by Mia Thompson
“It’s not what you think,” Rath started. “I didn’t see it coming.” He shook his head. An odd expression overtook his face. “He is a sh…” Rath’s voice broke off.
Aston and Capelli waited as he cleared his throat, trying again.
“Sh…sh-sh-sh-shhh,” Rath stuttered. His face turned red. He clawed at his chest, then his head hit the table with a thump.
Aston and Capelli watched befuddled as George Rath lay dead, forehead down.
Aston turned to Capelli. “I told you not to give him two Big Macs.”
The screen froze.
Capelli wailed with laugher, waving the stolen remote in his hand. “That’s my favorite part, when you realize our star witness just kicked the bucket.”
Aston stared at the image of George Rath’s face planted on the table, pissed. Not because Rath was dead—it was tremendous for tax payers—but if the tubby fucker had the decency to die ten seconds later, it would have made Aston’s life a lot easier.
“What the hell was he trying to say?” Aston said. “It’s not who you think it is. He is a sh…what? Sheik? Sheriff? Shepherd?”
“The doc said we can’t take his last word into account; it was the sound of a guy whose ticker went out.”
Aston pulled his jacket on.
“Where’re we going?” Capelli asked, then lit up. “Boobie-bar?”
“No, and stop calling it boobie-bar. It’s embarrassing. Everybody knows the proper term is titty-tavern. You sound like a…”
After months of watching the same footage something finally clicked. Aston’s memory melded with the footage and his brain went from fuzzy to high-def.
“Like a what?” Capelli asked in the distance. “Ridder?”
There was a flash of disdain in Rath’s eyes when he said his knowledge of the Serial Catcher would blow Aston’s mind. There was amazement in his voice paired with body language that showed embarrassment as he was about to reveal the Catcher’s identity. It was just like the other killers. They’d lied through their teeth about who had trapped them.
“Blink once if you’ve had an aneurism, Ridder.”
What would men who killed, raped, and slaughtered all be embarrassed about? It was a question Aston had asked himself countless times. These killers took satisfaction in being masters and in absolute control over the women they handpicked. What is the one thing that would humiliate them the most?
“RIDDER!” Capelli yelled. Aston blinked. “He’s a she.”
Chapter 5
The bar smelled of old liquor, sweat, and cologne from the establishment’s regulars. It was dark, dead, and the only light that wasn’t soft and red was a ray of sunshine that penetrated beneath the heavy black swing doors.
Sapphire stood in a line leading up to the stage behind girls dressed in brightly colored mini dresses and eight-inch platform heels.
She looked down at her too-small dress. Sapphire thought she had picked out a revealing outfit from her small secondary closet in the attic, but this was a whole other level of revealing.
She had a one-day intense striptease course at Madame Louvier’s dance studio in Hollywood, hoping it would be enough.
Madam Louvier, an orange wig-wearing lady in her late 70s who chain-smoked cloves, had guaranteed Sapphire success at her audition in exchange for $500. Seeing the other girls’ moves, Sapphire wasn’t so sure.
The girl in front of Sapphire stepped up on the stage as the DJ swapped one shrill repetitive techno song for another.
Sapphire feared the techno and scowled at the DJ. He had to be at least 40. A little too old to be a DJ, she thought. But who was she to judge. Sapphire was a little too rich to be a stripper.
The girl on stage grabbed the pole, spun, humped, and swooshed as her clothes gracefully slid off her body.
The Golden Mirage was 21-and-up, as opposed to a 18-and-up joint where the dancers were fully nude. This meant no nipples and no down under exposure, which meant Happy Sapphire.
“Lovely! Lovely!” the club owner yelled in a strong British accent as the girl got off stage. “Not a dry seat in the house, or what do you say, Buddy?”
“Not a dry seat, Giles.” The balding bartender nodded to his boss as he stocked beer in an oversized fridge behind the bar.
“Next!” Giles yelled.
Her turn.
Giles examined Sapphire’s bare legs with narrow eyes.
