Skin Read online

  “Nah, The Hunter Case is starting to get to me.”

  “Gotta stop taking it personal,” O’Malley warned.

  “I always take it personal when a repeater gives me the finger.” He motioned to the younger detective, one of those virile types with thick black hair and a trim waist that made a more seasoned cop feel plain old. “What you got for me?”

  “The computer check on the hooker,” O’Malley said of the latest victim. “Seems she was a cash-only consumer.”

  Imagine her filling out a credit application. What would she put under employment history – personal service? Yeah, probably.

  “No credit,” Pucinski muttered. “Just like the waitress.”

  Another thing the two victims had in common that would make it harder to nail the killer. No families, no real close friends, no credit.

  And a connection to a gentlemen’s club.

  “So, you have any leads other than Club Paradise?” O’Malley asked.

  Pucinski shrugged. The waitress worked there. Seemed the hooker worked it, too, if on a less formal and regular basis.

  “Hey, it’s something,” O’Malley said, leaving the glass-encased office and returning to his own desk.

  “Yeah, something.”

  Something he hadn’t been able to ignore. The connection, no matter how slight, told him the killer had been to the strip bar at least twice. Instinct told him the guy was a regular, the reason for placing a plant at the joint. An undercover cop could scope things out from the inside pretty fast, Pucinski figured, reviewing the victims’ folders. Both had been tall and well-built with long, dark hair.

  He wondered how many other women working the club would fit that description.

  oOo

  Chapter 2

  “WANT TO CATCH A MOVIE?” Elena asked at break time the next day, the newspaper spread on the table in front of her. Short and compact, Elena was a powerhouse whether at the gym or working on some client’s case

  “So what’s playing?”

  Elena didn’t respond for a minute. Then she looked up from the paper and with a smirk curling her full lips, said, “Man, this chick could almost be you.”

  “You mean I look like some movie star?”

  “Not exactly.” Snorting, Elena immediately handed over the paper. “Give it a look.” She rose and grabbed her coffee cup before heading for the door. “Check out the movies and call me if there’s anything you want to see.”

  Lilith obediently gazed down at the entertainment section. But rather than a movie, the photograph on the opposite page immediately caught her attention. The skimpily clad woman in the ad for Club Paradise did kind of look like her. Realizing that was the gentlemen’s club where those women who’d been killed had worked, she shivered.

  Long dark hair, big dark eyes, distinctive features. The woman could be her twin.

  Or her kid sister.

  Staring at the photo made her stomach knot. Lilith fingered the heart-half she still faithfully wore and remembered the last time she’d seen Hannah...

  “You’ll come back to see me, right?” Hannah sounds every bit the frightened little girl. “Swear to God?”

  Lilith splits the gold heart Daddy bought into its two halves. Her real father was nothing like the horror in the holier-than-thou trappings her mother remarried. She places one half of the heart on a length of chain held together with a tiny gold safety pin.

  “Turn around.”

  Lilith hooks the chain around her sister’s neck, replaces her own, then nestles her bruised cheek against her sister’s. Lilith stares at their dark-haired images, so similar. But inside, Hannah is like Mama. Quiet and afraid and obedient.

  “We’re like this heart,” Lilith says softly, stroking her little sister’s hair. “Two halves of a whole. No one and nothing will keep us apart for long.”

  But of course something had.

  Lilith took another look at the ad. No, it simply couldn’t be Hannah, not right here in Chicago, not practically under her nose. She chucked the newspaper into the recycle bin, and yet, she couldn’t rid herself of the notion.

  What if it was?

  Shaking the thought away, she left the break room.

  By the time Lilith got back to her desk, the phone was ringing. And then her boss had a rush job for her. She forgot all about the possibility of going to a movie with Elena until the last minute. Back to the break room. The newspaper was still in the recycle bin.

  Her pulse picking up a beat, she stared down at it. How ridiculous was she being? She grabbed up the paper, but rather than the movie section, her gaze went straight back to that photograph.

