by Harper Lin
Amelia did as she was told and took her seat again, placing the cans in front of them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked after popping the can tops.
“I want to, yes. But should I is the real question,” Dan said. “This is a bad one, Amelia. Really bad.”
Amelia had never seen Dan look like this since she’d met him. He’d rescued her on more than one occasion. He’d even swooped in and gotten between her children and danger. But even at those times, even when every second counted, and it seemed the odds were not in their favor, she never saw Dan scared. Not until today.
“You can tell me, Dan. I probably can’t do anything more than listen, but sometimes that’s enough.” She shrugged. “Does it have to do with the arsonist? I’ve seen it on the news. That’s enough to keep anyone up with nightmares.”
“No. Lewis and Murphy are handling that one. I’ve got a special case that’s been assigned to just me.” He shook his head.
“And it has got to do with those women?” Amelia jerked her head to the left, where the whiteboard was.
Dan nodded. In four big bites, he had already finished his sandwich and half the chips Amelia had brought them. After washing them down with some Coke, he took a deep breath.
“That first woman, she went by the name Bridgette. She’d been a prostitute for a couple of years, but I never busted her. Her body was found four years ago near Polk and Racine.”
Dan went on to describe that she’d been violated and that her throat was slit and a few other disturbing details that made Amelia put her sandwich down. She looked at the woman’s picture. She had to be in her late twenties. This was a mugshot, not a prom picture, so every scar and mole and blemish on her skin stood out. Her eyes were heavy lidded and gave Amelia the impression she wasn’t all that concerned with being busted. Her eyebrows were drawn in with a black pencil, and her eyes, which were such a pretty brown, were also heavily lined. She wore a couple of necklaces, and she had multiple piercings on each side of her ears. Her hair was thick, naturally wavy, and brown.
“Bridgette wasn’t a junkie like the next girl, Lolita.” Dan relayed a similar story. Violated. Throat cut. Found near Polk and Racine but a year after Bridgette’s body had been found.
Amelia was shocked to hear that Lolita was only twenty when her photo looked like a thirty-five-year-old woman. Her hair was dark and thin. She wore garish lipstick, and unlike Bridgette, she smiled for her mugshot.
“The same goes for Tammy, except she was found a month ago at the drainage ditch off Polk Street. And Melissa, who was found last week.” Dan swallowed hard. “I knew Melissa.”
“What?” Amelia looked at Dan. His eyes glistened as he worked his jaw, clenching and unclenching his teeth.
“I busted her a couple times. She was just a kid. Maybe just three or four years older than Meg.” He swallowed again as he looked at her picture. “She was a decent kid. She was a little brighter than you’d expect out there. She read books. Had friends. Was just a few credits shy of a high school diploma.”
“What happened to her?”
“Ugly divorce. Deadbeat stepfather. Mother checked out. Absent father. The same story of half a million other kids in the country.” Dan growled. “They make the money good and easy at first. But it never stays that way. So they get sucked in.”
Amelia looked at Melissa’s photo. It hadn’t hit her all at once, but then she saw what Dan had probably seen. Remove the heavy liner around her eyes and pull her hair back in a ponytail, and she had a strong resemblance to Meg. They weren’t identical. Perhaps it was their closeness in age or that Melissa’s skin was still smooth and hadn’t been eaten away by drugs yet. But they had a few features in common.
“Just a baby.” Dan shook his head. “Where was her father? More than I’d like to catch the guy who did this to her, I’d like to get my hands around the throat of her father. This is his fault.” He cleared his throat then looked at Amelia with that serious expression that never seemed to leave his face.
“I’m so sorry, Dan.” It was all Amelia could think to say.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called,” Dan said as he finished off his Coke. “This has been a twenty-four-hour-a-day case. I’ve been sleeping at the precinct, waiting on leads that are so flimsy it’s laughable. And you know what most people think of these women. Expendable.”
Amelia let Dan speak without interrupting. But then he said two words that made her breath catch in her throat: “serial killer.”
“Are you serious?” She put her hand to her throat.
“Yes. And he’s getting more active and bolder. It won’t be long before he’s not happy with just abducting the girls on the street, girls who no one will miss. He’ll want his name in the papers, and the only way to get that is to get his hands on someone’s mother or wife or daughter.” He looked sadly at Amelia. “So you see, I’ve got to catch this guy. It’s now or never. Because if he goes back into hiding like he has before, he might slip away.”
A serial killer? Amelia stared at Dan as he told her the small leads he had, but she didn’t really hear what he was saying. Everything had stopped when she heard those words. Then she looked at the pictures of the girls and saw they all had shoulder-length brown hair. It was a simple feature. How many women and girls had that same cut and color hair? Probably thousands in the city. But Amelia understood enough to know that people like this killer often had a type. They held a grudge against some old girlfriend or their mother or someone who did them wrong in their life, and they planned on exacting revenge. She stroked the nape of her neck and looked at Dan.
“I thought you were dealing with the arsonist when you called the other night and asked if Meg was home,” she said. “Then I thought you’d gotten tired of things being the way they are with me and that’s why you hadn’t called and backed out of our dates. I had no idea.”
