She screamed and ran from the house to call the police.
Now she knew why Debbie didn’t show for work.
She was dead.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Oh, the next one was right there, and he was so close he could almost touch her.
That was exactly what he wanted to do too. He wanted to reach out, run his fingers down her flesh, and make her scream for him.
The pretty little thing was drinking her coffee, and licking her lips.
Yeah, she was perfect.
After he acquired her, he’d never forget her.
How could he?
She was lovely.
He’d followed her before, attracted to her because of her pretty smile.
As she sat there, so unsuspecting, he was more than willing to bide his time.
Yet, the pretty girl was slowly running out of time.
His need was growing by leaps and bounds, and it was hard to continually feed this beast in him.
It wanted more and more.
It wanted all of them.
Still, he had to be careful.
He had to choose wisely.
This one girl was perfect for him, and he was going to make sure that he made it worth his time.
Besides, he was safe.
The mob made sure of that.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Morgue
As usual, Elizabeth’s team was busy working and doing what they did best as she was out in the field searching for something to link the case to a killer.
As she was out doing her thing, they, too, were making sure that the case was progressing forward.
They worked their best under pressure, and they were indeed faced with that more times than not when Elizabeth LaRue was at the helm of an assignment.
It was the calm before the storm, and they all knew it.
It was a matter of time before Agent LaRue would be in there, asking what they found.
They didn’t have much time or much of anything to give her, and that was going to be hell.
Elizabeth wanted results.
She was hell to work with, but damn good with the results—if they could hand them over.
The clock was ticking, and they had to double down and find anything.
As Chris sat there, helping Noah work through the searches, he needed some caffeine.
“Can I buy you a coffee?” Chris teased. “It’s shitty, but it will definitely keep you awake until about next week.”
The man laughed.
It was just what he needed.
“Yeah, hook a desperate agent up,” Noah said, grinning at him.
Chris headed to the coffee pot and poured them both some caffeine.
“What do you take with it?” he asked.
“Black, please.”
Chris added cream to his, and then carried them across the morgue. It was quiet in there since everyone was focused on work for Elizabeth.
“Here you go. Coffee is served.”
Chris sat beside the man.
“How long have you been with the FBI?” Noah asked as they took a coffee break.
“Not long,” Chris admitted. “Less than a year.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d been with the FBI long. I haven’t seen you around the office,” Noah admitted. “We usually get Doctor Dread,” he stated.
Chris laughed.
“Can you imagine having that as your last name, and then actually wanting to be an ME? That is proof that the universe has a sense of humor.”
“I know. Too funny.”
Chris sipped his coffee.
“Well, you bought me coffee, want to get drinks sometime? Happy hour?”
Chris was just glad to be making friends. It had been a tough road.
“Sure. I don’t mind a happy hour get together. After digging in bodies all week, I definitely can use a beer or three.”
As he drank his coffee, he felt something touch his leg. When he looked down at his lap, Noah’s hand was on his thigh.
It was dangerously close to his personal property. Well, Elizabeth’s.
His eyes went big.
Shit!
“Yeah, that has to be hard.”
Chris swallowed. Hard was going to be getting out of this predicament. Was there something in the water? The ME was hitting on him and grabbing his junk, and now an agent—a male agent—was hitting on him too.
Shit!
Chris needed to clarify.
“Wait! Did you mean drinks or DRINKS?”
Noah laughed.
“Well, the first, but definitely the latter too. You’re an interesting man, Doctor Leonard.”
“Who is completely heterosexual and in a relationship with a woman.”
Noah stared at him.
“Really? I would have sworn you were sending out those gay vibes. My gaydar is normally spot on.”
Well, that wasn’t good.
Did Chris look and act gay?
Not that it mattered, but now he was curious how a woman and man had both hit on him in two days.
“Yeah, no. My girlfriend will attest. I’m strictly heterosexual.”
Noah laughed it off like it was nothing.
“My bad. The sexy ones are always taken. No harm—no foul.”
Chris sipped his coffee and didn’t know what the hell to think. It was funny, but it wasn’t.
Maybe he needed to stop grooming and grow a beard.
Maybe he needed to wear jeans and boots.
Maybe he needed to…
His laptop beeped, signaling that there was something that popped up in the system.
Chris pulled it up.
“The prints are back from the gun that Elizabeth absconded from the guy at the restaurant.”
“What did they pull?” he asked.
Chris scrolled through the information.
Then he whistled.
“Not only did they come back with some thug with the name Tommy ‘The Greek’, the ballistics came back matching some unsolved homicides.”
Noah gave him a high-five.
“My friend, you might be good luck to run information. I never get that lucky.”
Chris didn’t think he meant with a search.
“We had better ask Elizabeth to head in. She’s going to want this ASAP. This helps her with the mob portion of this investigation.”
