Unceremoniously, I dumped everything onto the kitchen counter and stared at the box. It wasn’t just pink; it was hot pink. Which raised two questions. One, was it a coincidence, or did the sender know that was my favorite hue? And two, how the fuck did this bright-ass color not register in my head when I saw it? I stopped asking myself questions I’d never have the answers to, bit the bullet, and opened the damn thing. Ripping off the hot pink wrapping paper revealed something that made my stomach drop in a way that no pipe bomb or severed hand ever could.
Underneath was a pale lilac, thirteen-and-a-half by eleven-and-a-half box. Across the top, in iridescent letters, was etched a name upon which any fashion-phobe hearing it would reply, “Gesundheit.” I lifted the lid and saw the beautiful sight of a dust bag, also in lilac and also printed with the name. Even as I thought, “It couldn’t be,” I opened the bag and held in my hands a heavenly pair of pristine four-inch designer heels.
Why is glee always so short-lived?
It didn’t take me long to recognize the design. They were ornamented with Swarovski crystals and had laces that wrapped around the ankles. I had a pair just like them. Well, almost. My pair’s crystals were more than likely made of plastic and the satin on them was a cheaper, paler pink than this pair’s dusty rose. Also, my pair was in my room, ruined by drips of super glue from my attempt to fix the broken heels and blood from god only knows where. So, who would spend several hundred dollars to replace shoes that no one should have known I’d broken?
A vague memory entered my head, and it had Freddie’s voice:
“You walk the streets late at night with your silly shoes click-clacking on the pavement like Morse code, beckoning all the monsters to come take a bite.”
Nothing to See Here. Just Rattling Off the Steps of a Plan to Myself.
I had been pacing my living room for god only knows how long. In the shoes, of course, because they needed to be broken in. Hey, I’m not the type to look a gift-horse in the mouth. What does that mean anyway?
I had a lot to figure out. I knew I needed to find out more about Gray Eyes and these other murders to find out if they were related to Jorge or another random psycho. Possibly my neighbor. Either way, I’d turn over what I’d learn to the police. If all went well, Jorge would finally be indicted, the serial killer would be caught, and I could kind of maybe cross the object of my lust off the list of dangerous men. Who was I kidding? One way or another, Freddie was possibly the most dangerous of them all.
I pivoted, turned, and wobbled. Oops, gonna have to scuff that sole up just a tad if I didn’t want to go flying across the dance floor at work. Whenever we reopened, that is.
Okay. First things first. Jill made it clear that her brother would help. A quick call to her confirmed as much. After a few moments of sheepish, “Yeah, you were right” and “I do need your help,” her tone of voice perked right up.
“Hey, ‘J’!” She yelled at the top of her lungs. Luckily, it was to someplace in her house and not straight into the receiver. “My girl needs your help...You know, do your cop thing...Muthafucka, I’m not trying to hear that.” Maybe I’d made a mistake in asking. “I said you’d help her, and you’re gonna help her...’Cause I said so...Yeah, I got your bitch right here!” To me, her smiling voice came back on the line and said, “He said that will be absolutely no problem, and we’ll both meet you whenever and wherever.”
“Well, uh, okay. I guess tomorrow at the taquería inside Supermercado Mas Grande.” That was as good a place as any, especially since I could grab some more meat from the butcher counter afterward.
“Perfect. I lurve their tacos.” Her mind was on food as well. “I’m glad it didn’t take you too long to realize who your family is. We’ve got you. Plus, not gonna lie, I’m dying to know what the fuck your story is.”
An indistinct grunt was all I could commit to at that time.
“You calling Frank now?”
Oh shit, Frank. “Well...I don’t want to sound like a chicken shit or anything—”
“No prob. I’ll call him.”
I didn’t know they talked so much. “Any secrets you want to tell me about you and Frank?”
“Bitch, please.” She cackled loudly into my ear. “Frank still lives in the ghetto that I have been trying so hard to get out of.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks for everything. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Later.” Click.