  Hannah?

  It couldn’t be. Just couldn’t.

  After tossing the paper again, all thoughts of movies quashed, she rushed out of the building and raced to her bus stop like her life depended on it. A buzz went through her and her head went light. What if that was Hannah? A girl on the streets – how many work opportunities did someone like that have?

  oOo

  A HALF HOUR LATER, Lilith was glad to rush up the stairs to her third floor apartment in a greystone six-flat, even happier to be greeted at the door by a loud, “Me-e-ow!”

  She picked up the cat and took comfort in the big ball of warmth. “You’ve been neglected, haven’t you?”

  Claws hooked in the front of her sweatshirt, and Valkyrie purred contentedly. Lilith crossed the first floor living area filled with more plants than furniture and opened the door to the small balcony with its pots of flowers and herbs. Their light fresh scent welcomed her. The cat’s ears twitched, and she made funny little noises deep in her throat, but she was content to be held and cuddled. Animals never forgot a kindness, and no doubt this one still remembered being lost and Lilith rescuing her.

  Lilith knew the feeling of being lost on her own all too well. She’d given the cat a second chance at a full and happy life. Now if only she could do the same for herself. Everything had changed for her when Hannah ran.

  During those first months when she was in college, determined to make a new life for them all, she’d called her little sister at least once a week. And every time, Hannah had cried and begged her to come get her. As if Lilith could have. Even if she quit school and got a job, no way would child services let her have custody. Mama had always protected the bastard she’d married, had never filed a complaint against him. Having to leave her little sister in that situation, even temporarily, had broken her heart. And when Hannah finally ran, she’d blamed herself.

  Over the years, she’d done everything she could to find her sister. She’d checked shelters, called runaway hotlines, checked the Internet for some mention of a Hannah Mitchell. And ever since she’d gotten stable work, Lilith had spent thousands of dollars on private investigators. Finding her younger sister had been her private obsession for more than a decade.

  None of that assuaged her guilt.

  Going inside, Lilith tried to eat, but Valkyrie got the best part of the meal. She tried to watch television, but her mind kept wandering from the program. She tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, there was her sister, the last time she’d seen her, the chain and heart dangling from her neck.

  She had to know for sure. Had to see this woman up close and personal. Had to look into her eyes and see for herself if she recognized anything in them.

  Getting out of bed, Lilith dressed and set off for Broadway, where she waved down a taxi. Sick with excitement and dread, she wondered what she would say to a sister she hadn’t seen in more than a decade.

  It was nearly midnight before she stood outside of Club Paradise with its neon sign and billboard of featured dancers. She quickly scanned the black and white glossies and found one of an overly made-up young woman who looked like Hannah, but who was billed as Anna Youngheart.

  Who was she kidding by trying to deny it? Youngheart? Young was her mother’s maiden name. Heart could represent the heart-half each them had worn. And Anna? Hannah minus a whisper.
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br />   It took her a minute to work up the nerve to go inside.

  “No tables left,” the guy behind the window told her, giving her a once-over and a surprised expression. “You’ll have to sit at the bar.”

  Lilith paid and entered the noisy arena. At first glance, the place almost looked respectable. Tuxedoed bouncers, vests and trousers on the waitresses. Then Lilith became aware of the skimpily-clad black woman on stage and several sparsely-clothed dancers sitting at tables where they fawned over the customers. Lilith felt overdressed, no doubt the reason she was getting unwanted attention. From every direction, glassy-eyed men seemed to be staring at her.

  Her basic instincts told her to get out now.

  Hope that had never died made her stay.

  oOo

  “DRINK?” the bartender asked.

  “The usual, Joe,” Michael Wyndham said as he glanced at the new dancer, Caresse, on stage. “And run a tab.”

  “You got it.” The young bartender who was working his way through college with what he made here set a bottle of German beer in front of Michael. “How’s your documentary coming?”

