Out for Blond

by V. J. Chambers

  “No, I do,” I said. “I just…” Damn, I’d been scammed by a big time player, hadn’t I? To Gunner, I was just another notch on his belt. No wonder he’d wanted to sleep with me. That was apparently just his way of saying hello. I’m Gunner Bray, can I stick my penis in you? I felt stupid.

  Sure, it wasn’t as if I was actually interested in Gunner, so I didn’t much care if he was sleeping with lots of people or if he was committed to me or any of that crap. But I didn’t like the idea of feeling as if I’d been used. That made me feel a little… I don’t know… soiled.

  I was remembering why I wanted to talk to Adeline in the first place. “Stella said that you two were Gunner’s best buddies, but I’m guessing that wasn’t true, was it?”

  “Stella’s obsessed with him,” said Adeline. “She’d do anything to be closer to Gunner. For a while, I would have too. He seems so amazing. He’s nice to you, and he’s good looking, and he’s always smiling. Where I come from, there aren’t any men like that. You know, guys who show their feelings and aren’t gay or whatever? So, at first, I thought he was great, and I was willing to go along with whatever Stella wanted to do. But then I just…” She twisted her hands together. “Well, I had to leave, anyway. I didn’t like it there.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “Are you sure that nothing happened with Gunner?” Why had she trailed off like that?

  “Yes, I’m sure. I wouldn’t protect that cocksucker.”

  “So, why did you leave?”

  “I just did.” She glared at me. “You said I didn’t have to feel defensive.”

  “You don’t,” I said. “Sorry.”

  She put her head down, hiding behind her hair again. “I don’t really want to talk anymore.”

  Wow. Something bad had happened to Adeline. What was it? Was Gunner involved? I didn’t think I could push her, though. She was clamming up, not opening up. “I just have one more question for you, then. If you and Stella weren’t close to Gunner, then who do you think was?”

  “What? No one. Like I said, he spread himself really thin.”

  “I don’t necessarily mean a woman,” I said. “Did he have a friend? Someone who would help him?”

  “Help him with what?”

  “Well, with a murder, for instance.”

  Her eyes got wide. “Oh. Um… no, I’m sorry. No one stands out. But, you know, the thing is that anyone on the farm would help Gunner with anything. If he asked, they’d be there right away.”

  * * *

  It was Gunner. It was Gunner. A little voice in my head kept repeating it. It had to be Gunner. There was no other real option here, was there?

  Ah, but there was Braxton Whitney, a tantalizing possibility. His motive wasn’t very likely, but he was looking worse and worse the closer that I looked at him.

  I didn’t know if Brigit was right, if I wanted it to be Braxton. Part of me thought it would be nice if Gunner hadn’t done it, if only it meant that I hadn’t slept with another killer. I thought about that sometimes. I thought about the fact that I’d slept with Ralph, and that he was such a horrible person, and it bothered me.

  I would think about the fact that his body had been inside my body—inside the most private place—and that I hadn’t known at the time what kind of person he was. It did make me want to shower sometimes, just scrub myself raw until I got rid of all traces of him.

  It bothered me on a physical level, even though I wasn’t the kind of person who thought of sex as this amazing intimate thing.

  When I was in high school, there were these kids who all had purity rings. One of the girls was kind of the leader, and her name was Mary Anne Ryan. Mary Anne was tiny and blond and pretty. She got straight As. She was a cheerleader. She was sweet and good and every teacher’s favorite student. She was one of those girls who never does anything wrong. The type of person who you really want to hate, but you can’t, because she’s just too nice. Anyway, Mary Anne gave this report one day. It was in English class or something. A persuasive speech. And her topic was all about how people should save themselves for marriage.

