Species (17 page)

She couldn’t wait for him to finish his shower.

18

P
ress was the first one out of the van when it screeched to a stop in front of the ID. The club was certainly striking, and the bouncer who stood at the front of the waiting triple-deep line of club goers—a standard Mr. Muscles weight-lifter type with a California tan—managed to look bored and vaguely menacing at the same time. When the guy ignored the government card Press flashed in his face and tried to stop him at the door, Press thought he finally knew how stereotypes were born, especially when he saw the name
BRUNO
embroidered across the breast pocket of the bouncer’s Ralph Lauren polo shirt.

“Tonight’s guest list only,” the bouncer rasped. “Get in line.”

“Can’t you read, pal?” Press snapped. He flicked his identification card again, this time close enough to Bruno’s nose to make him blink in surprise and jerk his head back.
“Government.
Now get out of the way.” He pushed around Mr. Muscles without waiting for a go-ahead.

“Wait a minute, jerkoff—” Bruno wrapped a grizzly-sized hand around Press’s arm and tried to pull him back. Press’s hands were already positioning to give the idiot a hapkido joint lock that was guaranteed to make him let go in a hurry when the inside of the ID erupted in screams. Bruno’s mouth opened and shut several times in rapid succession, and he forgot all about Press and his government card as people started barreling out of the club. “Hey! Hey!” Bruno bellowed. “Hold it—what the fuck’s going on? What—!” His braying ended in a
whump!
as someone’s pointy elbow accidentally caught him just below the sternum. The pain made him do a fast spin and he found himself face-to-face with Dr. Fitch and a stream of aides and armed military personnel.
“Shit!”
he squawked.

“Round up everybody!” Fitch shouted to his charges. “And I mean,
everybody.
Nobody leaves the club until I say so!”

“Coming through, coming through,” Press yelled, trying to be heard above the chaotic, bizarre mix of laughter, deafening music and screams. “Come on,” he hollered. “Get out of the way! Let us
through,
damn it!”

“I’m
telling
you, Vicki says she talked to the girl who’d seen the body in the bathroom,” a female voice whispered on Press’s left, practically in his ear. “Blood
everywhere.”
Before Press could turn his head, the speaker had vanished into the confused crowd. Abruptly the hammering music stopped, leaving a noticeable pulse in his head; voices immediately rose to fill the void, escalating precariously toward shriek level.

“EVERYONE, PLEASE STAY CALM. YOU ARE NOT IN ANY DANGER.” The master sergeant in charge of the MPs had come up with a bullhorn and, much to the outrage of the bartenders, was now standing on top of the circular bar in the center of the immense room. “THERE’S NO REASON TO BE ALARMED; YOU’LL ONLY BE DETAINED A FEW MINUTES. TO EXIT, PLEASE FORM A SINGLE FILE LINE AT THE DOOR AND BE PREPARED TO SHOW TWO PIECES OF IDENTIFICATION, ONE OF WHICH MUST BE A PHOTOGRAPH.” Press saw him hop nimbly off the bar and stare down the few people who dared to question him; at the entrance, the exit line was already forming.

“Why the mass exodus?” Laura asked from behind him. Dan and Stephen were on her heels, with Fitch not far behind.

“I haven’t verified it,” Press said with a dark look, “but I think a woman’s dead in the rest room. Want to bet it’s our girl’s handiwork?”

“The bouncer says the rest rooms are downstairs,” Fitch informed them. “Stairs are all the way to the right rear.”

The team saw the sign for the rest rooms and made their way to the stairs with no trouble. Press was surprised to find the stairs oddly deserted, free of the usual gapers, as though someone had announced it was the source of the bubonic plague rather than a murder. He sprinted down to the landing and ducked into the women’s room, scanning but finding nothing in the front area by the sinks and mirrors. To his right was another room, this one filled with the kind of high-privacy toilet stalls that ran from floor to ceiling, like little rooms with actual doors and knobs. Both rooms were tiled in a white so bright it made his eyes ache, a decorating move probably meant to put a little wakefulness in an intoxicated patron. The snowy tiles made it real easy to spot the large, black-red puddle of blood leaking from beneath the closed door of one of the stalls.

Press tried the door—locked—then banged on it, though he knew it was useless. When he got no response, he lifted a booted foot and gave the door a sharp kick just as the rest of the group filed into the rest room with the club manager at their heels. “Uh-oh,” he heard Dan say unhappily. The flimsy lock cracked away and the door flew in, then hit something soft with an unpleasant thud and rebounded to a partly open position. When Press eased his head around its edge, the dead eyes of a once pretty young woman with wavy auburn hair stared back at him. Wedged between the toilet and the wall on Press’s left, there was a hole in her back that made it obvious something . . .
big
had pierced her from behind; ripped from her body, her spinal column was draped across her feet in a bloody line. Blood had splattered the inside of the stall and ringed a jagged-edged crater in the wall.

Press ducked out and stepped to his left, but the adjoining stall was empty. Not so much as a droplet of blood marred the pearly tiles of the back wall or floor, or around the break in the wallboard. He didn’t know how she’d done it or why, but Sil had murdered the woman in the next stall without even getting her hands dirty.

“E
veryone checked out,” the MP sergeant told Fitch. “She must have left before we made the place.” Fitch nodded morosely as Press joined him at the entrance. “We already searched the building from top to bottom, but we could do it again.”