  Michael shrugged. “Not as quickly as I would like.”

  “Yeah, these girls don’t trust no one.”

  Sometimes Michael thought he’d been coming here too long and should just give up, but the place kept drawing him back. And the women. “A lot of interviews, but I still haven’t figured out what makes the dancers tick.”

  Would he ever?

  “Maybe you should stick to subjects closer to home like Fight.”

  “What, you think I was part of a fight club? I didn’t even know anyone personally. It was just a subject that had a gut draw. I delved into why the hell guys would take up such a brutal hobby.”

  Which gave it a similar thread to Skin.

  He guessed that was his theme, figuring out why people did what they did when it didn’t make sense to him.

  “Keep at it, then. You’ll get it.” Joe moved away, saying, “Got another customer.”

  Michael knew he was going to keep at if he ever wanted to understand his birth mother.

  His parents had never hidden the fact that they’d adopted him, and after high school, they’d given him an envelope with information about her. He hadn’t wanted to betray his real parents and so hadn’t opened the envelope. Not for years. But he hadn’t been able to forget about it, and eventually he’d had to look. And then he’d had to track her down.

  Breezy Summers. By then, that was his birth mother’s stage name. He’d learned she’d never tried any other way to make a living. Had never wanted to. Nearing fifty and with three failed marriages behind her – none of those men his father – she was still stripping. He just didn’t get it. The thought of how she’d lived her life haunted him.

  The idea of a documentary exploring her world, getting into the minds of the women who did what she did, had come to him slowly. He had enough production day work to keep him solvent. This particular documentary was his latest personal project, but he hadn’t yet found the narrative thread that would be the heart of Skin.

  He took a swig of his beer, and when he lowered the bottle, it was to see a dark-haired woman at the fringe of the bar area. She was nervously looking around as if trying to orient herself, as if seeing Club Paradise for the first time. Dressed conservatively in loose gray trousers and a looser silk shirt that almost hid her curves, she had a natural beauty that she couldn’t hide.

  Now why was she here?

  What was her story?

  Something he would like to find out.

  oOo

  REFUSING TO MEET any of their gazes, Lilith wandered over to the bar, wondering how any woman could thrive in such a lurid, sexist atmosphere.

  “What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.

  “A sparkling water with lime.”

  She paid for the high-priced water and sipped, her gaze constantly moving over the room until it rested on a dancer soliciting a customer for a lap dance.

  The young man appeared to be about Lilith’s age. He was nice looking and nicely dressed, a boy-next-door type with sandy hair and pleasing features. He appeared embarrassed by the dancer’s direct approach. She laughed at him and turned her back, obviously scouting the crowd for a better bet. The young man glanced around furtively, and Lilith could swear he purposely tripped the dancer as she started off. Then he acted solicitous in helping the young woman up while his hands were all over her.

  How could she let him touch her like that? A stranger? Were they all so careless of their bodies? Was Hannah?

  Lilith shivered in disgust.

  What she wanted to do was charge backstage and demand to see the dancer who called herself Anna Youngheart. How long was she going to have to wait before the woman showed? How long before she was finally reunited with her sister?

  “Looking for company?” came a male voice from behind her.

  She started and whipped around to stare at a beard-stubbled face, whose attractive owner seemed interested and, unless she was now imagining things, quietly amused at her expense. Her quick impression of him: lean strength; dark, slicked-back hair a shade too long; a beat away from fashionable; spooky gray eyes.

  “I’d prefer my own company, thank you,” she said, picking up her drink and sipping.

  His eyebrows lifted fractionally. “Strange place to pick if you want to be alone. Or do you really?”

  “I said I did.”

  He took the empty seat next to her anyway, the deliberately perverse action irritating Lilith, even though he scooted his stool in the opposite direction and gave her plenty of breathing room. So why did she feel like she had just run up a flight of steps?

