Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (21 page)

I'm not going to argue with Cindy about the issue at the moment, and really, is it any of my business that she took her girlfriend home to meet her mother? It does sting a little. Cindy and I have always been each other's moral support.

“Look, I have to go, Lou. I'll get some of your stuff and have it for you when we meet in Vermont. We'll go back to Dallas tonight and get a hotel, and tomorrow, I'll ask Mom if we can stay with them. She has to tell Dad I'm here at some point.”

Despite being a little freaked out, I say, “I hope it works out for you, Cindy. When are you going to tell me your friend's name?”

“Vermont, maybe,” Cindy answers. “We'll see how things go while we're here.”

“Check back in as soon as you can,” I say. “And good luck with your folks.”

“Cindy out.”

Even though I'm in shock, her coplike goodbye makes me smile for a minute. I sit and think about the note for a while. Who are the “they” I might be in danger from? How much do the Billingtons know? Where are they? Where is Wendy Underwood? I'll have to put Morgan on the Billingtons' trail, even if I don't want to. I rack my brain trying to figure out what signs the Billingtons spoke of in the note. Nothing. I get nothing. About now I wish I really was psychic.

Moving into the bedroom, I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I'm now thinking about Dog Breath. If he's like me, he might heal quickly, but bad burns to the face would put him out of commission for a while. Maybe he isn't dead. Maybe he's just lying low until he looks human again and can attract women. If he's alive, he'll start killing again. And I'm probably the first woman he's coming after. I'm in danger from an unknown source, and I'm in danger from a killer. That should help me sleep.

CONFESSION NO. 18

Girls just want to have fun … and live to tell about it the next day.

Terry calls the next morning. He needs to talk to me about some files he's been looking through and picks me up in front of my building an hour later. The window is fixed in the El Camino. I'm getting a little attached to the car. And the driver. Today I wear Gap jeans and a Lucky T-shirt. I tried to dress down since Terry's not really into fashion. And this is business. What I'm wondering is why he didn't just bring the files with him. Is he considering going back on his word?

“I appreciate this,” he says while he drives. “I would have just gathered it up and brought it with me, but if the files stay in one place, there's less likelihood of losing the information inside of them.”

Is he a mind reader? I flip my hair and smile. “Of course,” I say, like I knew that. “Listen, I hope this won't take long. I promised Karen we'd shop today.”

“Shouldn't take too long,” he responds. “When we're finished, I'll give you a lift to wherever you need to go.”

Besides shopping, Karen has also agreed to go to Freddie Z's with me tonight. I need to put Morgan on the trail of the Billingtons and don't want to wait until Monday to speak with him.

“That will be great. Thanks,” I say. Turning toward him, I stare at his profile. He has a great jawline. Square and masculine. He looks a little nervous under my scrutiny. “What type of files do you want me to look at?” I ask.

“Missing women,” he answers. “That tip you gave me, about the sleazy hotel with all the Elvis pictures, it paid off. It's a dump called Heartbreak Hotel in Memphis. A woman was killed there in the same style. Something came up in the Washington area, too. And there's a hell of a lot of missing women all the way from Dallas to New Jersey who resemble you, Lou. Brunettes. Young. Some pretty and some not so pretty.”

This is one instance when I wish I had been wrong, but I knew I wouldn't be since I've been having the nightmares for seven years. Too bad this wasn't just a ploy to get me into bed again. I'm still a little shook up from my phone conversation with Cindy last night. I'll have to suck it up and look at the files. I feel somehow responsible for the killer's victims.

The ride to Terry's place isn't far. He lives in an apartment building on Fifty-seventh. The building isn't nearly as nice as mine and I have to climb three flights of stairs. Once we reach his apartment, he unlocks the door and escorts me inside.

The first thing I notice is that the place is clean. I figured a bachelor cop who is at work more than he's home wouldn't care too much about being tidy, but I'm pleased to find Terry proves me wrong. His living room furniture is black leather, tasteful and yet masculine. The entire apartment has polished hardwood floors and bright area rugs. I glance in the kitchen. No dirty dishes in the sink.

