Sex, Lies, And Online Dating

by Rachel Gibson

  One kiss had sucked out her rationality and reason. She was going to see Quinn again. She hadn’t meant to say yes when there were so many good reasons to say no. She didn’t really know him and didn’t know if she believed half of what he said. There was something about him that was just a little too intense. Something that told her he was moving too fast. There was something wrong. Something she just couldn’t see, but for some inexplicable reason, none of that seemed to matter.

  “Good night, Quinn,” she said and moved around to the other side of her car. She glanced across the roof of her BMW at his outline against the soft glow of the printer’s shop behind him. He was tall and dark and absolutely gorgeous. With one kiss, he’d turned the “curiosity thing” into a real date.

  “I’ll get in touch with you about Monday.”

  With her car separating them, her thoughts cleared a little, and she recalled her Monday night plans. She’d been given two tickets to a hockey game as a thank-you for speaking at a Writer’s League meeting. She’d been meaning to ask Adele to go with her, since Adele loved hockey as much as Lucy. “I forgot that I have tickets to the Steelheads for Monday night,” she said. It was a perfect excuse to get out of the date. Instead she asked, “Want to go to the game with me?”

  “Dinner first?”

  “Sure.” She’d had the perfect out, but she hadn’t taken it. She was going to see him again, and God help her if he ever touched more than the back of her head.

  Chapter 5

  Storyteller: Seeks Smooth Talker…

  Monday morning, Quinn walked into the briefing room and shot the shit with a few guys from the crime lab. While they talked about old cases, his gaze took in the marker board. Lucy’s name was still at the top in bold red, and two lines were drawn to the second and third murder victims.

  He grabbed a cup of coffee and took a seat. He opened his notebook on the table in front of him to the notes he’d written about Lucy. Everything he had was circumstantial, but when put together, it painted a fairly damning picture. He ran a hand down his gold-and-blue-striped tie and wondered how long it would take before someone mentioned the kiss he’d put on Lucy the previous Friday night.

  “You sure didn’t kiss Maureen like you kissed Lucy,” Kurt managed through a huge grin as he entered the room and sat next to Quinn.

  “Jealous?” Quinn asked through a smile as he pulled back the cuff of his dress shirt to look at his watch. One minute after eight. Kurt had waited a whole minute. If anything, Quinn was surprised that Kurt hadn’t razzed him about it Saturday night when they’d met before his setup with Maureen.

  “Not jealous. Impressed by how fast you work.”

  “I had to convince Lucy she needed to see me again. Maureen didn’t need convincing.” He turned a page in his notes. If his date with Lucy had been a real one, he’d have used more finesse. He would have taken his time and asked for her phone number. If he’d had time, he would have charmed her into giving him what he wanted instead of grabbing her and kissing her into submission. When given a choice, Quinn always preferred to take his time, although he had to admit that grabbing her up and getting to it hadn’t been too bad. Not at all. In fact, it might have been a little too good.

  “By the sound of Lucy’s moan, that was some convincing.”

  “It’s a dirty job, Weber.” He hadn’t expected it to be so easy, either. He’d expected Lucy to pull back and slap him.

  “But somebody’s gotta do it. Right?”

  “Right.” Instead of slapping him, she’d done the unexpected and melted into his chest. Her response had surprised the hell out of him, and for a moment, as he’d tasted her mouth and felt the warm pull of desire, he’d forgotten who she was and exactly why he’d been standing there kissing her on a downtown street. For a few moments, she’d been just a beautiful woman and he’d been just a man. He’d let the heat of her response go straight to his head, and lower. For a few moments he’d forgotten that he’d just been doing his job.

  “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tongue tangle with bignsassy,” Kurt said, pulling Quinn’s thoughts away from kissing Lucy. “After listening to the most recent tape, I’m convinced you’re right. She’s as dumb as a doorknob. I don’t understand how the woman can keep a job.”

  “Maureen works for the government,” Quinn explained. There was no confusing the quick hug and kiss on the cheek he’d given Maureen for the DNA transfer he’d exchanged with Lucy. He’d always been able to tell if a woman would be any good in bed by the way she kissed. Lucy’s kiss had knocked him on his ass.

