Fearless in High Heels (3 page)

“In there,” I said, hating how high and squeaky my voice was.

Security Guy knocked on the stall door.  But, just as it had for me, it swung open before anyone could respond.  Not that anyone in there
could
respond.  I gulped back a wave of nausea again, looking away.   

Security Guy was silent for a moment, his face unreadable as he stared into the stall.  Then he finally said, “Oh yeah.  She’s definitely dead.”

*   *  *

Forty minutes later I had finally relieved myself (in the men’s room), the strobe lights were off, the lasers gone, the DJ’s station silent, and the crowd assembled in hushed groups of three and four as uniformed officers questioned potential witnesses.  Including yours truly.  Dana, Marco, the silent Gunnar and I were all slumped in a booth near the back, awaiting round two of questions as officers huddled near the door to the ladies’ room, whispering, pointing, calling in higher ranking detectives to do the dirty work.

One of whom I unfortunately recognized immediately.

“Uh oh,” Dana said her eyes honing in on him as she voiced my thoughts exactly.  “Isn’t that…”

“Yep.”  I gulped down a ball of dread.

“You know what?” Marco said, spotting him too.  “I think I’m just gonna go use the little boys’ room…” he trailed off, sliding out of the booth, Dana and Gunnar a quick step behind him. 

Traitors.  Though, as I watched the reason for their quick getaway spot me, scowl, then make purposeful strides toward my booth, I kinda didn’t blame them.  I’d flee if I could, too. 

He was tall and built like a boxer – all tight muscle and tough attitude.  A faint scar ran through his left eyebrow, a black panther tattoo snaked down his left bicep, and his eyes were a deep, dark brown, so intense they were almost black as they bore down on me. 

I cleared my throat and did a little one finger wave his direction.  “Hi, honey.”

My husband did not wave back.  No smile, no hint of amusement whatsoever.  In his defense, I guess finding your wife at your crime scene wasn’t every detective’s dream.  But, in
my
defense, you’d think he’d be used to it by now.   

I cleared my throat again and shifted nervously in my seat.

Ramirez crossed his arms over his chest.  He looked from me to the yellow tape being stretched across the ladies’ room door.  Back to me.  Then he slowly shook his head.

“Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do. 
Again.
”

I gulped.  No kidding.

“Look, it wasn’t my fault,” I protested.  “I just had to pee.”

“You always have to pee.  You don’t
always
find dead bodies.”

“I’d like you to remember that statement in the future.”

He shot me a dark look.  “Just tell me what happened, Springer.”

Ouch.  Last name.  He was serious.  I shifted again, then spilled it in the best so-not-my-fault way I could, telling him how I’d encountered Skinny Bitch Chick in the ladies’ room.

When I was done he gave me a long, hard stare.  “What on earth possessed you to take our unborn baby to a club in the first place?” he finally said.

I blinked at him.  “Excuse me, last time I checked this was still
my
body.”

“Carrying
our
baby.”

“Well for another four months she goes where I go, and if I want to go to a club, I’m going.  Besides, it’s a club not a shooting range.  What danger could she possibly be in?”

“Besides his mother getting in an altercation with a woman just before she’s murdered?”

I bit my lip.  “Oh.  You heard about that, huh?”

He nodded.  “Oh yeah.  I heard.  Apparently witnesses said you threatened to kill her?  To suffocate her to death?”

“She called me fat!” I protested.

Ramirez closed his eyes.  He did a silent two count, and I could see him employing a couple of those deep Lamaze breaths I’d been learning.   

“Let’s get back to the body,” he finally said, opening his eyes again.  “You said you found her in the restroom, correct?”

I nodded.  “She was in a stall.”

“Who else was in the restroom at the time?” he asked.

I scrunched my nose up, trying to remember specifics.  “There were some girls in front of the mirror, but they were just hanging out there.  And there was a couple getting busy in the stall next door.”

The corner of Ramirez’s lip quirked up.  “’Getting busy’?”

I felt myself blush.  “Doing… you know.  Anyway, no, I didn’t see anyone fleeing the scene with a knife in hand.”  I paused.  “Or a gun?” I asked, realizing I wasn’t exactly sure how Bitch Chick had met her demise.  Admittedly, I hadn’t done a thorough examination of the body in the stall. 

