by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“Which would be?”
“Power. Wealth. Immortality.”
My stomach twisted, but I told myself the smell from the grill was getting to me. Jake could be weird, all right. And serious. He wasn’t so much as cracking a smile.
“About that creep with roaming hands,” I said, hoping to get his take on the vampire cult. “Do you know anything about him?”
Jake shook his head. “I’ve never noticed him with Mowry before. Have you?”
“Uh, no.” That was the truth since I’d never even been in the bar before. “He’s probably one of Mowry’s cult members.”
“Cult?”
“You know, the vampire cult.”
Jake snorted. “Pretentious little pissants. They wouldn’t know a vampire if one bit them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “If there really were vampires, you mean.”
“How do you know there aren’t?”
I gave him a look. Of course he was joking, but I played along with him anyway. “I’m a rational woman.”
“Not everything in life is rational.”
“No, murder isn’t, for example,” I said. “Nor draining women of their blood. I really have heard rumors about the vampire cult doing such a thing. Actually, Thora pretty much confirmed them.” Even though it had been to my twin rather than to me. “I just hope Mowry doesn’t know she was talking to me about it. Or to anyone else.”
“You sound worried.”
“I am. It doesn’t help that Thora didn’t show tonight, either.” I eyed him to see his reaction when I said “It makes me wonder what happened to her.”
“So call her and find out.”
“Are you kidding? She can’t afford a cell.” Or so Silke had told me. “And I don’t know where she lives, either. Well, I do know she’s living with Mowry. I just don’t know where that might be. You wouldn’t know, would you?”
“Sorry.”
Was he? Rather than sounding concerned, Jake seemed aloof. His eyes were hooded and trained on me. I shifted in my chair and tried to think of a new tactic.
“For someone who has been at the bar awhile, you don’t seem too connected. I thought bartenders knew everything about their customers.”
“One could say the same about waitresses.”
Here we were at an old-fashioned standoff, and me without a tiebreaker line.
Then Jake said, “I haven’t been working for Desiree all that long, remember.”
Of course I didn’t remember. And Silke hadn’t told me how long anyone had been there, something I hadn’t thought to ask. I didn’t know how to respond.
Luckily for me, the waitress arrived with our breakfasts. She set an oversize plate in front of each of us. For the next few minutes, food was the center of interest and conversation fell to the side. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. Or maybe I hadn’t been hungry until after expending the unexpected energy of fending off an attack.
“So tell me about yourself,” Jake said when half his plate was empty.
“What’s to tell? You know I’m an out-of-work actress. Out of theater work,” I amended, not liking the topic. I didn’t want to talk about Silke. “What about you?” I asked, turning the question back on him. “What’s your excuse for bartending?”
“Paying the rent. Buying you breakfast.”
That he was being as evasive as I came across to me loud and clear. But why? And after working with Silke, why had he chosen this particular time to try to hook up with her?
Not that any actual hooking up would be going on, I thought, not in the literal sense. As I pierced a whole sausage with my fork and nibbled off the end, I suddenly realized Jake was staring at my mouth. I shoved the rest of the sausage in and grasped at a way to get our conversation back on track.
But all I could think of was, “You don’t seem like the bartender type.”
“What type am I?”
“Someone who should be in charge.”
“I am in charge. Of myself, anyway. The rest of the world has to take responsibility for itself.”
I was getting vibes off him again, as if I’d hit too close to home about something he didn’t want to discuss.
Jake gave me an appraising look. “Why did you accept my invitation to breakfast this time?”
This time? Silke hadn’t mentioned any other invitations.
So I echoed his “This time?” My nerves fluttered as I hedged, “You mean the only time.”
“Uh-uh. A couple of weeks back I asked if you wanted to meet me for coffee.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, wondering if it was true. I simply didn’t believe it. Silke knew what was at stake here, so she wouldn’t hold out. Even so, my senses were all at alert as I tried to remain casual, because I couldn’t figure out why he was testing me. “You’re confusing me with someone else.”
“Mmm. The Silke I know would get flustered rather than get rough with some guy who came on to her. She doesn’t have a sharp retort in her repertoire. She wouldn’t answer a question with a question.”
I pretended to go along with him. “It sounds like you know this Silke of yours pretty well.”
His gaze sharpened. “She’s not mine, but you…well, that’s an interesting proposition.”
A provocative statement from a potentially dangerous man, I decided. He had made me. Not that I would admit it. What reason did he have for playing games with me? My fluttering pulse shot into overdrive. I forced a laugh and made another Silke expression.
“I’m tired.” Of playing games with him, though I didn’t finish my statement, either. “Thanks for breakfast. It’s been…well, unusual if entertaining.” Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten what I’d hoped for. Instead, I was simply suspicious of Jake. “But as much fun as I’m having, I guess I’d better head for home. A girl needs her sleep, and it’s late.”
“Almost dawn,” Jake added glancing toward the windows, where the first streaks lightened the sky. “Let me take care of the check and I’ll walk you to your car. City streets can be dangerous. You never know what might be waiting for you out there.”