  Everything about Club Paradise made her a little uneasy.

  “You’re alone,” the stranger assured her. “I’m not here.”

  Her hold tightened on her drink, and her gaze wandered about the room in every direction but his. Still, she was aware of him ordering a beer, which no doubt meant she was stuck with his company unless she moved. Only he’d taken the last vacant stool at the bar.

  “But if I were here,” he suddenly went on, “I would introduce myself. Michael Wyndham.”

  He didn’t seem to require an answer. He certainly seemed laid-back if perverse.

  “And I might speculate as to what it is about a place like this that appeals to a woman like you.”

  At that she flashed him an angry glare.

  “Well, come on, you’re not the usual customer,” he clarified, paying for the beer.

  “Look,” Lilith said, “I’m certain plenty of women would be charmed by you–”

  “Knowing why people do things is kind of a hobby of mine. No offense, but you really aren’t the typical Club Paradise patron. Yet you must want something.”

  “Peace and quiet.”

  “Like I said, you’re in the wrong place.”

  “Then try breathing room.”

  “I thought I gave it to you.” He slid off the stool. “But if I was mistaken, I apologize.”

  Saluting her with his beer bottle, he strolled away from the bar and over to a small empty table also in the back of the club. He folded his length into the chair nearest the wall, leaned back and watched not only the Asian dancer on stage, but other men, as if analyzing their reactions to her gyrations.

  Lilith’s gut instinct was telling her that this Michael Wyndham didn’t fit here any more than she did.

  Then what was he doing here?

  A sudden ruckus on the other side of the room drew her attention.

  A chair-back bounced off the floor and the customer who’d been sitting there bent over and drew a knife from his ankle. The weapon flashed at a muscular dark-haired man who looked deceptively calm before he struck out, disarmed the drunk and threw him on the floor, applying a shoe to the guy’s windpipe. Within seconds, two bouncers grabbed the downed man and escorted him out of the club.

  The dancer on stage never even missed a beat. />
  “Who was that guy?” a man asked the bartender.

  “Name’s Gabe O’Malley. A regular. Got a temper I wouldn’t cross.”

  As if nothing at all had happened, the man in question slipped back into his seat and downed a shot.

  The waiting seemed interminable. One dancer blended into another. Lilith’s senses were assaulted by the music that seared her ears, the mixture of thick smoke and cheap perfume that clogged her nostrils and throat, the private lap dances that made her stomach churn.

  She prayed it wouldn’t be Hannah. And she prayed it would. No matter what she’d done to survive, Lilith loved her sister and wanted Hannah back in her life.

  And then the music shifted to an oldie; and Lilith watched, mesmerized, as the young woman called Anna Youngheart took the stage and began to strip.

  She wanted to get closer, to see Anna’s face, to assure herself of the woman’s identity one way or the other.

  Photographs could lie.

  She white-knuckled her drink glass as the dancer sashayed down the ramp and flirted with the men in the audience who waved money at her. They tucked that money in her garter, and in her thong bottom. They took their time, their fingers lingering on her flesh. Not only did she let them, she seemed to enjoy the attention.

  Lilith could still picture her kid sister, a slight figure prancing around their bedroom to some old rock tune. Then the vision of innocence vanished to be replaced by the woman who had command over the men for whom she danced.

  She blinked but the image before her didn’t change.

  Hannah – it really was her sister!

  Hannah licked her lips and leaned forward to give one guy a better shot at the flesh nestled in her sheer bra. And then, to Lilith’s absolute horror, while Anna/Hannah was still bending forward, she deliberately undid the bra and let her breasts swing free in the guy’s face.

  Lilith wanted to go up to the stage and rescue her sister, wanted to haul her out of this nightmare.

  So why didn’t she do something?

  Anything?

  Why sit here... frozen... paralyzed?

  Lilith felt helpless. Emotional paralysis washed over her like a wave, stripping her of the ability to act.