“Oh, they had their own contracts, I guess.” Amelia shrugged.
“Did you meet any of them? Did they seem to be pros? Er…professional actresses?” Cassie asked.
“I don’t think so,” Amelia said slowly. “A couple of them seemed surprised when they saw the cameras and some of them were upset when Frank told them he wanted to film their, uh, ‘scenes’ with The Beast.” She made air quotes again.
“Cameras?” Cassie frowned. “I didn’t see any cameras. Did The Beast take them with him?”
Amelia shook her head.
“No, today he didn’t have a camera. Not like the ones they used on the other days, anyway. Today he had this little silver ball shaped thing with lights all over it—about as big as an orange.” She cupped one palm to demonstrate. “It flew up into the air and went whizzing all around while he was…was doing what he did,” she finished in a whisper.
“A holo-recorder camera drone,” Stone growled. “That’s alien tech.”
Amelia shrugged.
“I dunno what it was, but he took it with him when he left.”
“So most days everything was okay—they just shot porn on regular cameras with the girls they brought in here and then they all left with nobody hurt or dead, right?” Cassie asked.
“Yeah.” Amelia nodded.
“But today it was just The Beast with a girl and things got violent?” Cassie said.
Another nod, this one very subdued.
“Okay, so tell us everything that happened today,” Cassie urged her. “How was it that The Beast didn’t see you watching?”
“I told you, I was hiding in the closet! See, most days the guys would come early and be setting up and filming by the time I was leaving for school,” Amelia said. “But today is senior skip day so I—”
“Wait—senior skip day?” Cassie frowned at her. “What school do you go to?”
“Our Lady of the Sacred Heart over on MacDill.”
“You mean the Catholic girl’s school?” Cassie shook her head. “I thought you were in college at least! How did you get into a place like the Velvet Noose if you’re still a minor?”
“I have a friend who knows the bouncer,” Amelia admitted. “She said he would let us in if we at least looked old enough. My mom and dad never let me go anywhere. So when they decided to go on a second honeymoon—”
“You decided to use your newfound freedom to go exploring on the dark side of town,” Cassie finished for her.
“I told you, I was just curious,” Amelia protested.
“And I think you can see where that got you,” Cassie said sternly. “But we’re getting off track. You said today was senior skip day so you what, decided to stay home?”
“Yeah.” Amelia nodded. “I wanted to see exactly what was going on. So I pretended to go to school, then snuck back in and hid in the closet. I thought I was just going to see, you know, regular porn. And it kind of started out that way. Well, except the girl was really nervous about being tied up.”
“I bet,” Cassie muttered. “So what happened next?”
“Oh, The Beast got her calmed down. He’s really good at talking people into things, ya know?”
“Like talking you into letting him film porn at your house,” Cassie said dryly.
Amelia hung her head.
“I guess. But like I said, I didn’t know it was going to be porn—especially not that kind of porn.”
“BDSM,” Cassie supplied.
“BDSM?” Stone asked, frowning.
“Bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism,” Cassie explained to her partner. Apparently the Kindred didn’t do kink.
“Like I said, what little I saw wasn’t bad until today,” Amelia told her. “I mean, just like spanking and moaning and stuff like that.” She shrugged.
“But then today, it was different because the girl didn’t want to be tied up?” Cassie asked. “But you said The Beast talked her into it?”
“He did.” The girl nodded. “But only after he gave her a shot.”
“A shot?” Cassie asked. “A shot of what?”
“Dunno.” Amelia shook her head. “He just said, ‘this is gonna make everything all right.’ And then he stuck her in the neck with a needle. At first, she was mad at him—she said, ‘Hey, that hurt! What did you do that for?’ But after a minute, she seemed to change.”
“Change how?” Cassie asked her.
