“Home sweet home,” he said cheerfully. “This way.” Sil followed him to a set of steep, wooden stairs, looking curiously at the unfinished garage, with its open wood framework and scores of hardware items hanging and stacked on shelves everywhere. Robbie waved a dismissive hand at it. “Don’t look at this mess. I hate screwing around with garage stuff. Come on—wait’ll you see upstairs.” He pushed through a door at the top of the staircase and motioned for her to follow. As she stepped through he snapped his fingers. Soft track lights winked into life on each side of the living room, following the high peaks of the ceiling until they met. Robbie snapped his fingers again and a stereo system against the far wall lit up, spilling soft music into the room from surround-sound speakers. On the other wall, in the center of two sets of patio doors, was an unused fireplace faced by two expensively upholstered Papasan chairs. Surrounded by deep brown leather couches, a thick, twelve-by-twelve area rug the color of café au lait dominated the room. In the rug’s center rested the highlight of the room, a circular coffee table made of heavy, polished copper, a lovely disk with hand-beaten designs that rested on a dark wooden base. The muted track lighting made it sparkle.
Robbie grinned at her, showing capped, expensive teeth. “You like it?”
Sil nodded amiably. “Yes. It’s very nice.”
“Great.” Robbie watched her for a second, then made a mock fanning motion in front of his face. “Whew,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m all hot and sweaty from the crowd in that place—what a madhouse. I feel like a shower.” His eyes, a clear gray color she’d never seen before, glittered in the subdued light. “How about it, beautiful—you want one?”
Sil smiled hesitantly. A shower?
“Tell you what,” Robbie said easily. “I’m going to take one. Join me if you like, or take one later. If you’d rather get something to drink, the fridge is off the living room. Help yourself. No problem.”
“No problem,” Sil echoed, watching as he headed toward the bathroom, stripping off his clothes and leaving them in a trail across the living room. She followed him through the living room and into the master bedroom’s bathroom, liking the sight of his muscular back and lean hips. He grinned at her, completely at ease in his nakedness, and ducked quickly into a overly large shower stall separated from the rest of the bathroom by a seven-foot wall of glass blocks. The blast of the water startled her for a moment, then a cloud of steam rose above the stall, billowing out and up toward an exhaust fan embedded in the slanted ceiling twelve feet above her. She could see Robbie’s silhouette, distorted by the glass blocks; moving back and forth under the hot water, he was humming huskily as he lathered up with some kind of scented soap. The smell reminded her a little of the scattered spots of greenery back in the desert surrounding the complex—earthy and exciting.
Sil’s breathing sped up, kindled by the sound of Robbie’s throaty singing, the clean, steamy scent of his soap and the erotic glimpses of skin shifting in and out of view through the glass wall. Her face began to flush as the temperature built in the bathroom, and after a few moments she went to the bedroom to wait for him. The bed was ridiculously huge, covered by a thick comforter in a sizzling dark Persian print with a dozen matching throw pillows. She ran a fingernail slowly across the bottom of the comforter, listening to the sound it made and being careful not to tear the fabric. She felt as wet and sultry as the moist, heated air in the other room.
She couldn’t wait for him to finish his shower.
18
Press was the first one out of the van when it screeched to a stop in front of the ID. The club was certainly striking, and the bouncer who stood at the front of the waiting triple-deep line of club goers—a standard Mr. Muscles weight-lifter type with a California tan—managed to look bored and vaguely menacing at the same time. When the guy ignored the government card Press flashed in his face and tried to stop him at the door, Press thought he finally knew how stereotypes were born, especially when he saw the name BRUNO embroidered across the breast pocket of the bouncer’s Ralph Lauren polo shirt.
“Tonight’s guest list only,” the bouncer rasped. “Get in line.”
“Can’t you read, pal?” Press snapped. He flicked his identification card again, this time close enough to Bruno’s nose to make him blink in surprise and jerk his head back. “Government. Now get out of the way.” He pushed around Mr. Muscles without waiting for a go-ahead.
