“Emphasis on the might. A woman by the name of Samantha Stamp,” she said. “She’s a stripper at some place out north on Federal called Cheeks. One of the other dancers reported her missing this afternoon. Supposedly she hasn’t shown up for work for the last couple of evenings and isn’t answering her cell phone.”
“Probably strung out somewhere,” Teffinger said. “But keep it on your radar screen, just in case.”
They worked the scene until the streetlights came on and the rain plummeted down, and then called it a night. Teffinger drove straight to Davica’s. She was waiting for him with dimmed lights, cold white wine, a stomach-to-stomach body hug, and a long, deep kiss.
“I’m your slave,” she said. “Command me.”
She wore a long-sleeve white shirt. She must have sensed his question-whether she wore anything underneath-and pulled the ends up and tied them together, just under her breasts.
Question answered.
In the affirmative.
A white thong.
He raised an eyebrow and sipped the wine.
“My slave, huh.”
“Utterly and completely.”
“What are the boundaries?”
“Only your imagination.”
He cocked his head.
“Okay,” he said. “But no turning back.”
“Yes, master.”
Lightning crackled. He grabbed the bottle of wine and two glasses, and then led her out the front door, into the back seat of the Tundra. The rain pelted the roof and, in the dark, seemed louder than it probably was. He filled their glasses, put his arm around her shoulders and leaned back.
“Now this is perfect.”
She stayed quiet and snuggled in.
“You’re always full of surprises.”
They talked about whatever came to mind, with no subject too big or too small. The rain didn’t let up. Not a bit. In fact, if anything, it got stronger.
“Tell me about Sydney Heatherwood,” Davica said.
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Just something.”
“Something, huh?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“She said you were testing me this morning, to see if I’d put you above me,” he said. “By the way, was she right?”
“Maybe a little.”
“But she wouldn’t help me figure out the answer,” he said. “She said that would be cheating.”
Davica smiled.
“I’m starting to like this woman,” she said.
“There’s a lot to like.”
“But you never screwed her?”
He shook his head. “I bounced a quarter off her ass a couple of times at a bar once when we were all drunk,” he said. “But that’s about it.”
“How high did it go?”
“What?”
“The quarter.”
He laughed. “I don’t know. I think it knocked down a chandelier or something. All I remember is, there was a lot of damage.”
She punched him in the arm.
“Actually, I handpicked her out of vice last year and brought her over to homicide. There are still a few people over in vice who won’t talk to me because of that. Anyway, it started out that I was going to take her under my wing and show her the ropes. Now she’s showing them to me.”
“She seems competent.”
“Take a good look,” he said. “She’s the first female chief.”
Then his cell phone rang. He reached for it but she grabbed his hand. He pulled it out anyway and looked at the incoming number. It was Aspen Wilde. “This is the attorney whose face I put on the news and turned into a target,” he said. “The one whose apartment got ransacked. I better see what she wants.”
The lights at the Old Town tavern never did come back on, not after a minute, or ten or even fifteen. Incredibly, almost no one left, apparently determined to drink the beer they’d paid for. Lighters ignited everywhere, reminding Aspen of the final scene in Frankenstein. The band pulled out acoustical guitars and sang without mics. Aspen and Christina stayed in the booth until their beer was gone and then muscled through the crowd to the front door, alive and without incident, except for a few invisible hands that managed to grope them pretty good. The umbrella, of course, was long gone, and the storm outside now plummeted down even more intensely than before.
They ran through the weather.
Cold, tipsy and incredibly alive.
Feeling like wild animals.
Thirty minutes later, in dry clothes and sipping hot chocolate, they settled in on the couch to watch TV for a half hour before heading to bed, flicking the channels until they eventually landed on A Perfect Murder. Michael Douglas was in the process of pressuring his wife’s boyfriend to kill her.
“See, never get married,” Christina said.
“Gee, I better remember that,” Aspen said. “I get asked so often.”
A half hour later, while Christina was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, a mental picture of Derek Bennett sticking pins into women jumped into Aspen’s brain. It was so vivid and unsettling that she called Nick Teffinger, who had earlier said he’d do a background check on Bennett. When he answered he didn’t seem eager to talk, almost as if she was interrupting him. She heard rain in the background, as if he was in a car.
“It’s me, Aspen Wilde,” she said. “Is this a bad time?”
No.
No problem.
She thought she heard a woman’s voice in the background but couldn’t be sure.
“I just wondered if you found out anything on Derek Bennett yet.”