“She said she felt warm all over—especially between her legs. And then The Beast asked her if she wanted to be tied up and she said, ‘yes!’ like she was really eager. She even went to the cross-thingy and put up her arms for the ropes. And when he was tying her up, she kept saying, ‘tighter! Make it tighter!’ Then she said, ‘hurt me!’”
She shook her head and shivered.
“So what did The Beast do then?” Cassie asked quietly. She could tell the girl was really upset. If she’d really lived such a sheltered existence, it was no wonder seeing such violence had shaken her. Her innocence was gone now and it was never coming back. Not after what she had witnessed.
“He…he slapped her.” Amelia made a motion with one hand, as though to illustrate it. “Really hard. And then he did it again and again. But no matter how hard he slapped her, she kept begging for him to do it harder. It was so weird.” She shook her head. “It was like the shot he gave her changed her whole personality.”
“Because she didn’t even want to be tied up at first and then after she got the shot, she was begging for him to hit her?” Cassie asked.
Amelia nodded.
“She was screaming, ‘hurt me! Hurt me!’ at the top of her lungs. And then…” She bit her lip. “Then he pulled out a knife.”
“Did the girl get upset when she saw the knife?” Cassie asked softly.
Amelia shook her head.
“No, she got excited. She started begging him to cut her.” Her eyes widened. “So he did. He started cutting all up and down her arms and legs and blood was going everywhere but she just kept begging him to cut her more. Like she liked it.”
“Sounds like another effect of whatever it was he shot her up with,” Cassie said, looking up at Stone. Her partner had been mostly silent during this interrogation and she wanted his take on what Amelia was telling them.
“I do not believe it was the blood loss that killed her,” he rumbled. “None of the wounds I saw were very deep.”
“No, she was fine until…” Amelia’s face went pale. “Until he started choking her. But he didn’t start that until after he started, you know, uh, fucking her.” She whispered the word, as though she thought her parents might hear her using bad language.
“So he stopped cutting her long enough to penetrate her?” Cassie said, trying to keep things dry and clinical.
Amelia nodded.
“He was, uh, doing her and she was begging him to do it harder—to hurt her. And then he said, ‘I’ll hurt you, baby,’ and he started to…to choke her.” Amelia’s eyes started to well up, but she somehow kept talking. “And he was choking and choking her and her face was turning blue and then I heard this awful…this awful cracking sound…”
“He broke her neck,” Stone said flatly. His tone was dry, almost detached but Cassie could see the fury in his pale blue eyes. The perp had better watch out if Stone ever got his hands on him. Whether he was human or Kindred, her partner would make him pay for the atrocity in the other room.
“Y-yes. I guess he d-did.” Amelia nodded, and now tears were flowing again. Cassie sighed and put an arm around the girl’s shoulders.
“Okay and then he left?”
“Not before he…he finished.” Amelia’s face had taken on a pale, sickly hue. “He actually kept on after he…he killed her.” She put a hand over her mouth and shook her head. “I still can’t believe he did that.”
“Sick bastard.” Stone’s voice was little more than a growl and Cassie shot him a worried look. He was really angry—furious. She didn’t blame him, actually. Hearing that the per
p had actually kept on having sex with his victim after she was dead was enough to make anyone angry and disgusted.
Or sick. Amelia suddenly pushed Cassie’s arm from around her shoulders and ran to the kitchen sink where she was noisily ill.
“Sorry,” she gasped, as she finished. She ran water in the sink and splashed some on her face. “I just…when I told you about it, it was like I saw it all over again.”
“It’s okay,” Cassie assured her. “We understand.” Another thought occurred to her. “Hey, you didn’t happen to catch any of this scene on your phone, did you?” she asked.
Amelia shook her head.
“No, I left it up in my bedroom or I would have called you guys sooner—I swear! I had to wait until The Beast left and I was sure he was really gone before I could go get it.”
Well, it had been worth a shot, Cassie thought.
“Okay,” she said. “So can you tell us when The Beast left, then?”
