“Well, maybe nothing. I’m worried about an old friend. Nobody you know.”

Tom then told Morgan about his friend, Paul Jennings, working for Oskar Cruickshank and expressed his concern that something didn’t seem right. He also told him about Virgil Cruickshank and Ben Pike. “After all these years, I hate to be coming to you right off the bat looking for a favour, but I was wondering if there was some way you could check these guys out?”

“You’ve done us a ton of favours in the past, glad I can finally do you one,” replied Morgan, reaching for his cellphone.

Before coffee was over, Tom had the information.

“You’re right about Virgil,” said Morgan. “He is a scumbag. Narcotics has info he is running meth down from Canada. Apparently low-level. They haven’t had time to work on him.”

“What about Oskar and Pike?”

“Nothing on Pike. Commercial Crimes Division made a few phone calls for us and from what they were told, Oskar is a straight shooter who is trying to keep the rich folks from investing in things that might upset their conscience.”

“Sounds like I was wrong to be suspicious about Oskar.”

Morgan took a sip of coffee and looked thoughtful before saying, “I think you’re losing your touch, Tom. Don’t ya know rich people don’t have a conscience?”

Tom knew Morgan was joking and both men grinned at each other.

“And as far as Virgil goes, he is just visiting,” added Morgan. “Seems to me like your worries are for naught.”

“I’m really glad to hear that,” replied Tom, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Morgy.”

Paul Jennings stood in his garage and waved goodbye to Buddy and Peggy Sue as Anna backed the car out of the driveway. Moments later, he placed his ladder up to the eaves and hauled out a box of Christmas lights.

He had barely started hanging the lights when Pike and Rabbit drove up. He gave them a wave and climbed down the ladder to greet them. “Merry Christmas! You guys have a good time last night?”

“It was nice,” replied Rabbit.

“What’s up?” asked Jennings. “I didn’t even know you knew where I lived.”

Pike smiled. “Oskar sent us to tell you that you are a tremendous asset to the corporation and we have something for you.”

“You’re not carrying a fruitcake, so tell me,” said Jennings, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, “are you guys handing out Christmas bonuses?”

“Not exactly,” said Rabbit, before turning and smiling at Pike.

Jennings automatically diverted his attention and also smiled expectantly at Pike for an answer. The small distraction was what Rabbit had planned.

Jennings belched air from his lungs and doubled over when Rabbit’s fist drilled deep into his solar plexus. Rabbit was about to use the heel of his hand to ram Jennings chin upwards, while simultaneously delivering a blow with his other hand to the base of Jennings’s neck, but Pike shoved him out of the way.

“Don’t break his neck,” said Pike. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, stepping behind Jennings and placing a chokehold on the carotid artery in his neck that left him only semiconscious.

“What gives?” asked Rabbit. “I thought we wanted to make it look like he fell off his ladder?”

“Too quick for this bastard. Take the ladder down and smash it through his front window while I hold him.”

Rabbit did as requested and stepped back.

Pike nodded to the shards of broken glass sticking up from the bottom of the windowsill. “Got the picture?”

Rabbit snickered. “Yeah, I got it. Messier, but I got it.”

Jennings coughed and sputtered when the chokehold was released, but had no time to protest, before Pike and Rabbit grabbed him by the arms and the back of his head and rammed his throat across a shard of broken glass.

Jennings flailed with his arms in a failed attempt to stop the attack, but all he did was cut his hands. When he was released, his bloody fingers clawed on the carpeting in a panicked attempt to pull himself inside the house to escape his attackers.

Pike and Rabbit knew Jennings’s severed jugular was fatal and simply stood back and watched. Seconds later, Jennings’s body collapsed across the window frame, leaving only his legs sticking outside.

Chapter Three

It was Buddy and Peggy Sue’s hysterical and terrified screams that caused Anna to drop the Christmas presents she was unloading from the car. She had no idea of the horrific atrocity awaiting her as she ran into the living room.

What the three of them saw was a spectacle that would imprint on their brains forever. It was like a horror movie that would play itself over and over again, when they were awake and when they were asleep.

The murder was classified as accidental. It was believed the ladder had fallen, perhaps when Jennings had yanked on a tangle of Christmas lights that were evident near the base of the ladder.

Eight years passed before two unrelated criminal acts in Canada provided the police with a clue as to what had really happened in Los Angeles.

In Surrey, British Columbia, Amanda Evans had dropped out of high school before completing her grade twelve to give birth to her daughter, Megan. Her boyfriend didn’t wait around to see the birth of his daughter, opting instead to leave when Amanda was six months’ pregnant.

Amanda had not seen or heard from him in the three years that had passed since then. Neither did she care to. During that time, Amanda had obtained a cashier’s position at a local grocery store and had also managed to obtain her diploma through adult education.

The second-floor apartment she rented was within walking distance of the grocery store where she worked. It was also close to the apartment of a friend by the name of Wendy, who was another cashier at the store. Wendy was also a single parent and the two women usually worked different shifts so they could babysit for each other.

It was the first Sunday in May when Amanda got off work and it was five o’clock at night when she picked up Megan and headed home. As usual, Megan wanted to climb through some large plastic tubes in a playground on the walk home.

Amanda groaned and rubbed the muscles in her lower back. She ached from standing on her feet all day. “Okay, sweetie,” she said, relenting.

Within a few minutes, Amanda forgot about the ache as she chased Megan, who giggled and shrieked with delight while scrambling through the plastic maze.

They played together for half an hour, totally unaware of a man watching them from a silver BMW 6 Series Cabriolet parked nearby.

“Come on, honey, time to go,” said Amanda.

“No … more, more. I want to play,” demanded Megan.

“Gotta get home and make dinner. You can help me cook. I’ll let you measure out the right amount of macaroni.”

Megan persisted. “But I want to play.”

“No, come on, take my hand.” Amanda pointed to a path leading away from the playground. “You can pretend you’re Dora the Explorer going through a forest.”

In reality the path wasn’t in a forest, but simply a shortcut leading past a few trees to an alley at the rear of a row of apartment complexes.

“Ah, my lovely, where do you think you’re going?” muttered the man, as he got out of the BMW to follow them.

Amanda and Megan soon entered their two-bedroom apartment and locked the door behind them. The air in the apartment was hot and stuffy. An elderly lady lived in the suite below and kept her thermostat set to the maximum. The floors weren’t thick and the heat permeated Amanda’s apartment.