Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3)

by Blake Pierce

  “Do you think he did do anything to her?” Bill asked.

  Opal shook her head. “Oh, no, she didn’t give him a chance. She lit out of here—out of Phoenix, probably out of the state. She told me she wanted to go where he’d never find her. I told her she was overreacting, taking his attentions too personal, that he probably pulled that gift number on lots of girls. But Clover wouldn’t listen. I’ve got no idea where she’d be by now.”

  Opal reached over and stroked Bill’s thigh.

  “By the way, your options are open for more than talk. Just sayin’.”

  Bill firmly moved her hand away.

  Just then Riley came into view, walking toward the bar. She’d put on very snug short shorts and a blouse that was unbuttoned lower than he’d ever seen her wear. She was displaying a lot of curves and cleavage, and she’d done something different with her hair. He had to admit she looked hot. Strolling along on extremely high heels, she vanished into the bar without even a nod in his direction.

  Now it was up to him to keep watch. Meanwhile, maybe he could find out more from Opal. He started thinking up questions to ask her.

  *

  The man was sitting in his parked car when he saw the woman walk into the bar.

  Good God, he thought. Does she really think she’s going to pass for a whore?

  He smirked at the thought. She might as well have a sign that said LAW ENFORCEMENT hanging around her neck. He glanced around, but didn’t see any obvious backup.

  Still, he was intrigued. She was out looking for him, no doubt about it. But what had made her come here? How could she have gotten this lead? Was the law trying to cover all the hooker hangouts now? If they were, it would just mean they had no idea where to look.

  Or was she here because that skittish little hooker had complained about him?

  He decided that it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to let the woman’s presence ruin his evening. As far as he was concerned, she was just making things more interesting.

  So far, he’d never picked up a victim in this place, and he was always a bit surprised by his occasional urge to come here. If hanging around streetwalkers meant slumming, prowling among lot lizards meant something even lower. It also meant taking certain precautions—for example, renting a cheap used car. His own expensive vehicle would draw the wrong kind of attention. A visit here wasn’t exactly convenient.

  But his other regular haunts were problematic at the moment. News of his murders had made even the streetwalkers skittish. And Jaybird’s gym had just gotten raided and shut down. And he was through trusting the escort service. That bitch Ishtar Haynes had no respect for confidentiality.

  Besides, he was oddly fascinated by the whores who haunted the Desert King. They were more desperate than the streetwalkers, less feisty and exuberant. And they were strangely elusive. For some reason, they seldom approached him. And since he made a point of never approaching a whore himself, that meant that he didn’t make much direct contact with them.

  Clover had been an exception, though. She’d been friendly at first, but he’d gotten careless and scared her off. He reminded himself never to offer jewelry to whores until they were fully under his control. That’s what seemed to have driven Clover away—his extravagant generosity.

  He remembered what she’d said as she ran away …

  “I’m getting away from here for good. Don’t try to find me. You won’t be able to.”

  He laughed a little at the memory. As if Clover was even worth the trouble!

  But the woman who’d just walked into the bar—might she present a unique challenge? He’d never tried his luck with a decoy. It had never occurred to him. At the very least, he was sure that she would get into his car.

  And after that?

  The sheer brazenness of the challenge was tantalizing. He wasn’t going to rush right into it, though. He’d bide his time for a little while.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  As Riley made her way through the bar, she felt horribly exposed.

  I might as well be naked, she thought.

  On her way here, she had bought uncomfortably tight shorts, cheap shoes, and some makeup. She’d stopped at a gas station and changed in its restroom. She’d known better than to try to look like a youngster. She knew from her visit to Hank’s Derby that lot lizards ran the gamut of age, weight, and looks.

  Of course, the shorts revealed her muscular legs. She wondered whether hookers ever went to the gym—a real one, not like Jaybird’s outfit.

  Probably not, she guessed.

  Tottering along on spike heels that severely restricted her movements made her feel especially vulnerable. If she had to run or fight, it would have to be barefooted. And to make matters worse, there was nowhere to carry her gun. She’d had to leave it in the car.

  But then, looking vulnerable and available was exactly the idea. She reminded herself that hookers were always this defenseless. It deepened her sympathy for them. How vulnerable and defenseless they must feel.

  She only hoped that her outfit was passable. She’d put it together in a great rush, and she had her doubts about it. She was worried that maybe she couldn’t look sufficiently at home in her scant wardrobe. The lot lizards she’d observed had seemed completely comfortable showing off all their assets.

  An obese woman with a goiter on her neck was working at the bar. Riley felt pretty sure she was Ruthie Lapham, the bar’s owner. Before coming here, she’d called Ruthie to tell her she was on her way, and that she’d be calling herself Tina.

  Riley headed straight to the bar. But before she could introduce herself as Tina, Ruthie looked at her dismay.

  “Oh Good Lord,” she said.

  She called out to a brawny fellow who was sitting at a table reading a newspaper.

  “Burt, take over for a few minutes, OK?”

  Burt ambled over to behind the bar. Ruthie came around in front of the bar and took Riley gently by the arm.

  “Come with me, girl,” she said.

