on dry land. There are plenty of forested areas in Wisconsin that are off the beaten path.

Once Alex had boarded the boat and made his way out of the no-wake zone, he would veer east. Two miles out was the minimum distance he planned to go before dumping the remains overboard.

When that task was complete, he would head south until he saw the lights along Sheboygan’s shoreline.

He planned to dump the organs into the depths there.

His routine was flawless. He’d disposed of the previous woman the same way but even farther north. As far as he knew, she had never been found, at least not that he was aware of.

Don’t mess with what works, but don’t be too repetitive either. That was the motto Alex lived by.

He’d picked up the twenty-four-foot 2018 Robalo R247 when he moved to the Great Lakes region, and it had served him well.

It could handle waves, and the design guaranteed speed and a smoother ride in rough water.

Plus, its compartments easily hid whatever was in the boat with him—if anyone was ever on the water after midnight. Someday, he would take up fishing too.

As soon as his client had given him the go-ahead, he’d come up with a new way to convince woman number three to join him for a drink. His ruse was to invite her back to his home, or he would go to hers, after she was well on her way to unconsciousness courtesy of Rohypnol.

Within an hour of his guest thinking they would share a bottle of wine and a romantic bath together, she would be nothing but an empty shell of a woman folded up in a duffel bag in the trunk of his vehicle.

He would dispose of her during the morning hours.

Alex couldn’t risk taking his boat out at the same time too often.

It would raise suspicion. Whether it was day or night, he planned to drive to Manitowoc and take his boat out into the deep water, and within a half hour, the woman would be swimming with the fishes.

It was 1:35 a.m. by the time Alex reached the marina.

The white Camry he’d rented under his assumed name stood out in the eerily quiet empty parking lot.

Alex kept an array of stolen plates from states that didn’t require a front plate, and that night, his plate was from Michigan.

He had pulled over onto a dirt road, only a mile from the marina, removed the rental plates, hid them under the floor mats, then attached the rear Michigan plate.

No way would he risk driving I-43 from Milwaukee to Manitowoc with an out-of-state plate.

A curious trooper could easily pull him over and ask too many questions.

Covering his tracks by using an assumed name, a rented car, and stolen plates would keep the police from ever knowing who he really was.

When he was conducting business, Alex Trent didn’t exist. James Smith was in charge.

Alex knew where the parking lot cameras were located.

He’d backed into a slot in the parking lot so the camera wouldn’t pick up the image of any front plate.

That, and parking elsewhere and walking in, bought him extra time.

Swiping his key card was the only way for authorities, if asked, to say who’d passed through the gate, but the person named on Alex’s card didn’t exist anyway.

He was a ghost and planned to remain one since he had two more targets to take care of.

After passing through the gate, and always hiding his face, Alex walked to the end of the dock.

He climbed aboard, lifted the cooler into the boat, and dropped the duffel bag on the floor.

He untied the mooring ropes, tossed the hanging fenders into the boat, and made sure those extra anchors were on board.

He couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong.

Not now, not ever.

He started the motor and slowly backed out of his slip then headed east and out into open water. In a half hour, the body and organs would be long gone into the depths of Lake Michigan.

When Alex was finally two miles from shore, he headed south for another half hour.

Once he was satisfied with his location, he unzipped the duffel bag, grabbed a nautical rope, and used it to tie a double constrictor knot around Beth’s neck.

After making sure the knot was secure, he tied the same knot around a twenty-pound anchor, dropped that into the drink, then pulled Beth’s remains out of the bag and tossed them over the side of the boat.

She would sink to the bottom, where the elements would take care of the rest.