“Want a beer or something?”

“A soda would be great.”

“Make yourself comfortable on the couch. The files are there on the table next to it. I'll grab our drinks.”

I sit and take the first of several files stacked on an end table next to me. The file contains the photo of a woman missing in the Oklahoma City area. I don't recognize her from my dreams. That doesn't mean she isn't a victim. I realize sometimes the women in my dreams aren't at their best. Hair tousled, naked in bed with a man who intends to rip their throats out during orgasm. That is a very different image from a photo probably supplied by a concerned family member.

“Recognize her?” Terry sets our drinks on coasters and settles beside me.

“No.”

I put the folder aside, reach for my soda, take a sip, and replace the glass on the coaster. “I like your place,” I say, glancing around.

Terry laughs. “It's nothing like yours, but thanks. My mom decorated for me. She says I have no taste.”

Not sure that's a compliment to me, but I don't say anything. “I think it's great that you're so close to your family.”

“Sometimes it's great,” he agrees. “Sometimes it's a pain in the ass.”

I laugh, even though I'm thinking being part of a loving family, a normal family, could never be anything but wonderful. I pick up another file and get a jolt.

“She's one of the victims,” I say. The reason I recall this particular dream and this particular girl so vividly was because of the location. I wasn't in a hotel room. I was in a car. The backseat. “This woman was murdered in the backseat of her car. She's still in the car wherever it may be.”

Terry grabs a pen and notepad and writes down the information. I go through six more folders before I see another victim I recognize. This one is from Virginia. The reason she's still missing is because she was murdered in a wooded area. Again, in the backseat of her car. I'm sick to my stomach.

It was one thing when I thought the dreams were about me, because I would wake up and know it was just a nightmare. Now I know differently and looking at the photos only brings back the brutality of the crimes committed against the victims.

“I can't look at any more,” I tell Terry, placing the folder aside. “This victim was murdered in a wooded area, I remember there being a dam and a reservoir in the vision. Remembering makes me sick.”

“That's enough for today,” he says, staring at me with concern etched across his handsome face. “I appreciate you taking a look, Lou. You were right. These women's families need closure. You're doing a good thing.”

I'm not sure he's right. I mean, he is right about the victims' families needing closure, but I'm wondering if their loved ones would still be alive if they didn't in some way resemble me. But maybe it has to do with the fact that I resemble them. Maybe this creep came after me because I fit his criteria. It's confusing. Thinking about the connection gives me a headache.

“Where do you need me to take you?” he asks.

“Let me call Karen and see where she wants to start. I imagine Jimmy Choo since she bought out Manolo Blahnik last time we were out.”

Terry gives me a blank look. “You do know you're speaking another language.”

I laugh, which feels good after all the sobering things going on in my life at the moment. “Maybe I'll buy you something today,” I decide. “Maybe a Prada dress shirt.”

Terry indicates his T-shirt and jeans. “Do I look like the kind of guy who'd wear a designer dress shirt?”

“You'd look hot in Prada,” I insist. “Maybe an Italian silk in cherry red.”

He flinches like I socked him. Which isn't funny. Then he leans closer and asks, “Know what you look best in, Kinipski?”

I figure this is another loaded question, but I bite. Then I have to wonder if I really do bite. I look at his neck for teeth marks and thankfully don't see any. “What?”

“Nothing.”

His mouth is within kissing distance. Maybe the files weren't the only reason Terry invited me over. “You look good in that, too,” I say. “Maybe we should change.”

His mouth comes a little closer. He suddenly groans and pulls back. “I knew this wouldn't be a good idea. You and me alone in a place that has a bed. We might have to stick to coffee shops to discuss business.”

Part of me might be ready to jump Terry again, but part of me is gun-shy. Not shy of his gun, but shy of sending him to the hospital again. He removes the option by removing himself. He grabs our empty glasses and heads for the kitchen.

“Need to use the little girl's room before we go?”

