Chapter 1    table of contents  

Vincent D’Agosta took another sip of his Bud and let his eyes wonder around the bar he’d ducked into on his way home. It was a cop hangout, decorated primarily with bullet-riddled silhouettes from various firing ranges. He wondered why they didn’t just hang bloody corpses on the walls. The bar also boasted framed (and only complimentary) NYPD headlines from the Times and the Post, some with pictures of bloody corpses. There were also photos of the city’s top cops, past and present, a motley collection of mostly balding, paunchy clones whose faces all seemed to resemble the one D’Agosta shaved every morning. He saw several uniformed cops and several more detectives, and a few women who may have been police groupies. The women sat in pairs, sipping drinks and eyeing the men in uniform like starving cannibals.

One particularly striking woman sat alone, two empty booths from his, sipping a white wine. Vincent found himself staring at her. Hayward had been out of town at a seminar for a week and he felt lonesome and horny. It was amazing how little time it took to get used to a regular sex life again, and how little time it took to get amazingly horny when it was interrupted. But he figured that, had he just come from an orgy, he would’ve noticed this woman anyway. She was just the type that got noticed.

Red hair to her shoulders in a beautiful hue, not screaming fire engine or jack o’lantern orange; smooth skin of that very fair, blushy shade that only the luckiest natural redheads possessed; even, somewhat delicate features; wide cornflower-blue eyes ringed with thick, long lashes. Her rosy lips were slightly thin but beautifully shaped, and pouted prettily over the rim of her wine glass as her expressive eyes roamed the somewhat dim room. She wore a silky blouse the same cornflower-blue as her eyes. It rested softly over pert, rounded breasts with the faintest suggestion of erect nipples. As he watched, she took a last sip of wine, rose, picked up a black jacket (turning enough to let him glimpse a very nicely rounded little tush), and shrugged gracefully into it. He didn’t know much about women’s clothes, but her suit was obviously expensive and fit her slim frame well enough to make him squirm a little under the table.

She reminded him of his first love, Rosie Callahan. Or at least the first girl to let him play I’ll Show You Mine. Every time he thought about Rosie Callahan, it was like being back in that moment, and he usually ended up with the same problem he’d ended up with that day. Rosie Callahan would look but not touch. He did not want that problem at the moment, so he put Rosie Callahan out of his mind, but was not quite able to take his eyes off the vision two booths in front of him.

He dropped his eyes to her legs, shapely and smooth beneath the hem of the knee-length skirt, and noticed that her black pumps had very low heels, which made him realize how tall she was. She walked toward him slowly, her eyes on the door, then noticed his gaze and held it a moment before dropping her eyes demurely. Nearing his booth, she rummaged in her handbag and removed a white handkerchief. Just as she grew even with his booth, she dropped it. It fluttered to the floor at her feet. She made no move to pick it up. Instead, she met his gaze again and held it, smiling slightly.

His heartbeat doubled. He stood, reached down, picked up the hanky, and caught a whiff of some subtle, exotic scent emanating from it. He held it out to her, noticing that she was, indeed, very tall. He had to look up to meet her eyes, and for some reason, even that caused a perplexing stab of sudden lust that left him slightly lightheaded. He’d always wanted tall women but, perhaps due to his own somewhat diminutive statue, had always ended up with petites like Hayward. As though she knew the exact effect she was having on him, her smile grew a fraction and she spoke, in a soft, somewhat husky voice that made the skin of his lower abdomen tingle. “Thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.” He bowed slightly and blushed. He’d been hanging out with Pendergast too much. Bowing wasn’t his style.

She seemed to appreciate it, however. Her blue eyes dropped to his left hand and he realized she was checking his ring finger. Surely such a bombshell wasn’t interested in hooking up with him. But he’d been surprised with Hayward. Maybe...but it didn’t matter what she was interested in. He was in a monogamous relationship and he was not a cheater. The little devil who lived somewhere in the vicinity of his crotch reminded him that Hayward was out of town and he didn’t have to marry this woman, that he only lived once, and that he should go for the gusto with all the alacrity of a beer-commercial redneck in a four-wheeler. The little angel who lived in his solar plexus begged to differ.

The woman put out her hand and he took it automatically, catching another whiff of that strange, heady scent. It made the fluid in his knee joints vibrate. “My name is Alice. Alice Pearl.”

“Vi—ahem—Vincent D’Agosta.”

“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Vincent.” She continued to hold his hand, her slim, cool, French-manicured fingers with their tastefully rounded nails exerting just the slightest pressure in places he could swear nobody had ever exerted pressure before. He wondered if hands had erogenous zones.

As though she’d read his mind, one of her fingers moved, caressing his palm gently, and he caught his breath, remembering what the boys he’d grown up with had said about that particular gesture. He didn’t know about the meaning, but the result was a growing woody that he had to bend forward slightly to conceal. It was as though she’d reached down and stroked him where the stroking was best and, though Rosie Callahan was now as far from his mind as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, he had the same problem that usually resulted from thinking about encounters with her. Had it even worse. He wondered woozily if Alice Pearl was a high-class hooker, how much he had available in checking, and where he could find the nearest ATM.

He realized she was waiting, and spoke past the squirrel that had taken up residence in his throat. “Pleased to meet you, Alice...er, Ms. Pearl.”

“Oh, please, call me Alice.” The tip of her pink tongue crept out of her smile and touched the exact center of her luscious upper lip. D’Agosta found himself wetting his own lips and his tongue darted back into his mouth like a startled pinworm.

Her smile grew a little more and he bent a little further. Pretty soon he was going to look like Quasimodo. Quasimodo with a raging hard-on. He did the only thing he could think of to hide it. He gestured to the opposite seat, squeaked, “Please, sit down” like a chipmunk with laryngitis, and fell back into his own seat.

She slid gracefully into the booth, placed her elbows on the table, and gazed at him, resting her chin on steepled fingers. Her eyes roamed over his uniformed chest. “Tell me, Vincent...do you enjoy your work?”

D’Agosta sat up straighter and tried to cultivate the look of a dangerously capable professional. He didn’t realize that he looked that way all the time, so when he actually strived to look that way, he overdid it and looked a little like a lunatic. “Yes, I do.”