  Anita Landers entered the briefing room, followed by Sergeant Mitchell. They went over the latest reports from the print lab. Quinn wasn’t surprised to hear that neither of the sets of prints from Lucy and Maureen matched any of the prints found at the three crime scenes. None of the prints at the scenes matched each other. Long blonde hairs found on all three victims had matched each other but were synthetic. They still had nothing solid.

  The discussion moved from prints to the latest tapes. “Tell me anything new that you got the other night,” the sergeant said.

  Quinn flipped a few pages to the notes he’d taken while listening to the last tape. “Lucy Rothschild is still claiming to be a nurse. She admits that she hasn’t been out of town in the past few months and said she quit dating because she was becoming bitter and jaded. She lied about knowing any of the murdered men, and she seems to know that we don’t have a lot of evidence.” Although he couldn’t say why, he felt compelled to add, “All of that is completely circumstantial.”

  “True, but we know she met Lawrence Craig. Why would she lie about that if she didn’t have something to hide?” Mitchell asked.

  Quinn shrugged. She was a habitual liar, but that didn’t prove she killed anyone. “We could always bring her in and question her,” he reminded the sergeant.

  Mitchell thought about it, then shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Next, they discussed Maureen Dempsey. Quinn thought they should concentrate less effort on Maureen, if not cross her off the list completely.

  “She believes those stories printed in that Weekly News of the World,” Kurt pointed out. “She’s crazy as all hell.”

  “Crazy enough to kill three men?”

  “Maybe crazy enough,” Quinn pointed out. “But I doubt she’s smart enough.” Maureen had been so easy to lead. She’d admitted having met all three victims and that she’d been sorry to hear about their deaths. She’d told Quinn she’d prayed for their families and made donations to various religious organizations in their names. She’d said she lived in the grip of grace and danced with Jesus. Quinn had been educated in Catholic schools, but he hadn’t had a real clue what she’d meant.

  Mitchell scratched the top of his crew cut. “When are you seeing her again?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “If we can’t eliminate her completely, she stays on the list.” The sergeant rocked back on the heels of his wingtips and asked, “What do you have, Kurt?”

  They talked about the other suspects Kurt had set up for dates and about pulling in more resources so that Quinn and Kurt could concentrate on the top four or five. After the meeting broke up, the sergeant asked, “What do you two have going today?”

  “After we finish here, I’m going to follow up with the victims’ families,” Quinn informed him. “Later we’re heading over to Barnes and Noble again. We need to talk to some of the workers who were off the last time we were there.” He flipped a few pages in his notes. “Two of them will be working this afternoon.”

  A few minutes later, Quinn headed to his office. He had two other investigations he was working besides the Breathless case. Wednesday he had to testify in United States v. Raymond Deluca, an arson case involving a gasoline accelerant, resulting in the deaths of Mr. Deluca’s wife and her three children from a previous marriage. The toxicology report indicated that all four victims had ingested large amounts of phenobarbital, the medication Mrs. Deluca too
k to control her epilepsy. Raymond claimed his wife had been depressed and must have waited for him to go out of town to kill herself and her children. He had a receipt from a Holiday Inn in Salt Lake for the night of the fire, but as Quinn had discovered, there was also a debit card transaction at 2:35 a.m. for five gallons of gas purchased at the Shell station a few minutes from the Deluca house off Maple Grove. A half hour later, a neighbor had smelled smoke and called 911.

  The prosecution would present a new woman and an insurance policy as motive for the crime. Raymond Deluca’s attorney would try and disprove the motive as he worked to shred Quinn’s time line. Quinn needed to reread his notes before he entered the courtroom Wednesday.

  Quinn spent the rest of the morning chasing down leads and searching for information about Lucy on the Internet. He visited her website again to see if it had been updated in the past few days. It hadn’t. At noon, he and Kurt jumped in an unmarked car and headed to Barnes and Noble. They met with the two employees in a room filled with boxes of books.

  Jan Bright was short with long, kinky eighties hair. She wore some kind of plaid dress that she’d buttoned around her throat. Cynthia Pool’s platinum blonde hair was cut close to her head, and her white blouse had an embroidered Mickey Mouse climbing out of the pocket. Both women were very thin and in their mid to late forties.

