She shook her head. “I truly don’t know how to answer that, Shooter,” she said, her voice equally soft.
“Matt and Sam, after they examined you in the hospital, said that . . . that there was evidence he’d assaulted you sexually. Do you remember any of that?”
She sighed deeply. “I don’t know. It’s all mixed up in my mind. I’ve had dreams and some fuzzy memories, but I’m not sure how much of what I remember actually happened.”
“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“Are you sure you want to know?” she asked, twisting her head to look into his eyes.
“Yes. At least, I think I do.”
“All right,” she said, turning her face back around and shifting her hips to the side. She slipped her hand under the suds and grasped him, slowly stroking as she spoke. “Do you know what the Stockholm syndrome is?”
“Yeah. It’s where people who are kidnapped and held against their will become sympathetic with their captors and tend to form strong bonds with them.”
She nodded. “It was like that, only a thousand times stronger. Remember, these creatures are able to enter our minds and make us feel and do things against our nature. Only, while we’re doing these awful things, it’s as if we’re on the outside watching us do them and knowing it’s wrong.”
Shooter felt himself respond to her touch. “What did he do?”
“At first, when he captured me, I hated him with all my strength. I’d seen what he did to his victims and I loathed the thought of him. He put me in a small room and took away all my clothes, leaving me naked and defenseless in the dark.”
“Yeah, that’s a typical maneuver used in brainwashing prisoners. When you take away their clothes and keep them in the dark, it makes them feel more vulnerable and alone and aids in breaking down their defenses,” Shooter said bitterly.
“I lost all track of time, not knowing whether it was day or night or how long I’d been there,” she said. “Soon, against my will, I found myself looking forward to his visits. Anything was preferable to the darkness and isolation.”
“How did he treat you when he showed up?”
“He was very kind. There were no threats and no physical abuse. He just talked to me about his life and how lonely he’d been for two hundred years.”
“Did he try to force himself on you sexually?” Shooter asked, pain evident in his voice.
TJ hesitated. She knew he wouldn’t like what she was about to tell him, but she knew she had to be truthful. “No, not physically. After what must have been several days, I was a mess. I’d thrown up in my cell and was dirty and stinky. I felt terrible. He picked me up and carried me into the shower he had in the warehouse. He got undressed and put me under the water and began to wash me off.”
“And then—”
“He entered my mind and I could feel his lust for me. It was as if I could see myself through his eyes, and his lust became my lust, too. Before I knew it, we were making love with the water cascading over us. It was as if I were someone else standing there watching. I hated my body and how he was making it respond to him, but I was powerless to stop it.”
She shuddered and Shooter squeezed her tight, realizing how painful this was for her.
“Then he bent and bit my neck, and began taking my blood into his mouth while we made love.” She shook her head at the memory. “It was the most erotic thing I’d ever experienced, and when he opened a vein on his own neck, I just couldn’t help myself and I began to drink his blood at the same time.”
“Jesus,” Shooter whispered, disgusted, and yet aroused, by the mental picture she was painting.
TJ felt his penis swell in her hand and knew how she was affecting him. She half-turned and leaned against him in the hot water. “I’m sorry, Shooter,” she said softly.
“Don’t be,” he said, stroking her hair with his hand. He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips.
“Let’s go to bed,” she said.
They got out of the tub and toweled each other off, then got into bed together.
As they lay there in each other’s arms, Shooter said, “I want you to do it to me.”
She looked at him in the semidarkness. “What?”
“Enter my mind.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes. I want to be one with you like he was. It’s the only way to be certain you are over him and still belong fully to me.”
“All right.” She rolled on her side and stared deep into his eyes and concentrated.
Shooter felt her come inside his head and felt their beings merge into one. Through her eyes, he saw himself lying on his back on the bed, and felt her desire and love for him as she looked up and down his body. He was almost overwhelmed with lust; wanting her, he reached over to run his hands lightly over her breasts, which were swollen with desire for him.
When she rolled on top of him and slowly lowered her pelvis over his, he thought he was going to explode. As he entered her warm, soft wetness, he pulled her head down to his neck and offered himself to her.
She hesitated, and then as he began to move inside her, she opened her mouth and bit his neck gently. When his blood flowed into her mouth, he could taste it as she could; they came together in a rapturous climax.
The next morning, they showered together and made love in the shower again, with TJ in his mind and his body responding as it never had before.
Afterward, while they were getting dressed for breakfast, the phone rang. Shooter picked it up, thinking it was Matt saying they were ready.
“Howdy,” Shooter said, his mood still high from their lovemaking.
“Well, howdy to you, cowboy,” Chief Boudreaux said in his New Orleans accent.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Chief,” Shooter said. “I thought you were someone else.”
“That’s all right, Shooter,” Boudreaux said. “I just called to ask if you and your doctor friend could pay me a visit this mornin’.”
“Has something happened?” Shooter asked.
“You might say that. We’ve got a little situation over in a nearby town that might have some bearing on the Ripper cases, and on the man you’re lookin’ for from Houston.”
“We were just fixing to have breakfast . . . ,” Shooter began.