“Right after he, uh, finished, he cleaned himself up and then he stood there looking at the girl for a minute,” Amelia said. “And he said something like—‘Well, this should make Gozer happy.’”
“Gozer?” Cassie asked. “Who’s that? Maybe another business associate like Frank?”
Amelia shook her head.
“I don’t know—I never heard either of them mention the name before. It just stuck in my head because it sounded so funny. I mean, who has a name like Gozer?”
Cassie glanced at Stone, wondering if it might be a Kindred name, but her partner only shook his head. Apparently he had never heard the name either. She put it in her notes—someone else to check out.
“What happened next?” she asked Amelia. “What did The Beast do?” Clearly he hadn’t even tried to cover his tracks.
“Well…” Amelia frowned. “Then he whistled and the round silver thing with all the lights came flying over to him and then he just…he just left.”
“Guess he decided there was no point trying to take anything with him or clean up the scene,” Cassie said to Stone. “Either he wasn’t worried about being caught or he was leaving a message for someone.”
“True.” Her partner nodded. He looked at Amelia. “Then what?”
“After The Beast left, I waited in the closet for a long time until I was sure he wasn’t coming back. Then I snuck out and checked the girl’s pulse, even though I was pretty sure she was…was dead.” Amelia grabbed for some paper towels and blotted her wet face. “And then I got my phone and called you guys—the police, I mean.”
“And here we are,” Cassie said and sighed. “All right, Amelia—can you think of anything else to tell us?”
“I don’t think so.” The girl shook her head. “But can you tell me how long this will take to clean up?” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I mean, I feel sorry for that poor girl but my parents are going to be coming back from the airport in a couple of hours. Do you think you can get it all cleaned up and taken away by then?”
“Cleaned up and taken away?” Cassie echoed, frowning. The girl really didn’t know which end was up, did she?
“Yeah,” Amelia said earnestly. “So my mom and dad don’t find out what happened. They’d ground me for like, the rest of my life, if they knew I let Frank and The Beast into the house to make porn!”
“Amelia, your house is now a crime scene,” Cassie said, trying to make her understand. “The Medical Examiner will take the body away but everything else has to stay like it is while we work on the case and try to catch The Beast.”
“You mean you’re not going to clean it up?” Amelia’s eyes went wide. “But…but my mom and dad…”
“Are going to find out one way or another,” Stone growled. He leaned forward and pointed a finger in Amelia’s face. “And you should consider yourself lucky that it isn’t you hanging there with a broken neck! Your reckless behavior was extremely dangerous. Your parents should grind you for the rest of your life, for your foolish disregard for safety.”
“The word is ground,” Cassie corrected him, half amused. Amelia began to cry again and she patted the girl on the shoulder. “Don’t touch anything in there—it’s all evidence. And if you think of anything else, call me.” She dug a card out of her pocket and pressed it into Amelia’s hand.
Amelia started sobbing in earnest.
“What am I gonna do when my mom and dad find out about all this?”
“Tell them the truth,” Stone growled. “They will find it out anyway. Maybe they will go easier on you if you tell them. Although if you were my daughter…”
He shook his head, letting the words hang balefully in the air.
“One more thing,” Cassie said to her. She was scrolling through the pictures and the contract on the girl’s phone, sending all the pertinent images to her own device. “I see an address for Frank Yarrow, The Beast’s manager, on the contract you all signed. Do you know if that’s his home or an office somewhere?”
“I…I think it’s his house.” Amelia swiped at her swollen eyes with a wad of paper towels. “He told me I could find him there if I ever wanted to…to work for him.” Her blotchy face went even redder as she spoke.
“Meaning if you wanted to do pornography?” Stone demanded, glaring at her. “Did he not know you were underage?”
“Sure.” Amelia nodded, as she shrank back from his intimidating glare. “But he said there was a, uh, big market for underage porn. Of course I would never…”
“I certainly hope not,” Cassie said, frowning at her. Though she had a feeling that once Amelia’s parents found out what their teenaged daughter had been up to, she would never leave the house again—let alone wander over to Frank Yarrow’s place to do porn.
