“We believe she may have those skills, whether it’s a job or a hobby. If she submitted her book, she likely did it at your publisher.”
“I don’t think that happened. They’d have notified me after Mom sent them the letter if they’d gotten a manuscript from that name.”
“Okay. We’re reading through the books, getting a sense of the story, and particularly of the first victim and killer in each. But it would be helpful if you could send me, we’ll say, a kind of profile on those characters, a basic outline of the crime scenes.”
“I can and will. I know what you mean.”
“Good. I’m going to give you the same instructions I did yesterday: Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know. Nobody comes in the house you don’t know. If you see anything or anyone that makes you uncomfortable, contact your local police, then me.”
She paused, studying DeLano’s face. “I’m going to add: If beefing up your personal security makes you feel safer, then do that.”
“I’m going to. My mother, my girls aren’t in the books, but they’re part of me.”
“We’ll get us some bodyguards.” Audrey added a little shoulder shake to try to lighten her daughter’s worry. “Good-looking ones.”
“Mom.” DeLano laughed a little, then sighed. “You’ll stop her,” she said to Eve.
“Let’s say I intend to write the ending.”
Eve showed them out, went back to her office to add to her notes.
Minutes later, her interoffice signaled.
“I’ve got Loxie Flash in A,” Peabody told her. “Do you want me in there?”
“Keep at what you’re doing. I’ll take her.”
She wound her way back.
Loxie Flash fit the physical description of the third victim well enough. Had a few more pounds on her, wore her hair longer, but gave off the same vibe.
The fuckhead vibe.
In the book, Bliss Cather had—in the last hours of her life—spiky hair of the palest blond tipped with black. Plenty of piercings on both, though Cather had gone for an eyebrow bar and the live-and-in-person Loxie chose what Eve thought of as a bull ring, a hoop studded through the tender dividing line of the nostrils.
A lot of tats, plenty of heavy makeup. The skin shirt proclaimed BALL BUSTER over a pair of impressive, unharnessed breasts. Jeans, held together with lacing at the hips, showed a lot of skin.
Loxie curled her lip, spoke with a raspy verbal sneer. “What the fuck’s your damage, bitch?”
“Lieutenant bitch.” Eve sat. “And I’m here to tell you a story that might save your life. There’s a woman out there who may be thinking about killing you.”
“Shit. Bitches don’t want to kill me, assa-hola. Bitches want to be me.”
“Not this one, maybe because she’s crazy.”
Loxie curled her lip in an arrogant sneer. “Crazy don’t stop my sleep none.”
“This one’s about five-six, white. Red hair with blue side dreads. She’ll have a tat of an orange dragon on the inside of her right wrist. She’ll try to look about twenty-five but she’s older.”
“Old bitches are boring.”
“She’s not. You’ve seen her around, places you hang out, places you party.”
“I see a lot of people.”
“Any of those people look like the person I just described?”
Loxie shrugged. “If they ain’t on my team, I don’t pay them much mind. Look, Bitch Badge, I gotta sleep. Had a big night.”
“You had a big night breaking your parole. If you don’t want a big night in a cage, lose the bullshit.”
Eve shoved the stills from the surveillance feed across the table. “Have you seen her?”
“Jesus, what is that clucker-fucker wearing? Looks like she got swallowed by ugly. I don’t know people who wear dumb-ass coats covered in lame-ass birds.”
“You haven’t seen the coat before?”
“If I’d seen that coat, I’da lit it on fire.”
“Look at her face, take a good look.”
“I’m telling you I don’t know this bitch. You think I hang with losers like this?”
“I’m telling you, if you do see her, keep away from her and contact me. If you see her—white, red hair with blue side dreads, orange dragon tat inside her right wrist—she’s there to kill you.”
“Bull.” Loxie shot up her index finger. “And shit.” Then her middle.
“You’d be her third, so she’s had experience. Two people are in the morgue who might’ve claimed bull and shit. Do yourself a favor and stay out of the clubs for a couple weeks, and don’t drink any martinis.”
“I’m in rehab, bitch. No drinking, no clubbing, no party time.”
Eve looked into the bloodshot eyes, still glassy from breaking parole. “I don’t give a rat’s ass if you drink yourself into a coma or pop enough Erotica to bang your way from dusk to dawn. Just stay out of the clubs. Stay out of the clubs if you want to live.”