“Do you have one?” I ask. “I figured you just had a little boy's room.”

I hear him laugh from the kitchen. “The
big
boy's room is first door to the left in the hallway.”

I'm shallow enough to want to see the bathroom. If there are any fungi, my infatuation with Terry is over. I'm just weird about those things. I find the bathroom and call Karen from inside. Just as I suspected, she wants to meet at Jimmy Choo on Fifth Avenue. I hang up and scout out the bathroom in search of fungi. Lucky for Terry, there isn't any. Once I leave the bathroom, I snoop in his bedroom.

A picture of a beautiful sunset hangs above his king-sized bed. The room is painted steely gray with a black bedspread and curtains. His dresser is scattered with an assortment of pictures. One is of him and a couple of guys who resemble him enough that they must be his brothers. I pick up a picture of an older couple I assume are his parents. They look nice. I rejoin Terry in the living area.

“Ready?”

I grab my beauty bag, glancing at the files still resting on his end table. I need some fun.

*   *   *

Karen is a marathon shopper and my dogs are yelping by the time we finish shopping, have dinner, and head to Freddie Z's. The place is packed but we have no trouble getting past the lines. I might play my looks down when I'm out and about, but not Karen. She's always on the runway. We walk past men who whistle and women who wish they could kill us with a single dirty look. Once inside we're greeted by the loudest rock and roll music I have ever heard.

I shuffle toward a spot where I can see the band. Morgan sings, he's playing a real guitar, and he's pretty damn good. He wears the cowboy boots as usual, and tonight he's shirtless, although I see what might be a T-shirt hanging from one of his back pockets. His tight pants are slung down low on his hips. The nipple ring flashes with the strobe lights.

“You say you know that guy?” Karen stands next to me, staring at Kane, who is doing a fine rendition of “Hotel California.”

“Yeah, he's, well, kind of a friend of mine,” I shout over the noise.

A waitress appears and hands us two drinks. I can't believe Karen had time to get to the bar and order. The line at the bar is as long as the line outside to get in. “Did you order?” I ask her.

“Of course not,” she says. “I never buy my own drinks.”

We take the drinks and the waitress nods toward a couple of losers who grin like a five-dollar drink is going to get them in our panties.

“Come on,” Karen says, moving toward the losers.

“Huh? Please tell me we are not going to join them.”

“They have a table. I'm not standing around all night. My feet hurt.”

She has a point. My feet hurt, too. I follow. The two men who sent us drinks nearly upset the table in their excitement to seat us. Introductions are made. Karen gives fake names. I'm Sunny and she's Velma Sue. The men are Bill and George. Bill has a receding hairline and George has an overbite. Neither have a personality. I let Karen make small talk and turn my attention to Morgan.

The way he pumps his guitar while plucking out the tune to “Hotel California” is … well, it's damn sexy. There's a group of women standing below the stage screaming. Cindy was right. This is a guy who doesn't have a problem getting girls. That makes me wonder if I'll have trouble getting a chance to speak to him.

The waitress who brought our drinks pauses before the table and asks if everyone is set. Another round is ordered even though I've only had one sip of my drink. I excuse myself and follow the waitress, catching up to her when she pauses because the area around the bar is packed.

Tapping her on the shoulder, I ask, “Does the band take a break and could I get a message to Morgan?”

She laughs. “Yeah, they break in about fifteen minutes, but honey, you'll have to take a number to see him.”

I open my beauty bag and pull out a fifty. “Will this get him a message?”

She blinks. “Sure, honey. Here's a pad and pen.”

I scribble off a note and hand it to her along with the fifty. I'm not that excited to go back to Bill and George, so I walk around. Like the last time I visited the club, the sounds, sights, and scents get to me, but as I watch couples move on the dance floor, I realize they don't care about the sweat, or the noise, or anything else. They're lost either in each other or in the music.

For the first time, I understand what Morgan does when he's on stage. He provides release from everything else going on in these people's lives. He gives them an escape from the day-to-day. I long to find that escape, if only for a little while.