“My mom and dad are gonna be so angry.” Amelia was starting to cry again.
“They should be,” Stone told her, frowning.
Cassie sighed and patted the girl’s shoulder.
“Call me if you think of anything else,” she told her again.
And with a final pat on her shoulder, they left Amelia crying in the kitchen, no doubt wondering how her parents would punish her once they found out she’d rented out their house as a porn studio and turned it into a crime scene into the bargain.
Eight
“I think I know our next stop,” Cassandra remarked as she slid into the passenger’s side seat. “You want to see if our friendly neighborhood porn producer is home?”
“Give me Yarrow’s address,” Stone growled. He was so angry his jaw was almost too tight to talk. Seeing the crime scene was bad, but hearing exactly how the atrocities he had witnessed had happened was even worse. Also, the Live Ink tattoo seemed like yet another indication that the perp really was a Kindred—or some kind of alien that looked exactly like a Kindred. But what other species looked so exactly like Stone’s own? With his black hair and golden eyes, the murderer was the spitting image of a Beast Kindred.
But how could any Kindred act with such callous disregard for a female life? How could any male with Kindred blood in his veins be so cruel—so fucking sadistic?
Stone’s fingers itched to wrap themselves around The Beast’s neck and squeeze. He would be happy to give the sick bastard a taste of his own medicine, as the humans said. He prayed to the Goddess that the guilty male would be at the address they were headed to, with the human who was apparently his manager.
He wanted to make the murderer pay…and pay and pay for what he had done.
Nine
“Stone, before we go in there, you and I need to talk.” Cassie put a hand on her partner’s arm and felt the tension coursing through him like electricity. His big, muscular body was thrumming like a live wire, which worried her. She had never seen the big Kindred this worked up before. He was like a bomb about to blow—but she didn’t need him going off right now.
“There is nothing to talk about.” His deep voice was cold.
“Yes, there is,” Cassie insisted. “We need to talk about what you’re going to do in there!”
>
She nodded at Frank Yarrow’s house, which was a tony, upscale Greek Revival McMansion, not much smaller than the one they’d just left. Apparently filming porn was a lucrative career.
“What I’m going to do is find out if the bastard who killed that female is in there.” Stone’s voice was little more than a growl.
“And then what?” Cassie demanded. “You going to make him pay?”
A deep, furious rumbling was the only answer she got. More alarmed than ever, she tightened her grip on Stone’s arm—which felt wooden with tension under her fingers.
“Stone, you can’t do that,” she emphasized, frowning up at him. “Remember your training!”
“On my home planet, if a male kills a female, his own life is forfeit,” Stone growled, glaring down at her.
Cassie didn’t often think about their size difference—Stone was always so careful and considerate with her it was easy to forget he was seven feet tall and built like a professional wrestler. But now she felt like a Chihuahua staring down a Malamute—a very angry Malamute. Still, she couldn’t give up. If she let her partner go do whatever he wanted, they were both going to get into trouble.
“Well, you’re not on your home planet—you’re working on Earth now!” she reminded him sternly. “We’re not here to rip the guy’s head off, as much as he might deserve it. We have to take him in and book him—you know that. Stone…Stone, look at me!” she demanded, when he glared out the window at the house. Reluctantly, he looked back at her. “You know that,” Cassie said again, frowning at her partner. “Come on—talk to me.”
At last, Stone nodded.
“I know we are not here for vengeance,” he said at last. “But the way he killed her and then left her hanging there, as though she was nothing but a piece of garbage he had used…”
“I know, he’s a sick bastard,” Cassie said calmly. “I saw the crime scene too. But we see them every day.”
“Not female victims.” Stone’s deep voice was hoarse with fury. “We don’t see crime scenes with female victims.”
Playing Their Parts: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 4