“Dude,” Joe said, “you have got to get laid more often.”
David punched him in the arm as the next employee entered the room, who undoubtedly was wondering why that detective was striking his partner. Joe started to talk to the young lady, and David’s mind began to wander. He was half listening to the same story he had heard from countless female employees. It seemed as if this guy thought he was God’s gift to women. But he perked up when he heard her say, “He did have a date with Lila on Friday.”
David turned to look at her. “Say again?” he asked.
“I said that he and Lila had a date on Friday.”
“Who is Lila?”
“The girl that works in the facts and figures department,” the young girl said rolling her eyes, as if saying, were you not paying attention to me.
“She and Carl had a date on Friday?” he asked again.
“Dude, I’ve said it three times now.” The girl was getting a bit frustrated. “Yes. I told you. Lila had flowers from him the other day with a card saying, ‘see you tonight’. She admitted that she was going to meet him for dinner. You might want to talk to her. Maybe she was a lot smarter than the rest of us. As far as I am concerned, the lecherous ass got what he deserved.”
David turned to look at Joe, “We have got to talk to Lila.”
David then turned back to face the girl, “Thank you for your information. You have been most helpful.”
“Sure, no problem,” she said standing up. “I hope you get laid soon,” she said winking at him as she left.
David turned bright red as Joe laughed hysterically. “It’s not funny,” David said to him.
“You are like tomato red right now,” Joe told him. “Maybe you should go after her.”
“Nah,” David said. “She’s not my type.”
“Why,” Joe countered, “cause you know how to get a hold of her?”
“No, her mouth isn’t shaped as nicely as yours. Let’s see if we can get Lila in here,” David said.
He went out to talk to the receptionist and told her that he wanted to talk to Lila next. He went back into the conference room that was his desk for the day.
“You think she knows anything?” David asked Joe.
“You know that would be way too easy,” Joe said back. “I am hoping that she can shed light on anything. If nothing else, maybe she can tell us what they did Friday night and when the last time she saw him alive was.”
“Me too,” David said and fell into silence. “It would be nice for something to be easy for once.”
He heard the click of heels on the tile floor and looked up as she walked in. It was her, the girl he had been thinking about. The way she was built, the bouncy curls of her hair, it was her. David was sure of it. “Amber?” he said.
The girl looked shocked. “No, I’m Lila. Lila Patterson. You asked to see me.”
David looked at her critically. His instincts told him that this was the girl that he had been with the other night, and his instincts had never proven wrong before. Ok, maybe they had been wrong once or twice, but it was rare. But looking at her, he realized that she didn’t have the same spark of life that Amber had when he was with her the other night.
“Sorry,” he said. “You look exactly like this girl I know.”
“Well,” Lila retorted. “You must not know her that well if you thought I was her.”
David kept staring at the curly haired woman in front of him. Maybe he was wrong. This woman didn’t have the same vibrant sexual streak as the woman he had been with previously. This one standing before him seemed more quiet and subdued. She looked an awful lot like Amber though.
“You’re probably right,” David said agreeing with her. “But you do look like her.”
“Weird,” Lila said. “That’s the second time someone has told me that this week. I didn’t think anyone looked like me. I don’t know anyone who would want to look like me.”
It struck him as odd that twice in one week she had been mistaken for a girl named Amber. But not being quite sure what to say, since he thought she was very beautiful, he cleared his throat and tried to change the subject. “I understand that you had a date with Carl Olberman on Friday night.”
“I was supposed to have a date with him Friday night,” Lila said. “But I didn’t make it.”
“Why not?”
Lila hesitated. She didn’t want to bring her roommate into this until she had talked to her. “I, um, got sick and couldn’t go.”
David looked at her warily. He could sense her hesitation and could tell that she wasn’t telling the whole truth. “So you’re saying you never left your house Friday night to meet Carl Olberman anywhere?”
“That is correct sir,” Lila answered him wide-eyed.
David continued to look at her. She wasn’t lying when she told him this.
“You do understand that we are going to take your fingerprints,” he told her.
Lila nodded her head. “If it clears my name, I’ll do it.”
“It’s just a precaution. We just have to make sure.”
“I understand,” Lila said with tears running down her face.
“Lila,” David said softly. “Don’t cry, it’s going to be ok.”
“I know,” she said sobbing. “It’s been a rough day. I wish I had seen Carl Friday night. Now I’ll wonder if he died because I didn’t meet him.”
David felt something wash over him and he reached out to comfort the distraught woman. Holding her close he smelled her hair and a flash of being with Amber came over him. He backed up quickly. He didn’t need to have visions of both women.
“Joe is going to take your fingerprints now, and then you can go home. I think you need to take a nap. The news of your boss’s death probably comes as a big shock,” he told her tenderly.
He watched the crying female in front of him get fingerprinted by his partner. He wondered where the wave of compassion came from. Never before had he felt the need to comfort anyone like he wanted to comfort Lila. It went against all detective protocol to hold the people that were being interrogated. He watched as she cleaned up her hands and left the room. His eyes followed her down the hall.
