Black Cherry's
 GUN CONTROL
the sixth story of the "Skin Deep" saga

CHAPTER THREE:
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

“A serial killer here in the Montrose?” Torrid asked. “Who is he hunting?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the facts of the case—it’s an open investigation. I shouldn’t have said anything.”  Ariel replied.

“Wait a minute, you can’t just drop a bomb like that, then take the high road. What the fuck’s going on? We live here in this neighborhood, our friends…loved ones are all at risk. Don’t play that coy cop shit with me.”

“Torrid, take it easy.” Liz said, sliding another beer across the bar to her and Ariel.  “Ariel, Torrid has a point; if you can tell us anything that would help increase safety, now’s the time. It’s not like we’re going to go blog about it on the Internet or anything.”

“Nah, I’m not a blogging type of gal.” Torrid said, sipping her beer.

Ariel looked at Liz and Torrid. She sighed and sat back on the bar stool, and ran her fingers up and down the cold neck of her bud bottle.

She sat there quiet for a long time starring at the neon Heineken sign hanging over the bar.

“We found a girl last night. Murdered.”

“What? Where?” Torrid asked remembering the scream that tore her from her sleep the night before.

“In one of the back alleys. Down off the curve.”

“I live over my shop—near the curve. Last night, I woke up to a loud noise, and I think it was a scream.”

“What time was this?” Ariel said, pulling out her notebook from her hip pocket and making note of this event.

“It was a little before 5 this morning. I looked at the clock and stayed up and read some. I couldn’t get back to sleep. Is this important?”

“Very. We hadn’t established a T.O.D….we thought she was killed earlier, but this means she was found very soon after.”

Torrid shook her head. It disturbed her to think that she had heard someone die. “Jesus. I gotta go.”

“Tor?” Liz asked, concerned.

“Dre—I need to call her. This is some shit, and I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“Okay, see ya Tor. Call me tomorrow.”

As Liz and Ariel watched Torrid leave, Liz asked Ariel, “You okay to get home?”

“Oh I’m fine. I’m sober now…this case is chilling me to the bone, Liz. But seriously, no repeating what we discussed here. It’s important.”

“You have my word, Ariel. And Torrid’s good people; so’s you know.”

“Sure, Liz. If you say she is, then she probably is.” Ariel said, sliding her empty beer bottle across the counter. “That’s it for me. I need to get some sleep; since my chances of getting laid are next to zero.”

Liz cocked her head to one side and gave a look to Ariel.

“Don’t worry…I’m walking home.” Ariel tossed her truck keys to Liz. “Drive it home for me?”

“You sure it’s safe to walk the streets, after what you just told us?”

“No worries, Liz,” Ariel said, as she headed toward the door, “I’m on the job.”

Ariel stepped out onto the street and lit up a smoke.  The sun was setting, and night was rolling in. The rush hour traffic had slowed down to a trickle of a few cars, and the neon signs were all being turned on in the businesses that lined the street.  Ariel scanned the street, up one side and back down the other, feeling, reaching for anything that would give her insight to the mind of this killer.  I know you, she thought. You hate yourself, you’re afraid; you transfer your self-loathing onto the rest of us. I know you, you pussy. She put her shades on and headed west toward the curve. The crime scene was on the way back to her apartment, and so was Torrid Duncan’s tattoo shop, Skin Deep.

Back at her apartment, Drelica turned on the shower and went to the dryer to get a clean towel. She needed a hot relaxing shower and then she intended to flop onto the couch and veg out hoping Torrid would eventually stop brooding and call her.

The water was warm and soothing and she washed herself with scented wash and lost herself in the steady beat of the falling water.

She did not hear the door to her apartment open, nor did she notice the footfalls moving closer to the bathroom door, which was partially open.

She was lost in the moment, her thoughts turning naughty, and she began to move her hands over her soapy frame as her imagination took flight.

