Her Last Whisper

by Karen Robards

  “It could have been Giselle who scratched her,” Buzz said thoughtfully as they all piled into the rental car. They took their usual places by default: Tony driving, Charlie in the front passenger seat, Lena and Buzz in the back, with Michael between them. Michael was sprawled expansively, with his legs stretched out and his arms spread across the back of the seat behind Lena and Buzz. They had no idea he was there, of course, but Charlie noticed that they tended to hug their respective doors, and that occasionally Buzz would flinch a little if the back of his neck got too close to the electric energy of Michael’s arm extended behind it.

  “It could have been anybody who scratched her.” Tony sounded tired as he drove out of the lot and turned left toward the Strip. “Anybody could have gotten hold of Giselle’s bracelet.”

  “But first they had to get it from Giselle.” Lena leaned forward in her seat, her hands clasped together in her lap. The white skirt and short-sleeved jacket she’d changed into after their midday shower made her seem to glow faintly in the dark. In contrast, Charlie wore a silky black sleeveless blouse with her standard black pants and felt like she probably blended into the shadows almost too well. With her hair smoothed back into a low ponytail and her only jewelry her silver earrings and Michael’s watch, she felt way too low-key for the flash that was Las Vegas.

  “The killer didn’t take Giselle’s bracelet and scratch Destiny Sherman with it,” Charlie said. Since she still wasn’t able to make any sense of what the voice that was attached to Destiny’s body meant, she tucked that problem away to be worried over later. “It doesn’t fit with anything we know about him. In fact, I’m confident in saying that a woman made those scratches.”

  “But who?” Lena’s eyes shone with intensity, making them as easy to see in the dark as her white outfit. “And why?”

  “Maybe the women were forced into having some kind of cage match,” Buzz speculated aloud. “You know, like that last guy we caught pitted victims against each other.” He stared thoughtfully out the window with his fingers templed beneath his chin. “Maybe the match was with Giselle, and the loser—say, Destiny Sherman—got dumped.”

  “If so, she got dumped alive,” Tony said. “And she had the bracelet. Doesn’t fit.”

  “Unless she took the bracelet, and this guy thought she was dead when he dumped her,” Michael put in.

  Charlie repeated that.

  “We need to go over every moment of Destiny Sherman’s day on the day she disappeared,” Lena said.

  “Crane and I talked to her mother.” Tony braked as they hit an intersection, looked both ways, and made another left. City lights were all around them now. The huge Technicolor glow that was the Strip lit up the near horizon like a rainbow among candles. “She said she hadn’t seen her daughter for a month. There’s a half-sister in town. We’ll talk to her tomorrow. Crane, did we get Destiny Sherman’s credit card records and bank statements in yet? They ought to help us track her movements that day.”

  “Yeah, we—Uh, wait.” Buzz straightened in his seat, staring out the window. “Stop. Turn in here. Do you see what the name of that place is?”

  They all looked where he was pointing.

  A neon sign riding the roof of a long, low, warehouselike building said Red, White, and Blue Club. Under the peaked eave that rose above the entrance, a soaring eagle was picked out in deep yellow lights.

  “Oh, my God,” Lena breathed.

  “Tam,” Charlie said.

  “Hellfire,” Michael muttered. A glance back showed Charlie that his arms had left the back of the seat. He was sitting up and frowning out the window just like the rest of them.

  “Worth a look.” Tony yanked the wheel, and a moment later they were cruising the packed lot for a parking space.

  “What is this place?” Lena asked as they got out. Seen up close, the one-story building looked as large as a strip mall.

  “Busy,” Michael said at the same time as Buzz answered, “No clue.”

  Two burly bouncers stationed outside the door had a better answer: it was a nightclub for military veterans, or serving military on leave. Tony flashed his credentials and they were allowed in. Raucous music and the smell of barbecue and beer were the first things to hit Charlie’s senses. The next thing she registered was that the place was dimly lit and the air-conditioning was cold. In one encompassing glance, she saw couples grinding together on a dance floor in the center of the room, waitresses in red, white, and blue sequined bikinis weaving in among the many dozens of small, candlelit tables set around the dance floor, a buffet, and a bar. Various displays on the walls were highlighted by spotlights, but Charlie was too far away to see what they featured. On top of the bar, g-string-clad women in cowboy hats and boots danced to the music.