The DJ put on—surprise—techno as Sapphire climbed on stage and tried to look more confident than she felt. She struggled to keep up with the tempo of the music as she grabbed the pole to do a basic Bunny Move. She got two more of Madame Louvier’s moves in before Giles motioned the DJ to kill the music.
“I’ve seen enough!” he exclaimed.
Sapphire put her hand on her hip, waiting.
“That was brilliant. You’re hired.”
“Really?” Sapphire’s neck pulled back in surprise.
“No! Of course not!” His forehead creased. “That was absolutely dreadful. I wasn’t turned on at all! Not even the tiniest tingle in my bollocks. Did you fancy her, Buddy?”
“Nope, sorry,” Buddy responded. His American accent sounded drawn out compared to Giles’s. “You looked like you were in pain or something.”
“Can I try again?” Sapphire pleaded. Waiting for another audition wasn’t an option. Who knew how many girls could have died by then?
“If you force me to relive that, I will gouge my bloody eyes out. Please get off the stage and never get back on any stage, ever again.”
Had Sapphire not been there to hunt a serial killer, she might’ve been embarrassed when Giles cupped his hands and yelled, “Boo! Booo!” until she got off the stage.
A sane person with dignity would have left the club. But lacking both sanity and dignity Sapphire headed for the other six girls waiting to find out if they had a new job. She plopped down next to a girl with pigtails who twisted her body away from Sapphire to make sure she would not be affiliated with the world’s worst stripper.
Sapphire watched the last girl dance with grace and precision, her mind racing for a way to change Giles’s mind. Her eyes landed on the TV above the bar, which was playing another segment on the Stripper Slayer.
She smiled and leaned closer to the other girls. They were having a heated conversation on whether or not leather lingerie made their asses sweat. It seemed to be a unanimous yes.
“Isn’t this the place,” Sapphire asked loudly, “where all those dancers got killed?”
The group glanced at each other.
“Was that here? I did hear something about that,” a brunette said, looking around. “I thought it was weird. Usually there’s like twenty girls at these auditions.”
On stage, the girl finished her dance with the splits. Christ!
“Ladies!” Giles yelled. “I will deliberate with my bartender and will let you know in a few minutes!”
“It’s on the news right now.” Sapphire motioned to the TV.
The girls’ faces dropped as they watched the photographs of the dead girls pop up.
“I am so out of here,” Pigtails said as she got up. Two other girls followed while the rest sat, unsure of what to do.
“Three girls,” Sapphire prompted, shaking her head. “And there’s what, fifteen working here? Three out of fifteen, that’s like a twenty percent chance you’ll be the next to die.”
The remaining girls got up and swiftly made their way to the exit.
Giles came around the bar just as they reached the doors. “Ladies, where are you going?! Star, I was going to put you on prime hours: Titty Tuesday and Free Shrimp Friday!”
“I want the job, but I want to stay alive more,” Star, aka Pigtails, replied.
Giles stared after them, long after the doors had swung shut. “What am I going to do, Buddy? That bloody man is killing my girls and my business. I was lucky those dancers even showed up. We are understaffed as it is. I need girls now!”
“…There’s one left,” Bu
ddy offered.
“Oh?” Giles spun around, greeted by Sapphire’s grinning face. She waved at him.
“Oh bloody hell, not her!” he cried. He slumped down in a booth, head in hands, for long enough that Sapphire was growing impatient in her tiny dress and uncomfortable heels. Eventually, gathering himself, he gave Sapphire a second glance and sighed. “I suppose you are not completely terrible to look at.”
“Thank you.”
“Come back tomorrow. We open at six, don’t be late.”
“I won’t.” Sapphire stood with a huge smile.
Giles walked away, then spun around and pointed at her. “What is your name?”
“Melissa Cambridge,” Sapphire answered, prepared like a girl scout.
“Oh-for-the-love-of…not your real name. Your stage name. You have got one, haven’t you?”