“Oh, take your time and eat your meal,” Boudreaux said. “There’s no hurry. Anytime ’fore noon will be OK.”
“We’ll see you in an hour and a half, then,” Shooter said.
“Lookin’ forward to it,” Boudreaux said, and hung up the phone.
When Shooter told Sam and Matt of the police chief’s summons, they decided to put off their discussion of what they should do until they heard what the chief had to say.
Matt and Shooter decided to skip breakfast, grabbing a quick cup of coffee instead. They left the girls to discuss matters over a full meal while they hurried to meet with Boudreaux.
When they climbed into a cab and told the driver to take them to police headquarters, the cabbie laughed. “Don’t get too many fares to the police station,” he said, pronouncing it Po-leece station. “Usually, the cops, they provides they own transportation.”
Matt and Shooter smiled politely at the joke, even though neither was in a joking mood. Things had been happening too fast and they were still trying to get a handle on what was going on.
When they got to the station, the desk sergeant gave them a crooked grin. “Go right on up, boys. The chief’s waitin’ on y’all.”
The sergeant must’ve called ahead, because when they got to the top of the stairs, Boudreaux was standing in his door, waiting for them.
He waved them inside and again offered them chicory coffee, which they both accepted this time.
After they had their coffee in hand and took seats across from the chief’s desk, he leaned back in his desk chair and crossed his arms over his belly. “Guess you boys’re wonderin’ why I called you here.”
Both Shooter and Matt nodded.
“ ’Fore
I get into that, let me tell you a story ’bout me. When I was seventeen, I applied for a job on the police force here in New Orleans. Since I wasn’t eighteen yet, they wouldn’t take me, so I moseyed on down to a small town east of here called Liberty. The sheriff there took me on as a deputy and I worked there for four or five years, getting experience ’fore I transferred up here to the big city.”
He stopped his narrative long enough to take a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and stick it in the corner of his mouth. “Reason I’m tellin’ you boys this, I still got a name in Liberty. Folks down there know they can trust me.”
He leaned forward in his chair and pointed his chin out the window of his office toward a bench on an adjacent wall. Matt and Shooter turned to look.
A young black woman dressed in the provocative garb of a street prostitute was sitting there, chewing gum with her mouth open and filing long artificial nails with an emery board.
“Liza May there come all the way up here to ask me for some help,” Boudreaux continued. He stared at Shooter and Matt as he went on. “Seems a whole lot of her friends have suddenly taken missing in the past couple of weeks.”
“You think it’s more than the usual moving around prostitutes do?” Shooter asked.
Boudreaux inclined his head. “Yeah, I do. Women workin’ the streets in small towns are different than in big cities,” he said. “If’n it was here in New Orleans an’ several of the ladies of the night took off for better parts, I wouldn’t think nothin’ of it. But Liza says that ain’t the case in Liberty. She knew all of these girls an’ none of ’em, according to her, were thinkin’ of leaving town.”
“How many women are we talking about, Chief?” Matt asked.
“Six or seven at least,” Boudreaux said, reaching for some papers on his desk and holding them up, “an’ that’s not counting another five or six young girls who their families say were headed up this way on buses or hitchhiking. Suddenly I got these here missin’ persons reports comin’ outta my ass.”
“Since you called us about this,” Shooter said, a speculative glint in his eye, “you must think this has something to do with the Ripper cases.”
Boudreaux shrugged and leaned back. “Well, now, I do and I don’t. These folks goin’ missing don’t fit with the usual profile of the Ripper, who tends to leave his bodies where they lie when he’s finished with ’em. But I’m damned if I can explain such a glut of missing people any other way. I was wonderin’ if you boys had any notions that might be of help to me?”
“Do you have any suspects in mind?” Shooter asked, changing the subject while he tried to decide what and how much to tell the chief.
Boudreaux glanced out the window at the girl on the bench. “Liza there says a tall man who wears his hair in a ponytail and has a gold stud in one ear, like some New York big shot, has been hanging around lately. She got me a license plate number off his big black car, but it’s stolen and don’t match the color or make of the vehicle she describes.”
“That’s not anyone we know or have seen, Chief,” Shooter said, glancing at Matt with his eyebrows raised.
Boudreaux snorted through his nose. “Then that don’t sound like this Niemann guy you been lookin’ for?”
“No, sir,” Matt said. “Niemann is average height and wears his hair short, or at least he did last time we saw him.”
Shooter cleared his throat. “Uh, Chief, we’ve made some contacts here in the city in the last few days. Contacts who wish to remain anonymous. How about if we ask them if they know of anyone who fits that description, or who might be causing some problems over in Liberty?”
For a moment, Boudreaux stared at Shooter as he flicked a pencil against his desk like a rock-and-roll drummer. “Shooter, I hope you’re not blowin’ smoke up my ass,” he said. “I’m gonna go with that for now, since your chief back in Houston says you’re a stand-up guy. But if any more girls go missin’, I’m gonna want to know who these ‘contacts’ of yours are. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, sir, Chief,” Shooter said, getting quickly to his feet before Boudreaux could change his mind.
Thirty-one
As they got into a cab to return to their hotel, Matt said, “Well, that went well.”