  Tony stopped a waitress and asked where to find the manager. The waitress pointed, and they all followed Tony to the bar.

  It was a classic wooden bar with a mirrored wall behind it, long enough so that it required a dozen bartenders and accommodated half a dozen girls dancing on top of it. Patrons sat on bar stools or leaned up against it, and with Tony taking point they had to wedge their way through the crowd to reach the burly, gray-haired man behind the cash register. He was tall, with ruddy skin, uneven features, and a slight paunch that his tucked-in white shirt and the green apron tied around his waist did nothing to conceal.

  Once they reached him, Tony identified himself and showed his credentials.

  “You’re the manager?” Tony half yelled to be heard over the music.

  “And owner. Ed McGowan. What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to show you some pictures, ask if you’ve ever seen any of these women.”

  McGowan nodded assent, and Tony turned to Lena. “Show him the pictures.”

  Lena pulled out her cell phone and started showing him the victims’ pictures. She clicked through them one at a time, giving him ample time to look. Each time he shook his head.

  “You’re that serial killer team that’s been all over TV today, aren’t you?” McGowan asked, his eyes sweeping over them when they were done. “Those the girls who were killed?”

  “Yes, to both,” Tony answered. “Is there anything you can tell us about them?”

  McGowan shook his head. “If they’ve ever been in here, I’ve never seen ’em. ’Course, it’s a big place, and we get a lot of people coming in and out. A new crowd every night.”

  “Yeah.” Tony pulled out his card and handed it to McGowan. “If you think of something, would you give me a call?”

  “Sure will.” McGowan tucked the card into his shirt pocket, then waved a hand at the buffet. “We got the best food in town, no joke. You folks are welcome to help yourselves. On the house.” He beckoned to a waitress. “Susan. Get them a table. Anything they want, it’s free.”

  “Appreciate it,” Tony said. McGowan nodded and turned away to ring up a tab while the waitress, Susan, a pretty blonde with super-sized assets above a tiny waist, beckoned them to follow her and took off, weaving with practiced dexterity among the tables. The sparkle of her sequins made her easy to keep track of despite the gloom. “I was thinking fast food, but this would give us a chance to look around, see if there’s anything here we’re missing.”

  “I could eat,” Buzz admitted.

  Charlie’s stomach growled in agreement, and she realized that it was after ten p.m. and her last meal had been a drive-through hamburger hours before.

  “We don’t have time to eat.” Lena’s voice was sharp. “We have to keep going.”

  “We’ve talked about this, remember? We have to eat, and we have to sleep, or we’re not going to be able to do our jobs to the best of our ability,” Tony told her patiently. “Keep in mind that we’re not the only people working on this. The local agents and the local PD are on it, too. Everything that can be done is being done.”

  Lena looked at him, then growled, “Fine,” and turned to follow the waitress. The rest of them fell in behind her. Susan showed them to a
round six-top tucked into a corner, took their drink order, told them to help themselves to the buffet, and left.

  The buffet featured down-home Southern food, with chicken wings, pulled pork barbecue, corn on the cob, green beans, and much more. Wishing vainly for a sweater as the brisk air-conditioning slid over her bare arms, Charlie filled a plate, then headed back toward the table. Staying close to her side, Michael was uncharacteristically silent. His face was absolutely unreadable as she sat down and he dropped into the chair next to her. She frowned at him, but before she could say anything Tony joined her. He was still standing, still putting his plate on the table as another arctic blast of air-conditioning hit her and she shivered.

  “Cold?” He’d clearly seen her shiver, and she said, “A little.”

  “Here.” Sliding out of his jacket, he walked around behind her and draped it over her shoulders. Glad of its warmth, she tugged the edges of the jacket closer and smiled up at him.

