Ain't Your Bitch (Interracial Urban Erotica)(171)

They laid like that a while, neither quite ready to go to sleep, but neither ready for a second round-not yet.

After a few minutes, a buzz came from Roy's side. He reached for the  phone slowly, and then checked it with increasing attention as he  clicked to get more of the message.

"We gotta go."

"We?"

"You can stay if you like."

"What's wrong?"

Roy was already up and dressing, his pants already up and buttoned by the time he answered.

"They found another body."





Twenty-Six



If there was ever any reason to believe that they might have stopped  once she was dead, Jamelia was losing her faith in it now. She sucked in  a deep breath and forced herself to straighten up. It wasn't time for  her to panic, not after everything. There was no time for panicking now.

She could still feel the sting in her face from where Roy had slapped  her when they got into his car and started driving to the scene. She  focused on that pain. It would lead her back into the real world, to the  world where she was supposed to have something going for her.

By the time they got there, she'd figured out what was supposed to come  next. It was all there in front of her. Easy. She would manage, no  problem. She took a deep breath and let it out slow and easy. She was  steady now. Clear and easy.

She forced herself to look forward as they pulled up into the tangle  that had already formed of local uniforms, medical personnel, and F.B.I.  suits. She stepped out of the car and met Roy by the hood.

"You okay? You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"You can't keep me away forever."

"That's what I like to hear. Come on."

She followed him past a uniform, past a suit who gave her a weird look. She ignored it.

Jamelia had thought, in spite of herself, that she had something to do  with the murders. That her sister hadn't been an accident, hadn't just  been a random body in a pile of bodies. That she had snagged Craig so  easily had sold her on the idea that there was something specific to the  profile.         

     



 

Instead, the woman on the ground couldn't look less like her and Becca.  Large breasts, red hair, her face stuck twisted in pained anguish. She'd  look like that forever, now. Nothing to be done about it but to stop  the guy from leaving another woman looking like this.

Still, she was wearing nice clothing. The sort of clothes someone might  wear on a date. Nothing like the club clothes that women wore to go pick  up a guy, she looked like she was on a date. It fit the guesses they'd  been making.

Craig had time to do it, and she wouldn't have known if there was  someone else on the dating sites. A feeling in her gut told her that he  hadn't done this. The more time that passed, the less that any of it  felt like him. Seven stab wounds, each one delivered with enough force  to bruise in the final moments of the woman's life.

He was capable of violence, but she wondered if he would muster up that  kind of anger for anything. Especially for a woman. Every impression she  had gotten of him had been that he never lost his cool.

A voice called out. "We got a witness over here."

Roy and Jamelia looked up at the same instant. She followed him to the  edge of the ring, where a young Hispanic woman was standing, eyes wide.  She was fidgeting with her fingers, twisting where a ring should have  been but wasn't.

"Schafer, this is Juanita Alvares, she says she lives across the street. Says she saw something."

"Thanks, Jackson. I'll take it from here."

Jamelia watched and listened, not ready to try to see how far she could push her authority just yet.

"I'm Special Agent Roy Schafer, this is my partner, Detective Jamelia Brown. What did you see, miss?"

The woman looked spooked from the suggestion of a body under the cover, but couldn't tear her eyes away from it.

"I live across the street, and-is that a body?"

"What did you see?"

"Well, I hear someone driving by. Real slow. I look outside. People come  by, you need to look. Make sure they're not trying to rob you, right?"

"And you saw …  what?"

"The woman, she was there. Waiting. Very pretty."

"Have you seen her before?"

"Before? No. Not before."

"What else?"

"A truck. Blue and white. Drives up, and he talks to the woman, and then she gets in."

"Is that all?"

"They turn into the alley, and I stop watching. I'm not interested in-that kind of thing."

"No, I wouldn't imagine that you are. Is that all?"

"Yes, that's all."

"Thank you very much," Roy said, writing for another moment in his  notebook. "Is there some way we can reach you if we have any more  questions?"

"I already told you everything, though."

"Just in case, miss, if we have any questions. It can be good to be able to get in touch with witnesses."

"I don't have a phone."

"But you live right there?"

"Yes."

"Can you give me the address?"

The woman's face twisted up. "Uhhh …  what street is this?"

Roy gave her a tired look. The idea occurred to Jamelia a moment before  he asked her what was going on here. She might have told the story  accurate or not, but she sure enough didn't live in that house. Might  not live anywhere near here.

Juanita had seen him come by, and she'd seen him turn in, because it was  the most normal thing in the world for her. Jamelia took a breath and  tried to steady herself. She wasn't here to bust a woman for working,  crime or not. She was here to catch a killer.

"What were you really doing, Miss Rodrigues?"

Jamelia put a hand on Roy's arm, reached up to whisper. "She was working, Roy, don't push it."

The woman squirmed a minute. Roy frowned, then folded up the notebook  and slipped it back into his pocket. "Thank you for your time, Miss  Rodrigues. We'll be in touch."

She kept staring at the body, though she couldn't see a whole lot of  anything. Jamelia felt weird about her. As if the young street-walker  represented something that Jamelia didn't want to think about.

They turned back. A truck, huh? She hadn't seen Craig driving one, but  that didn't mean he didn't have one. She hadn't seen a truck like that  before, frankly. She was aware that they existed, no problem.

But whether she had the whole story or not, she knew she'd met at least  some of the killers. Why she'd never seen that truck, in spite of  knowing their spots-she must not have known them. The answer was  unavoidable.

Craig was planning on getting her in with all of them. Getting her  interested enough to press them, and then their stories would all  collapse around them. She'd be able to bring the boys in, and she'd be a  big damn hero.

That was his plan. She would come out smelling like roses, no matter how  she came into the information, and he would be able to get back to …   whatever they did.

She didn't know what Craig was involved in that he thought it was worth  handing her a bunch of killers. Worth handing her his brothers. But she  knew the sort of things that motorcycle gangs got themselves up to.

Jamelia took a breath and tried to still her thoughts. She had to force  herself to calm down and think rationally. The next step. She had to  find whoever was doing this. There was more than one, she knew that. But  if she could just stop the guy doing it this once-would that be who  killed her sister?

What did it mean?

She looked down at her hands.

Nothing to think about now. Nothing to worry about. She had to work, and  that didn't mean imagining scenarios that might come in the future.  This was police work, and that meant looking at the evidence. She  followed Roy back over to the body.

Like the others, she still had everything. Purse still had a wallet  inside, still full of money. She had near fifty dollars in bills, and  two credit cards. A nice bracelet that might have cost her four hundred  dollars and might have pawned for a hundred if the guy selling it was  persuasive.

Two questions bubbled to the surface.

First, why was this woman here before the guy who killed her? And second, was that how they'd done it with Becca? If it was-how?





Twenty-Seven



Jamelia woke to her phone buzzing. She turned over from the warmth of  being beside Roy and grabbed it. She didn't recognize the number yet.  Hadn't put it into her contacts. But she knew it was Craig,  instinctively, and when she opened the message he had sent she knew that  she was right.

Where you at? You're not at the apartment.

She debated how much of a lie she should be telling. It all depended,  after all, on what he already knew and what she could get away with. If  she could get away with saying that she was out of town at her mother's,  that would be great, but that wasn't going to happen. After all, her  mother was dead.

On the other hand, the more that she bit off more than she could chew,  the more he'd be on to her. If she was hiding one thing, what else was  she hiding? She took a plunge and went with a half-truth.

Someone broke into my apartment while I was sleeping. Freaked me out.  I'm staying at a hotel until I can get a locksmith to get in there and  make sure that it's all rock-solid.