She leaned forward slightly, looking into his eyes. There was an air of quiet self-confidence and subtle intelligence and competence about her, an aura that gave him a weird, fleeting déjà vu feeling. But he knew he’d never met this woman. He would have remembered this woman.

Her pink tongue crept out again, and he was reminded of a hungry cat sighting a fat, unobservant mouse. He found himself wishing his mouth was on hers when that tongue crept out. His eyes dropped to her breasts and he imagined his hands on the silky blue blouse, caressing and squeezing. The material would be cool. The flesh beneath it would grow hot from his manly touch. She would moan his name and ask him to—

“...do me good.”

He woke up. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

She smiled as though she knew exactly why he hadn’t heard what she’d said, and repeated it in that warm, husky voice that made his erectile tissue quiver. “I said, I believe another white wine would do me good.”

“Yeah. Right. Sure.” He cursed himself silently for sixteen kinds of fool and wondered if his mother’d had any kids who’d lived.

He went to the bar and returned with a white wine and another Bud. She murmured her thanks and raised the glass to her lips, sipping delicately. He watched, unable not to, until she set down her glass and raised her eyes. Then he took a long guzzle of Bud, looking everywhere but at her.

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. He’d never been this dumb around a woman, even in high school, when he’d lusted after Peggy of the Pristine Panties. He looked into her intense blue eyes and wondered if he was being hypnotized.

“Is something wrong, Vincent?” She had lost her smile, and her eyes displayed nothing but concern.

He realized that she wasn’t hypnotizing him. She wasn’t even aware of his ridiculous condition. The problem was all his. He was simply making an ass of himself over a woman he’d just met, and he had no idea why. He had to get out of there, while it was safe to stand up. If she licked her lips again...

“Yes. I mean, I’m sorry, but I need to go to the restroom.” He grimaced. Oh, smooth operator.

“And I need to get home.” She slid gracefully out of the booth and stood up.

He found himself in a quandary. “You don’t have to...I mean, I’ll be right back.”

Though he’d planned to use the bathroom ruse to slip away, now he found that he couldn’t bear to do it. He didn’t want to part from this woman without developing some bond, some connection, some way to reach her and see her again. Every working brain cell he possessed, though there seemed to be very few at the moment, screamed NO, DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! The angel in his solar plexus was breakdancing in the throes of disgusted disbelief. But he seemed to be mesmerized. He had never been mesmerized, that he knew of, but he thought that if he had been, it would’ve felt exactly like this.

His predicament must’ve shown on his face, because she smiled kindly, put a gentle hand on his arm, and said, “Tell you what, Vincent. I’ll go to the restroom and freshen up, and while we’re apart, you can think about...how you would like to spend the afternoon. Okay?”

Holy shit. Did she mean what he thought she meant?

She took his arm and led him, dazed, toward the hallway in the back that led to the facilities. The hallway was very narrow, quite dimly lit, and empty at the moment. She paused outside the Women’s and looked down at him, her blue eyes a little brighter than expected in such meager light. Their bodies were only inches apart. D’Agosta felt his arms moving, seemingly of their own volition. Felt his hands slide around her waist. He rested his head on her shoulder, then turned his face into her hair, inhaling the sweet, fresh fragrance of her. He rooted for the soft skin of her neck and found it, kissed it. His hands slid up her back, pulling her closer. “I want to spend the afternoon with you,” he whispered. “I want to make love to you.”

Then something amazing happened. Amazing, and horrifying. The vision spoke in a much deeper, though still soft, honeyed voice, and now her accent was a southern drawl that made D’Agosta’s scrotum draw up to the size of a walnut. “I’m flattered, Vincent, but I fear you would discover that I’m not a natural redhead.”

Pendergast? What the FUCK?

Pendergast pulled back, looked down, and noticed his friend’s stricken face. “I’m truly sorry, Vincent. As usual, I am testing a new disguise before going undercover. Apparently it is quite ef—”

D’Agosta gasped as he saw his life flashing before his eyes. He felt his brain shutting down into a numb block of frozen gray jelly. He could barely process what had just occurred, but he knew he couldn’t possibly live through it. There was simply no way to go on living after such mortification. He slumped and staggered a little.

“Vincent!” Pendergast took hold of his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

D’Agosta looked up into the wide blue eyes, let his gaze drop to the rosy lips, the pert breasts. He groaned.

“Vincent!” Pendergast shook him gently. “Snap out of it!”

D’Agosta gathered himself together and found that he was angry. Perhaps very angry. He tried to speak, to give voice to his anger. To tell Pendergast exactly what he thought of his little game. He had to do it or bust. He opened his mouth with no idea what was going to come out of it. What came out was: “You—you slut!”

“What?” Pendergast’s rosy lips remained open in a perfect O of indignation. He looked as primly insulted as any old-maid schoolteacher being obscenely heckled by a herd of randy construction workers.

D’Agosta found Pendergast’s indignation to be simply infuriating. He was the one who should be indignant. He was the one who’d been made a fool of. And he was the one who was going to kick some serious albino ass.

Quick as a wink, his fist flashed toward Pendergast’s perfect breasts. Fast as a speeding bullet, Pendergast’s hand, with its tasteful French manicure, flashed out and stopped the fist cold. The impact sent D’Agosta stumbling into Pendergast. Like any gorgeous woman assaulted by an oaf, Pendergast pushed back.

A male voice spoke suddenly from the hallway entrance. “Need some help, ma’am?”

The combatants froze and peered through the gloom at the uniformed police officer. Pendergast spoke in his Alice Pearl voice. “Thank you, officer, but no. Just a lover’s spat. It’s over now.”

D’Agosta opened his mouth and Alice took his arm. “Come, darling, let’s sit down and make up.”

D’Agosta found himself propelled toward the booth where they’d been sitting.

The young officer caught a whiff of the bewitching woman’s perfume as they walked by. He also caught a wink from a cornflower blue eye, a wink that made the fluid in his knee joints vibrate. He continued on into the restroom in a daze, wondering what such a lovely creature was doing with D’Agosta.

Chapter 2    table of contents  

D’Agosta fell into the booth, still in a partial daze. He watched Pendergast slide prettily into the other seat, his red hair swaying sexily, his breasts under the silky blue blouse as pert as when D’Agosta had thought them real. Hell, maybe they were real. Pendergast was a secretive son of a bitch. Maybe...