  Quinn pulled a piece of paper out of his notebook. On it were the photos of Charles Wilson, Dave Anderson, and Lawrence Craig. He handed it to Jan Bright. “Do you recall seeing any of these men?”

  She shook her head and passed the paper to Cynthia Pool.

  “Yeah, they look familiar. Especially him,” Cynthia said and pointed to the second murder victim, Dave Anderson. “I think he used to come in quite a bit on Friday nights.” She looked back up, and her nose scrunched. “He was one of those.”

  “One of those?”

  “Those single guys who come in looking for single women,” Cynthia explained. “Bookstores are the new singles bars. Men and women come in here on Friday and Saturday nights to hook up.”

  Quinn and Kurt glanced at each other. They’d known each other long enough, worked enough cases together, to know what the other was thinking. Men and women hooking up in bookstores was not only news to both of them but it was also a valuable piece of information.

  Kurt asked, “Did you ever see any of these men meet with women or leave with anyone?”

  “I don’t recall. Do you remember, Jan?”

  “No. I really don’t pay attention to who’s hooking up with whom in the aisles.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked at a point somewhere above Quinn’s left shoulder. “I think it’s disturbing.”

  Cynthia shrugged her shoulders and handed over the paper. “So, those are the men who were murdered?”

  “Yes.” Quinn slid the photographs into his leather notebook. He and Kurt pulled out their business cards. “If either of you ladies remember anything else, give one of us a call.” Cynthia took the cards, while they practically had to slap them in Jan’s hand.

  As the two detectives passed the café on their way out, they spotted a poster with Lucy’s name on it. The green-and-beige sign sat on an easel beside a table stacked with her books. The sign advertised a meeting of the Women of Mystery, with guest speaker, mystery writer Lucy Rothschild.

  Kurt pointed at the poster. “That’s this Saturday.”

  “Wonder what goes on in a Women of Mystery meeting?”

  “Maybe we should check it out.”

  “Maybe.” Quinn picked up one of Lucy’s books and thumbed through it. “Right now, I’m more interested in what Cynthia Pool and Jan Bright had to say about people hooking up in the aisles of bookstores.”

  “You think Breathless picks up men in bookstores?”

  “Could be.” Quinn set the book down and glanced at the café to his right. A couple sat at one of the small square tables, while a man with a laptop sat at another. Quinn imagined the place packed. The perfect hunting ground. “We need to put someone undercover in here. Not me or you. Someone the employees won’t recognize.” He returned his attention to the stack of Lucy’s books. “Someone who’s unknown to the suspects we’ve met or interviewed,” he added as the two detectives turned and headed for the doors.

  The afternoon sun hit Quinn full in the face, and he reached for the sunglasses in his breast pocket. He slid them on the bridge of his nose as they moved through the parking lot to the unmarked police cruiser. He still wasn’t convinced Lucy was Breathless. Yes, she’d told some lies and could be tied to two of the victims. But she just didn’t seem…aggressive or kinky. She’d responded to his kiss, and within his hands, she’d turned warm and willing. Not the kind of woman to go to a man’s house after a few dates, cuff him to his bed, and snuff out his life. No, she seemed like the kind of woman who’d have entirely different plans for a man cuffed and at her mercy.

  Of course, that could be his dick talking.

  “Are you kidding?” Maddie asked as she pushed her Mexican rice to the side of her plate.

  “No, he just grabbed me and planted a kiss on me.”

  “How was it?” Adele asked as she reached for a pitcher of blue margaritas in the center of the table.

  Lucy bit her bottom lip, but the corners of her mouth turned up anyway. “Amazing.” She looked across her shoulder at Clare’s smile. Out of the three of them, Clare would be the only one to give her wholesale support. Clare truly did believe in what she wrote for a living. In romance and soul mates and happily ever after. Clare was also the most delusional when it came to men.

  “How long have you known this Quinn guy?” Maddie wanted to know. “A week?”

  “A little over a week. Tonight will be our third date,” Lucy answered with a stretch of the truth. If she counted the first time they’d met at Starbucks. Which she really didn’t. Nor had she considered the drink they’d had together a real date, until he’d kissed her. The kiss had been very real.

