by JB Skully
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Atlantic Bridge/Liquid Silver Books
www.liquidsilverbooks.com
Copyright ©2004 JB Skully
First Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge, May, 2004
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 6280 Crittenden Ave, Indianapolis, Indiana. Copyright 2004, JB Skully. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the authors.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Prologue
She luxuriated in a perfumed tub, silky water lapping at her breasts. Caressing her nipples into tight buds, she dipped beneath the surface to cup herself. The warmth of the bath, her body's redolence, her own light touches, all drove her close to orgasm, but she held back. It wasn't time yet. Orgasm required perfect timing to reach that ultimate pinnacle.
Drying off with a fluffy towel fresh from the wash, she blotted the droplets, then buried her face in the clean, sweet scent. The rich aroma of sesame oil tantalized her nose as she smoothed it into her skin, softening her thighs, her belly, her breasts. She imagined a man's big hands kneading the oil into the sensitive spot where neck met shoulder. A moan fell from her lips as she savored the delicious sensations.
Next she dabbed her favorite cologne. Behind her knees. The crook of her elbow. Behind her ears. The hollow of her throat. Between her ample breasts. They were her best asset, the kind that filled a man's cupped hands, the kind a man could pillow fuck and feel like he'd driven himself deep inside a woman.
The peach robe slipped along her arms, then caressed her shoulders like velvet. She slid her feet into forties-style mules, the boa-like feathers across the strap tickling her toes, then sat in front of the vanity for half an hour, rouging her cheeks and turning her lips ripe and full with liner and red lipstick. A beauty mark at the corner of her mouth was the crowning touch.
She rose, descended the stairs, and once in her living room, lit two peach candles for scent and four votives for mood. The wine she poured was a sweet, white dessert variety which perfectly complimented the plate of succulent Belgian truffles. She allowed herself twenty; they'd have to last the whole night. She knew she could do it.
Settling on the sofa, head cradled by a satin-slipped pillow, she put on the headset and plugged it into the phone. Midnight. She came alive at midnight. The phone rang at twelve-o-one.
"Hello, this is Helen. What can I do for you tonight?” she purred.
"I wanna ram my cock in your mouth. Take it all, bitch."
God, some men were so unimaginative. They went straight for the climax instead of enjoying the journey.
She moaned for him. “Oh baby, you're so big. Give it to me. Mmmm. Come to Mamma, big boy."
They said she had a voice that could make a man come in two seconds flat. This one orgasmed in less. Or maybe his problem was premature ejaculation. She didn't know and didn't care. She clicked off and waited.
Another call. Another voice. Virtually the same words, once she got him going. She waited for something more, someone more. While there was power in listening to men groan and moan, listening to them come merely with the sound of her voice, the fantasy was missing and the feeling that they wanted her, only her, no one but her. Only one voice gave her that sense.
A sound came from the kitchen. Kitty-Kat jumping from the floor to the counter to the top of the refrigerator. She almost got up to shoo him away, but the phone rang again.
Two more calls. Short. To the point. One wanted her to be an underage teenage hitchhiker; the other pretended she was his wife whom he'd discovered in the bedroom sucking the mailman's cock. Her body had picked up the rhythm, the hum of sex. Now she craved. And she waited.
He didn't disappoint her.
"I thought about you all night, Helen."
Achilles to her Helen of Troy. She'd chosen the name because she'd wanted the face and the body of a woman who'd launched a thousand ships. He was her poet, her romantic. He'd touched her core from that first call over a year ago. They'd long since passed the need for role-playing.
"What are you wearing, Helen?"
"That black garter belt you love, stockings, my black lace bra."
He moaned. “I want to be inside you. Now."
She undid the tie of her robe, then ran her fingers across her sensitized nipples. “Do you want me to touch myself?"
"Tell me what it feels like.” His voice was a low rasp across the phone line, followed by a buzz and a crackle.
"You're not on a cell phone, are you?” She didn't mind if anyone listened in most of the time, but not with him. He was hers alone.
"No. Squeeze your nipples for me. Pinch them."
She did, lightly, rewarding him with a moan.
"Spread your legs."
"Oh yes, for you.” Her hand trailed across her stomach, through the nest of hair between her thighs.
"Are you wet?"
"So wet.” She was dripping.
"Put a finger inside yourself. Does it feel good?"
Her only answer was a deep hum she knew he could hear.
"Come for me. I want to hear you come."
It didn't take much. She moved her damp finger over her clitoris, whispered his name, and felt her orgasm build. She came with a bucking of her hips against her hand. She cried out, heard his indrawn breath, and knew he wanted her as much as she did him.
"I want to see you, Helen. Now. Tonight."
A tendril of fear skittered across her scalp leaving a trail of cold in its wake. “You know we can't do that."
"I can't stand it anymore. No one has to know."
"It's better this way.” On the phone. Anonymous. Safe.
"Helen, please, I must see you."
This was an old argument, one they'd been having more and more often. Part excitement, part fear, his desire to meet her fueled her fantasy-lover dreams.