“Wait a minute, jerkoff—” Bruno wrapped a grizzly-sized hand around Press’s arm and tried to pull him back. Press’s hands were already positioning to give the idiot a hapkido joint lock that was guaranteed to make him let go in a hurry when the inside of the ID erupted in screams. Bruno’s mouth opened and shut several times in rapid succession, and he forgot all about Press and his government card as people started barreling out of the club. “Hey! Hey!” Bruno bellowed. “Hold it—what the fuck’s going on? What—!” His braying ended in a whump! as someone’s pointy elbow accidentally caught him just below the sternum. The pain made him do a fast spin and he found himself face-to-face with Dr. Fitch and a stream of aides and armed military personnel. “Shit!” he squawked.
“Round up everybody!” Fitch shouted to his charges. “And I mean, everybody. Nobody leaves the club until I say so!”
“Coming through, coming through,” Press yelled, trying to be heard above the chaotic, bizarre mix of laughter, deafening music and screams. “Come on,” he hollered. “Get out of the way! Let us through, damn it!”
“I’m telling you, Vicki says she talked to the girl who’d seen the body in the bathroom,” a female voice whispered on Press’s left, practically in his ear. “Blood everywhere.” Before Press could turn his head, the speaker had vanished into the confused crowd. Abruptly the hammering music stopped, leaving a noticeable pulse in his head; voices immediately rose to fill the void, escalating precariously toward shriek level.
“EVERYONE, PLEASE STAY CALM. YOU ARE NOT IN ANY DANGER.” The master sergeant in charge of the MPs had come up with a bullhorn and, much to the outrage of the bartenders, was now standing on top of the circular bar in the center of the immense room. “THERE’S NO REASON TO BE ALARMED; YOU’LL ONLY BE DETAINED A FEW MINUTES. TO EXIT, PLEASE FORM A SINGLE FILE LINE AT THE DOOR AND BE PREPARED TO SHOW TWO PIECES OF IDENTIFICATION, ONE OF WHICH MUST BE A PHOTOGRAPH.” Press saw him hop nimbly off the bar and stare down the few people who dared to question him; at the entrance, the exit line was already forming.
“Why the mass exodus?” Laura asked from behind him. Dan and Stephen were on her heels, with Fitch not far behind.
“I haven’t verified it,” Press said with a dark look, “but I think a woman’s dead in the rest room. Want to bet it’s our girl’s handiwork?”
“The bouncer says the rest rooms are downstairs,” Fitch informed them. “Stairs are all the way to the right rear.”
The team saw the sign for the rest rooms and made their way to the stairs with no trouble. Press was surprised to find the stairs oddly deserted, free of the usual gapers, as though someone had announced it was the source of the bubonic plague rather than a murder. He sprinted down to the landing and ducked into the women’s room, scanning but finding nothing in the front area by the sinks and mirrors. To his right was another room, this one filled with the kind of high-privacy toilet stalls that ran from floor to ceiling, like little rooms with actual doors and knobs. Both rooms were tiled in a white so bright it made his eyes ache, a decorating move probably meant to put a little wakefulness in an intoxicated patron. The snowy tiles made it real easy to spot the large, black-red puddle of blood leaking from beneath the closed door of one of the stalls.
Press tried the door—locked—then banged on it, though he knew it was useless. When he got no response, he lifted a booted foot and gave the door a sharp kick just as the rest of the group filed into the rest room with the club manager at their heels. “Uh-oh,” he heard Dan say unhappily. The flimsy lock cracked away and the door flew in, then hit something so
ft with an unpleasant thud and rebounded to a partly open position. When Press eased his head around its edge, the dead eyes of a once pretty young woman with wavy auburn hair stared back at him. Wedged between the toilet and the wall on Press’s left, there was a hole in her back that made it obvious something . . . big had pierced her from behind; ripped from her body, her spinal column was draped across her feet in a bloody line. Blood had splattered the inside of the stall and ringed a jagged-edged crater in the wall.