But that was stupid. He’d seen Pendergast naked as a jaybird during the prison break and he would’ve remembered breasts. He was quite sure of that. Unless Pendergast had had them...added since then. With that kind of money, he could probably buy any parts he wanted. Or have any parts removed. D’Agosta’s eyes dropped to where Pendergast’s crotch would be under the table, wishing he could see it. There had definitely been a very decent penis attached to Pendergast during the prison break. D’Agosta even remembered being surprised at how decent, given how slender the man was...but maybe...

“Pendergast,” he heard himself saying. “Are you a woman trapped in a man’s body?”

The blue eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “At the moment, vice versa, dear Vincent. Now, would you like to continue making unwarranted assumptions, or would you like to know what I’m working on?”

D’Agosta shook his head and waved his hand. “Go ahead.”

Pendergast opened his mouth, then closed it as a shadow fell over the booth. D’Agosta looked up and there was the bartender, who never came out from behind the bar, standing over them, pen poised over an order pad. His eyes were on Pendergast. “Get you folks something?”

D’Agosta noted that the bartender’s eyes were not just on Pendergast. They were devouring Pendergast, from his beautiful shining locks to his cornflower blue eyes to his sensuously pouting lips to his saucy breasts. D’Agosta was aghast to feel a stab of jealousy. He put a hand over his eyes, shaking his head again. He wondered what the bartender would do if he knew, then decided that the bartender was so gone on Pendergast that maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t even matter to him, or at least not to his dick, which was still vacillating between limp mortification and rebellious half-mast. Oh, God.

“I’d love another white wine,” purred Alice Pearl, whose sultry voice still made D’Agosta’s erectile tissue quiver.

He sighed. “Gimmee a Bud.”

“Sure thing.” The bartender was speaking only to Pendergast. “Be right back.”

A long silence.

“Vincent?” Pendergast maintained the Alice Pearl voice, either wary of being snuck up on again or enjoying being in character just a little too much.

“What.” He kept his head down, his hand shading his eyes.

“Look at me, Vincent.”

Oh, God.

He raised his head and looked. Pendergast shrugged. “It’s just me, Vincent.”

“I...I know.”

“Very well.” Pendergast glanced around and his voice deepened somewhat, but a lot of Alice still came through. “There is a serial fetish burglar operating in a small city in North Carolina. I’m going down there as a decoy.”

“Why? Don’t they have any cops there who enjoy wearing women’s underwear?”

Pendergast apparently chose to ignore this vindictive little barb. “It’s a small department. And I believe he is escalating. He started with stealing panties and bras. Then a woman caught him in the act and he threatened her with a knife before escaping. He assaulted the next victim on the street and forced her to cut her breast, caught her blood in a cup, and drank it. The last time, he forced his victim to strip, and he did the cutting, drinking the blood directly from the wound.”

“How do you know it’s the same perp?”

“He wears a black cape and a Zorro mask. If he’s not caught soon, he’s going to kill someone. Once he graduates to homicide, he won’t stop.”

The bartender returned with their drinks, set them down, nearly spilling D’Agosta’s onto his lap while staring at Pendergast, and stood there with his mouth open, apparently searching for something to say that would impress Alice. Pendergast watched him for a moment, then Alice said, “Thank you very much, sir.” Her sweet voice now carried a Southern accent, and D’Agosta thought that it was the finishing touch. The lust in the bartender’s eyes seemed to quadruple. Surely he would pounce on Pendergast any moment now and make him his woman.

Then Alice reached across the table and laid her hand atop D’Agosta’s. She said, “Now don’t you go gettin a snootful, honeybun. You know I have plans for you later.” She winked a frisky blue eye and D’Agosta sensed Pendergast’s sly silver one behind it, paying him back for the women’s underwear crack. He blinked.

The bartender slunk away in abject misery, probably to disembowel himself. D’Agosta started to move his hand and Pendergast smiled winningly across the table as his slender hand suddenly became a vise. D’Agosta started to struggle. “Vincent! I have a plane to catch and I don’t want any more interruptions. Would it totally emasculate you to play along for a minute?”

D’Agosta sighed and capitulated. “How’s the FBI going to like you running around in drag trying to catch a nut who thinks he’s a vampire?”

“The term is haematophilia, or sexual arousal involving blood. And I’m not actively working with the FBI at this time.”

D’Agosta chose to let that go. Whatever Pendergast’s bureau status was, he’d disclose it when he was ready, and only when he was ready. D’Agosta had long since stopped asking Pendergast any personal questions. He’d rather attempt a conversation with the Sphinx. Instead, he said, “How do you know he’s getting sexual—er...” He found that he was uncomfortable uttering a term for what he himself was feeling while holding hands with Pendergast.

“The victims reported that it was quite unmistakable.” Pendergast’s blue eyes seemed to dance, and D’Agosta got the distinct impression that Pendergast really meant that sexual arousal was always unmistakable and that he wasn’t mistaking D’Agosta’s either.

Oh, God.

“Most of the victims worked at the local hospital at the time of the attacks. As a result, it’s now having staffing difficulties. I’ve secured a traveling worker position there as a nursing assistant.”

“A nursing assistant.” An image of Alice in a tight white uniform and incongruous high-heeled white pumps, bending over and possibly doing something naughty to a male patient, formed in D’Agosta’s mind. He whimpered.

“Yes. I have enough medical training from...several years ago...to pull that off. I could use a ride to the airport, Vincent. This little trip came up rather unexpectedly and the Rolls is getting detailed.”

D’Agosta sighed, figuring he had used up his allotment of sighs, probably for life. “All right.”

Pendergast rooted in his purse and dropped some bills onto the table. D’Agosta watched in horror, then hissed, “Take that back!”

Pendergast’s brows leaped in surprise. “Why?”

“You want all these guys to think we’re going Dutch?”

It was Pendergast’s turn to blink. “It is the age of women’s lib, Vincent.”

“Not for me, it’s not. I pay for my date’s drinks.”

Pendergast fluttered his lashes and practically swooned. “Are you sayin I’m your girl, sugar dumplin?”

Oh, God in heaven.