“Er, of course. It-it’s…” Sapphire stuttered, not so prepared after all.
Giles rolled his eyes then held his hand up, telling her to be quiet. “Buddy! Did Candy die or is she still alive?”
“Alive.”
“Bugger.”
Sapphire waited, prepared to handle whatever stereotypical stripper name he would assign her. What would it be? Roxy, Muffin, Sparkle?
“Well, we haven’t had one of those since the last one got offed, and you’re so bloody green you’re almost blue, so I’m thinking…” he paused. “Sapphire.”
You gotta be kidding me.
* * * * *
When Sapphire looked at the framed Rorschach inkblot paintings on the wall she saw blood spatter. When she looked at the busty receptionist, she saw a potential victim. When she looked at the older man on the other side of the waiting room, she saw a possible killer.
Next to her, John rubbed his legs. He was as nervous as she was. It was weird, considering he was the reason they were there.
Sapphire had been on her way home from the audition, excited to get started on the preparations for her first day of work, when John called, reminding her of their appointment.
Sapphire glanced at him and realized there was something else off about him. He hadn’t proposed sex for an entire hour. He always did that.
To which Sapphire always responded: “No sex before marriage.”
To which he would respond: “Don’t buy the cow if you can’t taste the milk first.”
To which she would respond: “That’s not the saying. In fact, it’s a total contradiction of the saying.”
To which he didn’t respond at all because John—despite being a fifth generation Harvard student—didn’t know what “contradiction” meant.
“Sugar Plum,” John said. “I didn’t see you after the fire the other night. Chrissy and I looked for you and you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I had a migraine. I decided not to bother anyone and just go home.”
“That’s funny because Rick was taking Bieber’s new Jag for a spin, and he thought he saw you a few blocks from Whole Foods.”
“Nope, I was in bed.” Sapphire grabbed a magazine. “Must have been someone else.”
John sat silently, glancing at the receptionist’s giant boobs every so often.
“He lives there,” he said with a hint of anger. “That cop you know lives around there, doesn’t he?”
Sapphire looked at him, surprised. Was it possible that there was activity behind that blank stare of his? A functioning mind that put two and two together?
“Dr. Rues is ready for you now,” the receptionist called. John’s attention diverted back to her giant rack.
Mrs. Vanderpilt had convinced John that they should get premarital counseling to work out any bumps prior to walking down the aisle. Her real intentions lay in trying to stir up arguments that would lead John to change his mind about marrying Sapphire.
Please, let it be so.
They entered the elegant Beverly Hills office and sat down on a suspiciously comfortable couch opposite Dr. Rues, who was seated with a polite smile, looking them over.
Sapphire cleared her throat. She tried hard not to look guilty. Psychologists and psychiatrists freaked her out. She’d had a few in her childhood. It was a standard in Beverly Hills. Some people’s Chihuahuas even had shrinks. But when she started hunting serial killers she avoided them like the plague, afraid they’d be able to access her mind without her consent.
She cleared her throat again and glanced over at John, who appeared just as comfortable as Dr. Rues. He had that empty look he got when he thought of nothing, which was often.
“Sooo…,” Sapphire said, tapping her hands together. She stopped, scared Dr. Rues would take it as a nervous habit and determine that she devoted her life to capturing serial killers.
Instead, he began, “I like to start these sessions with a conversation, then move onto hypnotherapy. Now, have either of you ever had hypnosis before?”
“I only had it once,” John tossed out. “I’m not contagious anymore.”
Dr. Rues’ eyebrows pushed together. “I’ll take that as a no.”
Hypnosis? Sapphire was positive her heart stopped. Who knows what she could blurt out?
“I have developed a more modern technique where the depth of your relationship is targeted so that I can eliminate flaws.”
Sapphire hoped John would object, but based on his look, he still thought hypnosis was an STD.
“I don’t think I am comfortable with that,” Sapphire said.