  “Thank you.”

  Feeling the steady regard of a pair of sky blue eyes, she glanced at Michael. His mouth had a sardonic twist to it, but he still didn’t say anything.

  She frowned.

  “Something wrong?” Tony sat down on her other side and looked at her with raised brows. She realized that he was referring to her frown.

  “I’ve got the beginnings of a headache, is all.”

  “You see something back there in the morgue?”

  She shook her head. “I heard something. A woman’s voice. It seems to be attached to Destiny Sherman. I think it might belong to one of the victims. She basically says, Please don’t kill me, and then she screams.”

  Tony looked at her for a moment longer as she sipped the iced tea the waitress had brought while they were at the buffet. Then he reached over and took her hand in his, careful to avoid the Band-Aid that protected her injured finger. His felt strong and warm. Hers, she knew, felt icy. She felt icy. Icy enough to shiver inside Tony’s too big and very warm jacket.

  “When we get through with this investigation, I’m going to take you out to dinner to the fanciest place around and we’re not going to talk about serial killers or murder victims or anything but how beautiful you are and how much I’m enjoying getting to know you.” Tony’s voice was low and intimate. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it, then looked at her steadily over it. His lean jaw was dark with five o’clock shadow and his eyes were intent on her face and his shoulders did a nice job of filling out his white shirt and all in all he was looking seriously handsome. Unfortunately, her heart didn’t speed up. Her pulse didn’t race. The brush of Tony’s lips against her skin had been pleasant, but nothing more. The reason, of course, was sprawled in the chair beside her. She felt Michael’s eyes on her, but he still wasn’t talking and she refused to look at him. If she did, her eyes would probably blaze something like You are ruining my life at him. If it weren’t for the twist of cosmic fate that had foisted him on her, she absolutely already would have embarked on a romance with Tony, who was just exactly the kind of man she was looking for. “We’re going to talk about the weather. About the TV shows you like to watch. About our hobbies.” Tony kissed her hand again, sighed, and let it go. “But for now, tell me what the damned voice said. Before Crane and Kaminsky join us.”

  Charlie did, pretty much word for word, and told him, too, about how the gurgle made her suspect that those might be the woman’s dying words. She also cautioned him that she couldn’t be sure, that the voice could be anything and might not even be real.

  “You think it’s real, and I do, too.” He glanced up and shut up as Lena and Buzz reached the table. Lena’s expression was so stony, and Buzz’s was so exasperated, concluding that they’d argued their way through the buffet line was a no-brainer.

  “Crane thinks we should go straight back to the hotel after this and go to bed.” Lena plopped her plate on the table and flung herself down in her chair. “He says I’m obviously fried.”

  “I did not say—” Buzz started to sit down in the chair Michael occupied, jumped, frowned, looked at it askance, and moved to another one. The slight smirk on Michael’s face was the giveaway, although Charlie had no idea what he’d done.

  “Enough,” Tony said, biting into a chicken wing with apparent relish. “Kaminsky, fill me in on where we are with our hit list. Any names popping out at you?”

  Lena told him about the unfortunate overabundance, and they spent the rest of the meal talking about the case. As they were finishing, Charlie excused herself to go to the restroom. Michael strolled along beside her. He’d been so quiet for so long that she gave him a sharp look and asked tartly, “What is this, your strong, silent side?” the moment she felt that she was out of earshot of the table.

  His answering smile was tigerish. “Didn’t want to interfere with your lovefest with Dudley.”

  That was bullshit and she knew it. She was just about to call him on it when her gaze happened to fall on one of the spotlighted display areas that she was passing. Or, more specifically, on the wall-mounted, framed photos in the spotlighted display area. The center one, a poster-sized image of a young man in a military uniform, meant nothing to her. It was the image beside it, an eleven-by-fourteen framed photo of four young men in uniform standing together in a desert setting, that stopped her in her tracks.