Chapter 3    table of contents  

ER nurse Jo Bright had just stepped out of a pediatric treatment room and closed the door behind her on a screaming infant and its worried parents when she heard the ruckus around the corner. She was used to hearing ruckuses in the ER, but this one sounded a little louder than most. She walked quickly past the ER desk, plopping the baby’s chart down for the doctor’s perusal as she went, and turned the corner, not even trying to guess what she might see once she did.

What she saw was a staggering, disheveled, belligerent redneck (as evidenced by his black tee shirt that proclaimed REDNECK in humongous white lettering on the front and back) being frog-marched into one of the treatment rooms by a very tall, redheaded Certified Nursing Assistant (as evidenced by her pink uniform—the nurses all wore white). Jo had about thirty seconds to admire the redhead’s technique before the treatment room door closed behind her.

The redneck’s voice came through it immediately. “Hey, that sure is a purdy little ass you got there, honey. Feels all firm and—” The voice stilled suddenly, as though cut off. He spoke no more.

Jo wondered what the redhead had done to him and found herself smiling. The Redhead and the Redneck. Good name for a movie. Or just Redhead and Redneck. Revenge of the Redhead. Redhead and Redneck’s Excellent Adventure. The Silence of the Redneck. Perfect.

The nursing assistant stepped from the treatment room and closed the door behind her, patting her hair with her other hand. She glanced up, saw Jo watching, and spoke in a soft Southern accent that was a little more accentuated than Jo’s own and probably made men’s erectile tissue quiver. “He’s sleeping like a baby.”

“I bet he is.” They smiled innocently at one another and Jo put out her hand. “Jo Bright.”

“Alice Pearl.”

Jo’s hand disappeared into a long, slender one that felt somehow soft and hard at the same time. She looked up and wondered just how tall Alice Pearl was. She hoped the woman didn’t mind shorter guys, because she wouldn’t find many taller ones this side of the NBA. With that hair and those eyes and that figure, though, the ones she did find would be on her like snow on Everest. The woman also moved quietly, with a fluid grace that Jo envied. She’d always been something of a klutz herself.

She realized she was still holding the other woman’s hand and a kind of low-grade thrill shot through her. She frowned. She’d never been attracted to women before, had never met one that turned her on, but there was something about this one... She let go of Alice Pearl’s hand. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around here before.”

“I just started yesterday. I’m a traveler.”

“Oh, really! I’ve always wondered about that. How do you like it?”

“So far, so good. It’s my first assignment.”

“Where are you from?”

“New Orleans, but I’ve been living in New York for a while.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay here. I gotta see about a baby that won’t stop crying. Possible meningitis.”

“Poor thing. Do you mind if I tag along?”

“Sure, come on. Maybe you can get him to calm down. He’s wasting all his strength.”

They could hear the baby crying all the day down the hall, through the closed treatment room door. When she opened it, Jo thought she felt her eardrums flutter in protest. The baby’s mother was holding him, pacing the floor. The father sat in one of the plastic chairs, head in hands.

Alice Pearl had to put her mouth against Jo’s ear to be heard. “Has the spinal fluid been checked yet?”

“Yes, but the results aren’t back.”

“Poor thing.” Alice held her arms out. “May I have him?”

The mother gave up the screaming child almost too easily. Jo watched Alice snuggle the child against her breast and coo to it, wondering if the woman had any children of her own. She certainly seemed the nurturing type. The baby screamed louder, if that were possible. Alice caressed the small form, passing her long fingers from the top of the head to the soles of the feet in a somehow questing gesture, then laid her palm gently on top of the small, downy head. She seemed to close her eyes for a moment, as though in silent prayer. The baby quieted somewhat. She raised it and kissed its silken cheek. It hiccupped once and fell asleep.

The baby’s father had raised his head and a huge, moronic smile had blossomed on his face. Jo thought how sweet it was to see such relief, such fatherly love and compassion, and then realized that the guy was looking at Alice Pearl. Alice turned her back to him and bent over slightly to hand the baby back to its astonished mother. The father’s eyes snapped to the delectably rounded ass and the moronic smile decayed to idiotic.

Jo coughed somewhat pointedly and Alice turned quickly, catching the man, who started guiltily. Jo told the parents that she’d let them know the second the spinal fluid analysis was back and followed Alice out of the room. “What did you do?”

Alice shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. He just cried himself out.”

“Yeah, right.” Jo looked up at her suspiciously, wondering about the redneck. Two very loud patients had become two very quiet ones, in the company of Alice Pearl, who apparently did not like noise.

Suddenly the redhead’s ears seemed to perk up. “Ambulance on the way.”

Jo listened but could hear no sirens. They cut the sirens within a block of the hospital, anyway, and she rarely heard them in the ER. She didn’t hear this one, either. But she heard the radio behind the desk when it chattered to life, the siren in the background almost drowning out the paramedic’s hurried words. “Randolph ER, this is Rescue Six enroute Code Two. We have a 27-year-old female, apparent slasher victim. Vitals as follows: Temp 98.8, pulse 104, resps 24, BP 110/60. Estimated 60 cc blood loss. Bleeding is controlled, lactated Ringer’s infusing TKO at this time. ETA two minutes.”

A feminine voice in the background seemed to be chastising someone severely. Jo couldn’t make out the words but the tone sounded like a witch who’d just discovered her broomstick covered with KY jelly and a suspicious stain.

She hurried to prepare Trauma One and found Alice Pearl already there.

***

Jo heaved a sigh of relief and pushed open the door of the ER employee lounge, a glorified hole-in-the-wall that boasted a Pepsi machine, a sofa that had once belonged to Methuselah, and a few uncomfortable plastic chairs scattered around a coffee table loaded with old magazines, stained from God knew what. It was the end of her shift but she needed to rest before driving home. What a night.

The baby that Alice Pearl had mesmerized had continued to sleep after apparently popping a gas bubble or maybe forgetting about a nightmare. Its spinal fluid had tested negative for meningitis and its blood and urine had also checked out fine. It had gone home with its relieved parents about the same time the redneck had awakened, seen Alice Pearl standing over him, and, apologizing profusely for his asinine actions and bad language, practically run out of the ER like all the devils of hell were after him. There had been lots of other sick and injured patients on her shift, but the slasher victim had been by far the worst—not because of her injury, which was really minor, but because of her title as Silliest, Most Impolite Bitch We’ve Seen in Quite a While.

