Sex, Murder and a Double Latte (19 page)

I was at the door to my building, keys ready, when I felt a hand reach out and grab my shoulder. Without hesitation, I spun around and punched the intruder square in the jaw.

Unfortunately, the intruder was Anatoly. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

“Well, why the fuck did you sneak up on me?”

“I didn’t sneak up on you. I was walking by your place on the way to my own and I saw you and stopped to say hello. And then you punched me.”

“Oh yeah? Well, well…actually that was probably out of line, huh?”

Anatoly didn’t answer. He just stood there and massaged his jaw.

I pursed my lips to suppress a nervous giggle. Every instinct was telling me that this man would never hurt me. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear that he could say the same about me. “You have time to come up? I could use a friend right about now.”

“You just punched me.”

“Oh, give me a break. You could stand up to terrorists in the Middle East but you don’t think you can handle yourself against little old me?”

Once reminded of past exploits, Anatoly removed his hand from his chin, although he clearly wanted to continue to cradle it.

“Come upstairs and there might be some ice in it for you.” I was amazed at how normal my voice sounded. As if my world wasn’t on the brink of collapse.

Anatoly shook his head. “You are the craziest woman I have ever met.” But he followed me up anyway.

When we got up to my apartment I made a point to lock the door behind us before retrieving the ice pack from the freezer.

“Are you going to tell me why you hit me?”

“You have no idea what kind of hell I’ve just been through. Actually, I’m kind of glad I hit you. It was like a stress reliever. I feel like I can think straight again.”

“Great.”

“Anatoly, I need some advice.”

“Can I get the cold pack first?”

“What? Oh God, I’m sorry. Here you go.” I gently placed the pack against the spot where I had hit him. “Is that okay?”

He slid his hand over mine. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

The image of Barbie’s corpse bleeding all over the dirt temporarily blinded me. I needed to talk to Anatoly about what was going on. I needed someone else’s opinion on what I should do, because I was completely out of ideas. But I also needed him to hold me. I desperately needed to lose myself, if only for a little while. I needed him to help push the images out of my head and force me to experience the moment and nothing else. I just needed him.

I pushed myself up on my tiptoes and, removing the ice pack, kissed the spot where I had decked him just minutes ago. “Better?”

“Much better.”

My lips made the journey to his, and when his tongue began to toy with mine my fear was scorched by an even more intense desire.

He maneuvered his hands under my shirt and caressed my back. I felt my bra loosen and a little moan escaped me. He was backing me into the bedroom now; I could feel him pressed against me. I was pulling on his neck, trying to bring him closer, although by that point it was a physical impossibility. His teeth were grazing my neck. I don’t think I have ever been so desperate for someone in all my life. I wanted to touch every part of him, I wanted him to devour me. I wanted him to fill me. We were in the doorway of the bedroom now. His breath tickled my ear.

“I read your book.”

“You what?”

“Mmm, there are some things in it I’d like to try.”

My heart stopped beating. Dena’s warnings were blaring in my head. Anatoly was still touching me but I couldn’t feel him. All I could feel was terror. I pushed myself away from him. “Get out.”

“What?”

“I’m not kidding. Get out now or I swear I’ll scream.”

“What the…?”

I squeezed past him, ran into the kitchen and lunged for the butcher knife. “I want you out of here now.”

“Sophie, I don’t—”

“NOW!”

He rushed me. He grabbed my arm and slammed it against the refrigerator. The knife fell to the ground. He held my wrists above my head, his face hovering above mine, and it quickly became clear that I no longer had any control over the situation. “I don’t care if you are a psychotic bitch, you are never to pull a knife on me again, got it?”

I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. Anatoly released my arms and gave me a final shove against the cold door before turning around and leaving.

I spent the next hour crouched on the floor staring at the door, the knife in one hand and the phone in the other. When it rang, I pressed the talk button and lifted it to my ear without uttering a greeting.

“Sophie? Sophie, is that you?”

I exhaled for the first time in what felt like a century. “Dena. Are you all right?”

“Mentally or physically?”