With Jill, her brother, and, hopefully, Frank on board for tomorrow, it was time to focus on the next steps.
I heard two very distinct noises. One was a loud grrrraaaahhhhhghrr! Which meant that my asshole stomach was begging for food. I wasn’t going to even attempt to eat anything again that hadn’t at some point been mooing, so food would have to wait until after the meeting tomorrow because the second sound I heard was stomp, stomp, stomp! Which meant that my asshole neighbor was doing his calisthenics warm-up—fucking gym rat—and he’d be heading out for his run soon.
I strutted over to my bay window—those shoes did wonders for a woman’s walk—and checked outside. Yep. Twilight. He was right on time, and I needed to enact the most important part of my plan. I simply could not continue living in this apartment underneath a killer, stalker, or combo of the two. I would have to follow him when he left for his run and see what kind of activities he got into under the guise of being soooo concerned about all that lean muscle and chiseled abdominals with the most prominent iliac crest imaginable. And biceps I could take a yummy bite out of. And oh dear gawd, I had yet to even get a view of his calves. Or the thighs further up that would be so integral for a proper thrusting motion...
Dammit. I shook my head to clear all those visuals. If I was going on a run, I couldn’t do it in my new shoes!
I headed back to my bedroom and sat to unlace and remove the pretties, wrapped them back in their dust bag, then kissed my preciouses before placing them in the box and sliding it under my bed. I certainly wasn’t putting them in the closet with all my cheap, old, smelly shit. No, siree. I grabbed the sneakers that I wore when I changed out of my heels before walking to and from work. They were the only pair I owned, and in pretty bad shape for running, but it wasn’t like I had other options. Since I was changing shoes, I might as well get totally into the ruse. I left on my yoga pants, but found a t-shirt with “What’s Cardio” written across the front in hot pink and neon orange letters.
I grabbed my keys and stuffed them in my bra. It would have been nice if it was one of those sports-styles that kept my boobs from bouncing, but I’d made my lazy bed, and now I’d have to lie in it. Then I tucked my cell phone on the other side. It wasn’t comfy, but I’d rather have cramped tits than no lifeline if shit went down.
I took up a post with my ear to the door, waiting to hear him come downstairs. Turns out, I should have known that his departure would be as loud and rambunctious as everything else he did. For once, I didn’t have a perverse thought in my head about that. I was focused. Fuck it. I’m lying.
Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Slam!
“Game on, Hammerdick.”
Gawd! I Hate Exercise!
As soon as Freddie was out the front door, I raced out of my apartment and locked the deadbolt as quick as I could. I rushed through the security door and peeked out the entry window to determine which way he’d headed. It would have made the most sense for him to turn right and head toward an area with working streetlights and heavier foot traffic, but if he was legit enough do that, I’d have no need to follow him in the first place. A quick glance left proved me abso-positively-correct.
He’d already gotten about a hundred feet ahead, so I slipped out the door, making sure it didn’t make noise behind me, and sprinted across the dead-grass yards of neighboring abandoned properties instead of heading straight down the sidewalk. Sure, there was a chance I could step on a dirty needle in the process, but at least I had some cover.
He was going at a fairly moderate pace, so I was able to keep him in sight.
Go me! Granted, I had to tell myself multiple times that it was his general nefarious actions and not his glorious ass that I needed to keep in my sight. Jeezus, I had an entire roll of quarters I’d like to try bouncing off of that thing.
I followed for four blocks. The longer he ran, the more out of breath and fatigued I became. Already? But I couldn’t give up so easily. I’d simply have to slow my pace and squint a little harder to see him at a greater distance.
I noticed that he was at least vigilant enough to keep a constant watch of the area around him. Every few strides, he turned his gaze to a different area of the street, seeming to play close attention to the shadows near buildings where the dregs of society would typically lurk. Thank fuck he never looked behind him or I could be caught despite my attempt at stealth. He only had to twist the right way and look in the right corner or behind the right barely-living bush and my jig would be up. I had to give it to him, as cautious as he was, he had gigantic balls to trust that no one would come up on his six and murder him.
