The Angry Flame

By Divamercury

Chapter 13

"Sara, I'm so scared. He was right, he wasn't lying, he said he'd hurt me but somehow he decided to go after you, why I don't know–"

"Ciara, what the hell are you talking about? Who was right? Who's after you?" I asked, frantic to know.

Ciara clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widened in terror; obviously she thought she had told me too much. The next sentence out of her mouth made me gasp.

"I know who's been killing the dancers from here."

"What?" I asked, completely incredulous.

"Please, trust me. Listen, we need to get out of here. If they find me" she trailed off, cringing.

"Okay, okay, let me think" I said, wracking my brain. I started pacing around the dressing room. Well, the only place I could think to go was my apartment, and if they had the gall to show up there then the Witchblade would have a field day. That and the fact that I had more weapons in my apartment than most armies of small countries possess, I felt fairly sure that that was the best course of action. I grasped her around the wrist and pulled her toward the back door, both of us breaking into a run.

"Where are we going?" she shouted.

"My place," I shouted back over my shoulder.

I dragged her the entire block to my bike. We both got on, I handed her a helmet and secured my own, and we sped away. Arriving in less than ten minutes (Well, when you're motivated you tend to get places faster), we sprinted up the stairs to my apartment and then collapsed on my furniture.

"Ciara, why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"I don't know, you're the only person I can trust," she said.

"You're right about that," I said, taking my badge out of the pocket of my leather jacket and showing it to her. She took it, gaped at it, then gaped at me.

"You're a cop?" she asked incredulously. She was clearly flabbergasted by this piece of information.

I nodded. "Detective Sara Pezzini, Homicide department of the 11th Precinct of the NYPD at your service. Now, tell me what's going on. This could be the news I've been waiting for forever. I've been undercover ever since I arrived at the Angry Flame, trying to find out about the murders and you're the key to the whole thing. Who is it?"

"Gerald East."

"East?" I asked. "Oh my God. Tell me the story, Ciara."

"Well, here goes," Ciara said.

"I've worked at the Angry Flame for about a year, and about six months in Gerald East called me to his office and we hit it off really well. After a while, we got involved and he said he loved me. God, I was stupid. I believed him, because no one had ever treated me like he did. For some reason he'd gotten a lot of money, from a friend, he told me, and he gave it to me to put toward expenses for my first book because he didn't need it and I did. I guess that should have been my first clue.

"I'd heard about the murders but I wasn't all that scared because I thought that Gerald would protect me from whatever was going on, because he had friends in high places. Love blinded me, and a few nights ago I heard him talking on the phone to someone as I passed his office. The door was open and he was talking about the murders of the girls, all of whom I had known well, bragging that he had committed them himself because they were annoying and so that he didn't have to pay them anymore. He said that they were asking for too much. Then he saw me and hung up the phone quickly. I ran away but he shouted after me that he was going to hurt someone I cared about. I thought it was going to be Luke; he and I have been buds forever, but it turned out that it was you. I don't know how you got away unscathed after the other three got killed, but I'm really glad you did. So anyway, he knows that I know about what he's doing, and now that you know, he'll probably want to kill us both."

"That's practically a certainty. I have a feeling that he won't get that far, though," I replied, absently rubbing the Witchblade as I said that.

"I hope not. What are we going to do?" she asked.

"Well, I'll call the department and let them know about this, and then you'll have to stay low for a while. You can stay here if you want. I have one other question, though. Why did he kill Max Oakland? I thought they were friends."

"Well, apparently at one point they were really tight, but money and greed made Gerald kill him. He was paid off for it and he gave me the money."

"Who paid him off?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not really sure" she said hesitantly. Obviously she knew but wouldn't say.

"Ciara, did you hear anything about who paid East off? Because if you did, that's really important information and I'll need to know about it."

"Well, there was a name, but it didn't mean anything to me. It might not even register with you," she said.

Growing impatient, I asked as calmly as I could, "What was the name, Ciara? This is really important."

"Irons. Kenneth Irons."

I sat back, smiling. For once I heard something that actually didn't surprise me.

"Well, maybe I can finally pin something on him," I said. Ciara just responded with a blank look.

"Will you agree to testify about this in court?" I asked, ignoring her response to my statement. "You would definitely make the district attorney and the prosecutors happy men and women."

Ciara nodded. "Sure, I guess so. I mean, I want East behind bars for killing my friends." She looked at me nervously.

"We won't worry about that right now. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. All your information was a lot of help. Now, just make yourself comfortable. We need to keep you safe. I've got a couple of really important phone calls to make."