Some things, however, were best left in dreamland. Her Achilles was one of them. “No, it's not possible."
"Helen.” His voice changed. Stronger. Angrier perhaps. “I know where you live."
She clutched her robe to her neck. Oh God. No. He couldn't.
"You live in a garden, don't you?” His voice became almost sing-song. “That's it, my love, you live on Garden Street."
She yanked the headset off, grabbed the phone off the table, and threw it against the wall with more speed, strength, and agility than she'd used in the last decade.
She flopped back against the pillows and covered her face with her hands. Oh God. He knew where she lived. He'd see what she looked like. Then he'd...
A noise behind her. Like Kitty-Kat paws on the plush carpet. No. Much heavier th...
The first blow knocked her unconscious.
The second crushed her skull.
Chapter One
Max Starr cradled the cell phone to her ear. “Now don't get pissed, okay, but ... I saw another murder."
Homicide Detective DeWitt Quentin Long sighed across the airwaves. “Dammit,
Max, that's not an excuse to get out of meeting my mother tonight."
"Don't worry, I'm already dressed for the occasion.” Still, the murder card had been worth a try.
"Good. And, while we're on the subject, under no circumstances are you to tell my mother about your psychic visions or that you talk to your dead husband's ghost. Understood?"
Hmm. Two orders in one sentence, and he was using that dictatorial cop tone, too. Obviously the guy felt the pressure with this first “Mom” meeting. Max would have to make an allowance. This time. “I wouldn't dream of mentioning a thing."
"My mother wants to know what you'd like for dinner."
Boy, for a man who didn't know the meaning of full sentences, he'd used a ton. “I thought she needed a week to clean the house, buy a dress, weed the garden, and plan the menu,” she fired back.
"Yeah, and now she's down to three choices, chicken, turkey or steak. What's your preference?"
Her mouth watered. Witt had previously plied her with chicken and steak. “I vote for turkey."
"Okay, now we're square on that, tell me you didn't see another murder."
She shook her head despite the fact that he couldn't see. “I wouldn't lie about having a vision, even to avoid your mother."
Another deep, long-suffering sigh. “Max Starr, you're gonna be the death of me. All right, who got whacked this time?"
"Young woman, late twenties.” She fiddled with the edge of her new suit jacket.
"Location?"
"San Carlos.” The suburb was halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. The drive shouldn't take him more than half an hour at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday. “I'm sitting in my car on Garden Street."
He sucked in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. She almost felt the sound rather than heard it.
"Think you can find me, Detective?"
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He did, and in ten minutes less than Max had thought possible. Damn, he wasn't riding in to save the day in his black and red Dodge Ram. Jeez, she adored that truck. Instead he drove the usual nondescript tan department sedan that smelled of sweaty bodies, old cigars, and pine air freshener.
Witt parked across the street from her, but didn't immediately get out. Instead he eyeballed her from his parking spot, the Dudley Do-Right dimple prominent in his chin.
The neighborhood was neat, quiet, and low on traffic. Down the street, a couple of kids played jump rope. A baby's cry drifted out an open window. In a house two doors down, the curtain flicked aside, then fell back into place. A bike passed between her car and Witt's, the teenager supreme on his ten-speed.
Witt focused on her.
God, he was ridiculously cute. She'd never been partial to blond hair, blue eyes, and big, big hands. Until now. Not that this was a love thing. After all, she'd known him only a few weeks, and the first week of that she'd been his prime suspect in another murder case.
It was obvious they were having some sort of Mexican stand off, and she'd have to make the first move. Max fluffed her short, dark hair in the mirror and checked that her light make-up still accentuated her brown eyes. Climbing out of her red Miata, she slammed the car door, looked both ways, then crossed the street, high heels clicking against the concrete.
She didn't realize Witt's mouth was hanging open until she leaned into the window of his car.
"What?” She looked down at her suit. “Have I got mustard stains or something?” Damn, she knew that pretzel-on-the-run at the mall was a bad idea.
"A new suit.” His voice was rather choked.
"Well ... yeah.” She couldn't very well meet his mother in one of the black pantsuits she wore for work every day. This one had a skirt.
"You went shopping.” Wonder tinged the words.
"Yeah. I'm a woman. I shop.” Except that she hadn't been shopping in almost two years, not since she quit her job as a CPA at the age of thirty and took up temping. Not since the day her husband Cameron died.
"You're wearing that to my mother's?” Witt was practically bug-eyed.
She stepped back, spread her arms, looked down again. “What's wrong with my outfit?"
"Nothing.” He swallowed. “Not a damn thing."
It was the first suit she'd bought in those same two years. The first skirt she'd worn in the same amount of time except the one she donned when she went out for a night of dancing at Billy Joe's Western Round Up. This skirt wasn't anywhere near that short. Well, there was that slit from mid-calf to mid-thigh. That did seem to be where his gaze was fixed.
"Didn't know you had legs, Max,” he whispered with a note of reverence.
