Patricia Rosemoor - Skin

Opening the nightstand drawer, she stopped short.

Irene’s stocking sat on Club Paradise souvenirs — flyers, ads and matches. She looked without touching the stocking. One of the flyers spotlighted Hannah. No heart-half. When she pulled the drawer open further, she found a few sex toys thrown in the back. Handcuffs and nipple clamps.

Proof? Of what? Murder or simple perversion?

A scuffle behind her threw her pulse into overdrive. She whipped around to find Paul standing in the hall doorway. His eyes flicked past her to the open drawer, then to his bed. “I didn’t realize you were so eager, Lilith.”

She tried to push past him, but Paul wrapped his arms around her and planted a big wet kiss on her. He grabbed both of her breasts and tried to back her into the bedroom. Still not wanting to use her Street Survival skills on him in case she needed to get to him again, she shoved him hard and whipped free.

“This was a mistake, Paul,” she called, racing through the living room. “I’m not ready for this yet.” And to herself, she muttered, “I’ll never be ready for this.”

“You can’t just go!”

But she was already out the door.

She exited the building, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Walked toward her car as if possessed, as if she could walk away her demons…

“IS HE GOING TO kill us?” Carmen asked, crying. “I think he gave me some drug that knocked me out, but he said terrible things.”

Hannah had to steel herself against the girl’s tears so she didn’t start crying, too. “You were having a nightmare.”

“No, I swear I heard him when he dumped me here. He said Lilith was your sister.”

Hannah stared at the girl Lilith mentored. She was only seventeen, without a clue as to how this was going to work. She was so naive. The killer said he might let her go, but Hannah didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t leave anyone who might be able to give the cops a clue. Hannah might have been resentful and jealous that day in the zoo, but now she pitied Carmen whose only crime had been to trust Hannah’s sister.

“He has no reason to kill you,” Hannah said, trying to allay the girl’s fear. This was her fault. “Me and Lilith… we’ll probably get out of this with nothing more than a scare, too.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Hannah lied.

The least she could do was make it easier on Carmen. Maybe he’d make the girl’s death swift so she wouldn’t even see it coming. Not so for her and Lilith. He was going to make Lilith watch.

“Lilith told me she had a sister, but that she didn’t know where you were. So she finally found you?”

Lilith had told Carmen about her? So Lilith hadn’t given up hope of finding her.

“Yeah, something like that.”

Despite her resolve, desperate tears slid from her eyes, bathing her cheeks.

Lilith had warned her she was in danger, and she’d ignored the warning.

Ignoring it had brought this hell down on them all. Her fault. All her fault.

“So how are we going to get out of here?” Carmen asked.

Hannah jerked her handcuff against the bedframe. “There’s a little matter of we can’t even move around the room.”

“Never?”

“He has let me go to that pit of a toilet when he brings food.”

“Then there’s a chance. If I can get free, maybe I can take him.”

She could take him? Crazy talk. She was a kid, for God’s sake.

Hannah shook her head. “You’re not very big. How are you gonna take him?”

“There’s two of us and only one of him. Lilith says it’s all in the body language. I wasn’t ready for him last time, but I will be now.”

Two of them… was it possible…?

Afraid to let herself hope, Hannah asked, “So what’s your plan?”

MUSIC SEEMED TO blare louder in the club when Lilith sought the sanctuary of the dressing room only to find Caresse searching through a case — Lilith’s case. Frowning, she stood and stared a moment as the other woman dug around just as she had with the other girls’ possessions.

“Looking for something?”

Caresse popped up and knocked over the case. Makeup and hair clips spilled onto the floor. Caresse immediately got on her knees and stuffed the loose articles back where they belonged.

“Sorry, Lilith. One of my eyelashes came off, and I ran out of glue. I was gonna borrow yours. Hope that’s not a problem.”

Lilith saw she was telling the truth about the eyelash, but there was glue in full view on the counter.

“No. No problem.” She stepped forward, picked up the tube and handed it to Caresse, who had the grace to looked shamed.

“Lord, ain’t I the peabrain? Must’ve looked right at it and not seen it.”

“You must have.”

Not that Lilith believed it.

She took a big breath. It was time. Having brought one of Hannah’s costumes with her, she changed out of her uniform into the spangly gold number from the underwear to the boneless hourglass corset to the micromini that added a touch of modesty. She was going to do this, but she didn’t like it, and she certainly wasn’t comfortable getting on that damn stage.

“What the hell you doing?” Caresse asked.

“What does it look like? I’m getting dressed.”

“To do what? Not dance.”

She unfroze her lips to say “Yes, dance.”

She had to buy time for Hannah and Carmen. She was going to do this for them.

“Child, are you crazy? You can’t go out there looking like that. Like Anna.”

“Why not? There must be good money in dancing or you wouldn’t do it, right?”

Lilith wasn’t about to play true confessions with Caresse. She didn’t trust anyone here, certainly not a woman who dug through other people’s things and took whatever she wanted. She’d made a deal with Irene, though, to dance to her music. Told the woman it was a one-time surprise for her boyfriend and asked her not to let anyone know lest word got around.

Her stomach clenched every time she thought about it.

“You’re asking for trouble,” Caresse said. “As if you haven’t already. There’s a killer out there who already has you on his radar. You taunt him, and he’s gonna come for you.”

That’s what she was counting on.

This time, she was stoked psychologically.

This time, she was ready for him.

DESPITE THAT, Lilith’s stomach still churned when she sashayed across the stage to hot music. Not the real Lilith. This one wasn’t thinking about what she was doing as she strutted her stuff, but her body was taking over where her mind simply wanted to shut down.

She went on auto-dance.

Inviting the men in the room to taste something they couldn’t have.

Taunting them.

When bile rose into her throat, she reminded herself she was doing this for Hannah and Carmen. To save them for at least another day. To draw out the killer. Get him to make his move on her. Her body wasn’t sacred. Their young lives were.

Anyone who hadn’t paid attention to her before was doing so now, including several topless dancers with customers who stopped their lap dances to watch.

“I got something for you!” a man called out.

Another said, “Hey, baby, over here!”

“No, here!” insisted a third, who was waving a twenty.

Fake it. Fake it, she told herself.

Lilith went to them all, let them tuck bills into her corset. Steeled her mind against strange fingers touching her. Removed the modesty skirt and let them put more in her g-string. There was nothing unnatural or stiff about the way she was moving, nor about the way she was smiling as if each and every man in the room were desirable. This wasn’t personal — not that most of them understood that.