by Mia Thompson
“Barry!”
“Fuck off?”
“Yes.”
They disconnected, and Aston rolled down the window to light a cigarette though he knew the chief would bitch about his “display of unprofessionalism when smoking/drinking/flipping off pedestrians while inside an official vehicle.” There were more slashes in there, but Aston dozed off after the first three.
Thousand Oaks had gone very well.
He and Capelli reenacted the Serial Catcher luring in George Rath.
They took everything the public knew about the shoe fetish serial killer before George Rath was caught. At least that’s what the cops thought he was. As it turned out, the shoes that were taken from the victims’ feet weren’t stolen by Rath but by passing women. The brand, Chi Chi, which all the victims wore, was a sought-after designer label.
Rath had been adamant about this fact. He did not want the public to know him as the creepy shoe-fetish serial killer. As opposed to the creepy hair-collecting killer he really was.
The Serial Catcher caught on to this and found there were few stores that carried Chi Chi in Thousand Oaks. And there was only one in the perimeter of the murders, — the one George Rath worked in.
Aston and Capelli scanned the shoe store for evidence and questioned the employees.
Aston was listening to the pudgy, middle-aged saleswoman, whose never ending blabber made him want to shoot himself in the face.
“And then,” she yammered on, “I had my lunch, which was Lean Cuisine…or subway? No, it was definitely Lean Cuisine because I remember thinking, how many calories are in this low calorie pizza? Four hundred? Five hundred? Six—”
“Tell me you save your security data?” He stared up at the cameras.
“Yes. Anyway, as it turned out it had five hundred, when I should be on three hundred calories a meal diet…”
“Can you show it to me? Preferably before I chop my ears off.”
After a few offended snorts, the saleswoman showed him to the computers and Aston downloaded the two weeks prior to Rath’s capture onto his flash drive.
He found his partner across the room, who was generously helping a woman put on a pair of sandals while massaging her feet.
“You have exquisite feet,” Capelli said.
“Oh…what the heck. It’s only money,” she replied. “I’ll take them. Do you take MasterCard or do I need to run across to the ATM?”
“Oh, I don’t work here,” Capelli grinned and stood up, noticing Aston. “What’s up?”
The woman’s face dropped as she stared after Capelli, then down at her naked, molested feet.
“If she got his attention through his job…” Aston held up the flash drive triumphantly, “then we got her face.”
They decided to get some sleep and then meet up early the next morning to dig into the hours upon hours of security footage.
* * * * *
The flashing lights of the ambulance blinded Aston when he pulled over.
A woman was being loaded onto a stretcher and it wasn’t until he stepped out that he saw who it was.
Mrs. Dubois.
He searched for Sapphire until their eyes met.
She looked childlike. Her usual head-held-high pose had sunken down into her shoulders.
Though he wouldn’t admit it, in a sick, twisted way, Aston was almost pleased that Mrs. Dubois had gotten in a wreck. It meant he got to see Sapphire.
“There’s room in here,” the paramedic shouted, interrupting their gaze. He waved at Sapphire to enter the ambulance.
“No!” Aston shouted too fast. “I’ll take her.”
* * * * *
“Coffee?” Aston held out a paper cup.
Sapphire didn’t feel like vending machine coffee but took it with a nod, as Aston sat down next to her.
Except for the two of them, the emergency waiting room was empty. The only sound—excluding a doctor’s occasional sneaker squeak against the rubbery floor—was the TV, ironically on Comedy Central.
Aston sat next to her for hours, staring at the different comedy acts, pretending he wasn’t dead tired. He didn’t try to speak to her or laugh at the comedians’ jokes. He just stayed by her side, refusing to leave. It was exactly what Sapphire needed.
The lack of conversation helped her not look at him. Every time she did, an unpleasant image of Aston and Angelica Moore in bed shot through her mind.
Her mother had been in for an eternity, and the staff hadn’t updated them despite several death threats from Aston.