Cody Pruitt, a young paramedic who’d been working the ER for about a week, slouched through the door and sprawled onto the dilapidated sofa. His voice was a bewildered half-sigh. “Un-fucking-believable.”

Jo grinned. “Yep.”

“Is it like this a lot?”

“Yep. Especially this time of year. Virus season.”

“I counted twenty-two abdominal pains, eleven cough/fever/sore throats, six headaches, four toothaches, and I think it was eight diarrheas. In one shift. We had more nonemergent cases than we had emergencies.”

“We always do, thank God. Just think what it would be like if all those cases had been MIs, CVAs, MVAs, and SOBs.” Jo was referring to heart attacks, strokes, motor-vehicle accidents, and patients who were short of breath.

Cody turned onto his side to look at her. “What’s the worst shift you can remember?”

“Easy. The night a cylinder of nitrous oxide exploded at the chemical works north of town. We had about a hundred workers, all came in at once, drunk as lords and laughing like hyenas. They were dancing and singing and not one of them had any talent. It was like the worst American Idol auditions you’ve ever seen. Not to mention grabbing our asses. That was quite a night.”

“Oh, man.” Cody’s eyes started to slip closed, then opened, then widened. He was looking past Jo at the doorway behind her. She turned and saw Alice Pearl entering. Had it not been for Cody’s enamored stare, she wouldn’t have known she was there. She’d never known anyone to move that quietly, even in nurses’ shoes. Her heart flip-flopped and she frowned again. This was getting really strange. She swallowed and spoke past the badger that had just taken up residence in her throat. “Hey, Alice, how’d it go?”

Alice Pearl had stayed to help wash up a homeless man who’d been brought in by ambulance after passersby had found him unconscious on the sidewalk. He reeked of alcohol and body odor and apparently had not squeezed the Charmin for quite some time. Since he wasn’t in immediate danger, it was standard procedure for the nursing assistants to make him more presentable before the doctor examined him.

“He’s clean as a whistle,” Alice Pearl replied.

“I can’t believe you volunteered for that.”

“Somebody had to do it. But now I have a problem.” Alice Pearl turned and displayed her round little pink-covered ass, each cheek of which now boasted a smeary handprint.

“Oh, my God.” Cody Pruitt was looking at Alice Pearl like a “Survivor” loser at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Alice mistook the exclamation for disgust. “Yes, isn’t it awful?”

Jo spoke through a perplexing stab of jealousy. “I think I have an extra pair of scrub pants in my locker. Come with me to the changing room and I’ll look.”

“Er...thank you very kindly, but that’s okay. I’m sure they’d be too short, and I was just going straight back to the hotel anyway.”

“Hotel?”

“Yes, in emergency cases like this one the agency puts us up in hotels until we can find other lodging for the duration of our assignments.”

Cody Pruitt piped up suddenly, sounding like Barney Fife in an extremely tight athletic cup. “You can stay with me!”

“Oh, that would be...” Alice Pearl turned, smiling, beheld the hungry stare, and the smile vanished. “...impossible. But thank you. You’re very kind.”

“How about staying with me?” Jo tried to keep the tremble out of her voice. Tried to ignore the ridiculous hopeful thudding of her heart. What the hell was going on with her? “I have an extra bedroom, since one of my roommates got married.”

“One of your roommates?”

“Yes, it’s a huge country house. My dream house. I bought it and I’m renting out rooms to other nurses to help pay for it.” Alice Pearl opened her mouth, looking skeptical. “You wouldn’t have to pay rent, though,” Jo heard herself say. Huh?

“Oh, that’s no problem. The agency will take care of that, as long as it’s reasonable.” The woman’s pretty brow was furrowed. She seemed to be thinking about it.

Cody Pruitt had not given up. “Yeah, Jo, but didn’t that maniac strike not far from you? That slasher guy?”

Damn his horny ass. “That was more than a mile away, and besides, lightning never strikes twice.”

Suddenly Alice Pearl smiled at Jo, inducing another flip-flop. “Thank you. I think that’s an excellent idea.”

“Great!” Jo tried to tone it down. “When can you move in?”

“I’ll be glad to help!” Cody Pruitt again.

Alice cast a suspicious glance at him, as though afraid for her private parts. “That won’t be necessary. I have very little to move.”

Pruitt sighed. “But what you have is bitchin.”

Alice Pearl glowered. “I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind him,” Jo cooed. “Let’s go get you changed.”

“I’m fine. I’ll just run home and put some...some spot remover on it.”

“No, really, I have some scrub pants. Tell you what, I’ll change, too, and we’ll grab a bite.” She put an arm around Alice’s waist and propelled her toward the door.

“No!” Alice balked like a young mule. “I mean...I’m not hungry. I really have to be going. We’ll discuss this further tomorrow night. Will that suffice?”

“Sure.” Jo let the woman go and stepped back, embarrassed. “Whatever you say.”

“Thank you. Sorry I have to rush off.” Alice Pearl beat a hasty retreat in her silent way, the door of the lounge slapping shut behind her with a finality that made the lips of both Jo and Cody Pruitt turn down at the corners.

***

Pendergast straight-armed the stairwell door and leaned against the wall, letting it ease silently shut behind him. He blew out his breath in a quiet, “Whew.”

The people of North Carolina seemed very...friendly. A girl would have to watch herself around here, that was for sure.

Chapter 4    table of contents  

Pendergast stopped at Alice Pearl’s rented blue Camry only long enough to pick up his tasteful shoulder bag and a white lab jacket that would make him highly visible under the street lights; then headed for the parking garage stairwell. He pitter-patted silently down the stairs and came out on the street side of the garage. He headed down the sidewalk, walking a little fast, as befitted a woman walking alone at night, trying to get somewhere as quickly and safely as possible. He stooped a little to disguise his height, and let his posture assume that of the perfect victim who wouldn’t fight back. He moved along in a nervous scurry and kept his eyes open for the Slasher, hoping to become his next victim. Though the man had attacked once already tonight, he had been thwarted, so there was good reason to believe he might be looking for fresh prey.