“I am so sorry about Barbie,” I said.

“What the hell is going on, Sophie? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” I looked down at the knife. “I just don’t know.”

“Sophie, I’m really freaking out here. Can you come over?”

“Anatoly just left.”

Dena was quiet for a moment. “He just happened to show up?”

“Something like that. You might have been right about him.”

“How far away did you park?”

“Four blocks.”

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go over there. Watch from your window. When you see me double-park, come on down, quickly.”

“Got it. Oh, and…Dena?”

“Yeah?”

“Bring your Mace.”

“I’m holding it right now.”

Forty minutes later Dena showed up with Mary Ann in tow. I had been waiting in the lobby, so I was able to jump into the car before Dena even pulled to a complete stop. Mary Ann leaned back and squeezed my hand. I managed a meager smile.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I figured there’s safety in numbers,” Dena said.

“I’m not really comfortable about leaving Mr. Katz.”

“Mr. Katz? Are you kidding me?” Dena made eye contact through the rearview mirror. “My employee was just killed with a hatchet and you’re worried about your cat getting lonely?”

“I’m sorry, of course you’re right. It’s just…it’s just I’m a little confused about what to feel or think. It’s like I’m living in this horrible nightmare that I can’t wake up from. I’m pretty sure that someone is trying to kill me and nobody seems to be able or willing to help me.”

“We’re going to help you.” The definitiveness in Mary Ann’s voice startled me.

Dena looked at Mary Ann and then back at the road. “Yeah, we are. We are going to find the asshole who’s doing this, we’ll get the proof we need, and we’re going to get his ass locked up. Enough is enough. I’ve lost an acquaintance, I’m not going to lose a friend.”

“And how exactly do you propose we do all that?” I rested the full weight of my head against the window. “The police don’t believe me. They think I’m a suspect, for God’s sake. If this is the guy who killed Tolsky and JJ Money, then he’s gotten away with the murders of two people who are a hell of a lot more resourceful than me. So how are we supposed to stop him now?”

“Simple,” Dena answered. “We beat him at his own game, or more accurately stated, we’re going to beat him at your game.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

Mary Ann looked relieved.

“Sophie, he’s acting out a part,” Dena explained. “He’s following the script to a tee, and you wrote the script. Now all you have to do is play the part of Alicia Bright.”

“Alicia Bright never dies,” Mary Ann said slowly.

“Right. And she always gets her man,” Dena said. “And Sophie is a lot more qualified to play the part of her own heroine than this psycho is to play the part of her villain.”

“But this isn’t a work of fiction, Dena. This is real life. My life.”

“This is life imitating art, and you’re the artist. So, Miss Bright, it’s time to go back to my pad, put our heads together and solve this mystery.”

I rolled my eyes. “Go team.”

“I think Dena’s right,” Mary Ann said. “We can figure this out. After all, we’re three intelligent women, right?”

Neither Dena nor I commented.

By the time we arrived at her apartment in Noe Valley I had begun to buy into Dena’s reasoning. As long as he chose to commit the crimes in my novels, there was not a single thing that he could do that I couldn’t predict. I could do this. I could solve this. I didn’t have to be the victim, I could be the hero for a change. I pulled off my jacket and started clearing some space on Dena’s dining room table.

“Okay, Dena, you get all three of my novels out. Even though he’s only been working from
Sex, Drugs and Murder
, we should be prepared in the event that he chooses to branch out. Mary Ann, you act as secretary and write down everything that’s happened up to now and compile a list of suspects.”

Dena gave me a high five. “Raise the roof. Alicia Bright is in the house.”

CHAPTER 12

“If you want to turn your life around you’re going to have to start making things happen and stop allowing things to happen to you.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

A
t a quarter to midnight Dena, Mary Ann and I were all reviewing each other’s notes. We had each taken one of my books and had recorded every crime that I had ever written. The only violent crime in
Sex, Drugs and Murder
that our killer had yet to reenact was the beating with the golf clubs, but in the other books people had been lynched, burned, drugged and decapitated, just to name a few. It kind of gave me the creeps, which was rather sad, considering I’m the one who wrote it.