“It is, of course, your choice. But keep in mind that you were referred to me because I am the best in the country,” Dr. Rues said without sounding pompous. “You can spend ten conversational sessions together leading up to your wedding date or one hypnosis session right now.”
Spending hours upon hours with John Vanderpilt on a suspiciously comfortable couch versus one tiny session? How bad could it be?
“We’ll do it,” Sapphire said. Maybe she could pretend to be under, to fake it somehow.
After one hour of excruciating relationship analysis, Dr. Rues sent John outside so that Sapphire’s session could start.
“Is that your family?” Sapphire asked, looking at a photograph taken of Dr. Rues with what she imagined was his wife and son.
“Yes,” he smiled. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
“Is that your house?” she pushed, trying to delay. “I think I’ve driven by it. Very nice neighborhood. Do you like the neighborhood?”
“Mhmm. Would you mind lying down for me?”
“Why Dr. Rues, at least buy me dinner first,” Sapphire joked, cringing when Dr. Rues’ uncomfortable gaze drew to his lap.
“Ms. Dubois, please. Lie down and make yourself as comfortable and relaxed as possible.”
Sapphire lay down, tensing her entire body to try to fend off whatever he was going to do next.
“Before we start, I just want you to understand that for this process to work you have to imagine exactly what I’m relaying to you.” He took a deep breath then spoke in a serene voice. “Imagine yourself in an elevator as it moves up through the last numbers. 22. 23. 24. 25.” Dr. Rues snapped his fingers.
Sapphire didn’t see an elevator. She saw nothing.
She let Dr. Rues blabber on about some sort of meadow of peacefulness while boredom took over.
“Do you see a door?”
“Sure,” Sapphire lied, playing along.
“Very good, Ms. Dubois. Open it…now,” he said, intense about the door that wasn’t there.
The best in the country, my ass. Sapphire bit her lip, holding back a laugh. She’d worried for noth…in…
Chapter 6
Slam! A tattered door smacked shut. The lock on the doorknob twisted on its own, letting out a longwinded creak.
Sapphire yanked on the locked knob and then turned around to face her surroundings.
She was in a bizarrely red-themed motel room. Everything inside—the bed, the carpet, the wallpaper—was deep crimson.
There were three people: a man, a woman, and a child. Th
ey were oblivious to her, as if there was nothing but air in front of the creepy door.
Sapphire’s body tensed when she realized who they were.
The woman was her mother. The child playing with a toy in the corner by the door was Sapphire, age three or four.
Sapphire studied the man. Though she’d never seen a picture of him, or gotten a proper description, Sapphire knew he was her father. His dark eyes and hair were the exact color of her own.
Vivienne laughed and twirled in a red dress. They were dancing to the static music from an old radio. Their movements were too fluid as they hovered ghost-like over the carpet.
Sapphire had never had a memory before the age of five—after Vivienne and Sapphire moved into Charles’s mansion—but that was exactly what this was: a memory.
Sapphire watched her father and mother treat the confined space like a ballroom and realized she should be feeling grateful to finally get to meet her father. She had wanted to know everything about him. Now she’d been given a happy memory from childhood. This exceeded anything Vivienne could have described to her.
But Sapphire was terrified. Her heart hammered and her body shook. She wanted to run, but a nightmarish fear crept over her. Her muscles were unresponsive.
Vivienne fell onto the bed with a satisfied sigh, exhausted from the dance. Sapphire’s father’s gaze slid from Vivienne to Sapphire.
His head cocked to the side. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
The door opened, letting in a blinding white light.
* * * * *
“Step off the elevator feeling refreshed and ready to be with the man you love.”
Sapphire opened her eyes to find herself back on Dr. Rues’ couch. She felt as though she just came out of a deep sleep, but without the drowsiness.
“How do you feel?”
“Great,” Sapphire lied. She felt like throwing up. Despite her attempt to fend off the hypnosis, it was clear that she had been under. “Did I say…anything?”
Dr. Rues shook his head, looking as if he was about to ask a question, then shrugged. “You were excellent.”