  She led Riley to a dark empty booth, where they both sat down.

  Ruthie said. “I thought you said you were going to be undercover.”

  Feeling deflated, Riley said, “I am.”

  “What did you do, go out just now and buy those duds in some big-box store?”

  Ruthie sounded as if she was just making a snide joke. The truth was, Riley had done just that.

  “I was in a hurry,” she said.

  “Oh Good Lord,” Ruthie repeated. “You did everything short of leaving the tags on. These girls never buy anything new. It’s always thrift shops and rummage sales, that kind of thing, cheap and used and tatty. You’ll never pass for a working girl looking like that. Did any of the girls see you on your way in?”

  Riley remembered getting looks from some women as she’d walked through the parking lot. She nodded.

  “Well, you can be sure they’re not happy to see you,” Ruthie said. “They’ve probably put the word out that a sting is on.”

  “That’s not why we’re here,” she said.

  Ruthie shook her head in resignation. “But never mind, we’ll make do somehow. Like I said over the phone, some of the girls told me they spotted that man again—T.R., he calls himself. He hasn’t come in here yet, but he will before he goes home, he always does. Don’t worry, I can see good enough from here—both the front door and the hall that goes into the store yonder. I won’t miss him.”

  “Now what can you tell me about this guy you reported?” Riley asked.

  “Well, he’s not a trucker, that’s for sure. He tries to pass himself off as one, goes around in a T-shirt and jeans, but nobody’s ever seen his rig. And he hasn’t got a trucker’s build or look, or the right kind of talk neither. He comes around here time to time, talking up girls, but he never seems to score, or even try to real hard. It’s like he’s got something else in mind. And from what I’ve seen on the news lately, it could be something real bad. That’s why I called.”

  “What do
es he look like?” Riley asked.

  “Well, he’s sort of medium size. He has a lot of blond hair and always wears a cap. Big glasses. Expensive-looking clothes.”

  Ruthie glanced across the room.

  “There he is now,” she said. “Right over there. Lurking in the hallway.”

  Riley knew better than to move too quickly. Besides, she had to alert Bill that she was about to make her move. She got out her cell phone and sent him a text.

  Suspect in view. I’m going after him. Meet us outside the bar.

  Her plan was simple. She’d proposition the man, then escort him out of the bar to where Bill would be waiting and ready. Together she and Bill would nail him for simple solicitation. With luck he’d give himself away while they had him in custody.

  To her own shock and surprise, Riley suddenly felt deeply afraid. An image of darkness and fire flashed in the back of her mind. She’d been held and tormented by one monster, and now here she was, offering herself up to another one.

  But she wasn’t going to let that residual trauma get the best of her. Besides, this time she had backup. Her partner was right outside.

  She got up and stepped out of the booth. She could see the man standing in the hallway but he was keeping his face in shadow. As she looked toward him, he actually turned away.

  Riley headed across the room, determined to walk up to the man and make her best try at a come-on. She wanted to at least get a look at his face. She wanted a chance to evaluate him as a potential killer.

  But she had only gone a few steps when a woman stepped directly in her path. In a blink of an eye, the woman was flanked on both sides by two more. They were clearly prostitutes, and they all looked as mad as hell.

  “Well, ladies, looks like we’ve got a new girl,” the woman in front said, a note of threat in her voice. “My name’s Jewel, what’s yours?”

  “Tina,” Riley said, trying to push past her.

  The three women clustered together to block Riley’s way forward. She started to cut around a table and take another route, but the women moved to block that way too.

  Riley was stumped. She’d taken on lots of men in her time, many of them strong and tough. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t find three men much of a threat. But women? She didn’t want to beat these women up and couldn’t think what to do. Besides, she was anxious not to blow her cover.

  “Now don’t be rude, girl,” Jewel said, her face uncomfortably close to Riley’s. “What’s the matter? Is there something you’re not telling us?”

  One of the other women snapped, “Yeah, she doesn’t want to tell us she’s a cop.”

  Riley heard a man’s voice to her right.

  “A cop? Hell, Dusty’s no cop. Stop bothering her, Jewel. The rest of you too.”

  Riley turned and saw a familiar face walking toward her. It took her a moment to recognize Rex, the trucker who’d helped her rescue Jilly back at Hank’s Derby. He must have just come in, because she hadn’t seen him sitting in the bar earlier. He done some fast thinking and made up a name to call her by.

  The women gaped at him with surprise, but they obviously knew him.

  Rex offered Riley his arm, and she took it.

  “Where’ve you been, Dusty?” he said, escorting her away from the angry hookers. “I thought you’d never show up.”

  “I got held up,” Riley said. In a whisper she said, “I’m on a case. I’ve got to go.” She steered him toward the hallway and then let go of his arm.

  “After a bad guy, huh?” Rex whispered back with a wink. “Go get ’im, girl.”

  Riley darted away from Rex and into the hall, but the man Ruthie had pointed out wasn’t there now. She saw another door leading into the adjoining convenience store. He’d obviously gone through there. If she could catch up with him, maybe there was still a slim chance that she could proposition him.