“Amelia, my main concern is you and the kids.” Dan leaned back in his chair and looked at her. “But I thought if I stayed focused, I’d catch this guy sooner. Turns out I’m spinning my wheels. And I’m doing exactly what I hate about so many men. I’m putting the job before what’s really important.”
“Don’t say it like that, Dan. We need you, but we understand. Meg and Adam know what you do for a living. It isn’t like other jobs.”
“Well, whether I like it or not, I’ve got to get out of this office, or I’ll lose my mind. You’ve been a breath of fresh air. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” Amelia smiled.
“So, tell me. What are you all dressed up for?”
“Oh, well, I was ready for you to hand me my walking papers, so I wanted to make sure I looked good.” She stood up and smoothed out her slacks, which hugged her hips and enhanced her hourglass figure.
“Hand you your walking papers?”
“Come on, Dan. You know how impulsive us girls can be. No phone calls. Backing out of dates. We automatically assume the worst.” She shrugged.
Just then, she heard a knock on the door. Dan yelled for whoever it was to come in. When the door opened, Amelia saw an unfamiliar face, a plainclothes detective who held a box of donuts.
“Hey, I’m sorry, Dan. I didn’t know you had someone in here.”
“It’s all right, Lars.”
“Excuse me,” the man said.
“It’s not a problem. I was just leaving.” Amelia couldn’t help but notice Lars’s eyes follow up and down her figure before he turned and left. She looked at Dan, who rolled his eyes.
“They knew darn well I had someone in here,” he muttered. “They just wanted to see who she was and what we were doing.”
“What?”
“Lars Hegan was my partner for about six months when we were in uniform. He’s always been a ladies’ man.”
“You cops got a weird way of communicating. Can’t just ask a simple question. Nope. There’s got to be some kind of crazy procedure with hand gestures and winks and observing
from a distance. Weird,” Amelia teased.
Dan walked around from behind his desk and stood dangerously close to Amelia. She looked up at him and smiled. Then she remembered being with Lila at Robert’s house and how much he’d towered over her before he gave her a big hug. He was pretty to look at, but he wasn’t Dan. There was no doubt about that.
“How about tomorrow we have dinner at your house?” Dan said. “Nothing fancy. Anything warm will do.”
“I think that can be arranged. Meg will be thrilled. She said you were going to tell her some stories from your rookie days. That ought to make for some interesting conversations the next day at school.” Amelia chuckled.
“Yeah. I promised her.”
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow after work.” Amelia turned to leave, but Dan took her hand and pulled her back. Without warning and completely out of character, Dan leaned down and kissed her full on the lips. He’d never done it out in public before. They were both rather reserved when it came to public displays of affection. But Amelia melted into it. She didn’t know if anyone was watching, and she didn’t care. It felt like one of those long Hollywood kisses that lasted forever yet not long enough. When he finally pulled back, and Amelia’s eyes fluttered open, Dan looked down at her like a new man.
“See you tomorrow,” he grumbled with the left side of his mouth curled up slightly.
“Tomorrow.” Amelia’s heart raced, but she remained calm until she walked out of the office and entered her car. When she looked in the rearview mirror, her cheeks were bright red.
But as she drove back home, she remembered what he told her about the monster that was loose on the streets. And she remembered the way the women looked. “Women” wasn’t even the right word. They were young ladies and girls. Girls. Without realizing she was doing it, Amelia pushed down on the gas to get home a little faster.
When she reached the house and found the door locked, she called out to her kids and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard them both. They were arguing, of course. But to Amelia, it was beautiful music.
Chapter Eight
“So that’s what’s been keeping him away.” Lila shook her head. “That poor guy. To be carrying around a load like that has got to be torture. And he’s such a good man you know he is personalizing all of it.”
“Lila, he told me what this guy was doing. I saw the pictures of the women he killed, and they all look like my Meg. Some are older, of course, but it’s scary.”
“Now don’t go getting yourself all in knots over this,” Lila soothed. “There is a big difference between what Meg does on her evenings and what those girls do. She’s never alone. She’s always got people looking out for her. She’d be missed immediately.”
“It’s true,” Beatrice said as she added orange extract and cinnamon to her batter and stirred. “Most serial killers stake out a specific area, like sharks when they are feeding, and hang out there until the pickings get too slim. If he’s preying on the ladies in the world’s oldest profession, he won’t be jaunting over to the high school. Not yet anyway. However, there are always exceptions, like Ted Bundy.”
Amelia and Lila looked at their pint-sized baker as if they were both dogs hearing a high-pitched whistle.
“I just can’t imagine what that girl Melissa had to be thinking as she was alone with this maniac. Did he act strange, or did she think he was no different from any of her other… customers? Did he look like a crazy? Or did he look like a normal guy? It’s just too much.”
“It’s often the case that serial killers just blend in. They are almost too normal, if you can put a look on that. The last thing they want is to stand out,” Beatrice added while pouring her batter into the baking cups.
“I don’t know if you’re really helping, Bea.”
