Incubus Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

“That’s been bothering me, too. If they had just closed her coat over her body, not messed with the hair, no one would have found her tonight.”
    â€œThey’d have missed her in the club,” I said, “or was she done for the night?”
    â€œShe wasn’t done, and, yeah, they would have missed her.”
    I glanced back at the body. “But would they have found her?”
    â€œMaybe,” he said, “but not this quick.”
    â€œYeah, she’s still fresh, cool to the touch, but not long gone.”
    He checked his notes. “Less than two hours since she was on stage.”
    I looked around us, at the bright halogen lights. There was no good place to hide in this parking lot, except behind the Dumpsters. “Did they do her behind the Dumpsters?”
    â€œOr a car,” he said.
    â€œOr van,” I said.
    â€œThe serial killer’s best friend,” Dolph said.
    I looked at him, trying to read behind those cop eyes. “Serial killer, what are you talking about? This is the first kill, to my knowledge.”
    He nodded. “Yeah.” He started to turn away.
    I caught his sleeve, lightly. I had to be careful how I touched him lately. He took so many things as aggression. “Cops do not use the phrase serial killer unless they have to. One, you don’t want it to be true. Two, the reporters will get hold of it and report it like it’s truth.”
    He looked down at me, and I let go of his sleeve. “There aren’t any reporters here, Anita. It’s just another dead stripper in Sauget.”
    â€œThen why say it?”
    â€œMaybe I’m psychic.”
    â€œDolph,” I said.
    He almost smiled. “I got a bad feeling, that’s all. This is either their first kill, or the first kill we’ve found. It was awful damn neat for a first kill.”
    â€œSomeone meant for us to find her, Dolph, and find her tonight.”
    â€œYeah, but who? Was it the killer, or killers? Or was it someone else?”
    â€œLike who?” I asked.
    â€œAnother customer that couldn’t afford to let his wife know where’d he been.”
    â€œSo he opens her coat, draws out her hair, tries to make her more visible?”
    Dolph gave one small nod, down.
    â€œI don’t buy it. A normal person couldn’t touch a dead body, not enough to open the coat, mess with the hair. Besides, that flash of pale flesh was done by someone who knew that it would be as visible as it is. A normal person might drag her out from behind the Dumpster, maybe, but they wouldn’t mess with her, not like that.”
    â€œYou keep saying, ‘normal,’ Anita; don’t you know yet, there is no normal. There’s just victims and predators.” He looked away when he said the last, as if he didn’t want me to see whatever was in his face.
    I let him look away, let him keep that moment to himself. Because, Dolph and I were trying to rebuild a friendship, and sometimes you need your friends to pry, and sometimes you need them to leave you the fuck alone.

5
    I DIDN’T WANT to go back to the reception. First, I wasn’t in the mood to be merry. Second, I still didn’t know how to answer Arnet’s questions. Third, Micah had made me promise I’d dance with him. I hated to dance. I didn’t think I was good at it. In the privacy of our home, Micah, and Nathaniel, and hell, Jason, had told me I was wrong. That I actually danced very well. I did not believe them. I think it was a throwback to a rather horrible junior high school dance experience. Of course, it was junior high, is there any experience except horribe for those few years? In Hell, if you’re really bad, you must be fourteen forever, and be trapped in school, and never get to go home.
    So I walked into the reception, hoping I could say I was tired, and we could leave, but I knew better. Micah had dragged a promise out of me that I’d dance with