A male model, Professor White had announced. A nude male model, Mikayla had whispered a moment later, her eyes lighting up. Soon, Athena decided, she’d shake off this sick miasma. She shivered as the elevator doors closed on the homicide squad’s floor.
And if she could help it, she’d never do this again!
Chapter Eight
The strobe lights flared in Athena’s eyes, then banked off and swirled around the dance floor in their crazy syncopation-to-the-drumbeat rotation. The music was loud, throbbing, pumping. The dancers were pumping their pelvises like crazy. She smiled at Tony as he gyrated on the backlit, checkerboard dance floor, but the truth was that her carefree mood was all for show. The day’s events lingered with her, especially her experience at the police station, and she was not in a mindset to party tonight. Too bad. Tony was expecting hot sex at the end of their date. He figured this was a booty call, and to be honest with herself, she’d looked forward to the night also, for over two weeks.
How perverse she was to change her mind like this!
Not wanting him to see her pasted-on smile, she whipped around on her stiletto heels, her long ponytail swinging like a pendulum. He put his hands on her hips, steadying her in place, as he came closer and ground his pelvis against her bottom. They were ass grinding, and she felt nothing! Just irritation with herself for encouraging Tony’s attentions and bringing about this situation.
Well, holy bloody hell.
Why can’t I make up my bloody, friggin’ mind?
Too emotionally exhausted to turn on her clairvoyance antenna-receiver, she was moving “blind”, so to speak. Nothing came through, which was fine with her. She’d seen too much ugliness that day, enough to last her all year—maybe an entire lifetime.
Glad to have the night off, she gave her mood room to expand. Whatever part of her mind controlled the on-off switch of her clairvoyance radar; it was relieved, no doubt. And so was Athena, in her very core of being! Give it time off, for Pete’s sake.
“You’re so hot,” Tony cooed into her ear. “I can’t stand it any more. Let’s get the hell out of here and go to your place.”
She leaned her head back onto his shoulder. It was so nice to have such a tall guy to lean on! “I don’t know. I’m so wiped out. The week’s been torture.”
“Didn’t you say you had the place to yourself? No parents? No brother?”
His gentle but steady persistence was breaking down her reservations, so that by the time they returned to their shared table with Mikayla and her current hottie, Jerry, their glances back and forth were signals. After Jerry, a senior at UV, kept probing Tony with questions about his classes and his professors, Tony signaled it was time to go.
“Hate to run, dudes,” Tony said laughingly. “It’s been a blast, but this gorgeous girl and I have some private catching up to do. Understand me?”
Mikayla and Jerry laughed obligingly, a moment before Mikayla leaned over and whispered to Athena, “I want details when you get back from California. Second thought, can’t wait that long. Text me tomorrow.” Her low-cut, red sweater revealed more than a little of her bosom. She winked. “Not too early. I’ll be busy…uh, entertaining.”
In Tony’s car, an older model BMW sedan, he shot her a glance while they were on their way to her parents’ condo in Alexandria. He looked a little angry.
“What’s with this Jerry? He kept drilling me like he thought I was lying, like I couldn’t be a junior at UV. Plus, who wants to talk shop when we’re out with a couple of hot babes like you and Mikayla?”
The darkness hid her her frown, she hoped. It was strange for Tony to take offense at Jerry’s casual get-to-know-you questions since the two men had never met before, even though they went to the same campus.
“He was trying to be friendly. It’s just Jerry.”
“Yeah, trying to pump me for information,” Tony interrupted, squeezing the steering wheel with both fists. Another glance her way, as if inquiring about her sudden silence, and he morphed quickly into a more jovial mood.
“What you need tonight, sweetheart, I’ve got. I know you’ve led kind of a sheltered life…from what you’ve said. It’ll be great. I guarantee it!” The last was a mimicry of a men’s clothing TV commercial, and Athena had to chuckle. But it was a forced chuckle. She decided that she didn’t want Tony to be her first lover.
Something was missing.
Yeah, good ol’ fashioned love.
Crap!