  Adele poured margarita into her glass and set the pitcher back in the center of the table. “And you let him kiss you on your first date? That’s not like you.”

  Let. Once his mouth had touched hers, there’d been no thought of letting. Just doing.

  “You have to be careful, Lucy,” Maddie said as if she were her mother when, in fact, Maddie was only a year older than Lucy.

  “He’s just a nice normal guy. He’s a plumber and owns his own business.”

  “I think you should go for it.” Clare paused to take a drink of her own blue margarita, then added, “I know you all don’t believe in it, but there is such a thing as love at first sight. It happens all the time.”

  Lucy smiled to herself. Or lust at first kiss, at any rate.

  A frown puckered Adele’s brow. “I don’t know, Lucy. I dated a plumber once. He was weird.”

  “Where did you meet him?” Lucy asked to take the attention off herself.

  “At The Society for Creative Anachronism.” Adele shrugged, then dug into her fajita salad.

  Maddie’s fork paused on the edge of her plate. “You’re shitting me.”

  Adele shook her head. “No. I was writing my medieval time travel and I needed to do some research. They meet in that park off Fort, a few blocks from my house, to sword fight and all that. So I decided to watch and ask questions.”

  “Was your boyfriend Sir Lancelot?” Maddie asked.

  “No.” Lucy nudged Clare in the arm with her elbow. “Isn’t it Sir Lance of Lotta Love?”

  Clare smiled, her blue eyes alight with humor. “It’s Sir Steely Lance of Love.”

  “Funny.” One corner of Adele’s mouth turned up as she tried to look offended. “He was Sir Richard the Resplendent.”

  “Not to repeat, Maddie,” Lucy said as she reached for her margarita, “but you’re shitting me. Right?”

  Adele shook her head. “No. His real name was Dexter Potter. And he looked good in a pair of tights. Large codpiece, if you get my meaning.”

&nb
sp; “Oh.”

  “Well then.”

  Maddie picked at her chicken burrito and pushed the tortilla to the side with the rice. “Are we talking ‘come to momma,’ big? Or ‘I ain’t birthing no babies,’ big?” Maddie held up one finger. “Because there is a difference, ladies. More than nine inches is-”

  “Gee, Maddie,” Clare interrupted as she glanced about. “Time and place.”

  “What? No one can hear me.”

  Lucy laughed and changed the subject again. “Are you still doing Atkins?” she asked Maddie.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “And it’s a bitch. I’m getting really tired of eating steak with a side of pork chops and a pound of butter for dessert.”

  “That doesn’t sound healthy.” Adele reached for the pepper and came close to dipping one large breast into her salad. “What does Mr. hardluvnman look like?” she asked Lucy.

  Lucy cut into her chicken chimichanga. “He’s tall, dark, and very good looking.” And he could kiss all rational thought right out of her head. “He likes to bird hunt with his dog, and he watches Cold Case Files. His family lives here in town, and his father died a few years ago.” He could put sex into his voice and take her breath away. “His wife died last year, and he’s lonely.”

  “Uh-oh.” Adele replaced the pepper and sat back.

  “What uh-oh?” Lucy asked, although she knew the answer.

  “You’re going to try and rescue him just like all the others.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You always say that,” Clare reminded her. “And you always get your heart broken.” She cut into her enchilada and shook her head. “If you get involved with him, you make sure he treats you right. Like Lonny. He’s the love of my life.”

  While Clare looked down at her lunch, the other three gave each other meaningful glances. Clare’s boyfriend, Lonny, was a nice guy, and he did treat her well. He remembered birthdays and holidays and wasn’t jealous or possessive. He would have been the perfect boyfriend if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was gay. Everyone knew it. Everyone, it seemed, but Clare. Either she wasn’t as smart as all of her degrees suggested, or she was in deep denial. Lucy and the others tended to believe the latter. Clare was a great person and a wonderful friend, but it was like she had a force field in front of her face and anything unpleasant bounced off. They were all secretly afraid of what might happen when she found out “the love of her life” was out loving men at the Balcony Bar behind her back.