“It sounds like you liked Terri,” Mac commented.
“Better than Lacey,” Joan said begrudgingly. “Terri was all right. She wasn’t very smart, and she had no self-esteem, but she was kind. Liked to believe the best of everyone.”
“Was it unusual for her to bring a man home with her?”
“No. Pretty standard for a Saturday night.”
“Did she ever talk to you about the men, who they were or where she went to meet them?”
“Sometimes,” Joan said. “I can try to come up with the names of a few bars she went to. We weren’t friends, though. We didn’t have heart-to-heart chats or anything. Just, sometimes in the hall she’d say something like, ‘I picked up this cute guy at The Caboose last night, but he was a flop in the sack.’ And I would nod and get out of there fast before she felt compelled to tell me more.”
“Did she say where she was going last night?”
“Not to me.”
“How about before last night,” Mac asked. “Did she mention any boyfriends? Anyone who might’ve wanted to date her more than once or who’d been angry with her?”
“I think there was a guy about a year ago, around when I first moved in. She said something about dumping a guy. How he cheated on her and was no good. She didn’t seem scared, though. I don’t remember. I wasn’t interested and I didn’t even know her then. I haven’t seen anyone more than once recently.”
“Can you think of anything else that might help me?”
“No,” Joan said flatly. “I have no idea who could’ve done this. I assume she picked up the wrong man. There was always a risk with the way she lived. She used to claim she could tell a decent man from one who was trouble, but I’ve met a couple of drunk and obnoxious mistakes of hers in the hallway.”
“Any names? Descriptions?”
She shook her head. “No one recently.”
Mac asked her the names of bars she’d heard mentioned, and she came up with a list of four. As he tucked away his notebook, he said, “You moved in a year ago? What brought you to this neighborhood?”
“I’m a student. Temporarily no money— well I hope temporarily— and I got a deal on this place through a friend.”
“What are you studying?”
Joan stood and opened the door for him. “Mortuary science at the U,” she said. “Which makes me unlikely to get hysterical over a dead body. Good night, detective.”
Mac stared at the closed door. A bigger contrast to Lacey was hard to imagine. Was Joan’s chilly attitude a front or part of her character? Women were sometimes harder to understand. However, tonight he was looking for a man.
You’re always looking for a man, his inner voice quipped.
Not anymore, Mac told it. I’ve found one. He started up the stairs to the third floor, thinking about Tony warm and asleep in his bed. About how it was becoming their bed. Both of them in the past had played pick-up roulette, bringing men they hardly knew back to a room somewhere. Tony claimed to have done so rarely, but it’d been Mac’s MO for ten years, until now. The risks had been there, especially for Tony, who wasn’t six-two and two hundred pounds.
Not anymore, Mac thought. Tony was safe with him. But how many women out there were at risk if he didn’t solve this case? He hoped for a miracle on the third floor, but didn’t get one.
Chapter 2
It was early next morning before Tony woke to the touch of warm feet against his own. He rolled over and moved into Mac’s arms. “You weren’t kidding about being late. Is it a bad one?” He slid a gentle hand to Mac’s neck, fingertips brushing the ends of Mac’s straight brown hair.
“Could be.” Mac’s broad hands roamed slowly down Tony’s back. “Yeah. I’m worried. I think this might tie into another case I had a month ago. Two women now, both killed the same way. I’m hoping it’s not the same guy, because if it is, it has a hint of the crazies about it.”
“How crazy?”
“Like he might do it again.”
“Serial killer?” Tony slowed his touch.
“Maybe.”
“Isn’t that unlikely?” He’d told his high school students far more serial killers appeared in fiction than real life.
“Hard to say, actually. The cold cases, the ones with no suspect or motive from day one? Who knows how many of those are serials, with just not enough evidence to link them up. It may be more common than we think. But the truly whack-job serial killer with a dramatic pattern, yeah, those are rare.”
“But you think maybe this one…?”
“They were both stabbed after they were dead, and there’s other links. I’m worried. That’s not for the general public though, okay.”
“Never,” Tony said comfortably. One of his private joys over the past year was the way Mac had begun trusting him with the details of his job, trusting him both to keep confidence and to give Mac the kind of support he needed. Tony didn’t know how any cops made it through their days alone. They saw humanity at its worst, day after day. No doubt some of them were the kind of person who could shrug that off. Some were probably as cold as the worst suspects they arrested. But others were on the job because they wanted to make a difference, like Mac.
Tony provided Mac with a sympathetic ear, a hot meal, a cold brew, or a warm hug, as best he could. Sometimes Mac wanted to talk things out. Other times, he just wanted to lose himself for a while in Tony’s body. From the motion of his big hands over Tony’s ass, this was one of those times. Tony grinned in the dark. His favorite.
He moved his mouth to Mac’s neck and jaw, feeling thick beard stubble rasp against his lips. Pushing away, he slipped lower, trailing his tongue down muscular shoulders and furry pecs, to find the hard nubs of Mac’s nipples waiting for his touch. Mac groaned under the nip of his teeth around those sensitive points and brought his hands up to clutch Tony’s hair. Tony licked and bit Mac’s chest, hard enough to leave faint marks. He moved down, faster and more urgently. Mac’s skin was familiar— the fine rasp of hair under his mouth, the musky warm scent of his lover’s body. When Tony paused his downward course to tongue Mac’s navel, the wet silken caress of Mac’s big cock rose against Tony’s cheek. Tony turned his head and took Mac in, suddenly and deep. Mac moaned and pushed Tony’s head down further. Tony plunged deep, tonguing hard until he had to come up gasping.
“Do you want…?” Mac’s voice was rough.
“This is what I want,” Tony told him. “Let me…”
He licked slowly up Mac’s shaft, root to tip, and swirled around the broad flared head. Mac’s pulse pounded in his thigh under Tony’s fingers, his cock jerking in time. Tony took the base in his fist and swallowed until his mouth met his hand. He couldn’t deep-throat Mac. The man was too big. But this was close, this was good.
He drove Mac’s breathing with the rhythm of his mouth, fast bobs, then slow, then barely licking at the slit. He held his fist loose at first, then began closing his hand in time with the plunging motion of his lips and tongue. He felt the first twitch of climax and backed off, closing his hand hard and tight around the base of Mac’s cock, watching Mac just barely come back from the edge.