Last Girl Dancing

by Kate Aeon

  “Look at me,” he whispered. “Be with me.”

  She opened her eyes. Touched the sweat on his forehead and looked into his eyes and smiled, and whispered, “You’re wonderful.”

  He shuddered, and she touched the scars on his face lightly, and her eyes went feral as she said, “Give me all of you. Everything.”

  “Yes,” he growled, and she lifted her hips to collide with him hard and fast, and she watched him through half-closed eyes. He lost himself in her ferocious wanting and luxuriated in the pleasure in her murmured urgings — until control eluded her and her head tossed and her eyes shut of their own accord, her fingers locked onto the covers, and this time he let himself go all the way, holding nothing back, crashing faster, harder, deeper into her until they exploded together, shuddering, lost and found at once, and they fell together, exhausted, exhilarated, thrilled—

  Slowly and carefully then, he lowered himself onto her. He stroked her lips with a finger, and brushed his cheek against hers.

  “You had all of me from your first touch,” he whispered.

  They managed to get back to supper while the pasta was still warm, at least. Jess wished she could remember more of how it tasted, but at that point food was nothing more than fuel to get her and Hank to the next round. They ate, they laughed, but as soon as they were done, they were back in bed. And then on the floor, somehow, and then in the shower.

  At one point, she said, “You know, we’re doing a terrible job of keeping this thing between us platonic.”

  And he laughed a little and said, “I know. But it’s okay. The guys are on a stakeout right now, at the house of the woman who was going to be the next victim. They’re going to get these bastards tonight.”

  “You’re sure?” She was startled and hopeful and worried all at the same time. She wanted the case to be solved, but she didn’t want to not have Hank around every day, every night, all the time.

  She couldn’t get enough of him. If she could have fused the two of them into one person, she wouldn’t have had enough of him.

  Finally, in the small hours of the morning, they lay side by side in her daybed, tangled together because they didn’t have enough room for anything else, and because even exhausted, they still wanted to be touching.

  “You’re amazing,” he whispered. “I can’t believe someone before me hasn’t staked a claim to you. Or at least managed to hang on to you.”

  Jess lay back and closed her eyes. “I... ah... there was only one other man. We were serious about each other. I thought it was going to be forever. But my work got in the way, and I couldn’t give up my work.”

  “One. You mean... that you were engaged to or married to or something, right? Not that you’ve been with.”

  “That I’ve been with,” she said.

  He shook his head, looking puzzled. “Recent breakup?”

  “No. A long time ago.”

  “Jess... why? You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful. You wouldn’t have to be alone.”

  “I’ve never cared much for promiscuity. Sex for the sake of sex I could manage all by myself. So I did. I figured I’d make love with someone when it was making love. When it mattered.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close. “You don’t know me. You don’t know much about me at all. So... why me?” His voice sounded so hoarse. “Why me, of all the men in the world?”

  She touched his lips. She couldn’t promise him anything. Odds were that when this case was over, the two of them would walk away from each other, because her work came first, and he wasn’t the sort of man who could be second. Or who should be second.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have done this. But she hadn’t wanted to resist him. Of all the men she’d ever known, he was the only one she had to have.

  She didn’t know what that meant. She said, “Because you matter. I don’t know where we’re going; I don’t know if this is something that can last. I have no idea if I’m right for you. But you’re right for me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, held her close. And then suddenly he rolled away from her and growled, “Fuck,” and rubbed at his eyes.

  “What?”

  “Tears,” he said. “Shit.”

  Jess’s throat clogged, and for a moment she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She couldn’t think of anything to say. So she held him. And then he rolled over and held her. Jess drifted toward sleep, her body cradled against his. They fit. They fit like they were both pieces of a two-piece jigsaw puzzle. Like in all the world only the two of them could ever go together so perfectly. She had never felt so safe, or so good.

  And as she teetered on the edge of dreams, she heard his voice in her ear one more time, a low murmur that she just barely caught before she faded entirely.

  “Please tell me I get to keep you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Hank brought in a paper from the newspaper rack outside of her apartment when he came back with her Hardee’s biscuits. He wished he’d seen it after breakfast; now his appetite was gone.

  “Hey,” she said, when he came through the door. She spotted the biscuits and smiled hugely, and walked over and threw her arms around him and kissed him.

  Half of him wanted to scoop her up in his arms and haul her back to bed, and the other half wanted to run with her down to his car and get them the hell out of Atlanta. “God. I was sure they were going to wrap this up last night,” he said. “Maybe we should have held out a little longer,”

  She frowned. “No. No. No. Not holding out was the best thing that’s happened to me in ages. I wouldn’t go back and undo last night for anything.”

  He put the newspaper down in front of her.

  STRIPPER KILLER STRIKES FOUR TIMES?

  EYEWITNESS OFFERS IDENTITY OF POSSIBLE SUSPECT

  “The killer left the body right where I told them he would,” Hank said. “Jim promised they were going to keep her safe.”

  Jess leaned over the article, reading. Frowning. He watched her scanning the paragraphs, and saw her freeze at one point as a look of pain washed over her face.