“So I noticed your Volkswagen is gone,” Aston said as if they’d been chatting it up the whole time.
“Got rid of it,” Sapphire lied and smiled. She had actually moved it to an Aston-safe location. He thought she used the car to go hook up with men below her class. It was a disturbing theory but better than Aston finding out what the car was really used for. “Why, been checking up on me?”
“Please. I have more important things to do with my time than aimlessly chase you around.”
Sapphire put the coffee to her mouth to hide her amusement. Yeah, like aimlessly chase the Serial Catcher around.
“I just happened to be out there.” Aston studied her, contemplating something. “Actually, I’m not sure what you used that clunker for, but I know it wasn’t to go slumming.” He paused and his face softened. “Someone let it slip that I was your first.”
Damn you, Chrissy. Aston thought he was being sneaky, but her best friend was the only one who knew that Aston was Sapphire’s one and only sexual encounter.
“Well, Chrissy was wrong.” Sapphire looked nonchalantly at her nails. “Because that’s me alright, a big ol’ tramp.”
She cringed inside. Yes, that’s what you wanted to tell the guy you were crushing on.
Aston opened his mouth, so Sapphire hurried to change the subject. “How’s your girlfriend, by the way?” She smiled. “Well and pants-less as always?”
“Definitely pants-less…a lot,” Aston said. Sapphire put the cup to her mouth again, this time in case she vomited.
Aston glanced at her, squeezing something in his hand.
It looked like a flash drive, but he was treating it like a gold nugget. He hadn’t once put it down or loosened his grip on it. The way he’d looked at it all night told Sapphire something juicy was on it, and that he wanted nothing more than to go look at its content. Yet, he insisted on staying, even after the sun came up.
She watched as Aston yawned and lost the battle to keep his eyes open.
“Ms. Dubois.” The doctor stepped up to them.
Aston’s eyes sprung wide open as he and Sapphire jumped to their feet.
“Your mother is doing well…considering. Just a few cuts and bruises. It seems it was the amount of alcohol that knocked her out and not the crash. We pumped her stomach and attended to the cuts—she should be fine.”
Sapphire exhaled. “Thank God.”
“However,” the doctor continued, “unrelated to the accident, I’m afraid we can’t do much about the state of her liver.”
“Well, you’re not a miracle worker,” Sapphire said.
“She’s awake, so feel free to go sit with her.” He eyed Aston. “And, as I’m sure the Detective here would suggest, being as far over the legal limit as she was at the time of the accident, I would call the family lawyer if I were you.”
The doctor left and Aston ran his fingers through his hair, looking nervous, clenching the gadget tighter than before. “So…”
His phone rang and he dug in his pocket.
“Capelli,” Aston said, taking a few steps back. “We have to push it to 2 p.m. I need a few hours of sleep before going through the shoe store’s footage.” His face twisted with annoyance. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. We’ve waited almost three years to find the Serial Catcher; a couple more hours won’t make a difference.”
Sapphire spun around and sped off before Aston could see the fear rising in her face.
“Hey!” Aston
called after her, confused, but she didn’t stop.
“Sleep tight,” Sapphire pushed out. “Tell your girlfriend I said ‘hi.’”
“Oh I will!” Aston yelled back. “And be sure to tell your future husband he can suck my—”
Sapphire slammed the door shut and leaned against it, trying to calm herself. I’m on that tape, was all she could think. She’d been caught on camera.
That fat bastard! She cursed the name of George Rath as her knees gave out from under her and she slid down the door.
She knew what she had to do.
She had to rid the shoe store of its footage and then, more importantly, steal it.
She had to steal Aston’s flash drive.
Chapter 8
Sapphire slid her makeup mirror under Aston’s door. She could see him in his bed. Luckily, there was no sight of his girlfriend. Barf.
Sapphire exhaled as she placed her torsion wrench into the key hole. She didn’t want to do what she was about to do—not to Aston—but she had no choice.
