Skin (17 page)

“Dance?
I may not have a choice, if I want to keep Hannah alive
..”

The killer really was playing with her, undoubtedly to whet his own appetite. He’d had more than one opportunity to take her, Lilith thought.
To add her to his collection.
He could have gotten to her last night. She looked at the ripped photo with the demand that she dance for him. No time frame.

If she couldn’t make herself do it, how long would Hannah be safe?

“I think we should celebrate this weekend.”

Lilith realized Carmen was there, already dressed, and looking at her expectantly. “What?”

“Tomorrow is Saturday. We should do something special.”

Shaken, Lilith knew she couldn’t do anything with Carmen until the killer was caught. Spending time with the girl could put her in jeopardy.

“I-I’m sorry. I can’t make it tomorrow.”

Carmen’s smile withered. “No.”

“I’m not sure when I can.” The words tumbled from Lilith quick and harsh sounding to
her own
ears.
“Work.
It’s an unusual situation.” She had to stay away from the girl for her safety.

“Are you quitting me?”

“No, of course not!”
Of course a kid like Carmen would think that. “It just means I can’t see you for a while.”

“How long is a while?”

Running out of gas, Lilith said, “I-I’m not sure.”

“Yeah, right.”
Her expression stricken, Carmen stormed out of the locker room.

“Carmen, please wait.”

The girl hesitated and looked back at her.

There was no helping it – she had to tell Carmen the truth. “I’m in a situation that could put you in danger. I want you to be safe.”

“What kind of situation?”

Lilith shook her head. She couldn’t tell Carmen the details, not about what she was doing to try to save her sister. “This is temporary; I promise.”

Without another word, Carmen simply left the locker room.

“Poor kid,” Elena said. “She doesn’t understand.”

“And I can’t tell her everything. She’s too much like me.”

Elena nodded. “She’d want to protect you.”

“That’s all I would need, to put her in danger, too. Let’s get out of here.”

Lilith finished getting dressed, all the while worrying that Carmen felt betrayed even as Hannah had.

oOo

FEARING PUCINSKI would do something to stop her from carrying through with her
plan,
Lilith didn’t call him about the message on the back of the photograph.

Was that from the killer?

Or from Gabe?

Having time to think about it after calming down, she’d realized it could have been a sick joke. Had Gabe decided to get back at her for winning their match by scaring her? It was possible, she told herself, unsure as to whether that would make her feel better or not.

Needing to know for certain, she went directly to the club, but it wasn’t officially open yet, and Gabe wasn’t there. No Michael, either. She wandered over to the bar where Joe was setting up for the night.

“Hey, Joe, have you seen Gabe around?”

“Not yet. He’ll probably be in later.”

“You wouldn’t know where he lives.”

“In the neighborhood.
I remember him saying he bought a foreclosure on the other side of the expressway a couple months ago.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Sorry. I know it’s on the first block, right off of the main drag, because he was complaining about all the noise – construction and expressway.”

“Thanks. I guess I’ll see him when I see him.”

But she really couldn’t wait to settle this. She had to know if the killer had really sent her the demand to dance or – hope against hope – if Gabe was just messing with her. Getting up on that stage would take a kind of courage she didn’t possess. Courage she would have to find if it meant saving her sister.

Since she didn’t have to report to work for another half hour, more than enough time to check out Gabe’s street, she went looking for him. She was on his block in less than five minutes. No housing on the east side, just a huge overgrown lot with chain link, construction machinery and the bones of what would probably be another condo like the ones lining the west side of the street. Only two single family houses on the block, separated by an empty lot.

One of them had to be Gabe’s.

She parked and slid out of the car to check out the first house. The name on the door was Welby. The other house must be the one.

As she approached it, she heard loud voices – a couple having an argument. The man was definitely Gabe. Lilith stopped.

What to do?

The front door exploded open and a woman who looked like the one in the family photo Gabe had showed her tore down the steps to the sidewalk.

