All The Pretty Girls

Lincoln appeared at her side, offering a chemical ice pack he’d lifted from the back of the ambulance. “Here you go. You want me to stick around?”

“No, you two go handle downtown. I’m all right here. Thanks, though.” She nodded at them in dismissal and started toward the house, holding the ice pack over her eye, trying not to jar her head. It had been a while since she’d taken one in the face, and she’d forgotten how much it hurt. Brian Post was exiting the house as she reached the front door.

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“Hey there, good to see ya, LT. Heard you took the bastard down all by yourself.”

Taylor dropped the ice pack from her face. Post whistled long and hard.

“Wow, that’s some shiner. You okay?”

“I couldn’t be better. How’s our vic?”

“You need a towel?” He eyed her dripping hair dubiously.

“No, it’s letting up.”

“Okay. Let me take you in.” They started toward the door, Post chattering away. The adrenaline had consumed them all. In a few hours they’d crash, but for now they were all on speed.

“When we got the call, it was all I could do to keep Betsy in the bed. She wanted to come charging down here, deal with the vic herself. I practically had to handcuff her to get her to stay.”

“That’s my girl.” Taylor gave him a crooked smile.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less out of her. She’s a ballsy broad.”

The inside of the house was lit up like a Christmas tree, every light in the house glared. Ignoring the setting, Taylor went directly to a small brunette wrapped in a white sheet. Good, she thought. Standard protocol for a rape victim, wrap her up and make sure she didn’t contaminate the evidence, or lose any by changing before they got her to the hospital and took all the samples for the PERK, the physical evidence recovery kit.

The woman looked up at Taylor, eyes glazed.

“Who’re you?”

“I’m Lieutenant Taylor Jackson. I wanted to check 326

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on you before we take you downtown to Baptist. Are you okay?”

“I’m Nancy. Nancy Oldman. I’m…well, I’m not okay, but I will be. The officer over there said that you might have caught him? The man who…who raped me?” The woman’s small pointed chin lifted a fraction, her strength not completely sapped.

“We did have an altercation with a man outside your property line. Can you tell me anything about the man who attacked you?”

Nancy sniffed hard, tears welling up in her eyes. Just as quickly, they were gone. “I didn’t see his face. He had a black ski mask on. But he stank. Smelled like gasoline, or something. He was quick, just grabbed me, threw me down and it was over so fast, I just don’t know what to tell you. It seemed like an eternity but I know it couldn’t have been that long. I mean…” She was babbling but stopped and drew in a deep breath. “You’re hurt. Are you okay?”

Taylor stooped to get to eye level. “I’m fine. Nancy, we’re going to need you for this. Are you willing to testify against the man who did this once we have him officially in custody?”

The chin came up another fraction of an inch. “Yes. I’ll testify.”

“Good girl. I’m going to let you get to the hospital here with Detective Post. You’ve done great, Nancy. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” Taylor patted her awkwardly on the knee, the sheet rustling under her hand. She smiled at Post then left the house. She needed a hot bath and some Advil, take some of the sting away from her bruised face. But first, she had to run the gauntlet.

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As she got to the end of the driveway, the din started. Reporters fought in a rugby scrum to get to her. She stopped, held up her hands. The lights flared in her eyes and she was blinded for a second. She heard a gasp from one of the women; she couldn’t see which one it came from but surmised that she must look like hell. She ran her hand through her hair, trying to get it in some semblance of order. A leaf fell out and she almost laughed out loud. The wild woman of Borneo speaks to the press.

“I have a brief statement,” she said and the crowd hushed.

“We have taken into custody a male Caucasian who was apprehended ru

“Lieutenant, was this the work of the Rainman?”

“Have you finally caught the serial rapist?”

“Has he been taken to night court?”

“Did he hit you, Lieutenant?”

That one she decided to answer. She turned back to the reporters and tried to wink, but her eye wasn’t working properly. “At the very least, he will be charged with assaulting an officer.” She gave them a smile, then got into the truck and headed for home. All in a night’s work. Forty-One

“Dear God, Elle, you have to stop. I need to get on the road and get home. My wife’s going to kill me if I don’t make it back soon.” In response, the brunette just smiled and slid lower down his body. He felt the warmth of her mouth, and the dark head started bobbing up and down, harder and more rhythmically, in his lap. He lost himself for the moment. Why not get off one more time before he headed back into the frigid world he called a family? He couldn’t remember the last time his wife had been in the position Elle was in. The brief thought of Qui

“Sorry, Elle, I lost track. I apologize,” he said to her back as she went to the bathroom to wash out her mouth. Women, he thought, can’t do anything right with them.

He zipped his pants and stood, stretching to nearly six foot four. He glanced in the mirror and saw that his All the Pretty Girls

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sandy-blond hair was mussed. He ran his fingers through it to smooth it down and caught the sadness in his eyes. He couldn’t identify the exact moment that being in a hotel room with a virtual stranger was a better alternative to being at home with his wife and their two kids, but somewhere, somehow, that had become the norm. He’d finish a trip but not want to go home. He would find himself lingering over the end of a presentation with a sales rep here, or accepting a di

It was fun for a while. It was nice to have a woman fawn all over him, even if he was the boss and deep down he knew what they were looking for. But after Qui

He wished he could undo things, make it right with his wife. If he could just go back to that moment that things went south. Qui

His companion came out of the bathroom and struggled back into her skintight clothes. She slid a zipper up her left side, fluffed out her hair and stood looking 330

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at him expectantly. He started to say something to her, anything, but he couldn’t get the words out. He was just too damn tired. He’d been on the road for weeks, traveling all over the Southeast, and dammit, he wanted to go home to his wife.

Elle stood there a moment longer and realized her ephemeral lover was not going to profess true love and offer to sweep her off her feet and into his BMW-clad wheels. She stomped haughtily from the room and he breathed a sigh of relief. Oh well. She wasn’t the right type anyway. There would be others. In the meantime, he had time to catch a shower, load up the car, have a beer or two in the hotel bar, then make his way back to Nashville. The BMW stood in the shadows, out of the soda vapor lights that dominated the parking lot of the hotel. Without the keys it was harder, but it was not a huge problem. Checking to make sure no one was watching, he slipped open the driver’s-side door and pulled the latch for the trunk. He walked quickly to the back of the car and lifted the trunk lid open silently. The cavernous space yawned at him and he smiled. Plenty of room. He pulled up the carpeting and exposed a small hole meant for a spare tire. The spare was gone, he had taken it out months before to make room for all of the accumulating crap that accompanied him on his road trips. It made the perfect hiding spot. He placed the bag in the hole lovingly, then placed the carpet back over the spot. With a last look around, he walked to the edge of the parking lot where he’d left the girl. He reached down for her, amazed, as always, at how much they weighed when they were dead. It seemed they were as light as a All the Pretty Girls