“I should have written romance novels instead.”

“Erotica would have been good.” Dena tossed the book she had been reviewing in the middle of the table. “I wouldn’t mind reenacting some of that.”

“You’re such a pervert,” Mary Ann said.

I raised my hands for a truce. “We’re sticking to the subject at hand. Let’s do suspects again. Who knew when and where we were supposed to meet?”

“Jason knew,” Dena admitted.

“I told Anatoly.”

“Well, I wasn’t invited so I didn’t tell anyone,” Mary Ann’s lower lip protruded enough to form a guilt-inducing pout.

“That was an oversight that I would think you would be thankful for,” Dena pointed out through clenched teeth.

“Okay, so other than Anatoly, Jason, Marcus, my mom, and obviously Barbie, did anyone else know?”

Dena rested her elbow on the table. “I think that’s it.”

“And no one knew that Barbie was going, unless of course she told someone.”

“I guess we’ll never know the answer to that,” Mary Ann said.

“Hell, they all could have told someone,” Dena said. “Your mom makes a career out of telling the world your business, and Marcus is a hairstylist, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’ll call Marcus in the morning and find out.” I jotted a little note to myself. “The only people my mother had time to tell this to are the women in her senior group, and they were all too busy tasting Edith’s new spicy meatballs to bother with me.”

Dena laughed. “I hope they had antacids on hand.”

“I bought them the economy-size bottle.” I gnawed at the end of a ballpoint pen. “Did Jason see Barbie when he was at the store this morning?”

Dena’s back stiffened a little and she turned her gaze to the wall. “He left ten minutes before she got there.”

I thought about that for a moment but decided I’d get back to Jason later. I shuffled the papers in front of me until I came to the “Sequence of Events” page. “All right, we know why I was late. What about you, Dena, what exactly happened to your car?”

“Nail in the tire. I must have rolled over it right when I was leaving the store. It was bent in half so it started a slow leak, but apparently every time the wheel went around it pushed the nail in a little farther. It wasn’t until I had driven five miles that enough air had escaped for me to realize what the problem was.”

“Pretty convenient coincidence.” I tapped my pencil against the table. “I’ve never gotten a nail in my tire before. Plus, you weren’t exactly parked next to a construction site. You were on Union which has got to be one of the most pristinely kept streets in the city.”

“That is weird.” Mary Ann used her hands to sweep her hair up into a playful crown of curls. “Hey! I just thought of something. What if it wasn’t a coincidence at all? Maybe somebody did it on purpose.”

“Naw,” Dena said. “I think it was an accident. Kind of like the whole Tolsky wrist-slitting thing.”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Will you two knock it off?” I slammed my hand against the table. “I can’t be bothered with playing referee tonight. We need to move on to the…the details of the murder.” I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to relive it, but I knew this was the only way. The prone image of Barbie filled my mind again. “It was…very…very…well, it was excessive.”

“Hacking somebody up with a hatchet is pretty excessive all right.” Dena crossed her arms in front of herself protectively. “But we already discussed this. He’s just copying the crimes that you wrote about in your book.”

“That’s just it. I wrote that Kittie was killed with just four strokes of a hatchet. Two to the back, one to the chest, and one to the back of the head.” I paused to suppress the urge to gag. “Barbie was hit a lot more than that.”

Dena swallowed hard. “How many times did he hit her with it?”

“I don’t know. A lot. Dena, if I hadn’t seen what she was wearing earlier I wouldn’t have known who she was.”

Dena looked away. “She told me her parents were in town for a visit. She was going to meet them tonight for dinner. I wonder if they know. Do you think the police will be able to notify them?”

Mary Ann made little circular motions with her hand against Dena’s back. “The detectives will find them, I’m sure. Did you know her well?”

“No, I make a point not to socialize too much with the salespeople outside of the store. But she was a lot of fun to work with, though. She had moved here from Las Vegas, left an abusive boyfriend, checked herself into rehab, gotten clean and sober, just really got her shit together. A lot of good it did her.”