  “What?”

  “ ‘Following notification of the family, the victim has been identified as Millie Hantumakis,’ ” she read. And then she looked up at Hank. “That was River. I talked to her. She was really nice to me, and she had a little girl; she was stripping so she could make enough money to live on and still be able to go to her daughter’s school plays and PTA meetings, for God’s sake.” He could see the shine in Jess’s eyes that betrayed tears, and could see her blinking them back. All the life and color drained out of her face. “River had heard about the killings. She was talking about picking up and moving, getting out of Atlanta.” Jess looked down at the paper, lips pressed in a thin line. “She should have.”

  “Which one was River?” he asked.

  “You saw her. She came out first yesterday. Had on a schoolgirl uniform.”

  Hank had a sudden sharp memory of the short, bouncy, dark-haired girl with the awful taste in music. “Her?" he said. “Not the redhead in the harem costume? You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  But the killer hadn’t touched River. Not recently enough to show up for him, anyway.

  But that was the problem with trying to read living people. Influences overlaid each other quickly, as people hugged, shook hands, brushed past each other, washed and showered, moved and changed focus over and over. The focused intent in the touch of the killer a few hours earlier could disappear in the events of an ordinary day.

  Conversely, inanimate objects — and corpses — held on to impressions. Sometimes for a very long time.

  Hank closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with one hand.

  “Piedmont Park,” he said. “Where I told Jim the guy was going to dump her body. But the girl who the killer wanted called herself Ginger Rose. When I touched her, I got a clear image that she was going to be the next one. And I read the killer’s decision to dump the body exactly where he did.”
>
  “Is this thing of yours an exact science?” Jess asked. “Have you made mistakes before?”

  “Of course I’ve made mistakes. I’m as prone to misconception and error as you are. Or anyone else is. My fuckup has never cost someone else her life, though. And I never cost some kid her mother.” Hank put the biscuits on the table. “There’s a dead dancer on the bridge, right where I said she’d be. But she isn’t the woman I said she would be, because the cops were watching the wrong girl all night. Because I told them to. How did I screw this up so badly?”

  “Maybe you didn’t. You said... Ginger Rose. I remember her. Her boyfriend had just gone apeshit on her. Maybe that’s what you were sensing. Maybe he intended to kill her, and you saved her life by having the cops watch the place.”

  “That’s possible only if her boyfriend is the same killer who’s slaughtered the other dancers. I waved Ginger Rose over, stuck money in her costume, and got so sick from the feedback of the murderer that I had to go throw up. When I came back out, I called Jim and told him what I’d discovered.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. You touched her costume? Only her costume? Belly-dancing costume? Kind of an I Dream of Jeannie thing? Blue?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That wasn’t her costume,” Jess said. “That costume belonged to River — Ginger Rose’s whacked-out ex-boyfriend diced all of her costumes in an attempt to force her to quit. So River let her borrow a costume she wasn’t going to wear.”

  “And I touched the costume, not the girl. Because inanimate things give me more accurate readings. I sent everyone in the wrong direction from the very start,” he said, feeling sick. “It’s my fault that girl is dead.”

  “It’s the killer’s fault she’s dead,” Jess said. She returned her attention to the article. “You realize that it wasn’t good investigative reporting that broke this story,” she said.

  “What?”

  “This reporter was tipped. Maybe by the killer.”

  “I didn’t get that far in the article. Why do you say that?”

  “Couple of things. First, the reporter notes that he was first on the scene. Which right there means somebody called him. No reporter merely happened to be walking through Piedmont Park to stumble across a fresh body at five in the morning. With a photograph. Second, he says that his source states that police, state, and federal agents are already investigating three similar killings. And when asked, the FBI confirmed this. How about a nice ‘no comment’ next time, guys?” she muttered under her breath.

  “Not happy with the FBI?”

  “Not so much. We were trying to keep the fact that there was a case quiet long enough to maybe slide in under the killers’ radar. And now... well, there’s no chance in hell of that, is there?”

  He had, for one horrible, stupid instant, an urge to tell her she was really cute when she was mad. Sanity prevailed, however, and he pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “You’ll get them. Him. Dammit, Jess, everything I get is telling me this is one killer working alone, not three.”

  She sighed and slid her arms around his waist. “Maybe. One would make a hell of a lot more sense. It doesn’t fit the facts.” She squeezed tighter. “And I’d love to say that I knew we were going to get him. But most serial killers aren’t caught, you know. If it comes to it, we’ll roust the devil out of hell looking for this one.”

  “You’re exactly the woman to do it,” Hank told her.

  She pulled away from him, and he felt a pang of loss. “I need to call Jim and find out what’s going on. Give me... say... half an hour, okay? And then I’ll update you on what he tells me.”

  Hank nodded. Jess sat at the table, cell phone in hand, and called in. Hank turned on the tiny television supplied with the furnished studio and surfed to local news.