“You think so?” Shooter asked, turning to look over his shoulder as he entered the taxi.
Matt shrugged. “I think he bought our story.”
“Bullshit,” Shooter said. “Boudreaux has been around too long to let us get away with stalling him like this.” He pointed out the back window. “Look.”
Matt glanced out the rear window in time to see a man in a porkpie hat and a garish plaid sport coat two sizes too small climb into a nondescript Ford sedan and pull out into traffic behind them.
“The smart son of a bitch has put a tail on us,” Shooter said, shaking his head. “Look at that dumb bastard. He’s dressed up like Popeye Doyle in The French Connection.” He chuckled. “He’s probably worn out his video of the movie trying to look like his favorite cop.”
“What do we do now?” asked Matt.
“Not much we can do,” Shooter replied. “It’s only in the movies you can ask a cabbie to try and lose a cop who’s following you. We just go on back to the hotel like we’re supposed to and have a talk with the girls about what Boudreaux told us, only we don’t do it in our rooms.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “You think he’s bugged our rooms?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. Boudreaux’s no fool. He knows we know more than we’re telling him and he wants to find out what it is.”
“But he hasn’t had time to get a court order for a bug,” Matt replied.
Shooter laughed. “This is New Orleans, Matt. Do you really think the chief cares about court orders and due process? Hell, we’re lucky he didn’t throw us in a cell until we spilled our guts.”
“Why do you think he didn’t?”
“Obviously because he thinks we’ll lead him to our contacts.”
Matt sat back in the seat, wondering what all this was leading to.
Shooter pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and lit one up. He smiled at Matt as he opened the window so the smoke wouldn’t bother him. “I gotta think, and this helps. Just don’t tell TJ, OK?”
Matt laughed. “Pussy whipped already, Shooter?”
“You know it, pal,” Shooter replied as he drew smoke deep into his lungs with a satisfied look on his face.
When they got to the hotel, Shooter said, “You go collect the girls and I’ll get us a table in the dining room. We need to talk and that’s probably the safest place.”
Shooter procured a table in a corner that was relatively private and had another cigarette while he waited for the others. When he finished, he stubbed it out in the ashtray provided, then switched the ashtray for an empty one on an adjoining table, and popped a stick of gum in his mouth to get rid of his smoker’s breath.
He’d just managed this when Matt appeared at the dining-room entrance with Sam and TJ in tow.
After they’d ordered drinks and sandwiches, Matt and Shooter took turns recounting what the chief had said, including the fact they were being followed and that their rooms were most likely bugged.
“That son of a bitch,” Sam said heatedly.
Shooter held up his hand. “Now, Sam, he’s just doing his job. Hell, if this were my case back in Houston, I’d probably do the same thing.”
“What do you think all this means?” TJ asked, her face pale at the thought of so many people being missing.
“I agree with Boudreaux,” Shooter said. “It’s probably not the Ripper’s work. He doesn’t give a damn if the bodies are found—so why would he suddenly go to all the trouble of hiding them somewhere?”
“There’s another thing to consider,” Matt said, his eyes thoughtful.
“Yeah? What’s that?” Shooter asked.
“Remember the cases we had in Houston, when Roger was the killer? How often did he feed, as he put it?”
>
Shooter thought back. They’d found victims on an average of one a week, with sometimes two weeks going by between kills. He slowly nodded his head. “I see what you mean. Unless this Ripper has a hell of an appetite, this has to be the work of more than one Vampyre.”
Matt counted on his fingers. “If all of the missing persons are, in fact, victims of Vampyres, there’s got to be three or four involved, from the frequency of the murders.”
Shooter glanced at TJ, who’d remained silent when the subject of Vampyre feedings came up. “Do you agree with that reasoning, sweetheart?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “From what I learned from Roger, or Albert as he calls himself now, the Vampyres only need to feed about once a week. Of course, some of them may just like the thrill of the hunt and may do it more often to get their kicks, but this many victims in so short a time indicates to me that there are several different ones involved.”
“Didn’t you say that woman you talked to, Carmilla, who was head of the local Vampyre Council, told you she strictly enforced a nonlethal feeding for all the members under her control?”
TJ agreed. “Yes, so either there are a number of Vampyres in town who are not members of her Council, or some of the Council members have gone renegade.”
“She would probably know either way, wouldn’t she?” Matt asked.
TJ nodded.
“Then it’s imperative you go and talk to her,” he said. “If members of her Council are rebelling against her edict of nonlethal feedings, she needs to know about it.”
“Perhaps she can put a stop to it,” Sam said.
“One way or another,” Shooter said, “we’ve got to have something to give to Boudreaux to get him off our backs. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to work on a cure for TJ in peace.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw the detective in the porkpie hat at a table across the room. He was trying his best to be inconspicuous and failing miserably.
As the waiter appeared with their food, Shooter leaned across the table and spoke in a low voice. “In a few minutes, you and TJ go to the rest room, Sam. That way, TJ can slip out the back without our friend over there suspecting anything. By the time he realizes TJ’s not coming back, it’ll be too late for him to call for a backup tail.”
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