  The crux of her argument was that having sex was a very special act, something spiritual that happened when two people were very, very in love. She said that one shouldn’t throw this wonderful gift away on someone that we didn’t really and truly love, because it was so amazing. She said that you would be giving a piece of yourself away, because sex bonded two people together. And that if you left the person that you’d had sex with, they’d have that piece of you forever. Furthermore, she claimed that if you had sex with lots and lots of people, then it was kind of like a cookie that was getting broken into lots of pieces. Eventually, Mary Anne claimed, there would be nothing of you left.

  Thing was, when I actually had sex, I had no idea what she was talking about. And to this day, I still don’t get it. I’ve had really great sex. I’ve had sex in which I’ve had five or six orgasms, in which I’ve been in physical ecstasy. But I’ve never felt like something spiritual happened. And I’ve never felt like I lost anything. I came out of those experiences with all the pieces of me intact. I can guarantee that. No one had pieces of me squirreled away in their closets just because I’d spread my legs for them.

  I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me for not feeling this way, but I never have. I think of sex kind of like dancing or kissing. Two bodies are very close, and it feels good. You can dance with someone that you really care about, and it’s more special than if you dance with a stranger. But that doesn’t mean that dancing with a stranger is bad or anything.

  Now, Mary Anne would probably say I’d desensitized myself or something. Like I could have had the capacity for amazing, spiritual sex, but I gave away all the pieces of my cookie and now I was empty or something. I didn’t think so, but what did I know?

  Anyway, when I thought about Ralph, I didn’t feel like I’d given him a part of myself or anything like that. I didn’t feel like pieces of me were missing. But I did feel like I’d been touched by something evil, and it made me want to wriggle out of my own skin.

  I thought that if it turned out to be true a second time, that I’d let another murderer into my bed, well… yuck.

  So.

  There was Braxton Whitney, with his tarnished alibi and his creepy nature and the fact that he beat his girlfriend. So his motive was far-fetched. So what? If he beat his girlfriend, he probably had certain tendencies anyway. He probably thought that he was superior to everyone else. He probably thought it was okay to hurt other people if it served his purposes. He beat up Violet to get her to do what he wanted. Maybe he killed Tess to get what he wanted.

  Anyway, that was why I was back at Braxton’s house. It was evening, and I’d come alone. I’d told Brigit that I was heading back home. And maybe I had been heading back home originally. I don’t know. But I’d ended up here instead.

  This time, I didn’t wait for the doorman to go and fetch Braxton. Instead, I pushed my way inside, bellowing Braxton’s name.

  The doorman came after me, trying to calm me, to stop me. “Please wait here, Ms. Stern,” he said, his face going pinched and red.

  But I didn’t wait. I charged up the steps, calling for Braxton.

  He appeared at the top of the staircase.

  “Mr. Whitney, I’m so sorry,” said the doorman, who was puffing up the steps behind me. “I tried to stop her.”

  “What are you doing here, Ms. Stern?” said Braxton. He looked annoyed, but not at all rattled.

  “You don’t have an alibi,” I said, continuing my ascent of the stairs.

  “I most certainly do have an alibi. What are you talking about?”

  “Violet told us everything,” I said.

  “Violet is a silly woman who gets strange ideas in her head.” He wasn’t the least bit concerned. “I should have broken up with her a long time ago. Now, I’m only irked at the amount of money I’ll have to spend to get her to keep her lying mouth shut.” Even that last bit he delivered
pleasantly, a self-assured smile on his face.

  But I gazed into his dark eyes, and in them, it seemed there was no feeling whatsoever.

  “You left the benefit early.” I was still climbing the steps. “And then you went to the farm and killed Tess Carver.”

  He laughed. “You don’t really believe that, do you? It’s preposterous.”

  “Who helped you?” I arrived at the top step and stopped, face-to-face with him. “Which member of the Zion’s People was so taken up in zealous fervor that they thought it was a good idea to kill someone?”