Ramirez shook his head.  “No evidence of a gunshot so far.”

“How did she die then?” I asked.

Ramirez looked past me to the crime scene.  “We’ll have to wait for the M.E.’s report to be sure.  But it looks like exsanguination.”

“She bled to death?” I clarified.

Ramirez nodded. 

I felt a frown pull between my brows.  “But there didn’t seem to be
that
much blood,” I pointed out, remembering the thin trickle I’d seen earlier.  “I mean, I saw a little on her dress, but not much.”

He nodded.  “I know.  We’re looking into it.  It’s possible she was killed elsewhere then dumped here.”

I felt my frown deepen.  Sure, that might have been possible… but only half an hour earlier she’d been at the bar insulting me.  That didn’t leave a lot of time for the killer to rush her somewhere else, bleed her to death, then rush her body back.

“What makes you think she bled to death?” I asked, wondering if maybe their theory had some holes in it.

Ramirez pursed his lips.  “There were lacerations on her neck.”

“Lacerations?” I asked.  “Like, cuts?  Stab wounds?”

He frowned.  “Sort of.  More like puncture wounds.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.  “Puncture wounds.  On her neck.  How many?”

Ramirez cleared his throat.  “Two of them.”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand.  “Are you telling me that she has bite marks on her neck?”

Ramirez’s mouth took on a pinched look.  “
Puncture
wounds.”

“Holy shazbah, she was killed by a vampire bite?”

Ramirez shot me a look.  “That’s it.  No more
Moonlight
for you, Springer.”

“But you just said she was drained of blood.”

“She bled out.  I didn’t say she was drained.”

“And she had bite marks.”

“
Puncture
wounds. And beyond that, I’m waiting for the M.E.’s report before speculating further on how or why the marks are on her neck.  And,” he added giving me a stern look, “I suggest you not speculate either.”

Right. Only, how could I not?  Pale skin, long black hair, bite marks, and death by blood sucking.  It all added up to one thing as far as I was concerned. 

Death by vampire. 

*  *  *

“No way!  Skinny Bitch Chick was a vampire?”  Marco gaped at me across my kitchen table the next morning, almost spilling his mug of coffee.

I shifted in my seat.  “I’m not sure we should continue calling her that now that she’s dead.  And, no, she wasn’t a vampire, she was
bitten
by a vampire.”

“Lord have mercy, this is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me,” Marco said.  “Real life
Moonlight
hotties walking among us.”  He practically drooled at the thought.

Dana scoffed.  “Come on.  You don’t really believe the vampire thing, do you?”

Marco shrugged.  “A boy can dream,” he answered.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t really believe there are vampires roaming among us.  But here’s the thing: even if there is no such thing as a vampire, someone clearly tried to make it
look
like she was bitten by a vampire.  Bite marks, blood drained.  Someone either thinks they are a vampire or wants us to think they are.”

“What do we know about Bit-” Marco paused, catching himself just in time.  “About the victim?” he amended.

“Her name is Alexa Weston,” I supplied, rattling off the stats I’d dragged out of Ramirez last night.  “She’s twenty-four, lives in Burbank, no record.”

“You just described half the women in this town,” Marco pointed out, sipping at his cup.  Then he made a face, scrunching his nose and pursing his lips.  “Honey, what is this stuff?” he asked me.

“Um, coffee?” I answered.

“You call this coffee?  Mads, my baby bottle had stronger stuff than this in it.”

“Sorry.  I’m not supposed to have caffeine because of…” I gestured down to The Bump. 

“So the rest of us have to suffer, too?” Marco whined, pushing his cup away. 

“Well I just hope,” Dana jumped in, “that Ramirez finds the killer - immortal or otherwise,” she said shooting a look Marco’s way, “quickly, and this can all just go away.  Do you know what this has done to Crush?”

I shook my head. 

“Ricky told me that they’re closed until further notice.  They’re losing money like crazy every day that the doors are closed.  Not only that, but a club closes down for a week in this town, and no one will remember it again.”

Marco waved her off.  “Sure they will.  Someone was
killed
there.”

“Great.  I can only imagine what that will do to sales.”

