And at the end, she thought with a shudder, the two women had likely realized death was close at hand.
She intended to put an end to the killer’s spree. She threaded her way through the crowd, in search of her partner and hoping to become visible to the murderer.
Her investigation had confirmed that both victims had planned to come to this establishment on the nights they were killed. Even before eliminating known acquaintances as suspects, Diana was certain she had a serial killer on her hands. One who would likely strike again, and soon. The second girl had been murdered only a week after the first. Tonight’s surveillance should give Diana a feel for the place before she intensified the investigation with more equipment and personnel.
The mark on her hand—the red bat used as proof that IDs had been checked and the entrance fee paid—confirmed that the victims had in fact been here. She traced the edges of the design with her hand, thinking how it marked her in another way—as prey.
A touch came against the bare skin at the small of her back. She turned and faced David, her partner. Like the others in the club, he was dressed in black, from his jacket and T-shirt to his jeans, but with his blond, prep-school looks, it was hard for him to seem tough. Even the scruffy beard he’d grown did little to help. It was barely a peach fuzz on his boyish face.
He grinned and moved his hand. Her backless halter exposed her right shoulder blade, and he traced the edges of the tattoo there. “Nice touch. Both the shirt and the tattoo. Shame it’ll wash off,” he said, and Diana didn’t correct him.
The tattoo was a very real reminder of a moment of thoughtlessness, courtesy of a night of too much drinking. She’d only been nineteen at the time and trying to recover from the heartache of a long-term relationship that had gone sour. Her younger brother had offered to help her get over it. After many a foul-tasting tequila shooter, it had seemed appropriate to commemorate her stupidity with a tattoo. She had chosen a dagger poised upright over a heart, symbolic of the pain she suffered and hoped to guard against in the future. She had been too drunk to realize the knot of pain she carried inside her had everything to do with her father and nothing to do with the cheating boyfriend.
She kept the tattoo to remind her not to act recklessly, though she battled her impulse to be rash more often than she liked.
The knife and dagger on her shoulder was just one of the thousands of designs in the sea of bodies adorned with art and swathed in leather, chains and denim. The three earrings piercing her one ear coupled with the two on the other was a minimalist statement in this rough-looking crowd.
The club appeared to be what their sources had described: a place for those who liked to play on the edge—although neither of the two victims’ lifestyles hinted at anything other than flirtation with dangerous elements. She was familiar with the allure of places such as this. In the year after her father’s death, she and her brother had spent many a night in bars with a hard edge. It had been her way of rebelling against a bureaucracy that had allowed her father to be killed by people who had passed through the criminal justice system only to be released onto the streets. She’d snubbed her nose at the time she had spent conforming and striving to be good when none of it really mattered. Bullets didn’t differentiate between good or bad. They were equal-opportunity killers.
She had let the anger and hatred take hold of her after her father’s senseless death. In that dark place of anything goes, she had given in to her pain. She had lost herself in alcohol and dances with nameless partners.
It was only after waking one morning to find herself facedown on the floor, with her eighteen-year-old brother passed out beside her from his own overindulgence, that she realized they were heading to oblivion. In her wallowing, she had dragged him down, as well. She had reached deep inside, where she still believed good could be rewarded, and she’d found the strength to take control of her life and to help her younger brother get on his feet.
She had survived, but that need for the dark side had never really left her. She had sensed it coming back to life the moment she’d walked back into this bar. It had almost felt like…home.
Maybe that was the allure for the victims and their hunter—the loss of restraint and identity that an ambience such as this provided. Perhaps the freedom of this place made the victims careless and the killer secure enough to hunt and lure his prey.
Diana inclined her head toward her partner and pointed her finger in the direction of the bar. It was time to mingle and act as if they belonged. Time for her to become bait, which might be impossible in a crowd this size, even though she fit the profile of the killer’s tastes. He liked them young and flashy. Both women had been dressed provocatively, in clothes similar to what she now wore. The problem was that many young women in the club were similarly dressed. From a talk with the victims’ friends, Diana knew that both of the women had been outgoing and liked to dance, often with more than one man. She intended to do the same and hopefully set herself apart from the crowd.
With David following her, she began to thread her way through the mass of people and over to the bar, but something made her stop. A presence? Someone watching? She paused, carefully looking around, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Writing off her unease to a case of jitters, she continued onward through the crowd.
Chapter 2
As they neared the bar, Diana glanced at the menu of drinks posted along the wall. What looked like the mummified remains of bats were affixed along the top edge. The uppermost section of the wall above held hundreds of bats hanging down, their bodies huddled tight together. Beyond that, there was nothing but the vague shapes and outlines of equipment high against a dark ceiling.
Diana looked back at the menu. All of the drinks’ names dealt with the imbibing of blood, the imagined traits of bats, or the ever-popular rituals for transforming into mythical demons or monsters. The Blind as a Bat offered oblivion after only one drink due to a large amount of 151 proof rum. Maiden’s Gift was a creamy concoction with Cherry Heering and other liqueurs. Vamp Venom was a variation of a Bloody Mary but laced with hot sauce for that extra burn.
She chuckled. The list was quite tongue in cheek, as if the inventor had thought the patrons somewhat silly in their dark fascinations.
Above the specials, in red letters embellished with dripping blood, was the name of the club: The Lair. Unfortunately, the crimson of the letters against the white of the chalkboard and the gleaming steel of the bar’s surface were too much a reminder of the victims she’d seen in the morgue—and of the fact that someone didn’t think this was all in the spirit of fun.
From beside her, David raised his hand to draw the attention of the bartender, who was dressed in a white T-shirt turned pale pink by the red lights. He scurried back and forth behind the bar, pouring and blending drinks, grabbing the money waved in the air by those fortunate enough to have snagged him. The bartender came over as they sidled up to some clear spaces at the bar.
“What can I get you?” he said, eyeing her and sparing only a quick glance at David.
“A sloe slayer screw,” she said, and smiled at the young man, who grinned back at her. He was cute and quite muscular, probably a wanna-be actor.
“You sure that’s what you want?” he asked, reaching for a glass from the racks suspended above the bar.
Diana leaned on the metal surface and gave him her most seductive grin. “That depends,” she teased. She had his complete attention.
He leaned close, the drink and the glass in his hand forgotten. “And what does it depend on, sweetheart?”
“Is it the slayer who’s slow, or the screw?” she said loudly enough to make a few heads turn and look in her direction.
“Make that two diet Cokes,” David said immediately, slinging an arm around her shoulder.
The bartender shot David a look of annoyance, then turned to Diana for confirmation.
Diana glanced at David and shrugged. “Two diet Cokes it is.” The bartender gave them a perturbed