Though scurrying, Pendergast tried to let his hips sway a little more, let his beautiful red hair swing a little more saucily. A man walked out from between two cars in a parking lot ahead of him and turned away, walking fast. He seemed to be wearing a light topcoat and a baseball cap, but that meant nothing—he could have the cape hidden under the coat, the mask on his head under the cap. Alice Pearl immediately began singing. “You know that we are liv-ing in a material world, and I am a material girl...”

The man glanced back and walked on. Drat. Pendergast wished he’d brought a skirt to put on after his shift. He thought a skirt might be more enticing. He was also mindful of the handprints on his derriere and would’ve never gone out (or stayed in) looking like that, in drag or not. But changing in front of Jo Bright had not been well advised, so here he was, trying to attract a maniac wearing dirty scrubs. Of course dirty scrubs might be more enticing to the maniac than clean scrubs...depending on what the stain was...some maniacs did have a highly refined olfactory sense...and Pendergast’s own highly refined olfactory sense was trying to tell him what the stain was, though he chose to ignore it...but all that was neither here nor there now; he would have to make do with what he had to work with, and try to keep his mind on what he was doing, despite the padded underwire bra digging into his left armpit and the feeling that his exquisitely rounded foam tush had slipped a notch to the right. He reached back and surreptitiously straightened his ass.

A car veered to the curb beside the man ahead of him and the man got in and embraced and kissed the driver, who was also male. Pendergast sighed with relief. That explained the man’s failure to react to Alice Pearl, who had actually gotten a little huffy momentarily. She did not like being ignored. Perhaps now she would be easier to live with, despite her cravings for chocolate and chick flicks set in the South.

An old red Mustang veered to the curb beside Pendergast and he stopped and bent to look in. Cody Pruitt waved and shouted through the open passenger window. “Hey, Alice! Need a ride?”

“No, thank you, I’m just...taking the air.”

“Where you taking it?”

Pendergast started to smile at the lame joke, then realized it wasn’t a joke, just lame. “Actually, I’m out for a little walk to help me sleep.” He resumed his scurry. “See you tomorrow.”

Pruitt’s Mustang paused indecisively, then finally roared off into the night. Whew.

Pendergast was getting close to a Quick Stop convenience store. There was a bank of endangered payphones on the corner, the kind with the little open boxes one could almost stick one’s head into and thus pretend one could hear over the traffic noise. The phones were not really that close to the store. It wouldn’t be a bad place to ambush a victim. He decided to loiter around the phones for a while. It would put him on the corner of two main thoroughfares and his white jacket and lush, shining hair would be highly visible in all the light from the store. He patted his hair and strolled over to the phones, lifting a receiver and pretending to dial and deposit coins.

Pendergast’s master plan was interrupted suddenly by the arrival of a young Caucasian male in rapper-wanna-be clothes who was in need of the phone next to his. Though there were three others in the bank of phones at the edge of the Quick Stop’s parking lot, this guy had to pick the one right next to his. Pendergast thinned his lips at the Wannabe, who grinned and winked.

What kind of girl did the Wannabe think he was, anyway? Besides, the Wannabe had brown teeth, wore pants that could’ve concealed all the extras from Braveheart, and reeked of several incompatible molecules which had apparently been thrown together and overpriced by some designer who really just wanted to see how far into idiocy the modern male would venture in search of vulva. Even if Pendergast were a hooker, he wouldn’t touch the Wannabe if the guy were the last man on earth. He turned his back on him and spoke into his dead phone. “You’re on your way then? Five minutes? Okay, sugarpie. I can’t wait to feel your big muscular weightlifter’s arms around me.”

He listened for the retreating footsteps of the Wannabe, who had yet to dial a number, and heard nothing but mouth breathing. Drat. Might as well move on; no maniac with even one working brain cell would attack even a bombshell like Alice with a junior maniac already breathing down her neck. He started to walk away and heard a footstep behind him and a tentative cough. He turned, and there was the Wannabe. “Excuse me, but don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Pendergast sighed. Mr. Originality. Still, the young man was at least being polite. If the young man didn’t have brown teeth, the baggiest pants this side of MC Hammer, and the please-do-me stench, and if Pendergast really were female, or at least gay, he might chat the fellow up a little. All things considered, though, he really didn’t see the point.

He smiled demurely and, still using his Alice voice, said, “I don’t think so. And—I’m engaged.” That should let the Wannabe down easily enough.

But what the Wannabe had in pants, he lacked in class, and proved it by saying, “I’d like to engage in something with you right now, honey. How much?”

Called a slut again? Pendergast felt his mouth drop open and closed it quickly, lest he entice the Wannabe even further. Did this lout think that he could just hit on any woman on the street, and so crudely, at that? Did he have to assume that any woman alone and wearing such an attractive wig was for hire? The nerve!

The Wannabe, sensing imminent rejection in Pendergast’s obvious pique, pressed his luck by uttering the most overused, offensive, and irrelevant phrase known to modern woman: “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

That did it. Pendergast’s big blue eyes grew cold beneath his red curls. He put his face very close to the Wannabe’s, almost kissing close, and said, two octaves below his normal voice, “Fuck off, junior, before I teach you how to treat a lady.”

The Wannabe’s mouth dropped open, much as Pendergast’s had, and he backed up quickly, then turned and loped in the direction of the store, his pants baggier than ever, apparently held up only by a pimple sprouting very low on one buttock .

“And, for God’s sake, buy some new pants!” Pendergast called after him, returning to the phone and his make-believe conversation.

He’d educated the dead phone about the physical and chemical properties of each planet and moon in the solar system for about fifteen minutes when he heard a soft rumble and looked up to behold a Corn Rock PD cruiser beside him. He hung up the phone slowly.

“New in town, honey?” the cop asked, grinning.

“Yes, officer,” he Aliced. “I was just calling my boyfriend to see if he wants anything from the store.”

“Yeah, right,” the cop sneered. “You do think fast, I’ll give you that.” The cop opened his door and put a leg out.

The small pistol hiding in Alice Pearl’s underwear amidst other unexpected things suddenly felt like the biggest phallic object in the underwear, though it wasn’t. He had thought it safe to pack the pistol under the loose scrubs, and indeed it had not caused a problem all night in the ER. But he hadn’t planned on being searched. He could’ve produced identification from another of the many handy pockets sewn into the underwear, but he did not want the local constabulary knowing his secret or his mission.