If only he knew how true that statement was.
Or did he?
With her good eye, she stares at me. The other rolls along her cheek. “It’s about time.”
“I never gave up.”
“Words don’t mean anything.”
“I’m on it, I swear. I’ll find your murderer if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“Until you do, I can never rest….”
I awoke to an annoying racket. I pulled the pillow over my head, but I could still hear it. The telephone had no pity. At least it had pulled me out of another unwelcome dream. Groaning, I rolled over, and after eyeing the clock, which told me I’d had little more than four hours of sleep, I picked up the receiver.
“This had better be important,” I groused.
“Don’t you check your messages or answer them?” Silke asked. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I got home too late.”
“Well, don’t scare me like that again, okay?”
Wanting to clarify things Jake had said, I told her about having breakfast with him and how he’d suggested that he’d asked her out before.
“He was lying,” Silke said. “But why?”
“He was testing me. And I don’t know why. But he guessed the truth, that I wasn’t you. He thinks he knows anyway. Not that I admitted to anything.”
“Well that’s that, then,” Silke said. “It’s over.”
“No, it’s not. I’m going back to the bar tonight.”
“You were just supposed to go for one night, to see what you could find out.”
“I barely got started with that cast of characters.”
“But if Jake—”
“What? You think he’ll tell everyone?”
“He’s not like that. He minds his own business. Well, usually. But what if he’s not on the up and up?”
A thought I had entertained. Not only had I
not gotten anything on Thora or Raven, but also I hadn’t gotten anything on him. He’d been as evasive as I.
Almost as if he’d extended the breakfast invitation so that he could interrogate me…
“I can handle him,” I said with more confidence than I was feeling. “I can beat him at his own game.”
“That’s important to you, isn’t it? Winning, I mean.”
“There’s nothing to win here. Just a mystery to solve.” Maybe a murderer to put behind bars.
“But you didn’t get anything off Jake.”
“You’re right.” Nothing other than raised suspicion. “But earlier, someone attacked me on the way to my car—a Goth girl, probably on drugs. That makes me wonder if the murderer is really a man.”
“Omigod!”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine. But I’m going back to the bar tonight.”
Silke tried to talk me out of it, insisted it was too dangerous, apologized for getting me into this mess in the first place. As far as I was concerned, no apology was necessary. After being attacked by a woman who apparently had been drugged out, I was sure something dark and dangerous was continuing to go on in the area. And I was going to get to the heart of the matter.
I was going to put LaTonya to rest.
After assuring Silke I would be at her place with some kind of take-out dinner so that she could do my makeup again, I cut our conversation short.
I dressed, then sat down in front of my computer. Part of me thought I should be investigating Jake DeAtley, as well as the other key players who hung around the bar—Desiree, Blaise, Chung, Mowry.
I started with Jake.
I Googled him. No links. 411-ed him. No phone. Searched the white pages. No address.
I tried the others. My frustration continued.
I wanted to check them all through the CPD system, but I didn’t have a squad with a computer, so I would have to report in to an office or to the academy and log in. Unfortunately that meant that I would leave a record of my search that could be traced back to me. Not good. Not in my circumstances.
And if I leaned on Stella too much, I would raise her suspicions. I was supposed to be teaching rather than detecting, after all. So approaching her could wait one more day until I had more to go on.
I tried another search engine with the same results. Nada. I could hardly believe it.
You couldn’t find everyone on the net, but nearly everyone. But not these five. Not one of them. Strange that they all had that in common.
If I hadn’t seen them all with my own eyes, I would think that not one of them existed.
Chapter 6
I took a long nap before heading for Heart of Darkness—I had to report to the training academy the next morning, and I wouldn’t get off until after midnight. Sunday was an early night at the bar. Luckily, the bad dreams stayed at bay.
I entered the bar with a sizzle that had nothing to do with Jake DeAtley, no matter how he stared at me when I swung by the bar, done up in Silke’s finery—a black velvet dress with loose elbow-length sleeves and a plunging neckline revealing the lace edging on a red French-cut bra. The biggest problem with this outfit other than its making me highly uncomfortable—who had ever decided bras needed wires, anyway?—was hiding my gun. I’d had to holster it under the full skirts of the dress and open the seam of a pocket so I could get to it if necessary.
Since Raven hadn’t shown up, I decided to concentrate on LaTonya. Who’d known her, whom she hung with, and whom she might have been with that night three months before. My first several attempts were met with shrugged shoulders and grunted denials.
Then I handed a drink to a fuchsia-haired Goth who called herself Sheena and asked, “Do you by any chance know a girl named LaTonya who used to hang here?”
Sheena’s brow furrowed. “LaTonya?”
“Fair-skinned African American, really tall? She’s not a Goth. At least I don’t think so. But apparently she likes the atmosphere here.”
“Oh, yeah. Toni. She came in a few times…not lately, though.”
A thrill shot through me, but I tried to appear surprised. “Oh, really? Well, do you know anything about her?”
Sheena blinked and her expression turned curious. “Who wants to know?”