Press ducked out and stepped to his left, but the adjoining stall was empty. Not so much as a droplet of blood marred the pearly tiles of the back wall or floor, or around the break in the wallboard. He didn’t know how she’d done it or why, but Sil had murdered the woman in the next stall without even getting her hands dirty.
“Everyone checked out,” the MP sergeant told Fitch. “She must have left before we made the place.” Fitch nodded morosely as Press joined him at the entrance. “We already searched the building from top to bottom, but we could do it again.”
“Forget it,” Press said. “If she wasn’t in the club when we took it, she sure as hell isn’t going to come back. Come on, Doc. Let’s go talk to our pal Bruno. Maybe he remembers her.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Fitch said cynically. “How many women come in here each night?”
Press plucked a toothpick from the bar as they passed it and stuck it in his mouth. “You never know until you ask.”
Bruno the bouncer was still positioned out front, except now he’d rearranged the waist-high metal stands and velvet cords to make it obvious that the ID was closed for the night. People milled by the front, gawking and whispering about the ambulance and military vehicles double-parked on the street and the stone-faced MPs guarding the entrance. Adding to the fray were a half-dozen L.A. police cars, red-and-blue bubble lights strobing everything around them. When Bruno saw Press and Fitch coming his way, a grimace twisted his face. “So you didn’t find who you were looking for,” he said flatly.
“No.” Press worked the toothpick from the left to the right side of his mouth, then back again. “We’re looking for a tall, blue-eyed blond woman, five-ten or so, wearing a black blouse and black miniskirt. Any idea who she left with?”
Bruno rolled his eyes and shot Press a contemptuous glance. “You’re bullshitting me, right? Must be a thousand blondies going and coming every night, and seven out of ten of ’em leave with some dude to screw. Not exactly news around here.”
“I told you,” Fitch said. “We’re wasting our time.”
Press ignored him and chewed his toothpick thoughtfully for a second. “Okay, let’s go at it another way. How about the regulars, the guys on the know who get in every night? No losers.” He tapped his wrist-watch. “It’s still early. Any top attractions leave before their normal time?”
“Assume he’s socially adept,” said Stephen over Press’s shoulder. “He’d have to help her out because she’s inexperienced.”
Bruno looked nonplussed. “You mean like a virgin or something?”
Press shot Stephen an annoyed glare. “Yeah, something like that. In other words, we’re looking for a guy who’d be friendly to her, not a totally conceited asshole. And like I said, he’d be leaving earlier than usual.”
Bruno scratched his head for a moment. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” His broad face brightened. “Hey—Robbie Llywelyn, he left with a blonde. Kind of early for him to blow the joint, too.”
Press snatched the toothpick from his lips. “This Mr. Robbie Nice Guy, is he on your mailing list?”
Bruno grunted. “Hell, yeah. He’s been a regular for years. All I know is that he lives in Hollywood Hills, but the boss’ll have Robbie’s address in the office.” The bouncer shook his head. “But I’ll tell you this, Robbie’s a pro player. If you’ve got some idea that you’re gonna stop him from doing her, it’s probably already too late.”
19
It wasn’t long at all before Sil heard the water stop running. She could hear the man moving around, still singing softly to himself, but she wasn’t sure what to do next. Should she go into the bathroom, or wait until he came to her? The choice was taken out of her hands when Robbie stepped out of the bathroom, clad only in a pair of loose gray sweatpants. Sil had never been this close to an undressed man before, and she couldn’t help but stare at his body. Well-defined muscles stood out on his arms as well as his chest and belly, which were covered with an appealing layer of silky dark curls. His lips turned up when he saw her standing by the bed, exposing engaging dimples in cheeks that were starting to shadow with a day-old growth of beard. In his hands was a thick towel, and he took a final swipe at his wet hair, then tossed it aside and folded his arms.
“Take off your clothes,” he said evenly. “I want to see you.”
Sil nodded and reached to unhook the bustier that she’d worn as a blouse for most of the night. Her fingers were clumsy, trembling with a combination of relief and excitement, but at last she managed to unfasten it and drop it to the floor. She’d been afraid that he would need to be convinced or, worse, he would reject her as a mate. Obviously, that wasn’t going to be a problem.