  Braxton looked me up and down. He folded his arms over his chest and smirked. “Well, it’s true that I hate the Clayton Society, and that I enjoy all the bad press that they’re getting. It’s true that I want my brother’s money back, and that possibly it will be easier now. Now that everyone sees the place is a cult, and that leader a murderer, they’ll believe that my brother isn’t in his right mind. I can get a court order to get my brother removed, to get him the help he needs. Say… in an institution somewhere. And I, of course, will become sole executor of his estate.”

  I clenched my hands into fists. No, this motive was sounding less and less far-fetched with every passing moment.

  “But the thing is, Ms. Stern, I didn’t kill Tess Carver. Maybe I’d like to shake hands with the man who did, but that doesn’t make me guilty. I don’t think I ever even met Tess Carver once in my entire life. I certainly wouldn’t have known where to find her. And on top of all of that, I do have an alibi. I may have left the benefit before Violet, but I still left far too late to have had time to commit a murder like that. You’ve got nothing, Ms. Stern. Nothing at all.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dalton Peck nearly hung up on me when I called him the next day. The minute he heard my name, he said, “I don’t have to listen to this.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m not calling to accuse you. I need your help.”

  His voice was wary. “Help? Help with what?”

  “I need to know if you or Tess ever met a man named Braxton Whitney.”

  “Braxton Whitney?” He was thinking about it. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “You might not have been introduced to him by name,” I said. “But if you were on the farm together, then you might have seen him, because—”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” said Dalton. “I never went on the farm with her. Bray wasn’t keen on me, and I wasn’t keen on him, so Tess said it was better if I stayed out of it. A lot of times when she went to visit there, I stayed at home with Joey. That’s how it was the night it happened.” His voice was becoming thick with emotion, just like the first time we’d talked.

  “I don’t mean to upset you, sir,” I said.

  “Well, how could I not be upset? The woman I loved is gone. Nothing makes that better, you know?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. And I didn’t mean to be a bitch, but, after all, I was trying to bring his girlfriend’s murderer to justice, and it occurred to me that I didn’t know much about Tess’s side of the evening. “So, the night it happened, she was supposed to meet Gunner?”

  “Yeah. She left and drove down there to the farm.”

  “She said that Gunner called her?”

  “Well… if you want to be really technical about it, she didn’t mention his name. She only said she needed to go to the farm, and that she’d be back as soon as she could.”

  “I see.” I scribbled some notes. “But you don’t know if she ever mentioned a group called the Zion’s People, or a man with dark eyes who was hanging around the farm?”

  “No, she never said anything about something like that. Never.”

  “All right,” I said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Peck.”

  We hung up.

  Braxton was right. I didn’t have any evidence linking him to Tess Carver. I couldn’t put them together. Ever. That was bad in terms of a murder case.

  Because it was Gunner, said the voice in my head.

  I grimaced. Braxton might be looking more guilty, but that didn’t mean that Gunner was looking more innocent.

  But Braxton’s dark eyes and hollow smile had kept me awake last night. There was something about him that made me feel on edge. He seemed guilty.

  * * *

  Miles Pike looked up from his desk. “Was there a problem with the restraining order? Everything went through fine on this end. No snags for your witness.”

  I hovered in the doorway to his office. “No, that’s fine. Thank you for that. It’s good.” I inspected my fingernails. “It’s not why I came by.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  I swallowed. “Can, um, can I come in?”

  He pursed his lips, sucking in air. Then he got up from his desk, crossed to the door, ushered me inside, and shut the door behind me. “Why are you here, Ivy?”

  Now, he was close. There were only a few inches between our bodies, and I remembered the way it had felt to kiss him, his heat pressing against me. I wanted that again. I wanted to tell him that I wanted it.

  “Ivy?” he prompted.

  I opened my mouth, ready to let it all out, to make myself vulnerable, to ask for a second chance. Hell, maybe at this point it was more than a second chance. A third chance. A fifth chance. I didn’t know. But I did know that I missed Miles like I missed air. There were a lot of things wrong with me, but he… he was right. And there had to be some way for us to make a go of it.