Earlier that morning, Sapphire placed a call to New York where the Dubois’ family lawyer, Mr. Goldstein, had his firm. Mr. Goldstein was one of Charles’s closest friends, and she knew he’d take care of everything the minute they hung up. Thanks to him, Sapphire was able to leave her mother in the hospital and proceed with the plan.
She bought the exact flash drive she’d seen in Aston’s hand and brought it to an Internet café next to Hollywood High School.
She walked in wearing the shortest, yet most innocent-looking sun dress she owned. Eight hormone-riddled 15-year-olds with minor and major acne problems craned their necks to follow her.
After flirting with the same intensity she offered serial killers, Sapphire had the poor, sweet nerds eating out of the palm of her hand.
“So you’re saying this thingy can be used for that?” she asked.
“Hurh hurh hurh,” the nerds laughed, amused by her measly mortal knowledge of technology.
“Can you do it for me?” she asked, challenging them.
“I can, but it’s kind of illegal,” one replied.
One was Phil. Another Bill. She had a hard time telling them apart because both their main facial features were pimples.
“I see,” Sapphire said, pouting for effect. “It’s just, my BFF posted a naked picture of me, and I want to give her a taste of her own medicine and wipe out her tablet.”
The nerds stopped breathing at the mention of the nude picture.
“I’ll do it!” They both shouted then fought for the flash drive.
The one with more pimples won and clicked around on the computer, in areas Sapphire didn’t even know existed. She tried to absorb as much knowledge as possible, in case she’d ever have to do this again, but most of it was lost on her.
“Alright.” He handed her the flash drive and cracked his fingers. “You’re all good.”
“Thank you,” Sapphire gushed. She rewarded each of them with a peck on the cheek.
With the strong taste of Clearasil on her lips, she left the boys, who seemed happy to get rid of her so they could start searching the Internet for a naked picture that didn’t exist. She sped down the freeway, leaving L.A. County behind and got to Thousand Oaks in Ventura before the store opened.
She managed to get in through the small window in the back alley, which she had once used to escape the staff, and was on their computer system with a half hour to spare before the sales people came in.
A minute after she inserted the flash drive into the hard drive, the screen’s images broke up into an endless number of colorful pixels. The system made a high-pitched beep and a little malicious-looking man popped up on the screen with his tongue out just before it all went black.
Mission one complete. The nerd assured her there would be no traces of any previous data or RAM.
She headed for Aston’s knowing her next undertaking wouldn’t be as easy.
There were three things she knew for sure about Aston.
One: He was a light sleeper. Two: His handgun was never less than two feet away from him. Three: He slept naked, which was neither here nor there, but not a bad thing for someone who spent hours thinking about the man.
She twisted the pick until it clicked. She opened the door to find Aston’s small studio apartment dark and silent. He lay on his stomach breathing slowly; his butt was sticking out from the white sheet.
Sapphire glanced at it once—maybe twice—then reached in her bag.
She took out the tranquilizer gun she’d stolen from the vet clinic last year and aimed it at Aston’s neck…then changed her mind and went for his butt instead when she realized she didn’t want to accidentally shoot him in the eyeball. She was way too fond of Aston’s eyeballs.
Sapphire inhaled, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to do it, not to him, but she couldn’t rummage through his apartment without waking him up.
She squeezed the trigger and the dart launched right into Aston’s ass. A second passed, then Aston’s dazed eyes shot open.
“SON OF A—” he shouted before quickly trailing off, closing his eyes again as his body relaxed. He was out.
After going through the kitchen, its cupboards, and various boxes of high fiber cereal, Sapphire finally found the flash drive in a small filing cabinet. She snatched it, replaced it with her own, and was just about to close the drawer when a file caught her eye.
It contained everything Aston had on the Serial Catcher. Sapphire sunk to the floor as she started flipping through unsolved police reports, false statements from all the serial killers she’d captured, and lastly, Aston’s own sheets of theories.
There was more doodling than there was speculation. Without the evidence of the shoe store’s surveillance footage, all Aston seemed to have figured out with the help of George Rath—the tattletale—was that she was a woman. Otherwise, he was nowhere near…for now.