“This isn’t over!” Gabe yelled at her.

“Oh, yes, it is. Don’t even think about it, Gabe, or you’ll be sorry.”

The woman sped to a car in the opposite direction, but instinct made Lilith back off anyway. She wasn’t about to confront an angry cop about a photo and a warning he might have left her as a sick joke. To her relief, Gabe never looked her way, simply stared after his ex-wife before going back inside and slamming the door behind him.

Lilith couldn’t get into the Jaguar and out of the neighborhood fast enough.

oOo

THE CLUB WAS JUST opening when Lilith raced through it and into the crowded dressing room filled with female chatter and smoke. Some of the dancers were passing around a joint.

“This always makes the men look better to me,” a dancer named Kat said. “It gives me courage to bare it all in a room filled with strange men.”

She would certainly need a dose of that if she really was forced to dance to save Hannah, Lilith thought, wondering how else to get some other than through drugs.

Melinda laughed. “And it gives me the guts to rub it in Paulie’s face.”

“He’d like you to rub
your whatever
in his face,” a little redhead called Rusty said with a laugh.

“He can’t do it, though.” Admiring herself in the mirror, Melinda adjusted her top so more cleavage showed.
“Can’t keep that wankie of his up long enough.”

Irene choked on her hit. “You tried having sex with your own brother?”

“The disgusting rodent has tried having sex with me for years. I know he looks like a little pissant, but he’s strong as hell. One time my breasts were so bruised, I had to take off a week until I could cover them with makeup.”

“You need to punish him, make him sorry he tried messing with you.” Mariko took a puff of the joint and held it out to Lilith, who shook her head. “You know, tie him up, get him up and then leave him to suffer.”

“Paulie is weird,” Melinda said. “I gotta balance torturing him with maintaining my good health. I’m never sure what he will do. He’s got a perverted little mind; once threatened to tie
me
up and fill me with embalming fluid while he did me.”

Shivering at the
thought,
more convinced than ever that Paul Ensdorf was the deviant who had her sister, Lilith fled to the rear of the room where Caresse was nearly done with her makeup. Via the mirror, she gave Lilith an approving expression before gluing on an eyelash. Lilith changed in record time,
then
slid into her seat before the mirror as Caresse finished the second eyelash.

“So what’s so special about the guy?” Caresse asked. “The one I keep seeing you with?”

“You’ve seen me with several.”

“You know the one I mean. Michael Wyndham. You’re not getting involved, are you?”

“What, I can’t talk to a customer? Don’t let Sal hear you say that.”

“I’m not worried about Sal. I’m worried about you. Lots of women think they can get involved with someone dangerous and nothing bad will happen to them. Lots of women are wrong.”

Lilith stared at Caresse, trying to read into her meaning. The dancer was the second person who’d warned her about Michael, and the other was a cop. “I’m only getting as involved as I need to be. Is it one man in particular you’re worried about? Or is it that you don’t like men in general?” She remembered the intimation by the other dancers that Caresse only liked women.

Unexpected anger flickered across Caresse’s features, but she quickly masked whatever she was feeling. “Think what you like.” With that, she pushed away from the counter and left the dressing room as had most of the other women.

Lilith brushed her hair into an off-center ponytail and clipped it. She was already made up but needed to accentuate her eyes and lips again. Her makeup was sitting on the counter, which meant someone else had “borrowed” it.
Great.

When she was finished, she pulled open her case to throw the pencils and shadows inside.

Then froze.

There, in the middle of the case was a chain.
A very familiar chain.

Lilith’s mouth went dry as she picked it up and found the little safety pin she’d used to fix it more than a decade ago.

“Hannah,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes.

The chain hadn’t been in the case all week. Caresse had thought the one she’d been wearing belonged to Hannah, so her sister must have been wearing it when she was taken.

The killer had to have left it for her.

Another little game.
But what was the point? What did he expect her to do now?