  One of the men was Michael.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  There was absolutely no doubt in her mind. “That’s you,” Charlie said unnecessarily. The guy in the picture was a lot younger, probably somewhere around his mid-twenties, and his tawny hair was cut military short, but there was no mistaking the square jaw or the chiseled cheekbones, the straight nose, the beautifully carved mouth. The eyes of the man in the picture were narrowed against the sun, but were still unmistakably a dazzling sky blue. He was taller than his companions and broader of shoulder, and the unbuttoned shirt he wore with well-worn fatigues revealed his wide, smooth chest and muscled abs. He was bronzed and laughing and gorgeous.

  In other words, he was Michael.

  He didn’t say a word. Looking at the display more closely, she discovered that one of the guys in the picture with him was the man in the poster-sized photo in the center of the display. Framed eight by tens were lined up on either side of it, and her eyes widened as she realized that several of the photos—one taken right here in this bar, showing both men with their arms around nearly naked cowgirls—featured the guy in the poster and Michael.

  Then she glanced up at the top of the display and read the caption: A Fallen Hero.

  Her breath caught. She looked at Michael.

  His eyes were fastened on the poster at the center of the display. His face could have been carved from stone.

  “He was a friend of yours.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah,” he said, and turned and walked away.

  She hesitated, then grabbed her phone from her purse, snapped off a couple of pictures of the display for future reference, and hurried after him.

  “Fifty feet,” she hissed at him when she caught up, reminding him of the length of the cosmic leash that tethered him to her.

  “Fuck it.” He’d stopped walking when he reached the bar and was leaning against it, looking longingly at the whiskey being tossed back by the man next to him.

  “Talk to me,” Charlie said, sliding in on his other side. The lighting was so dim, and there was so much noise and activity going on around them, including bobbing boobs as a pair of red cowboy boots kicked up their heels not six feet away, that nobody was going to notice her having a one-way conversation with air. And from the granite set of his jaw and the hard glint in his eyes, air needed to talk.

  “I ain’t up for the shrink shit right now, babe.”

  “You’ve been in this bar before.” There was no denying it. She’d seen the picture, and he knew it.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “You might have mentioned it.”

  She thought he wasn’t going to answer
at all, but finally he said, “So I’m mentioning it. A long time ago I visited a Vegas bar with a friend. Woo-hoo.”

  “That’s why you were so dead set against coming to Las Vegas. You have memories here.”

  He looked at her then and said, “Leave it alone, Charlie.”

  His eyes were as cold and remote as the moon.

  “Michael—”

  Before she could say anything more, McGowan loomed in front of her. “Can I get you a drink, young lady?” The owner accompanied the question with a genial smile.

  Charlie didn’t want one, but on the other hand she couldn’t just take up real estate at his bar. “I’ll have a beer. Whatever you have on tap.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. He had a point. She wasn’t going to drink it. What she was going to do was use it as a placeholder while she talked to Michael.

  Who had other ideas.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, pushing back from the bar. But McGowan returned with her beer right at that moment, and as Charlie fumbled in her purse for the money to pay him he said to her, “You’re one of those FBI people, right?”

  Charlie didn’t feel like explaining her exact role with the group, so she simply nodded.

  “Thought so.” He scooped up her money and dropped it into a pocket in his apron, then nodded at the spotlighted wall she’d just left. “I saw you taking pictures of my son.”

  “I said, let’s go,” Michael growled in her ear, but Charlie wasn’t about to leave at that point.

  “Your son?” Her eyes were riveted on McGowan. He wasn’t—couldn’t have been—talking about Michael.

  “Sean.” The old man’s eyes were suddenly bright with pride. “Big picture, middle of the wall over there. First Sergeant Sean McGowan, Marine Force Recon. Killed in action.”

  At his obvious pain Charlie felt a surge of sympathy. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said sincerely.

  “You were taking a picture. Did you know him?”

  “No.” Charlie shook her head. “I wish I had.” As she spoke she pulled her phone out of her purse and pressed a button. Her copy of the photo of the four young marines filled the small screen, and she pointed at the picture of Michael. “I actually—knew—this guy.”