“It’s Hollywood, honey.  Every vampire wanna-be in town is going to be flocking to it hoping to get the bite,” he argued.

Dana shot him a look.  “Or it will go under because no investors will have anything to do with it, and there goes Ricky’s slowing down.  He’ll be out of town filming more
Moonlight
movies.”  She grimaced. “With Ava.”

“Come on.  She can’t be that bad,” I jumped in.

“She posed nude for
Playboy
last week.”

“I stand corrected.”

Dana pouted again.

“Well, then we just need to make sure this case gets solved quickly,” Marco decided, patting Dana sympathetically on the arm. 

“I’m sure Ramirez is on it,” I said.  In fact, he’d been so on it that he’d come home only to change clothes and slip back out into the night again.  A fact that had left me mildly disappointed, as I’d kinda hoped we could do a little under-the-covers making up after the not-so-fabulous encounter at Crush.  Unfortunately, as I well knew when Ramirez had a case, he had a one track mind.  Sleep, food, and wife fell out of the equation faster than you could say “homicide.”

But Marco shook his head.  “Sure, he’s all over the fingerprints and DNA and witnesses.  But what about the vampire angle?  Is Ramirez really investigating that?”

I bit my lip.  Not likely.  In fact, he seemed pretty defiant that there was no angle. “I’m not sure he’s really convinced about the vampire thing…”

“Right,” Marco said.  “But you said so yourself that someone went through some trouble to make it look like a vampire death.  I’d say that makes it a pretty relevant angle.”

I had to admit, I agreed.

“And who better,” Marco went on, “to track down a vampire killer than us?  I mean, how many times have you seen
Moonlight
?”

“Seven,” I admitted.  “This week.”

He turned to Dana. “You?”

“Way too many,” she answered rolling her eyes.

“I rest my case,” Marco said.  “We are totally vampire experts.”

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask a few questions…” I hedged.

Famous last words. 

Marco squealed and clapped his hands.  “Ohmigod, I’ve got the perfect pink trench coat for vampire slaying.  I’ve always wanted to go Buffy all over some evil undead hottie!”

I rolled my eyes.  I hoped for all our sakes that Ramirez was making more headway.

Chapter Four

Marco made himself a cup of real coffee while I took a shower, did a quick blow dry, mascara swipe and lipgloss application.  Then I tried to wedge myself into a cute pink top and my favorite pair of jeans.  Which almost fit.  If I looped a rubber band through the button hole and around the button.  But the top was a no-go.  My belly stuck out beneath the hem like a giant white bowling ball.  I conceded defeat and grabbed a long, skinny-tank to layer beneath it.  Then I thrust my feet into a pair of sequined wedges from my summer collection.

“Okay, so where do we start?” I asked as we all piled into Dana’s red Mustang. 

“Um, duh, clearly looking for a vampire,” Marco said.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him from the backseat.

“Hey, are you rolling your eyes at me?”

Okay, I
almost
resisted.  “Look, we can’t just roam the streets looking for some guy with fangs.  We need a real plan.”

“Well, what about the friend?” Dana asked.  “The girl Alexa was at Crush with.  I think we should talk to her.”

I nodded.  “Perfect.  Let’s go back to Crush.  Maybe someone there knows who she is and where we can find her.”

*  *  *

Hollywood was quieter at this time of day, mostly filled with tourists and sightseers as opposed to the club crowd from yesterday.  The outside of Crush looked a lot less interesting in the daylight – the steel grey door a nondescript opening, the sign above it dark, though the door was unlocked as we pushed through it.

While the swarm of police officers was gone, a few crime scene techs still lingered, dusting down tables and doorframes for fingerprints.  I hated to break it to them, but they were going to find about a million of them on every surface.  If this was the process of elimination the cops were employing, I had to agree with Marco that we had a fighting shot at catching the killer first.

To the right, the glass bar looked duller and decidedly more sticky than it had last night, a lone bartender standing behind it drying glasses with a white towel.  He looked up as we approached, and I recognized him as the guy who’d poured our drinks the night before.

“We’re closed,” he said, spotting us.  

“I know.  We were actually hoping to ask you a couple questions,” Dana responded, putting her elbows up on the bar.