A tingle shot across her belly. She ignored it. The man was a liar. He'd seen her at the Round Up. Then again, he'd been a tad pissed that night, and she'd been tangled in a flock of two-steppers on the dance floor. “Detective, we've got work to do."
He sighed, and pushed his door open. “Yeah. Your vision."
God, he was tall. Even with three-inch spike heels and the fact that at five-foot-six, she wasn't exactly petite, he still towered over her. He wore her favorite charcoal suit, black shirt, and red tie. There was something about black and red on a hunky blond cop that did her in. He smelled good, too. What was that aftershave? The scent drove her crazy. Especially when she sat in the cab of his truck. In the dark. Alone with him.
"What happened this time?"
Damn, he always interrupted when the fantasy was getting good.
She told him all, start to finish, including the phone sex, though she stopped short of any explicit details. She especially pointed out that the woman's favorite, and definitely most important, caller was someone who called himself Achilles. Witt took the psychic vision thing much more easily than he had the last two times. Like a duck to water. Like a bird to sky. Like a homicide detective to forensic evidence. Hmm, they really had come a long way.
"Then he conked her on the head,” she finished.
Witt leaned back against the car door, crossed his arms, and lasered her with his baby blues. “He?"
"I'm assuming the murderer was the guy on the phone. Her Achilles."
"Call could have come from anywhere in the country. Anywhere in the world, for that matter. Odds are against her killer being a guy from the sex line."
Max remembered the elusive sound of Kitty-Kat paws, a noise that could have been soft-soled shoes, and the man's lie about the cell phone. A little voice—maybe Cameron's—warned her not to get too cocky about her abilities. Last time it had led to disaster. “It's a hunch.” She closed her eyes. Tested it. “It feels right. He knew where she lived. I think he was actually in the house."
Witt gave her that point and moved on. “When'd the murder occur?"
"I don't know. Maybe last night."
"Where?"
"Over there.” She pointed to the neat, blue-trimmed house beyond her car. “And Witt?"
He waited expectantly.
"The address is 452."
Silence. He straightened away from the car. His blond brows pulled together. Finally, after an interminable minute, “Don't do this again."
"Don't you see..."
"Yeah, I do.” His features hardened. “Another murder. Another victim. And that number tying them all up in a nice, neat, little package."
"But..."
He held up one finger. She shut her mouth. Standing side by side, they both stared at the house.
She wouldn't point out that he didn't believe in coincidence. Witt would have been the first to say that was true. Cops simply didn't accept coincidence as an answer. Then again, there was this coincidence. This wasn't the first murder she'd witnessed in her visions—she was beginning to believe it wouldn't be her last either—and this wasn't the first time that number had popped up. First 452 was a flight number that tied in with a woman's death. Then 452 was the number of a storage locker that led them to a witness in another killing. The number 452 was somehow cosmically important. God only knew why.
It was now the number of the house on
Garden Street where murder had occurred.
She shrugged. Acceptance. No point in fighting the vision this time. “I guess there's nothing left to do but find out why she was killed, and who did the deed."
"Tall order for a skinny thing like you."
She glanced at him sideways, but his focus was on the two-story house. She couldn't read his expression. A definite cop expression, not giving a thing away. She should have told him 102 pounds wasn't that skinny, but decided denial wasn't worth the effort.
Witt raised his chin, nose forward, as if scenting a crime. “Did she live alone?"
"Yeah, I think so."
He pointed. “Then aren't you curious who that woman is crossing the lawn?"
Busy watching him, she'd forgotten to watch the house.
Woman? She looked more like a girl. A waif. She couldn't have been more than five-foot-three and without a doubt weighing in on the underside of eighty pounds. Now that was skinny. She wore leggings, a loose-fitting sweater, and hi-top shoes. Her legs, encased in black Spandex, looked like twigs. She jangled a ring of keys, fingering for the right one, then climbed the two steps to the front porch. Despite the set of keys, she pushed the bell. Above her head, the porch light still shone.
"Where'd she come from?” Max whispered as if they'd be overheard.
"Next-door. Duplex. Houses are attached,” he pointed, “at the garage.
Like Siamese twins joined at the hip, the two houses were mirror images, identical right down to the white picket fence, clipped lawn, weeded flower bed, and clean windows. A brown Honda Civic sat on the shared drive. Oil stained the gravel where a second car would sit.
"Max, why'd you say you had to find out why she was killed and who did it?"
On the porch, the stick figure rang the bell a second time.
"Because that's the only way I can get rid of the visions. Didn't I tell you that the last time?” And the time before that, when he actually thought she might have committed the murder herself because she'd known way too much.
It wasn't as if she understood much about the visions that had haunted her over the past few weeks. With this third occurrence, though, she simply had to accept that the phenomenon existed and it happened to her. She had a vision of foul play, then the spirit of the murdered woman—so far it had only been women—wouldn't “go into the light,” or whatever it was they were supposed to do, until Max found the killer. Max didn't know the why or how of it. She just knew it was.