So what does love have to do with it? This is just animal lust, pure and simple.
Her mind conjured up the photos of those dead girls. Maybe that’s what the killer thought. Just lust and power over another human being.
She shook off the dark mood caused by her experience at the police station. What about her? Tonight? Did repressed lust for years and years justify doing whatever she pleased now? With whoever she pleased? Even with a man she didn’t love?
Bloody hell, yes!
“You’re over eighteen, babe, that’s all that counts. We’re gonna make each other feel really good tonight. I’ve got some moves, baby.”
Athena darted him a weak smile. Tony was trying hard to put them both into a warmer mood, but she found his seductive skills lacking. Nothing he said or did that night could erase from her mind what she’d seen that day at the police station. The photos of the little girls, the tragedy in those men’s lives, the man’s face in the mirror. The sketch she’d made. Creepy, sick, evil.
In exasperation at her own black turn of mind, she shut off those thoughts, and her mind kept drifting back to the nude model for her afternoon painting class. Not completely nude, for he’d worn a teeny-tiny Speedo. Martin Larsen. He was a Scandinavian hunk, all sinewy muscles, washboard abs and long legs and arms. The looks he’d kept tossing her way during their sketching session were smoldering. From their sketches that afternoon, they would begin their painting next week, focusing on flesh tones and counter-palette tints for the shadowing; another technique Prof. White was fond of using.
She would miss the class while in California, but she’d catch up after Thanksgiving break. Athena kept thinking about Martin’s glances, speculative ones that had settled on her every time Professor White said to take a break and stretch his legs—a five-minute respite every thirty minutes. Martin would walk around their easels, not making any comments, but just slapping his arms and thighs in the thin wool robe he wore during his breaks. More often than not, he’d pass her way, looking at her and her easel, but saying nothing. Just smiling, like he approved of her skills.
He was divine! A blond-haired god who reminded her a little of her father in his RAF uniform when he was younger. Well, ew! If that was more than a little pervy, then so be it! Athena felt smitten for the first time since her last heartbreak back in high school.
Too bad for Tony, she thought. It was just bad timing. Between her subdued emotions all day, and her salacious thoughts about the new model, Martin, Athena was in no mood to lose her virginity that night to Tony or anyone. No matter how cute and tall he was! Not when a long-legged, hunky blond like Martin Larsen lived and breathed and shot her flirty, approving glances.
She tried to tell Tony that when he parked his car at the curb outside her parents’ condo complex, but he wouldn’t listen. He nuzzled her neck and lowered his voice to a whisper. He was nearly pleading, and Athena felt guilty for leading him on. The least she could do was be hospitable.
“C’mon, baby, just let me in for a few minutes. Gotta use the john and y’know, I’m hungry, too. Can you make me a sandwich?”
“Sure.” She let him kiss her deeply, a French kiss that had the opposite effect from what was intended. When they broke apart, she added the lie, “My father’s coming home early, so you can’t stay. And so is my brother, Chris. We’ll have to do it another time, Tony. I’m so sorry.”
No longer feeling apologetic, she felt annoyance crawling up the back of her skull. She had to make this quick. Let him down easy and shoo him out the doo
r. Unlocking the front door, she shed her nylon, quilted jacket and hung it on the foyer’s coat rack. Tony did the same with his parka. He took her into his arms and, like an octopus, was all over her, touching her breasts, her bottom, the inside of her thighs. Hiding her revulsion, she extricated herself after a couple of kisses. He looked so downhearted and preoccupied, she had to cut the tension.
“I’ll make you a ham and cheese sandwich. Is that okay? While you go to the bathroom?”
“Great!” He rubbed his hands up and down his jeans. “Where’s your bathroom?”
She smiled. Maybe he wasn’t going to give her a bad time, after all. They worked together, so she was counting on him to be a gentleman, after all. If worse came to worse, she was ready. In the car’s darkness, she’d taken out the small pepper spray canister from her hobo bag and now carried it in her jeans’ pocket. Her sweater tunic concealed it, but she was praying she wouldn’t have to use it. It would make working with Tony so much more difficult if she had to make him gag and vomit. Wouldn’t it?