  And there it was. A wobbly picture of a body in Piedmont Park, taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. Yellow tape fluttering in the breeze, detectives and forensic technicians and two guys with GBI in big letters on the backs of their jackets, and one guy with FBI on the back of his jacket, all inside of the perimeter. More cops and a throng of bystanders on the outside. A crush of reporters doing stand-ups around one edge. This guy was back a bit and had found something high to stand on, because he was the only one who actually had a shot of the body.

  Hank suddenly realized the cameraman was up a tree, following the “If it bleeds, it leads” dictum by getting as much of the horror of this thing as possible on camera for Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public. The reporter was in voiceover. Then the shot changed, and the studio face took over.

  “Breaking news — a local celebrity has been connected to this murder by an eyewitness,” the male hairdo said. “Jason Hemly, who plays bumbling Dr. Bob Buckley in the hit sitcom Heartthrob, was identified leaving the scene of the crime this morning after allegedly dumping the body. Local police received an anonymous phone call shortly after the body was discovered, stating that before dawn this morning, Mr. Hemly was seen carrying a body wrapped in black plastic bags out of his home, and putting the body in the trunk of his car.”

  The scene switched to another telephoto shot — this time of the driveway of a gorgeous mansion, where police had just opened the trunk of a black Mercedes, and with gloved hands were carefully lifting out two lawn-and-garden-type bags that had been taped together to form what looked like a body bag, even from a distance. One detective ran into the scene carrying something small in a clear plastic bag. Whatever it was caused a flurry. Hank suddenly realized the detective was Charlie, and the one with his back to the camera looking through the trunk was Jim.

  Hank wasn’t even hearing the hairdo’s commentary anymore. Jess came over and stood beside him, watching. “Guess that explains why they aren’t answering their phones,” Jess said.

  The camera then zoomed into a close-up of the handsome Jason Hemly, wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt, in his bare feet with his hair mussed. He stood on the walk with an expression of horror and bewilderment on his face.

  A dapper man in a dark suit got out of his Jaguar sedan, walked past the police to Jason, shook Jason’s hand, patted him on the shoulder, and then turned to watch the police.

  “Harmon MacAree. Premier defense attorney to the rich and guilty,” Jess muttered. “What a surprise.”

  Hank glanced over at her. “You want to go in?”

  “Can’t. I’m deep undercover. Until I hear different — which isn’t going to happen until they slow down enough to answer their phones — I’m not supposed to be seen anywhere near any of this. For now, I’m an exotic dancer. I have no legitimate reason to break my cover.”

  “How about because they found the killer, the body bag, and something that had Charlie looking happy at Hemly’s house?”

  “The only information I have to go on right now is that we’re looking for three killers. Jason might be the redhead. He might also be an innocent man being framed. It’s my job to presume the latter is the case until evidence proves otherwise.”

  “So you’ll still be going in to dance today?”

  “If I don’t hear from Jim or Charlie... or somebody... between now and then, yes. I have my job. And as best we can tell, even if Hemly is guilty, there’s still a brown-haired killer and a blond killer out there watching him right now on their own televisions.”

  Jess didn’t hear from Jim until she was already showered, dressed, and driving in to Goldcastle.

  “You’ve seen the coverage, of course,” Jim said by way of preamble.

  “Nobody on earth has missed the coverage. How does Hemly look for it?”

  “He does a very nice innocent act,” Jim said. “But then, he gets paid to know how to act like a nice, goofy, good-hearted guy, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s the act,” Jess agreed, shifting lanes. Traffic was horrible. “How’s the evidence?”

  “Found the dead girl’s missing earring right outside Hemly’s back door. Found the homemade body bag in the trunk, with hair and fibers. Found bloodstains
, old and new, in his trunk. Found cord of the sort the ME has been telling us the killers have been using to bind the victims’ ankles before hanging them upside down and draining the blood out of them. The cord is also bloodstained, and was in Hemly’s body bag. Based on all the goodies we found outside the house, the judge was kind enough to grant us a rather broad search warrant for the inside, over the loud protests of Hemly’s hired shitweasel.”

  “That’s Mr. Shitweasel to you and me,” Jess said, feeling good all of a sudden.

  Jim laughed. “It is indeed.”

  “So... what the hell happened? One of his buddies turn him in?”

  “Mr. Hemly had the misfortune to have dumped the body when he was not as alone as he thought. A young homeless man, who had found himself a place in Piedmont Park where he could sleep unbothered by either chicken-hawks or cops, was awakened by the sound of someone talking animatedly nearby. Apparently Mr. Hemly talks to his victims while he is posing them for display.”

  Jess stopped at a red light and readjusted her headset on her cell phone. The mike never seemed to stay where she wanted it.

  “A homeless guy was reliable enough to act on?”

  “Didn’t hurt that a friendly source inside WSB-TV tipped us that the station was investigating a phone call the local police department received, stating that Mr. Hemly looked like he was carrying a body out his back door at around four a.m.” Jim chuckled. “We called, the dispatcher on duty confirmed that they had received that call, but that it had come from a public pay phone.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “In that neighborhood, everybody has big lawyers. I’m willing to consider that our tipster didn’t want to be the focus of attention. Or maybe to explain why he was up at that hour.”

  “Hemly’s back door is visible from the neighbors’ houses?”