Who knows, maybe he wanted just that. It could explain how he chose victims. The guys snuck up behind him and tried to grab him, but he pulled a German military maneuver and turned on them, slicing their throats. Probably with my fucking knife.
Unfortunately, that didn’t explain Gray Eyes. He most certainly was not a mugger, and I doubt he came up on Freddie in that alley when he would have been trying to escape. As if the memory caused the scene of the crime to manifest, we started to pass Gina’s Bar, still sporting tattered ribbons of police tape here and there. The vision of that body invaded my mind. It was ripped to shreds. Everyone assumed that he was killed by the same person that killed the other two, but according to the gossip mill, a.k.a Miguel, they had neat slashes across their throats. That was all. Whoever killed Gray Eyes...that person was pissed. Having seen the body very up close and personal, I can tell you now that his killer had been out to get revenge in the worst possible way. The conundrum was what was the killer getting revenge for, and why did it happen immediately after he tried to shoot me?
My trip down Recent Memory Lane distracted me enough to not notice I’d jogged another block, and somewhere between here and there, I lost sight of Freddie.
Damn, damn, damn.
I sped up my pace, despite protests galore from my body, and gave up the pretense of trying to be stealthy. It annoyed me that he’d gotten so far away. My stint as an amateur sleuth was over before it started. As I passed an alley, I craned my neck to look down it and immediately backtracked behind the corner of the apartment building it ran along the back of. I peeked around again, with more caution this time, and confirmed what I’d seen. There was a nondescript silhouette of a man standing next to a dumpster and against the wall a few yards away. It could have been Freddie, and since all he had to do was shift his gaze a little to the left, I was risking getting caught. But he didn’t. And I realized that his head was bent, looking at something on the ground that was hidden from my view by the dumpster.
Holy hell! Was this it? Had I caught him with a fresh kill? I mentally fist-pumped the possibility that I’d re-earned sleuth status. All I had to do was figure out how to get a good view of what, or who, was behind the dumpster.
Taking a deep breath, I crouched and slid around the corner of the brick wall. It wasn’t easy, and it made me wish I’d focused on exercise more, specifically squats, but I stayed low and moved along the wall toward the dumpster. I kept my eyes trained on the probably-Freddie figure as I made my way closer. I hoped he couldn’t see me from where I was, believing my crouched body had blended in with the boxes and other garbage. By the way, eww, but I had a mission.
I reached the dumpster and steeled myself. I was going to need to look under it to the other side if I was going to positively identify that it was indeed a body. After that, I had no clue how to proceed. I wasn’t even sure I was capable of fully thinking out my actions before actually acting on them.
I got down on all fours and, after visualizing the shower I was going to take when I got home, lowered myself to the ground, making zero noise. My success at being mouse-quiet made me realize that there was a noise that could be heard. It was steady and rhythmic— slurp, slurp, slurp. I turned my head. Underneath the dumpster, I saw most of what I expected: Freddie’s feet against the wall, another set of feet and a body partially on the ground. I squinted. The second set of feet wore a trashy pair of patent leather platform heels. Fishnet-adorned knees were planted firmly on the ground. Suddenly, I was pissed, and I staggered to a full stand, marching my way around the dumpster.
“You nasty bastard!”
My accusatory tone was unwarranted for numerous reasons. First off, I had no relationship with Freddie. Despite his flirting, there was nothing between us that gave me any right to him or gave him any reason to refrain from paying a prostitute for a nightly blow. Second, the prostitute, a dishwater-blonde barely out of her teens and wearing a black spandex strapless dress, had a sad look in her eyes. The get-up was straight out of a Blaxploitation pimp movie’s costume department and I had a nagging feeling she didn’t choose it. She also looked clean, as in not drugged-up clean and soap-clean. She wasn’t homeless or giving blows in the alley for a fix. Someone made her do this. And my assumption that she was nasty was completely unwarranted.