“Do you want to call her?”
“Yes. I’ll handle it,” he said, getting up to grab his phone. Honestly, he was feeling a little uncomfortable now. His best bet was to get his girl there and to put space between him and Noah.
He was big on personal space.
And the man had invaded it.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Mistress Melody’s
Home
Nooner Surprise
When Elizabeth showed up at the address, she was the one who knocked on the door, simply to keep up the charade of her wanting to buy sex.
It boggled her mind that the woman never asked questions when she called. It had been way too easy.
She’d asked for sex.
She was offered a time slot.
And that was it.
No probing inquiries, no suspicion, and no paranoia that a cop was about to bust her.
What a way to keep your business running. Either the hookers in Boston just didn’t care, or…there was a reason. They might be protected.
It happened in DC all the time. They had big clients, and that meant they were safe. When a cop arrested one, a congressman would get them off—you know…in return for all the times the hooker had gotten him off.
All she had to hope now was the mob wasn’t tied to this interview too. It was getting frustrating as hell as she tried to figure out what was up, and what was down.
As her temporary partner hid just out of sight, Mistress Melody opened the door and stood there in some scandalous, sexy outfit.
“Are you El
izabeth?” she asked, leaning on the doorjamb with a crop in her hand.
She lifted a brow.
Yeah, this woman was the epitome of ‘rough’.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
The woman eyed her up as if she was on the lunch menu. Boy, was she in for a huge surprise.
“Well, I won’t mind this at all. I promise to make you cum so many times…”
She stopped her by pulling her badge.
“The sexy pussy talk stops right here, Mistress Melody, or whatever your name is.”
The woman gawked at the badge.
“Jesus. All the sexy ones are cops. I can’t believe this! When I find out who ratted me out…”
She laughed—not at the ‘ratted out’ part, but the ‘sexy’ part. It amused her that a hooker thought she was hot. This was proof she led a weird, weird life.
“Thank you, I think.”
“What did I do now?” Melody asked.
Where to begin?
Elizabeth whistled, and her partner rounded the building. It was clear the woman was not happy when she saw him heading her way.
“I didn’t talk money. You can’t bust me.”
“Relax, and stop the scowl. I’m not here to bust you. I’m here to talk to you about one of your clients.”
Well, that made her scowl even more.
“I don’t talk about them. Then you lose them, and they pay my bills. It’s a funny thing, but I like having heat in the winter and food year-round.”
“Well, this client is a suspect in a serial killing spree. Maybe that’s not the client you want hanging out and tying you up. You know how serial killers love hookers.”
She had a point.
“Who are we talking about as a serial killer?” she asked, praying it wasn’t one of her big spenders.
That would suck.
“Daryl Prince?”
She actually looked relaxed at the mention of his name.
“Can we come in or do you want to do this out here?” Elizabeth asked.
“Nice threads,” Alex stated, pointing at the garters, leather, and all the other accoutrements that went with it.
“Yeah, fine, come in. I’m only doing this because if he’s killing, I want no part of that. I draw my line at sex.”
Well, that was good to know.
They had a hooker who liked to keep it on the up and up.
Oh, the irony.
Inside her place, it looked like every other normal home, except there was a shelf full of lube, sex aids, and handcuffs right before you headed down a hallway.
She did NOT want to know what went on back there. Elizabeth had partnered up with vice plenty of times already. She had a pretty good idea.
Elizabeth pointed at Alex, who was grinning a little too much.
“Don’t do it.”
He closed his mouth.
“Now what’s this about?” she asked, taking a seat on a Queen Anne chair.
“Professor Prince used you for an alibi.”
She laughed.
“He did, did he? Well, I’ll make sure we have a stern talk when I see him next. He’s been a bad boy.”
“Uh, he told us he had a session where he got ‘rough’.”
She laughed even more at that.
“Yeah, no. I’m a mistress. I dominate. I don’t let a man put his hands on me unless he crawls first.”
She looked at Alex.
“Want to lick my boots?”
Elizabeth couldn’t help herself. Opportunities like this didn’t come around often.
He did bail on her as a partner.
“Yeah, Alex, give them a lick. That sounds hygienic and something you’d like.”
He shook his head.
“Sorry, but I’m more the spanker than the spankee. I’ll take a pass.”
“Well, now, I know too much about you,” she stated.
“Uh, who is paying for this fake session?” Melody asked. “I booked you when I could have had a real customer in to see me. My time is valuable.”
“Newsflash. Your time is ILLEGAL. You’re lucky I don’t make your life hell. Want to testify at this killer’s trial? Won’t the judge be amused when you’re called as the dominatrix witness?”
Again, she had a point.
“Fine. Talk.”
“Tell me about his last session with you,” she stated, getting this alibi rolling.