Drelica’s mind was a million miles away, back in Hawaii when she and Torrid made love in the lagoon. She smiled as she relived the tenderness, the passion, the hard wet fucking that they had done in paradise. Her hand moved lower, from her breast, down her abdomen and beyond…

The voyeur’s eyes watched the beautiful woman touch herself in the steamy shower; watched as she squeezed her own breasts, ass cheeks, fondled her breasts, searched for her own mound, inserted fingers inside herself.

The voyeur’s ears heard the soft moans. The voyeur licked wet lips, swallowed hard, the voyeur’s pulse raced at the sight of Drelica Truman pleasuring herself in the shower. The heat rising in the voyeur’s throbbing groin, the time for watching had passed; it was time to reach out and take!

Detective Ariel Ryder knocked on the door to the tattoo shop, but there was no one inside. The lights were off. She noticed the store hours posted on the glass of the door; she was too early to catch Torrid Duncan at work. Shit.  She had some more questions she wanted to ask about what Torrid had heard. Maybe there was something there that would help the case.

Any lead is a good lead, she thought.  I will catch you, fucker. No one hunts in my backyard.

She pulled out a business card, and stuck it through the mail slot, hoping Torrid would call her later.

Just as Drelica was about to surrender utterly to her fantasy, she was snapped out of her daydream by the annoying sound of her cell phone ringing.

“Fuck!” she said, getting soap in her eyes as she fumbled to turn off the shower. Blinded and squinting she reached for her towel and wrapped it around her still dripping frame, and felt her way to the living room sofa where she had left her phone, never noticing the stranger standing behind the bathroom door was she passed.  Never noticing the stranger following her into the living room, and standing close behind her.

She reached for her phone, “Torrid, I hope that’s you.”

1 missed call. Unknown number.

Damn.

“Torrid where are you?”

Just then she felt a touch on her shoulder and she turned suddenly to see a figure standing there and she screamed! Drelica started kicking and punching the figure, shrieking a blood curdling shrill scream all the while she was pounding her attacker to the floor.

“Hey!”

“What do you mean, ‘hey’, who the hell?”
”Drelica!”

“Wha?”

“It’s me…”

Drelica wiped her eyes with the corner of her towel and her vision cleared, enough to see that her ‘attacker’ was covered with tattoos.

She collapsed on top of Torrid and let out a sigh of relief.

“God, baby! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry.” Torrid said, trying to catch her breath.

“Why did you sneak up on me?” Drelica asked, now annoyed.

“Well you didn’t hear me come in, you were in the shower, and when I saw—“

“Saw what, Torrid Duncan?”

“Well—“ Torrid winced, holding her nose. “Shit babe…you got a tissue?”

Drelica got up and reached for the box of tissues that was on the TV table. Her expression softened when she saw that Torrid’s nose was bleeding.

“Oh baby! I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

“Maybe the karate lessons weren’t such a hot idea…I think you broke my nose.”

“Damn baby, I’m so sorry! I was so scared…I thought you were that creepy guy from the park.”

Torrid’s eyes widened, “What creepy guy??”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just being paranoid. I went for my usual walk, and there was this guy sitting on the picnic table down by the duck pond, and he was just---creepy. I felt like he might have been watching me.”

“Dre—we need to talk.”

“I know. I’m so sorry about your mom. I feel awful for pressuring you into seeing her. It’s all my fault.”

Torrid put up her hand to stop Drelica. “No, Drelica. Not about that.”

“What is it?”

“Dre, there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

“What? Here? In Houston?”

“Yeah, but even more here—last night a girl was killed behind my building. I heard the scream.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Drelica asked, scared and a little angry.

“Baby, I wasn’t sure what happened, I just got jolted out of bed by the scream, but I hear weird shit all the time over there—the bars, and the hustlers, you know what it’s like.”

“Well tell me about it on the way to the hospital, Torrid.” Drelica said, heading to the bedroom to get dressed.

continued in chapter Four