Joe broke the silence first, “Man, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Dude,” David told Joe, “I need to get laid more often.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Amber decided to lay low all weekend. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do and it was a feeling that she did not like at all. She had broken a couple of her cardinal rules and she hoped that it didn’t come back to bite her in the ass. First off, she had killed someone from the area. She knew that was a mistake. People knew him and they might have seen her with him that night. Second off, she had a connection to the victim through her roommate Lila. She only hoped that Lila didn’t rat her out. After her escapade, Amber looked around, making sure that she thoroughly cleaned up after herself. She didn’t want any traces of fingerprints or hair, especially since the point of blame already was pointing towards her if Lila said anything.
She then left the house and walked a few blocks away looking for a pay phone. She found one and called for a taxi to take her to Ace’s house. She crashed out at the band member’s home all weekend long. She didn’t know what she was going to tell her roommate. She only knew she had done what she needed to do to save Lila, the poor girl.
Monday, after she knew Lila would be gone out of the house, Amber walked the few blocks to the restaurant where she had been on Friday. As she rode home, she decided that Lila must never know anything about her meeting up with Carl. After she got to the house, she went into her room to get some sleep.
As soon as she fell into a slumber, Amber heard the doorbell ring. Groggily she rolled over to look at the clock. It was late enough for Lila to be home, so she rolled back over to fall back asleep for another hour. She needed her beauty sleep. The doorbell rang again incessantly. Sighing, Amber rolled out of bed and threw on her filmy robe to go answer the
door.
“This better be important,” she muttered under her breath, half wondering where her roommate was.
She opened the door a crack and peeked her head around the opening.
“Amber?”
Amber was intrigued. No one knew where she lived. She opened the door a little wider and saw Melanie standing on the front porch.
“Melanie,” she said. “What are you doing here? How did you know where I lived?”
“You dropped your license the other day,” Melanie said. “I almost didn’t know it was yours until I looked at the picture. Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Amber said as she opened the door to let the lanky bartendress in. “I’m not quite awake yet.”
“You still look sexy to me,” Melanie smiled at Amber. “So like, can we talk for a few? I have a million questions.”
Amber didn’t want to answer questions. She hated to answer questions. Always in her past had there been questions. And normally the answers brought more accusations and pain. But she saw no way she could dodge the bullet on this one. “Sure,” she said listlessly. “Come on into the bedroom so I can start getting ready for tonight while we talk.”
They walked into Amber’s bedroom and Melanie scanned her eyes across the wild animal print decorations. “Wow,” she said approvingly. “I love the décor.”
“Thanks,” Amber said as she sat down at the make-up table. “So what’s up?”
“You had dropped your license at the club the other day,” Melanie reiterated, handing the plastic card to Amber. “I figured I would bring it to you on my break. Also, it gave me another chance to see you. You’re a hard lady to find.”
Amber smiled, “Yeah I know. I am kind of a private person.”
“Well, now I know where you live. I love this room; it is so awesome. I’ll have to drop by more often.” Melanie said, walking around the room and checking everything out. “So is Amber like your middle … oh wow, this is one huge ass closet.”
Alarmed, Amber jumped up to drag Melanie out of her closet. Melanie couldn’t find what she had hidden in there. No one should know what she had in there. It bothered Amber that Melanie even knew where she lived. If Melanie put her license name together with all the stuff in the closet, then her life really was all over. She needed a distraction, and fast. “Yeah it is, but it is really a mess right now, so you shouldn’t be in there.”
Amber saw Melanie looking at all the computers and jewelry that sat on the shelves of her closet. “Whoa, you have a lot of shit in here, Amber. You must be rich or something. I don’t think I’ve seen so many computers in one place before. It looks like Best Buy exploded in here, or something.”
“Yeah they’re all scrap,” Amber replied nonchalantly, gently grabbing Melanie by the arm and pulling her out of the closet.
Melanie pulled out of Amber’s grasp. “Wow, there are a lot of watches in here. Where in the world did you get so many masculine watches?”
Amber tried to shrug off the fear that was starting to creep over her body. “I inherited them.”
“This is a brand new Rolex!” Melanie said as she was pretending to try one on. “This must be worth a fortune. I have never seen one up close like this before. Where did you get it?”
Amber knew she couldn’t answer any more of Melanie’s questions, nor could she let Melanie see any more. She walked in and cuffed Melanie’s wrists with a set of fuzzy handcuffs. “Enough about me. I think you have been a bad girl tracking me down. I must put you under arrest.”
“Funny you should do that,” Melanie said. “Earlier we had a cop come into the bar looking to see if anyone had seen that missing business guy that’s been in the papers. Something-or-other Olberman … Carl I think. Guess the coppers were too stupid to figure out that we’re an all-girl bar. Not to mention a businessman like the great Carl Olberman would never succumb to the dregs of the Fluff n’ Stuff. But I guess they were trying to find out where he was Friday night. How wild is that?”
Amber’s mind was spinning. The cops were checking a little too close to her home turf. But she decided to play it off. “That tells me that you have been a bad girl and must be punished.”
“Well that makes me glad I found you,” Melanie giggled. “What sort of capital punishment do I earn?”