“Down the hall, third door on your left.”
While he was gone, she set about putting a sandwich together from the salad scraps and ham and Swiss cheese slices she’d munched on since her parents left. She poured a glass of water for herself and a glass of milk for Tony and waited on the bar stool at the kitchen counter. It seemed like he was taking longer than necessary, but she didn’t want to go roaming down the hall to inquire. That would be rude.
When he finally appeared, he was beaming. “Had to take a look around. These are such great digs. What do your parents do, again?” He took a big bite of his sandwich, standing up next to her, before taking a seat on the adjacent stool.
She’d told him once that her father was a British diplomat at the Embassy and her mother was a translator of books, but she reminded him again.
He nodded, wolfing down half the sandwich in less than five minutes. The milk went next, gone in a couple of long swallows. Funny, his mood had completely changed, and he was now a total gentleman, content with everything. In fact, he seemed in a hurry to leave. Athena didn’t know whether to feel reassured or disappointed.
Would her relationships with men ever improve, she wondered dismally. Even the young men who were attracted to her, seemed to lose interest fairly rapidly. What was it about her that put them off? Her intensity? Her passion for painting? Maybe they sensed she was…different?
“Father moves around so much with the Foreign Office.” She looked for a neutral topic of conversation. “We never know where we’ll be posted next. Rather, where he and my mother will go next. We’ve been here almost six years. I like it. So does my brother. I’ll be staying here and finishing up my degree at the Art Institute whether or not Father gets an extension here. Chris, too. He has his heart set on Stanford. Father is mortified that Chris won’t go to Cambridge, but my brother likes sunshine and beaches.” She was rambling on, anxious to avoid Tony’s octopus arms and a possibly difficult situation.
They chatted a bit about the coffee store, Fergy, their manager, and the newbies they had to train, Athena nervously steering his attention away from sex and what was supposed to have been a night of lovemaking. She needn’t have bothered. When Tony finished his sandwich, he stood up, leaned over to peck her on the cheek, and then shrugged into his parka. Yes, he was in a definite hurry to leave. And she was flooded with relief.
To borrow American slang, how dope was that!
“See you tomorrow?” She held him back for one last kiss. Like, no hard feelings?
Instantly, he grew attentive and focused on her. “Sure, I’m on duty. Nice and early. What about you?”
“Not ’til nine, thank goodness.” A tense silence ensued. Come to think of it, she reminded herself, there had been a lot of tense silences all evening. She didn’t know what to think of it, except that Tony’s mood had suddenly changed from tense but amorous to preoccupied. Curious, she thought about switching on her clairvoyance and taking a peek into his mind, then decided against it. Whatever Tony was thinking, it probably wouldn’t be very flattering.
Like, what a royal bitch of a tease!
Or, get me out of here!
Maybe he was entertaining thoughts of another girl. Anyone but her. No, she didn’t want to take a peek. Better leave him alone.
“See ya, Athena.” He turned to go. Turning back, he shot her a strange look, a mixture of satisfaction and something else.
Omigod. He’s saying goodbye. For good.
He hurried down the exterior staircase and disappeared.
“Good night,” she murmured into the cold darkness.
****
The next morning, she showed up at work, all ready to make it up to Tony for the lackluster evening, with a cheery greeting, if nothing else. But he wasn’t there. Fergy looked fit to be tied. Everything about the man’s demeanor, from his fists to his bulging eyeballs, was apoplectic. He’d called half a dozen part-timers, and only one was available on such short notice to take Tony’s place. It’d take him thirty minutes to get there.
“He quit!”
“Tony Grabowski?” She couldn’t believe it.
“Just called it in, just minutes ago. No reason, just quit!” Fergy raved inside the stockroom. “Judy’s at the counter, barely holding her wits together. Thank goodness you came in, or we’d be up shit creek.”
She consulted her cell phone. No text or email or phone message from Tony.