“Knowledge is power,” she replied without looking up. “And so is pepper spray. I know, I know. The police say it isn’t all that great because you’ve only got a range of about five inches, so you have to wait until you see the whites of their eyes to spray. But what your attacker won’t suspect is wasp spray.”
“What is she talking about?” Amelia looked at Lila, who shrugged.
She placed her cupcakes in the oven and shut the door while switching on the timer. Then she grabbed her purse—actually a huge leather satchel. Without looking down, she reached in and pulled out a can of extra-strong wasp spray that guaranteed to kill wasps on contact.
“This little baby can shoot up to twenty-five feet and can cause instant blindness that is temporary or permanent depending on how much you saturate your attacker. I’d say, better safe than sorry. Saturate the son of a…”
“Beatrice, where did you learn about this?” Lila asked.
“On the streets, Lila. On the streets.” Beatrice pinched her lips together and arched her right eyebrow.
“You never cease to amaze me. Not always in a good way, but you amaze me nonetheless,” Lila replied.
“Does that really work?” Amelia asked.
“Just ask your policeman friend.” Beatrice held the can of bug spray up like she was doing a commercial. “Then ask any punk intent on doing you harm if they feel lucky.” She pouted her lips and slowly nodded her head.
“I wish I could bottle you and sell you to people, Beatrice,” Lila said. “I’d make a fortune.”
Beatrice shrugged as she put her weapon of choice back in her purse and returned to her baking.
“You carry that everywhere you go?” asked Amelia.
“Of course I do. It’s a crazy world out there. There’s a potential masher around every corner,” Beatrice mused without looking up from her work.
“Masher? Now there’s a word I haven’t heard outside of the classic movie station.” Amelia chuckled. “We should bring that back into fashion.”
“I concur,” Lila said.
“In my self-defense class, our instructor told us that the masher on the street has a movie playing in his mind and already has our parts scripted.” She looked up but dropped her chin and peered at Amelia and Lila from beneath a furrowed brow. “So, it is only right for us to have our own script, too, where the ending is happy and we get home… alive.”
“Yes, bottling her for sale would make us instant millionaires,” Amelia said with a laugh.
“In my movies, I always drop my catch phrase.” Beatrice smiled proudly as she started on a decadent simple vanilla frosting.
Amelia and Lila stood there. “We’re waiting,” Amelia egged her on.
Beatrice set down her bowl and mixer, took a step back from her work station, and put her hands on her hips.
“Next time, try flowers,” Beatrice snarled.
“I want a T-shirt that says that,” Lila replied.
“That’s a winner. I could see you saying that and running away with your bug spray in your hands. Absolutely.”
Amelia smiled. She was always grateful for her staff and the positivity they brought to her and the business. But at times like this, she really felt blessed. Sure, her job was hard work, and she’d come a long way since that first day when she was the one baking everything with Lila’s help.
She had another truck, the catering side was booming, and still her small staff made every day more like a field trip than actual work.
As usual, the day was busy, and by the time five o’clock rolled around, Amelia gladly shut the service window and started to clean the back of the truck. Normally, Lila and Beatrice stuck around, but today Amelia sent them home. She wanted some time to think about her next steps with her new truck, and nothing helped generate ideas and solutions like cleaning.
But as she knelt and set out to wipe down the ovens, her phone rang. It was John.
“Hello?”
“What’s this I hear, you bought another truck?” No “hello.” No “Hey, it’s me.”
“Who is this?” Amelia baited him.
“Very funny. Interesting how you are blocking me from lowering your child support payments, but you somehow have
enough money to buy another truck.” He sounded more than angry. He was livid.
“John, it isn’t any of your business what I buy and…”
“It is when you are using what is essentially the kids’ college money to fund your little project,” he snapped. “You know, I was going to let it go. I was going to let you keep the money as it was, but now that I’ve got proof, now that I know you are obviously mishandling the child support payments, you’ve left me no other choice but to take you back to court.”
“Fine.” Amelia wanted to scream and yell. Every foul name she could think of came to mind, and she was sure she would bite her tongue right off if she didn’t say one of them. But the stinging sensation in her mouth as her teeth clamped down on her taste buds prevented her from swearing and threatening John’s life. She could slice him up into a thousand tiny pieces in her head, but if she said the words, she knew what he’d do. He’d act like he was really threatened, and then the kids would be the ones to suffer. Nope. She wasn’t playing ball.
“I mean it, Amelia,” John hissed. “Unless you can agree to a lesser amount of money between the two of us, I will drag you back to court, and I’ll win.”
“Then do it. Because I’m not giving up anything until a judge tells me I have to.” Amelia took a deep breath.
John was still on the other end of the line, but he said nothing. She could imagine him sitting there, looking around his office, which was as big as her living room, dining room, and kitchen all combined. His furniture at work was worth more than what she had in her whole home. If he needed money, maybe he should sell off some of that.
“You have no idea what you’ve done, Amelia.”
“All I’ve done is tell you no, John. But that’s all it takes, isn’t it?”
Suddenly, Dan stepped up onto the back of the truck. He must have heard Amelia say John’s name, and his face grew hard and serious. Amelia held up one finger and shrugged as she stood up from where she’d knelt in front of the oven.