  He was waiting, staring at me with his grey eyes.

  I licked my lips. “Um…” My voice was scratchy.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “The guy on the restraining order,” I said, chickening out. “I’ve got reason to believe he might be involved in the Tess Carver murder.”

  Miles backed away, sighing. “This again, Ivy? I told you that we’ve got no reason to think that anyone besides Gunner Bray did that. Besides, I’ve got corroboration from two of the members of the cult, or didn’t you see that on the news?”

  I squared my shoulders. “Well, I don’t have any evidence, yet, but I’m looking. And when I find something, I expect that you’ll do the right thing and nail this asshole to the wall. He is an asshole. A rich asshole. He only cares about money, and he beats his girlfriend.”

  “He does sound like scum. But that doesn’t mean he killed Tess Carver.” He shook his head at me. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure to try to find someone besides the person who’s paying your bills, but there isn’t anyone to find. I think, deep down, you know that.”

  I wondered if I did. I couldn’t very well tell Miles that I’d slept with Gunner. He’d be too disgusted for words. He never understood my need to have sex. He tolerated it, but he never understood it.

  I tossed my hair. “If it’s Gunner, then I’ll admit it. But I haven’t found any compelling evidence linking him to the crime yet.”

  “Be serious, Ivy. You’re ignoring the evidence.”

  “We don’t have to talk about this,” I said.

  “You’re the one who brought it up,” he said. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To try to convince me that we arrested the wrong guy?”

  I chewed on my lip. “No, actually, I came because…”

  “Because what?”

  “I think you and I should, um, talk,” I said. “You know, about what happened.”

  “Well, I don’t,” he said. “And especially not here, at my office, where I work. It’s not appropriate.”

  “Are you still taking the supplements?” I said.

  “Yes, but like I said, that’s not appropriate to talk about here.”

  “Miles, you have a private office. It’s not like we’re doing the deed in here or something.”

  He shut his eyes and drew in a noisy breath. “Just stop.”

  I was quiet for a minute.

  He opened his eyes, but he still looked pissed.

  “I should have called you earlier. It’s just that I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. Someth
ing like that has never happened that way between the two of us.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this here.” He was going to the door.

  “Well, do you want to talk about it someplace else?” I said. “We could meet. We could go to dinner or something.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I shouldn’t have gone to your house that night. I regretted it right away.”

  “Miles, please.”

  He opened the door. “If there’s nothing else?”

  I peered out at the other desks of the Homicide department. Everyone could see in now. He’d done this on purpose, so that I couldn’t keep at him.

  “I think you should be on your way, then,” he said.

  I swallowed. Well, that was what I got for taking a chance.

  * * *

  After leaving Pike’s office, I thought about going to the bar. That would have been the typical thing for me to do, after all, to just obliterate my sorrows in alcohol. Maybe even complain to Crane about it, although probably not. Crane and I were friends with benefits, so we weren’t strictly jealous of each other’s love lives, but that didn’t mean we were always comfortable talking about them either. The occasional conquest was one thing, but discussing our actual relationships, well… Crane’s thing was to get married—usually to younger women in their mid-twenties. For the life of me, I couldn’t even remember any of their names. That was how little Crane talked about those women to me.

  Anyway, I didn’t go to the bar after all. I started thinking about what Violet had said, about how Braxton was interested in that ritual, and I found I wanted to know a little more about that. I called Beth Anthony to find out her location, because no one knew it except her. But Beth wouldn’t tell me where Violet was. Said it ruined everything if I was to know Violet’s location. She had to be kept away from everyone. If I needed to meet with Violet, then maybe Violet could be brought to meet me someplace public. Tomorrow maybe, Beth told me.

  I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. If I was going to wait until then, I might as well go to the bar and start downing some High Lifes.

  So, I told Beth that I didn’t need to meet with her. I could talk on the phone just as easily.