The cop’s radio crackled and he hesitated, then picked up his mic and answered the call. Pendergast, keeping an eye on the cop, reached down slowly, snaked a hand up under his scrub shirt, and extracted the gun from his underwear. If the cop looked up now someone would probably get shot. Probably the cop. Though loathe to shoot a police officer just trying to do his duty, Pendergast, remembering from too much experience what being shot felt like, was even more loathe to get shot again himself. And the cop was rude and disrespectful of women, after all.

Watching the cop, he quickly dropped the gun into a nearby trashcan, where it disappeared under a disgustingly odiferous collection of fast-food wrappers and other assorted paraphernalia. The cop looked his way and he pretended to be raising his hand to fluff his hair. He was prepared to take the cop out with an Indescribable Tibetan Martial Arts Maneuver, but the cop saved himself by believing the hair fluff.

The cop hung up his mic and got out of the car. “Up against the car and spread em, honey.”

Spread em?

Pendergast smoldered. The cop had no probable cause for which to search Alice Pearl! But the real cause for concern was just how high up the spread was the cop going? He had tried hiding his candy by tucking everything and was not able to overcome the discomfort, even with the most intense mind-over-matter modalities in his considerable arsenal. He assumed that his candy was simply too big to be hidden. (Though fantastically intelligent and wise, Pendergast was still male.) So he had fashioned a pair of Alice underwear out of tight, spandex form-shaper panties, in case of the random tumescence, but, after the breezy comfort of his usual silk boxers, could not bear being cooped up in those either. He had finally decided to take his chances, so now here he was, dangling and vulnerable to roving cop hands. He readied himself for a Patented Pendergast Sucker Punch and assumed the position. The cop felt around his waist, leaned down and patted his ankles, then ran his hands up his legs. “Tall one, ain’t you, honey?”

Pendergast didn’t answer. He could only hold his breath as the cop’s hands moved higher. Another couple of inches and the cop would have nine inches worth of reasons to bust him. Well, eight and a half, anyway. With rather impressive circumference, if he did say so himself.

The cop’s hands stopped just south of Alice’s panties. He stepped back. “Get along, little lady. We don’t allow no pussy peddling round here.”

“Yes, sir,” Pendergast demurred in his Alice voice, thinking but not saying that pussy peddling was the one thing the cop couldn’t possibly charge him with. He scurried on down the street, also thinking but not saying that the cop was a first-rate Barney and that before leaving Corn Rock, North Carolina, he was going to make it his business to teach this Barney some manners.

Chapter 5    table of contents  

Pendergast scurried on down the street, consulting the Corn Rock map in his head, which came complete with mileage from hither to yon, courtesy of a recent perusal of Mapquest. He had looked unblinking at the map for one minute. Then he had blinked, as though taking a mental picture of the burg; a picture that would be ready for instant recall until, or perhaps beyond, his dying day. He decided to stay on the main drag, no pun intended.

He was no more than two blocks from the convenience store when another vehicle eased to a stop beside him. Again he stopped and peered into the interior. This time it was a red pick-up. Apparently Alice was not as hard to surprise as Pendergast. She gasped.

“Hey, I thought you might get off at eleven,” said the baby’s father, idiotic smile crookedly in place. “Thought I might give you a ride to...er, thank you for what you did for my son.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Pendergast Aliced, resuming his scurry. What was wrong with these people? Hadn’t any of them ever seen a desirable woman before?

“No, really. I saw that guy try to pick you up—well, both those guys. And I saw that cop—”

Alice stopped. “Are you stalking me, sir?”

“No! I was just...watching, to see where you...I mean, I was just—”

Alice drew herself up to her full height. “I think you’d better cease and desist, sir, before I call my boyfriend. He’s a top FBI agent and he’ll kick you so hard your next incarnation will have a sore ass. Now leave me alone!” Her voice bordered on hysteria.

Pendergast began breathing exercises to get her under control as he watched the pickup squeal off down the street. Was this an entire community of sexual deviants? There were cases in the literature... He scurried on down the street, slower now. The whole thing was becoming quite tiresome. He’d come here for some excitement, perhaps the chance to pop—er, arrest an escalating pervert. Not to attract such a slew of would-be perverts that the real one would have to take a number. He considered changing his disguise but then caught sight of himself in a reflective store window and, fluffing his wig, nixed the idea.

This time it was a BMW convertible that pulled over beside him. He sighed, bent, and beheld the ER doctor who’d ignored Alice Pearl all shift, much to her displeasure. She gave an interior squeal of vindicated joy and purred, “Why, hello, Dr. Bennett.”

“Hello,” said the doctor from beneath his manly mustache. “Need a lift?”

Pendergast spotted Cody Pruitt’s Mustang lining up for the next pit stop and decided to take the good doctor up on his offer. It would appear that the evening’s efforts were for nil, anyway, and after beating the concrete hospital floors for over eight hours in ghastly mass-produced running shoes, his feet were hurting. And he was at least a mile from the garage where the Camry was parked.

“Thank you, doctor.” Alice Pearl sashayed to the BMW and inserted her tush into the bucket seat. “I was taking a walk, but my car’s in the hospital garage. I would appreciate it if you would be so kind—”

“Sure, Ms. Pearl.” The doctor’s trained, competent hands spun the wheel, and the BMW U-turned back toward the hospital. He glanced over at Pendergast. “I want to welcome you to our hospital. I can tell you’re going to be a real asset.”

“Thank you very much.” Pendergast smiled. At last, a gentleman! Perhaps he could even impart more information about the Slasher. “I wanted to see more of your fair town,” he Aliced, “but I suppose it was reckless of me to take a walk at night with this Slasher person still lurking about.”

“Indeed it was! But never fear, Dr. Bennett to the rescue.” The doctor’s trained, competent right hand reached over and patted Alice’s knee.

Pendergast’s eyes narrowed a millimeter. “Dr. Bennett, I’m curious about this Slasher person. Does he—?”

“Now, that’s no subject for a sweet little thing like you to be thinking about on such a marvelous night,” drawled Dr. Bennett. “I think we should put the top down.”

“Sure. Whatever you want. Tell me, does the Slasher—?”