  But inside the well-lighted store, she just saw a handful of men who were obviously real truckers, not the one she was looking for. A couple of them ogled her with interest and one even stepped toward her. But Riley didn’t have time for this. She slid her FBI badge out of her handbag and flashed it at them. He stopped in his tracks and the other one got very interested in the doughnuts on a nearby rack.

  She headed straight to the front door and darted outside. Nobody was in sight, except for Bill, who had gotten her message and was waiting outside the door to the bar.

  *

  On the opposite side of the building, the man started up his rented hatchback. He berated himself for his close call just now. The truth was, he didn’t know how he’d have handled her if she’d approached him. And had she seen his face? He felt sure that she hadn’t.

  When she’d gotten up from the booth, he’d hurried down the hallway into the convenience store and joined several truckers who were just leaving. He’d seen the man standing outside the bar—the woman’s partner, ready to back her up. He doubted that the partner could have noticed him among the other truckers. Then he’d cut around the front of the building to his car. He’d gotten away clean.

  For a moment he felt an urge to drive by and see if she would get in the car with him. But he knew that she and her partner were both surely armed. It had already been a close call for him.

  Stupid, he thought. I was stupid.

  What had he been thinking? Since when had he gotten a thrill out of playing cat-and-mouse like this? It just wasn’t his way.

  No more cheap thrills, he reminded himself.

  From now on he would stick to the part he really enjoyed—the shock, the gasping, the weakening struggle, the silence at the end. And he promised himself to treat himself to that pleasure again very soon.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Over breakfast the next morning, Riley and Bill barely spoke to each other for a while. Riley wasn’t sure where the tension was coming from. Sure, they were still discouraged over last night’s failed attempt at catching the killer. But there was more to it than that. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “We’ll get him,” Bill finally said, chewing on a piece of toast. “From what Opal told me about him, he’s got his weaknesses.”

  Riley didn’t reply. She remembered the aging prostitute who’d still been sitting in Bill’s car after the killer got away. Bill had discussed the situation with her while Riley was in the bar. From what he’d said, Opal sounded like a shrewd observer who knew what she was talking about.

  Still, Riley felt bitterly disappointed that the evening had been such a bust. Her own hasty disguise hadn’t worked very well, and she’d let three whores slow her down enough to let the subject get away. And although Bill had glimpsed several groups of men leaving the convenience store, he’d hadn’t been able to pick out the suspect among them. A lot of truckers fit the description they had gotten from Ruthie and several of the prostitutes.

  It seemed that T.R. was white, a little heavy in build but average in height. His age was somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, and he often wore a baseball cap. Some of the women had mentioned thick blond hair brushed forward. Ruthie had found no useful picture of him on her security camera footage. And of course, they really had no reason to believe that the man was anything more than a nuisance to the hookers.

  Having to wake Morley up last night to phone in the bad news had been especially embarrassing.

  And this morning Bill was looking at her in an odd way. Riley didn’t know what to make of it. She took another swallow of coffee and tried to clear her head.

  Suddenly, Bill reached across the table and put his hand on hers.

  “I mean it, Riley,” he said. “We’ll get him.”

  He didn’t let go of her hand. She knew that this was more than a reassuring gesture. Under different circumstances, she might have welcomed it. But she was in no mood for it right now. No mood at all.

  She growled, “Bill, you’d better move your hand away if you want to keep it.”

  But Bill didn’t move his hand. He only smiled
.

  “C’mon, Riley.”

  “C’mon what?” He squeezed her hand and looked directly into her eyes.

  No doubt about it—he was making a pass at her. It wasn’t as brazen as her own drunken phone call a few months back that had nearly wrecked their friendship. But it was a pass nonetheless.

  But why right now? Riley wondered. Then she remembered the expression on Bill’s face when she’d joined him after they lost the suspect—a look of interest she hadn’t given any thought to at the time. But now this morning that look made an unpleasant kind of sense to her.

  “This is all because of the part I was playing last night,” she said. “Because of how I was dressed and how I behaved.”

  Bill blushed a little. She knew that she’d called it exactly right. She jerked her hand away.

  “You thought I looked hot because I looked like a hooker,” she said. “High heels and bare skin made you feel all warm and fuzzy?”

  “So what if it did?” Bill said.

  Riley could hardly believe her ears.

  “So what if it did?” she echoed. “Bill, listen to yourself.”

  “Well, you know it’s more than that,” Bill said. “You know I’m attracted to you all the time. And don’t pretend it’s not mutual. There’s something between us. Isn’t it about time we stopped pretending that there’s not?”

  Riley felt the truth in those words, but she also felt a little sick with disgust. She thought back to Jaybird and Calvin Rabbe, two men who weren’t capable of seeing women as human beings.

  Was it possible that Bill had something in common with them? Did her longtime partner harbor the same tendency to think of women as sex objects? Were all men like that deep down—the straight ones, anyway?

  “It’s not mutual right now,” she said firmly.

  “You’re overreacting.”

  Riley was about to launch into a heated tirade about how she wasn’t overreacting at all. But her phone buzzed. Seeing that the call was from April, she answered it.