Leaning forward Eve pushed the photo under Loxie’s nose. “Look at her. Remember her. She’s crazy,” Eve said, “and if she’s fixed on you, she’ll hit you in a club, that’s her plan. She’ll poison you with a martini—pomegranate. Because she’s got the jumps for your ex.”
“Glaze?” Loxie flicked her fingers in the air—but bright green jealousy flicked in her eyes at the same time. “All hers. I’m done with that fuckhead.”
“She wants to make sure of it. She doesn’t like you, Loxie. She blames you. Glaze, he doesn’t even know she exists, but she’ll kill you to save him from you, to have him for herself. Get this point: She’s crazy.”
“Crazy enough to wear that fugly coat.”
“She won’t be wearing it the next time you see her. Get this in your head. White, red hair with blue side dreads, orange dragon tat on the inside of her right wrist. It’ll be loud, it’ll be crowded when she puts that martini down in front of you. The house band’s going to be playing one of Glaze’s numbers—her request. It’s the last thing you hear before you drink that idiot martini with the cyanide she dropped in it.”
For the first time Loxie looked worried. Her eyebrows knitted; she gnawed on a thumbnail painted glittery black. “You’re talking about the future, man, and that’s bullshit. How come you know all this?”
“I read the book.”
13
Eve stopped off at Vending. She wanted something cold, and if the machine gave her grief, well, she’d kick its ass the way regulations had prevented her from kicking Loxie Flash’s.
She plugged in for a tube of Pepsi. Snagged what it shat out.
“This is a damn diet cream soda, you fuck.”
Inappropriate language noted. Fester’s Diet Cream Soda offers classic taste guilt free! There is no nutritional value, and certain additives—listed on request—may pose health risks including—
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up and give me my damn Pepsi.”
Second incident of inappropriate language noted. Warning! A third incident will result in suspension of Vending privileges.
“Note this. I will rip your circuits out with my bare hands, blast them to oblivion with my police issue if you don’t give me my damn Pepsi.”
Threats of vandalism will be reported, Harcove, Detective Clint. Acts of vandalism will result in suspension of Vending privileges and a two-thousand-dollar fine, plus cost of damages.
Eve started to tell the idiot, computerized pain in her ass she wasn’t Harcove, Detective Clint, then reconsidered.
“Give me the tube of Pepsi I ordered.”
It shat one out.
Your account has been charged for one tube of Pepsi. Pepsi, the choice of generations!
That would be Harcove’s account, Eve thought as the machine spouted off its hype and warnings.
Two notations of inappropriate language and one threat of vandalism have been added to your file.
“Yeah.” Eve cracked the tube. “Add this: You can bite me.”
Eve walked into Homicide. “Peabody!”
When Peabody looked up, Eve tossed the tube of cream soda.
“Hey, thanks.”
“Thank Detective Clint Harcove.”
“Who’s that?”
“I have no idea. Progress?”
“I washed out on my usual shops, but I got some direction from the manager of one I use a lot. How’d it go with Flash?”
Eve took a moment to drink some Harcove Pepsi. “Skank.”
“Told you.”
“Bad-attitude skank with a heavy side of asshole, but I got under her skin by the end of it. She’s warned, she has the description of the unsub, and claims she’s going home to sleep. As she hadn’t yet reached the hungover, strung-out stage of her night’s binge, that I believe.”
“You’ve got another coming in. At least she said she’d give us five on her way to a recording session. She claims she’s putting a band together that blows your skin off. Shanna K. Just the initial for the last name because, she says, labels limit expression.”
“Can’t wait.”
“And Nadine’s on her way.”
“Good.”
Eve wrote up the interview with Loxie. Went out again to repeat the routine with Shanna K.
Shanna didn’t call her a bitch, listened with wide eyes heavily lashed in magenta, smiled with lips outlined in tiny, tiny sparkles.
And dismissed everything Eve told her, as she claimed people only killed other people when they’d run afoul of each other in a past life. As she herself had undergone reincarnate cleansing, she was therefore absolved of all past-life transgressions.
Still Eve pressed, pushed, went so far as to wipe the sparkle smile away by shoving photos of the DBs across the table.
By the end she figured if she hadn’t put the fear of reincarnated gods into Shanna K, she’d put the fear of Dallas into her.