Kill Switch: A Vigilante Serial Killer Action Thriller (Angel of Darkness Suspense Thriller Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

lap. The woman was around Tess’s age, had a striking, angular face and long, flowing brown hair. The woman’s hair reminded Tess of how hers used to be, before she’d hacked it all off to barely shoulder length that night in Shanghai. That night that had started everything.
    “I’m Elena Petrescu,” said the lady. “This is Catalina, my daughter. She’s been missing since yesterday morning.”
    “Missing?”
    “I—” Elena’s chin quivered. She hung her head for a moment, and then tried again. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
    “I hope you don’t mind if I’m blunt, but how do you know she isn’t just shacked up with some guy she met in a bar?”
    “As I said, this is something of a pilgrimage, not a beer-fueled vacation.”
    Tess nodded. That was a fair reason for discounting a drunken one-night stand. “Has anyone asked you for money?”
    “No.”
    “So what have the police said?”
    “I don’t want a clean-up crew,” Elena said. “I want a detective.”
    Tess winced. “Sorry, but you’re talking to the wrong person – I can look after myself, yes, but I’m no detective.”
    Elena took a roll of banknotes out of her pocket. “I can pay.”
    From the roll’s size, it looked a substantial amount, but the first was only a ten-zloty note, suggesting they all were. If there was even a couple of hundred dollars, Tess would be amazed.
    “It’s not about money,” Tess said. “I just don’t think I can help you.”
    The woman placed her hand on Tess’s. The outlines of the bones and many of the veins stood out as clearly as if Tess had X-ray vision.
    “I understand.” Her chin quivering again, Elena hung her head.
    “I’m sorry.”
    Elena nodded. After a moment, she looked back up.
    “As you can see,” Elena said, her voice wavering, “I’m not in the best of health.” She patted Tess’s hand. “All I wanted was to see my Catalina one last time and to tell her I love her. I’m all she has.”
    A lump in Tess’s throat choked her words. For a moment, she was back in that hospital room, back beside that bed, back holding someone for the last time. Except she hadn’t known it was for the last time. That heartache had lived with her for years. Could she deny this mother one last chance to hold her daughter and say goodbye?

Chapter 04
     
    Elena handed the rotund waitress thirty zlotys and said something in Polish. The woman laughed and then toddled away, zigzagging through the bar’s scattered rectangular tables.
    With only local clientele, the backstreet bar near Elena’s hostel was a big square room with none of the quaintness of the tourist bar Tess had visited the previous night. Its only decoration stretched to photos of Polish celebrities, none of whom she knew.
    Elena raised her beer to toast Tess. Tess had paid for their meal and had wanted to pay for the beer too, but Elena was simply too proud to accept endless charity, so she had insisted on buying.
    Lifting her glass, Tess toasted Elena. “To finding Catalina. Na zdrovie.” Even though she wasn’t staying in Poland long, Tess had already picked up a few of the more useful phrases such as hello, please, thank you, ATM, toilet, and cheers.
    Elena playfully wagged a finger at her. “In Romanian, we say ‘noroc’.”
    Tess chinked glasses with her. “Noroc.”
    “To finding Cat and to your first Romanian word.”
    Over the rim of her, Tess surveyed the clientele. She’d give anyone one hundred to one against seeing any of the three men she’d beaten to a pulp last night, but that pudgy fourth guy had run away. She didn’t want to be clobbered from behind and kicked senseless while she was down, so she had even more reason than usual to remain constantly aware of her environment.
    Putting her glass on the table, Tess couldn’t help but chuckle to herself – the frail old lady who’d approached her in Auschwitz was chugging away on her beer like a teenage boy at his first frat party.
    Two-thirds of her beer gone