Sapphire got up and lay down on her stomach next to him. It was asinine. Not because it could wake him from the tranquilizer’s powerful slumber, but why did she have to keep torturing herself?
Aston was Sapphire’s enemy. That would never change, unless she got caught. Aston was as devoted to finding the Serial Catcher as Sapphire was to finding her killers. She hunted them, he hunted her. It was a vicious cycle of cat and mouse; like Tom and Jerry…if Tom had been a handsome cop, and Jerry sickly attracted to him.
She looked at him and couldn’t help but smile. He looked charming even when sedated: tousled hair, drool, and all.
Had there been an off button where every thought, emotion, and image of Aston Ridder would vanish from her memory, Sapphire would have pushed it. But there was no such thing, and no matter how much she strived to expel him, Aston was always there, a permanent resident of her consciousness.
Sapphire got up and put the files back. She placed Aston’s flash drive in the pocket of her spring jacket and left.
She couldn’t fight how she felt about him anymore, but even if Aston had no girlfriend and Sapphire chose to be with him, there would be no winners. It was like having to pick between plague and cancer—either way, Sapphire was screwed.
* * * * *
Crash!
Sapphire ducked just as she turned into the dressing room of the Golden Mirage. A small bottle lay shattered on the floor and liquor dripped down from the wall where it hit.
“You bitch!”
Ginger was staring at her, nostrils flared and fists clenched.
“What?!”
“Oh please, don’t act like you don’t know,” Ginger sneered. “I’ve been here forever, I’ve paid my dues and you think you can just waltz in here and take my regulars?”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t even had a customer yet, let alone a regular. I just started yesterday!”
“You should just leave; nobody wants you here. Isn’t that right, Chastity?”
Chastity looked up from behind her hair. She whispered an inaudible response then returned to sta
ring at her palms.
“Speak up!” Ginger shouted.
“Leave her alone,” Sapphire said, realizing she shouldn’t have.
Ginger grabbed the pink razor from her vanity. “I’ll cut you!” She flew toward Sapphire.
Before Sapphire had even begun to plan how to knock Ginger out and make it look accidental, Misty stepped in between.
“No! You hev problem, so vat? Talk to Giles, not her fault. You go now.”
Ginger’s furious eyes darted between Sapphire and Misty. She snorted, bull-like, then took a step back.
“Don’t think I won’t cut you too!” Ginger pointed at Misty then walked out, ignoring other girls’ stares.
Sapphire felt touched by her newfound Russian friend’s action and gave Misty a warm smile. “Thank you. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you problems.”
Misty shrugged. “So vat? She always say I vill cut this, I vill cut that. She’s a lying sunulvabeach. She forget, you see.”
“What was she mad about?”
“Giles did not tell you?” Misty asked. “There is a man who is regular. Before he vants dance from Ginger, now he vants dance from you. Big tipper. Come.”
Sapphire’s heart skipped. She crossed her fingers for John Doe, Jr. as Misty led her up to the stage entrance and pulled the thick curtain aside.
Sapphire’s mood sank as Misty pointed to the man with the cowboy hat.
“Giles says he see you in the cage last night and he vants private.”
Sapphire let out a sigh. She’d looked forward to spending another night in the perv-safe cage where she could observe John Doe Jr. to try and figure out what he was into.
If she even could. Had she figured out what type of girl he liked, Sapphire would have morphed herself into whatever his twisted heart desired, but there wasn’t. She’d spent hours in her attic, matching the victims to one another. Excluding the M.O. of killing only strippers from the Golden Mirage, John Doe, Jr. didn’t have a physical type, favorite weapon, or any victim whose death was similar to the others. He seemed random and sporadic, and it was hard to anticipate his moves. She needed to observe him and now she’d have to waste time dancing for some sleaze ball.
Misty tilted her head confused. “Why you are sad? This is promotion, yes?”