“He came in, he had his hour, and then he was done. I sent him home, and he didn’t get off.”
“Uh, isn’t that the point?” Elizabeth asked. “He pays to get off? Isn’t that why men like hookers?”
She was confused as hell, and she hoped Melody could help explain that.
“No, he likes to be humiliated. I make him work for it, and most times, he doesn’t want to get off. He likely goes home and jerks off.”
She looked at Alex.
That was really interesting since they had a killer who was taking out his aggression on innocent women by raping them. That would fit.
He shows up here, gets tormented by a mistress, and then finds some girl to abuse and rape.
This was NOT looking good for Daryl Prince.
“So, Professor Prince likes to be abused,” Elizabeth stated. “And he takes it?”
She laughed.
“He begs for more. I have it on video.”
“Yeah, he mentioned you did. Do you record all of your sex sessions?”
“No, not all. Some men want anonymity. Others want to watch what happened in our session, and for a fee, I give them the video. They go home and whack off to it.”
Well, that was…gross.
“Daryl likes his sessions recorded. That man has some serious issues when it comes to being degraded.”
Oh, she could only imagine.
“Well, getting his ass kicked for shits and giggles might be considered degrading,” Alex offered.
“To each their own. Like I said, it pays the bills, and technically, I don’t have sex with him. So, that’s not illegal, right?” she asked.
Now the woman was worried about felonious acts?
“About the video?”
“Do you want it, gorgeous? Maybe you can watch it and see how I work. Then you can come back. I’ll take it easy on you as you get me off.”
Alex snickered.
“She’s more the dominatrix in any situation,” he stated. “You don’t want to make her mad. She can do what you do and so much more. Degrading men is her specialty,” he teased.
“HAR-HAR, Alex. I’m going to bust you down right here if you don’t zip it.”
“See?”
Melody winked at her.
“A woman after my own heart.”
Oh, they could both laugh it up. She was going to accept Melody’s offer of the video.
It looked like she was going to be watching some porn later that night. She hoped Chris didn’t mind.
Then again, he would laugh about it and make some funny jokes. She knew him.
“I’ll take it,” she said.
The woman grabbed it from her desk in the corner. She handed it to her.
It was marked ‘abuse session- DP’.
That, for some reason, skeezed her right out. This man had a few screws loose, and she knew it.
On top of that, he lied to them.
Elizabeth couldn’t believe that he sent them there. He was likely thinking that they wouldn’t check his alibi, or that if he wasn’t guilty, this was a far better option than going to jail for life.
This was why she didn’t ignore any little lead. If you skipped over things, you missed shit like this. They had a man who obviously had some deep-seated women issues.
She pulled up Mirel’s TOD on her phone to finish up her questioning. It was tagged as eleven at night.
“So, he was with you at what time?”
“It’s time-stamped.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, I’m not watching it right now, so help a girl out and answer the ques
tion, or I can make you pop it in and we can watch it right now. I hope you don’t have any clients show up while I’m here. I’ll be the one answering the door.”
She sighed but did what Elizabeth asked.
“He left at ten thirty, horny and punished. Are you sure you don’t want a date?” she asked Elizabeth. “I’d love to put your tits in a vice.”
She stared at her.
“If that’s your pick-up line, you need a new one. My tits will be in my bra, in my shirt, beneath my Kevlar, and for shits and giggles—in a bikini while on a beach with my boyfriend. They will never be in a vice. EVER.”
“Try it. You might…”
“Punch you in the face if you go there.”
She shut up.
Alex was amused as hell.
“I told you she was dominatrix type and all kinds of bossy.”
She pointed at him.
He got the hint.
“So he was definitely gone by ten thirty?”
She sashayed herself to her desk and pulled a binder out. She opened, scanned, and then handed it to her.
“Line ten.”
Elizabeth and Alex checked it out. It did indeed say that he arrived at his nine at night appointment, and was checked out at ten thirty.
“I had an eleven. He was gone before my client arrived. I make my appointments show a little earlier so they can get into their gear.”
“Gear?”
“Leather, chains, male chastity belts.”
“Wait,” Alex said. “How does a male wear a chastity belt? I thought that was for the ladies.”
Melody picked one up from the shelf.
“You put the flaccid penis in it, and it keeps it from getting erect when they’re excited.”
“That has to hurt.”
“Yes, that’s the point.”
Alex looked horrified, and it was Elizabeth’s turn to laugh at him.
Ahhhh, the tables had turned.
“Can I borrow that for my partner here?” she teased.
“Bite your tongue, LaRue. That’s sick and twisted. My willy is always going to be free.”
Elizabeth pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the binder for evidence. She was going to ask the man why he’d lied about the time. She couldn’t wait to hear his explanation either.
Dawn of Evil_FBI Flashback Page 29