“Forget it,” Press said. “If she wasn’t in the club when we took it, she sure as hell isn’t going to come back. Come on, Doc. Let’s go talk to our pal Bruno. Maybe he remembers her.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Fitch said cynically. “How many women come in here each night?”

Press plucked a toothpick from the bar as they passed it and stuck it in his mouth. “You never know until you ask.”

Bruno the bouncer was still positioned out front, except now he’d rearranged the waist-high metal stands and velvet cords to make it obvious that the ID was closed for the night. People milled by the front, gawking and whispering about the ambulance and military vehicles double-parked on the street and the stone-faced MPs guarding the entrance. Adding to the fray were a half-dozen L.A. police cars, red-and-blue bubble lights strobing everything around them. When Bruno saw Press and Fitch coming his way, a grimace twisted his face. “So you didn’t find who you were looking for,” he said flatly.

“No.” Press worked the toothpick from the left to the right side of his mouth, then back again. “We’re looking for a tall, blue-eyed blond woman, five-ten or so, wearing a black blouse and black miniskirt. Any idea who she left with?”

Bruno rolled his eyes and shot Press a contemptuous glance. “You’re bullshitting me, right? Must be a thousand blondies going and coming every night, and seven out of ten of ’em leave with some dude to screw. Not exactly news around here.”

“I told you,” Fitch said. “We’re wasting our time.”

Press ignored him and chewed his toothpick thoughtfully for a second. “Okay, let’s go at it another way. How about the regulars, the guys on the know who get in every night? No losers.” He tapped his wrist-watch. “It’s still early. Any top attractions leave before their normal time?”

“Assume he’s socially adept,” said Stephen over Press’s shoulder. “He’d have to help her out because she’s inexperienced.”

Bruno looked nonplussed. “You mean like a virgin or something?”

Press shot Stephen an annoyed glare. “Yeah, something like that. In other words, we’re looking for a guy who’d be friendly to her, not a totally conceited asshole. And like I said, he’d be leaving earlier than usual.”

Bruno scratched his head for a moment. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” His broad face brightened. “Hey—Robbie Llywelyn, he left with a blonde. Kind of early for him to blow the joint, too.”

Press snatched the toothpick from his lips. “This Mr. Robbie Nice Guy, is he on your mailing list?”

Bruno grunted. “Hell, yeah. He’s been a regular for years. All I know is that he lives in Hollywood Hills, but the boss’ll have Robbie’s address in the office.” The bouncer shook his head. “But I’ll tell you this, Robbie’s a pro player. If you’ve got some idea that you’re gonna stop him from doing her, it’s probably already too late.”

19

I
t wasn’t long at all before Sil heard the water stop running. She could hear the man moving around, still singing softly to himself, but she wasn’t sure what to do next. Should she go into the bathroom, or wait until he came to her? The choice was taken out of her hands when Robbie stepped out of the bathroom, clad only in a pair of loose gray sweatpants. Sil had never been this close to an undressed man before, and she couldn’t help but stare at his body. Well-defined muscles stood out on his arms as well as his chest and belly, which were covered with an appealing layer of silky dark curls. His lips turned up when he saw her standing by the bed, exposing engaging dimples in cheeks that were starting to shadow with a day-old growth of beard. In his hands was a thick towel, and he took a final swipe at his wet hair, then tossed it aside and folded his arms.

“Take off your clothes,” he said evenly. “I want to see you.”

Sil nodded and reached to unhook the bustier that she’d worn as a blouse for most of the night. Her fingers were clumsy, trembling with a combination of relief and excitement, but at last she managed to unfasten it and drop it to the floor. She’d been afraid that he would need to be convinced or, worse, he would reject her as a mate. Obviously, that wasn’t going to be a problem.

“Very nice,” he cooed. “Now the rest of it.”

She could hear his breathing escalate from here, and without breaking eye contact her hand moved to the zipper on the skirt, then froze. A frown slid over her lovely face as the pupils of her eyes contracted visibly, like an animal pinned in the roadway by the sudden light of an oncoming truck. A pale mist was oozing from Robbie’s body, thick and light green, like the steam from a boiling vat of algae-clotted water.

She bent to pick up the bustier. “Drive me back,” she said coldly.

Robbie’s jaw dropped.
“What?”

“I said, drive me back.”

His lips drew into a hard, thin line. “What are you talking about? You knew what we came here for—hell,
you
came on to me.”

“And now I don’t want to.”

He stepped toward her and she backed up, step for step. “All right,” he said coolly, “you’ve said the obligatory no. It’s duly noted. Now come here.”

“I want to
go,”
Sil insisted. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“It’s too late for that, baby.” Robbie’s voice was different from the suave guy she’d met at the ID, chilly and implacable. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Sil stared at him as another new lesson sank in, an unknown point of no return. Tension was building inside her, knotting her shoulders and making her head pound. That terrible green haze was still radiating from every pore of his body; he was unhealthy, diseased. She didn’t want to touch him, let alone mate. She tried to take a step toward the door that led to the living room and ultimately out, but he moved in front of her, making himself a human obstacle. “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” he said icily. “I said, you’re not leaving. If there’s one thing a man can’t stand, baby, it’s a cockteaser.”