“Well, let’s start here,” Amber said, cuffing Melanie’s wrists to the headboard.
“Oooh,” Melanie cooed. “I need to be a bad girl more often.”
“Then you must be reprimanded,” Amber said. “Let me kiss here, and here and here. Oh we can’t forget here.”
“I have been such a bad girl. You must punish me more.” Melanie was getting into the spirit of things and Amber could see how she was getting turned on.
The two girls continued to kiss; Melanie really was a good kisser. Amber straddled Melanie and instantly was transformed into the woman in control. She knew she couldn’t let Melanie get away with finding her. No one could ever know her secrets, any of them. They must remain hidden. If Melanie knew, then she would ask more questions, and other people would start to know. Amber knew she had to get control before the situation blew up in her face.
She lifted up Melanie’s top to kiss her belly and suck on her breasts. She did like the way Melanie tasted. Why did Melanie have to invade her space? Amber looked back up to see the lust in Melanie’s eyes. She knew what she had to do to rectify the situation. She pulled down the bartendress’ pants, revealing the softness beneath. She slid her finger in, touching Melanie to pleasure.
Amber watched as Melanie’s face changed and became wanton with satisfaction. She really did like her. It was too bad it had come to this. As Melanie began to orgasm, the look of pleasure blossoming on her face, Amber jumped back on top of her. She pushed a pillow into the orgasming girl’s face to suffocate her. Melanie struggled to push Amber off, but Amber was too strong. She continued to hold the pillow over Melanie, until she felt no movement underneath her whatsoever.
Slowly, she lifted the pillow to see what she had done. Melanie lay still underneath her. Amber slowly closed the lids of her former friend’s bulging eyes. Melanie looked so peaceful. Even in her current state of death she looked beautiful. She wished she didn’t have to do what she just did, but she couldn’t let anyone into her world. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“I’m sorry,” Amber whispered. “You got too close, and knew too much.”
She leaned over to give the dead girl a kiss on the lips. She knew she was going to miss her. Amber sat back on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands. She knew she had just seriously broken several of her cardinal rules. But lately, that seemed to be a growing trend. Her life she had so carefully created seemed to be falling apart before her very eyes. She knew her sanity was being pushed to the brink and she had crossed over once or twice lately. Her self control was escaping its limits and it frightened her to no end.
Amber wasn’t sure what she was going to do with Melanie’s body. Maybe she would put it in the closet until she decided what to do. For now, she already missed her friend as she laid down and cuddled with the corpse.
TWENTY-FIVE
After Amber had spooned with Melanie for a while, she dragged the corpse into the closet. She sat Melanie in the corner until she could figure out what to do with her friend’s dead body. She wasn’t sure just yet, but Amber knew she was starting to lose control of her life situation. This was twice that she had broken the rules she had set in place for herself just a couple of years ago.
She went out and sat down on the couch, something she rarely did. She preferred to be in her own room, or not in the house at all. But she knew that she needed to wait for Lila to come home so she could talk to her and see what Lila knew, and if Lila had told anyone anything. As Amber sat there, she began to fall asleep on the couch. No wonder Lila was always sleeping on it. It was very comfortable.
She heard a door slam and sat up. Lila called out for her, “Amber?”
“I’m here Lila,” Amber answered
. Lila came into the room.
“Oh thank God,” Lila said. “I have been worried sick about you.”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Amber answered stiffly. “I am not your concern.”
“I know,” Lila replied, “but you left and it’s not like you to be gone for so long.”
“I needed some time and space,” Amber said. “I am sorry for hitting you on the head the other day. I was just keeping you from going out with Carl Olberman. Lila, he’s a womanizer of the worst sort. He would have eaten you alive.”
“Amber, I was really pissed at you at first, but I have been so worried that something bad happened to you,” Lila said seriously. “Where did you go Friday night?”
“I’ve been at Ace’s house all weekend. His band had a gig somewhere and I was house sitting.” Amber stretched the truth. They were gone somewhere and she did sit in the house all weekend so it wasn’t a total lie.
“Amber,” Lila said, tears starting to roll down her face again. “Carl was killed Friday night. They questioned me. They took my fingerprints. They think that I had something to do with his death.”
“What did you tell them?” Amber asked sitting up in the couch.
“I told them I never met him that night because I came down ill. I didn’t want to say anything about you until I had a chance to talk to you. I’m so scared,”
Amber hugged the crying girl, “You did the right thing Lila. I am sorry that I had to hurt you, but I knew I couldn’t let you go out with him. But I did go over to Ace’s all weekend.”
“Ok,” Lila said muffled by Amber’s embrace. Then she sat up. “But the weirdest thing was, the detective called me Amber when I first came in the room. Isn’t that a weird coincidence?”
“Yes it is,” she agreed. Amber was alarmed by this. Did she know any police officers? And why would they mistake Lila for her? They didn’t look that similar. Amber was practically a goddess, and Lila was like … well, Lila. “Do you know his name?”
“Yeah,” Lila said wiping the tears from her eyes. “It was David something-or-other. I don’t remember his last name. I have his card in my purse if you want to see it. Why?”
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