“One of my customers wants an intro. He said he’d make it worth my while if I could hook them up. Normally, I don’t do that kind of stuff, but I’ve got rent to pay.”
“Yeah, tough,” Sheena said. “So ask Elvin. He was into her.”
Elvin Mowry, leader of the vampire cult. Great. He’d been into Thora, as well.
Another of those vampire-cult references I’d found in my research flashed through my mind.
A young woman had decided she was ready to “feed” and the leader cut an area below his wrist as he was having sex with her. She sucked his blood as they came together. She slept a while, then needed more blood, and went after another of the members to satisfy her. After that, she swore the only thing that stopped her hunger was more blood while having sex.
I shuddered inside and said, “So Elvin was interested, huh?” I hoped that outwardly I didn’t show what I was thinking. “Anyone else?”
Sheena shrugged. “I saw her wandering around the shops. Maybe one of the owners has info on her.”
“Good thought. Thanks.”
I moved on and took my next order. It wouldn’t do to press Sheena for information too hard. I didn’t want her getting suspicious and passing on the word that I was asking too many questions at once.
The tattoo on LaTonya’s thigh…could she have gotten it at Taboo Tattoo?
I’d noticed tattoos on most of the Goth customers, male and female, and suddenly it occurred to me there might be some significance to the type of tattoo. I also wondered if Thora’d had one. Maybe Silke would know.
I glanced over to where Mowry sat, the centerpiece to his minions, as I liked to call them. I wondered if there was a way to get him alone without giving him ideas. Blaise would probably be the better place to start. Or so I hoped.
Now, how to get to Blaise. I checked my watch. Taboo Tattoo would only be open for another hour. Either I had to go into the shop on my break and possibly tick off Desiree for doing another disappearing act, or I had to take the chance that he would come straight into the bar for an after-work drink as Silke told me he often did.
I saw my opportunity a quarter of an hour later, when Blaise Allcock walked in the door and sat himself at the bar.
“I ought to change my hours on Sunday,” I heard him grouse to Jake. “The number of customers hardly makes it worth my while to open up at all.”
“Must have something to do with church day,” Jake agreed, setting a goblet of red wine down in front of the tattoo and piercing artist.
“Avoidance or something.”
Blaise was an odd one, I thought, taking a better look at him than I had the night before.
His bleached hair was shoulder length, his skin had a natural pallor. He did wear makeup, if far more subtle than the Goths—his gray eyes were lined and lids colored with shades of gray from dove to charcoal. And the faint blush across his lips wasn’t natural, either. His nails were long for a man and polished with a transparent silver. He wore tight black pants, which I swore held a cup to enhance his sexuality. But his poet’s shirt trimmed with ribbons and lace and showing off his hairless chest was definitely feminine. I didn’t think he was gay, merely sexually ambiguous—just like the name Blaise.
Perhaps his taste in sex partners was all-inclusive. I simply couldn’t read him more directly than that. The question was how to be subtle yet get what I needed.
I slid up to the bar and gave Jake my order. “Two glasses of Shiraz and a Bloody Cosmo.” Then I smiled at Blaise. “What’s new at Tattoo?”
“Awesome chandelier earrings.”
He swung his hair over one shoulder and my gaze immediately shot to his ear, but all he wore was a sparkly stud.
“My favorites are the bloodred cr
ystals,” he told me.
“How much?”
“A steal at thirty-five.”
“Hmm. Sounds like.”
“They would look beautiful against your long throat,” he said, his voice low, his lids lowering as he considered it. “Just like drops of blood.”
Blaise was certainly dramatic. Or perhaps I ought to say affected. Purposely. He sold himself as part of his product.
“I’ll think about it.” I glanced Jake’s way. The order was about filled, so I got to the point with Blaise. “Say, did Toni ever get that tattoo she wanted?”
“Toni?”
“Tall girl, African American. Not a Goth.” I bluffed. “She wanted one of those great winged gargoyles on her thigh.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Blaise said, just as Jake set the drinks on her tray. “Not that my memory is the best, what with thousands of customers over the years.”
“Thousands?” I echoed, disappointed that he didn’t seem to have any memory of LaTonya.
“Tens of thousands.”
“You must be older than you look, then.” Which now that I got up close and personal, I surmised to be fortyish.
He tilted his head and looked at me through eyelashes thick enough to inspire envy in any woman. “You might be surprised.”
I would swear Blaise was flirting with me. And from behind the bar, Jake was scowling. What? He couldn’t take listening to a little banter?
I pulled the tray toward me, intending to take off. “Customers. In the dozens,” I added jokingly. “I can’t remember them all, either.”
“Hey, come see those earrings tomorrow,” Blaise said. “And maybe I can talk you into one of my very special tattoos.”
“The earrings sound like a possible. But needles?” My stomach clenched and I shivered visibly. “Those I can do without.”
I felt his eyes follow me through the crowd.
Only later did I wonder if I’d made a mistake about the needle thing. Silke had never told me about getting a tattoo, but for all I knew she could have several in places that I hadn’t seen in a while. I’d have to remember to ask her, and if necessary, do damage control.