Note to self: Check your sex-worker bigotry later.
The main reason, though, that I should have paused for a think before I jumped out from behind the dumpster with an, “A-ha! Gotcha!” was that this motherfucker wasn’t even Freddie. In fact, the dark complexion and short ‘fro had me wondering if I needed to get my eyes check. Dark alley or not, the dude wasn’t even five-foot-nine. The lack of towering height that I always took note of every time I was near Hammerdick should have tipped me off that this guy was not the same one I was stalking ten minutes ago.
The girl went back to her, eh, activity—probably trying to get it over with as soon as possible—which left Totally Not Freddie eyeing me in a very, very skeevy way. “Nasty, huh? Fuck you, bitch. Why don’t you get nasty, too, and help this other bitch out? You can take the sac.”
Vomit. That was definitely vomit that I tasted as I turned and power walked right the fuck out of there.
I ended up back on Trade Street and lost all pretenses of trying to be stealthy, equally due to needing to get far, far away from Skeevetown and still needing to find Freddie. Who did I think I was anyway? I was no cop or P.I. I could barely sit up straight these days without getting wobbly, yet I decided to chase after a suspected murderer in top athlete shape? I’d never in my life been called a ditz, despite doing some royally dumb things. Tonight? I crowned myself Queen of the Ditzes. The question I probably shouldn’t have been trusted to answer was, “Do I search some of the other streets or high-tail this highness’s ass home?”
Oh look! My brain kicked back in! Before I could question my descent into sanity, I crossed the street and headed back north on Trade Street. This time, though I should have been, I didn’t jog back. I walked leisurely. I needed a doctor. Or a gym membership. Priorities, Kiera. Doctor first, then toning and tightening. There was a community clinic a bus ride away that I needed to visit after meeting with the gang the following day.
Luckily, I didn’t see any more johns or hookers on my way back, because I looked in every corner of every dirty alley to see if I could figure out where Freddie had disappeared to. I didn’t see any dead bodies either. Halfway home, I did see something that gave me pause, even though it was probably just mind tricks.
Back near Gina’s Bar, I looked down the alley where I’d found Dead Gray Eyes. Why, I have no clue, but something drew my attention that way. The club’s back entrance was farther away from the street, and it wasn’t like my eyes were working at full capacity lately, but I swore I saw a shadow near the crime scene. My first thought was that it was a cop. But wouldn’t a detective, or CSI agent or whatever, have set up lights? They’d at least be using a flashlight, right? This shadow—I st
ill couldn’t tell if it was a person or not—seemed to be hovering near the area where Gray Eyes lay just nights before in complete darkness. I started to cross the street and go down that alley to get a better look. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. I got halfway into the alley and stopped dead in my tracks. The shadow was definitely a person. A man. Who’d been searching the alley in the dark. He wasn’t searching anymore, though, because he was looking straight at me.
I stood there, paralyzed and mute, as the figure started walking toward me. Fuck it. He was stalking, and I was the goddamned gazelle.
“Come with me, Kayla. Now!” What the fuck? That was Freddie’s voice. He was somewhere near me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the figure in the alley. “Now!”
My upper arm was in his strong grip as he yanked me in the opposite direction. I finally came back to reality and looked at him. Fear and anger warred on his handsome face. I turned my head behind me as I was dragged away to the other side of the street again. The figure was gone. It was like I’d conjured him up out of the need to find something, some sort of answers, and Freddie’s sudden appearance made the shadow figure disappear. I was losing it.
I yanked my arm back, trying unsuccessfully to remove it from his tight grip. “What are you doing, asswipe?”
He rounded on me, glancing over my shoulder briefly before bending down to get right in my face. “What am I doing? Saving you from yourself, little girl.”
“Don’t ‘little girl’ me, you piece of shit! I’m done with you being condescending.” I hoped my face reflected what I was feeling. I was a Scorpio and a natural redhead, but I didn’t do anger well. Not my style.
Kiss Me, I'm Undead Page 8