“Very nice,” he cooed. “Now the rest of it.”
She could hear his breathing escalate from here, and without breaking eye contact her hand moved to the zipper on the skirt, then froze. A frown slid over her lovely face as the pupils of her eyes contracted visibly, like an animal pinned in the roadway by the sudden light of an oncoming truck. A pale mist was oozing from Robbie’s body, thick and light green, like the steam from a boiling vat of algae-clotted water.
She bent to pick up the bustier. “Drive me back,” she said coldly.
Robbie’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“I said, drive me back.”
His lips drew into a hard, thin line. “What are you talking about? You knew what we came here for—hell, you came on to me.”
“And now I don’t want to.”
He stepped toward her and she backed up, step for step. “All right,” he said coolly, “you’ve said the obligatory no. It’s duly noted. Now come here.”
“I want to go,” Sil insisted. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“It’s too late for that, baby.” Robbie’s voice was different from the suave guy she’d met at the ID, chilly and implacable. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Sil stared at him as another new lesson sank in, an unknown point of no return. Tension was building inside her, knotting her shoulders and making her head pound. That terrible green haze was still radiating from every pore of his body; he was unhealthy, diseased. She didn’t want to touch him, let alone mate. She tried to take a step toward the door that led to the living room and ultimately out, but he moved in front of her, making himself a human obstacle. “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” he said icily. “I said, you’re not leaving. If there’s one thing a man can’t stand, baby, it’s a cockteaser.”
Neither of them moved. Five seconds went by, then ten. “All right,” Sil finally said. Her fingers had curled into claws and wouldn’t slacken; she hid them behind her back so he wouldn’t see. “Whatever you say.”
Robbie’s rigid expression relaxed and he closed the distance between them and put an arm around her. “That’s better,” he said. He was taller by a good four inches and had to tilt her face up to his for a kiss. “Come on, baby. Loosen up and have a little fun. I know what I’m doing—I’ll make you feel real good, I promise.”
His mouth closed over hers and his tongue pushed past her lips. Sil had to fight the urge to gag as that horrid, sickly fog enveloped her. After a moment she pushed the memory of the green mist aside and surrendered to the impulse of self-preservation rising inside her; closing her eyes, she let her tongue reach for his mouth as she enfolded him in her arms. A feeling, huge and dark and indefinable, rocketed through her body, making her spasm and clutch Robbie closer.
Robbie’s eyes bulged. He tried to scream
and couldn’t as Sil’s tongue unfurled, filling his mouth and throat as he struggled desperately to get free. He couldn’t break her crushing embrace, so he punched her twice in the back of the head, the only part of her that he could reach. Useless—she didn’t even feel it, and before he could manage a third strike, Sil’s tongue burst from the back of his skull, spraying the rich, Persian-motif comforter with blood, gray matter and bits of dark-haired scalp. Robbie convulsed in her arms and went limp, and Sil found that when she let him go, only her bloody tongue, long and barbed on the end, held him upright.
An automatic push of will and it retracted, whipping back into her head and taking a good chunk of Robbie’s brains with it. His body toppled sideways and Sil leaned over him and spat out the filth in her mouth, retching violently as she tried to cleanse herself. Out of breath and splattered with his tainted blood, she stepped over the body and went into the bathroom, stripping gratefully before stepping into the sumptuous, glass-surrounded shower. A little experimenting with the knobs and she managed to enjoy a nice, hot shower to wash away Robbie’s repulsive touch.
20
“Well,” Laura said dryly, “if she hasn’t guessed we’re after her, I’m sure she knows now. Every house on that hill has a clear view of both Loma Vista and Carla. With this kind of equipment, anyone could see us coming for miles.” She swiveled on the front seat for a view out the rear window of the van. Seven army vehicles of various sizes chugged up the hill behind them; even with their lights on dim, the troop would be impossible to miss.
“There’s no other way,” Fitch said. He sounded like he was trying to talk with his jaw wired shut.
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