Her hand shook as she stuffed the chain into a pants pocket next to the torn photograph of her and thought about calling Pucinski. Instead, she left the dressing room to look for Gabe.

Halfway there, Rudy Barnes stepped in front of her. “We need to talk, Lilith.
About Anna.
In my booth.”

His mentioning her sister made Lilith
follow
. What could he tell her that was new? According to Michael, Rudy had been after Hannah. Her pulse quickened, and her mouth went dry. She barely saw the guy – she assumed he was always buried in his booth – and now he acted like he knew her.

She entered the booth filled with technical audio equipment she knew nothing about. At home, she was still using an old cassette tape deck to listen to music.

He sat in his chair and spun it to face her. His gaze washed over her, and he shook his head.

“What about Anna?” she asked.

“I liked her. She could be a bitch. But she was smart.
Too smart to get taken.
Are you that smart, Lilith?”

Not the conversation she’d been expecting.

Lilith leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed before her. “What is this really about, Rudy?”

“It’s about you looking like Anna. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but it’s a dangerous game.”

So everyone from every direction had told her. She was getting tired of the dire warnings.

“Is it
your
game, Rudy?”

“Mine? What the hell! Go fuck yourself! I was just trying to warn you. Anna was the third victim. The police haven’t learned squat about this killer. But every time I see you–”

“What?”

“I figure his juices are already going. He’s salivating, already getting ideas.”

That’s exactly what she was counting on. Not that she would say it. She did ask, “Why do you care?”

“I may not be the world’s most caring citizen, but I’m not a ghoul. I don’t want to see any more dead girls.” He shook his head.
“Never mind.
Forget I said anything. Leave my booth, and go play at your game and see where looking like that gets you.”

He turned away from her and starting typing something into his computer.

Knowing she was dismissed, Lilith left the booth wondering if Barnes was really trying to warn her, or if he was playing with her.

More head games.

Again, she wondered if he was on Pucinski’s radar.

Maybe Gabe would tell her.

She found him at the bar, downing a shot, looking like he’d been kicked in the gut, and indicating he wanted another drink. Luckily it was early enough that the place was practically empty. They could have some privacy, not have to worry about who might overhear them. She slid onto the stool next to Gabe, but he acted like she was invisible.

“Problems on the job?” she asked.

“Not the job.
My frickin’ ex.”
Gabe stared down into his glass rather than look at her. “She’s threatening to keep my kids from seeing me.”

So that’s what the argument had been about. “Does she have good cause?”

He swigged down another shot and popped the glass back on the bar.
“Joe, another round.”
Finally, he faced her. “Not so’s I’m concerned. A father’s got a right to bond with his boys.”

“Bond how?”

“I’m a cop, okay? I want to teach them about guns.”

Lilith hated guns but tried not to show it.
“Like your father taught you?”

“Yeah.
Took me hunting a few times.
Best dad ever. I want my boys to think I’m the greatest.” He signaled the bartender for another drink. “My ex divorced me because she couldn’t stand my being a cop. It’s not just what I do. It’s what I am. Jennifer never got that. I’m proud to be a cop, and I want my sons to be proud of what I am.”

Like her own dad. Only he’d passed away too soon, and Mama had replaced him with a man who was pure evil.

“I think you should bond with them. I think it’s important for them.
And for you.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be with guns.”

“Screw that! She
don’t
give me orders!”

They sat in tense silence for a moment, then Lilith said, “I know your personal problems are eating you up, but I hope that’s not going to interfere with your investigation–”

“
You telling
me what to do, too?” Gabe glared at her.
“ Why
is it women always think they can lead a man around by the short hairs?”

“Okay, look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to interfere with your family. I’m just really worried sick about mine. You’ve got to believe that. I don’t know how much longer the killer will hang on to my sister before leaving her body in some forest preserve.” She pulled the torn photo out of her pocket and showed it to him, then flipped it over so he could see the message. “Assuming the killer actually left this for me. Or was it you who did it, Gabe?”