“I wonder if he’s all right?” She stowed her bag and jacket and threw on her apron. The newbie at the espresso machine looked frantic, and the line by the cashier was ten-deep. “It’s so bizarre, Fergy. He’s never missed a day.” She sent Tony a text, but got no reply. A call to his cell phone revealed that the number had been discontinued. Un-friggin-believable, she decided, her mind on full alert now.
Why not use her psychometry skills? She felt stronger and rested, emotionally and psychically. Tony had seemed to like the job, although lately he’d been tense and a little curt at times. Athena surveyed the immediate area of the espresso machine, ignoring, for a moment, the lineup of cups with orders marked on them with black ink. There was nothing that she could see that he’d handled lately. The evening shift last night would have obliterated any trace of Tony Grabowski left from his shift the morning before.
It was a mystery. Why all of a sudden, right after their date? Why now? It couldn’t have been anything she’d done or said, could it? She seldom prayed, much to her Catholic mother’s consternation, she knew, but now she prayed. She didn’t love the guy, of course, but she did like him. So, she hoped and prayed that Tony wasn’t floating in the Potomac River somewhere. Why he would be, she had no clue. She was just overreacting, being morbid, but she had a feeling something was very wrong.
Glancing around the back room, she spied two green aprons. One had a stain from the defective lid of a caramel syrup container that had spilled on Tony yesterday morning. Athena grabbed it and held it in her hands. A jumble of words, a trace of anger and fear—
Sick of this place…gotta move on…get the dough and split…gotta do the job at her place first…
A frantic Fergy popped his head in. “Athena, what’re you doing? I need you out front!”
Startled, she dropped the apron on one of the boxes. “Okay, okay, I’m coming!”
What was that all about? The job at her place… Tony’s in trouble? What’s he afraid of?
Maybe, after her visit with the cops yesterday, the world just seemed a darker place.
Darker and more dangerous.
Chapter Nine
The mystery of Tony’s disappearance from work still remained unsolved by Sunday morning. Her father flew in, was dropped off by his driver in the black Range Rover, followed by her brother Christopher, who appeared at their condo, fresh from a soccer match practice.
Father and son both howled their delight at each other, and shadow-wrestled for a bit before catching up over the next several hours. Athena observed th
e two in Chris’s bedroom as her brother threw his clothes into a soft-sided suitcase for their Thanksgiving visit to California. Her father paced to and from the master bedroom suite, where he slowly and methodically folded heavier winter clothes for London, simultaneously sharing with Chris his opinion of the next Manchester match with Madrid. From his room, Chris, stopping to sniff lighter-weight shirts and his casual jeans for teenage-boy odors, called out his opinions of both teams and all the others in the EU and British Isles leagues.
She leaned against Chris’s doorjamb, her head swiveling as though she were at Center Court in Wimbledon, and registered barely half of their bantering. Soccer bored her to distraction now that she’d seen American football firsthand. The brute force of the blocking and the sheer courage of the running and passing games were as hypnotic as Roman gladiator spectacles at the Coliseum. At least, the sheer physicality was what fired up her imagination, especially after having seen the movie, Gladiator.
Their mock fury over the weekend’s soccer matches made her roll her eyes, but she enjoyed watching her two favorite men. Her father, the tall and slim Nordic desk-warrior, had passed his physique on to both her and Chris. Their long faces, square jaws and high foreheads were cookie-cutter copies of their dad, but that’s where the physical resemblance ended. Chris had inherited their mother’s thick, curly, auburn-tinted brown hair, chestnut brown eyes and light olive complexion. Athena had inherited their dad’s pale skin, blond hair, and bluish-green eyes.
In personality, father and son were both gregarious, and loved people. Chris was highly intelligent like their father but, of course, the psychic powers of their mother’s bloodline—what Nonna called the Delphi bloodline because of her stories about the ancient Greek priestesses of Delphi—had kept to their true course and shunned the male offspring. It’s in the mitochondria, Chris had said once. Lucky Chris. Through an accident of conception, he’d avoided the burden, the curse.
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