“Tell you what.” Bennett took his eyes off the road to wink at Alice. “I’ll put my top down if you’ll pull yours up.”

“If I’ll what?”

“Come on, honey, I saw how you looked at me all night in the ER! Nothing to be ashamed of! All the newbies want a piece of Dr. Bennett.”

Pendergast stared at the doctor, speechless. Having worked with cops for years, he knew they were among the randiest species alive, but apparently they had nothing on doctors. This doctor, anyway. And Alice had not looked at Bennett all night! As if!

The doctor must have taken Alice’s silence for acquiescence, because he reached over and gently pinched one of her delectable foam boobies. Before Pendergast even knew it, his hand had formed the Tibetan Claw of Death, shot out, and locked onto the good doctor’s crotch. The car screeched to a halt. Bennett merely screeched.

“Good sir,” Alice addressed the doctor. “I understand you are a man who faces great pressures and disappointments on a daily basis in your work. I know what that can do to a person, so I will give you the benefit of a doubt and surmise that you’re just not yourself this evening. But let me inform you that if you touch me again, you will need to change your name from Dr. Bennett to Dr. Broke It. Do you understand me, sir?”

“Ohhhhhh, you’re soooooooo hot!” the good doctor moaned.

“Oh, ewwwww!” Alice released Bennett’s crotch and leaped from the car. “You’re disgusting!”

“I can be whatever you want me to be, Alice!” Bennett allowed the BMW to troll along beside Alice as she flounced toward the hospital. “I’m trained in anatomy! I know a woman’s body! I know how to give you pleasure!”

“I’d rather die!” Alice picked up her flounce to a trot, and Pendergast, sore feet and all, allowed her her pique and her rapid departure. She deserved it.

The BMW finally roared off down the street. Pendergast had not the time to even breathe a sigh of relief before a white Montero, emitting a thin squeal of tires, U-turned and purred to a stop beside him. Pendergast stopped but could not bring himself to look inside the vehicle. Who would it be this time? The redneck? The ancient ER security guard? The frigging mayor?

“Alice!” called Jo Bright from inside the Montero. “What are you doing out here?”

“Oh!” Alice let out a small yelp of pleased surprise. Thank all the Fates, a female. “Just taking a walk, Mi—Jo. But I could use a lift back to my car.”

“Hop in.”

He hopped, but the Montero continued to idle at the curb while Jo Bright gave him the once-over. “You look like you’ve had a rough night.”

“Oh, it’s been simply horrible!” Ye Gods, was Alice on the brink of tears? The poor dear! Apparently she wasn’t as adept at trading her heretofore sheltered life for dangerous missions as was Constance.

“Oh, Alice! You didn’t run into the Slasher, did you?”

“No! Everyone else but!”

“Oh, poor thing.” Jo Bright reached over and put an arm around Alice Pearl. “Oh, poor baby.” Jo Bright put her other arm around Alice Pearl. “Oh, poor—”

Pendergast stiffened and disentangled himself, hard to do while holding down the stiffness with an elbow. Dammit, he knew he should’ve worn the form shapers! First dangling practically into the cop’s hands and now standing at rigid attention like a guilty perp in a lineup. He tried to meld with the passenger door. He had never before encountered so many hands intent on touching him! Not even at Herkmoor. At least he’d expected it there, knowing himself to be the fairest con of all.

Jo Bright finally stepped on the gas, heading back toward the hospital, albeit at the pace of an arthritic snail. “Lucky for you, the Slasher must’ve been worn out by Miss Congeniality.”

She was referring to the young woman who’d given everyone in the ER a raging headache with her shrill, cawing voice and her insistence that they had all practically conspired with the Slasher to make her life hell for the evening. They’d all known they were in trouble when Mark Smart, one of the more compassionate paramedics, had, upon entering the ER through the automatic double doors at the ambulance entrance, glanced around at the crew and rolled his eyes from his relatively safe position at the head of the stretcher. Sue Cox, bearing the brunt of the caws because she was in the woman’s sightline, had no such opportunity. She wasn’t even trying to calm the woman or defend herself from all the accusations anymore, having ridden in the back of the ambulance with the patient. She was merely hurrying along as fast as possible, obviously intent on dropping the patient off to brutalize someone else for a while. The patient had started with Jo Bright. “Don’t just stand there! Get your ass over here and help me!”

Jo Bright, veteran of many drunk, disorderly, or just plain mean Patients of Incidents Past, was not deterred by the woman’s tone, choice of words, nor volume. Neither, apparently, was Alice Pearl. They both hurried over and, counting, “One, two, three,” lifted the woman from the ambulance stretcher to the ER gurney. During the lift, the woman began to struggle, managing to bare her pantyless ass to the entire world, thus giving her something else to caw about. “First that deviant steals my underwear, then you morons show my female parts to everyone in this dog pound of a hospital! And I’m still bleeding! Why don’t you do something about that? I’m bleeding!”

Jo Bright glanced at the bandaid that covered the tiny wound on the woman’s neck, noted the miniscule spot of blood that had soaked through the center of it, and said, “You are not bleeding, ma’am. Can you tell me your name, where you are, and what year it is?”

“My name is Monica Tilly, I’m in a dog pound, and it’s two-thousand-and-fucking-seven! Why don’t you stop these ridiculous questions and do something for me?”

“Ms. Tilly,” Alice Pearl interjected, in her sweetest tone, “Nurse Bright is only trying to—”

“And don’t you placate me, you little red-headed slut!”

Jo Bright watched Alice’s mouth fall open, saw her look down at herself as though checking to be sure everything was where it should be. Alice Pearl looked so sadly perplexed, and such a flush sprang to the sweet thing’s cheeks, that Jo Bright suddenly wanted to throttle the loud-mouthed shrew on the gurney. Wanted to take her bandage scissors and open up the teensy little scrape and show her what real bleeding was. Wanted to grab a needle and stick it in her eye and watch the blob of shit-brown jelly-ball run down her cheek like a—Good Lord! What’s wrong with me??? Unbeknownst to her, most everyone in the ER was also royally pissed at the woman’s treatment of the lovely Alice Pearl, and were entertaining their own violent fantasies, including young Cody Pruitt, the mustachioed Dr. Bennett, and the quickly mesmerized Mark Smart.



Alice Pearl collected herself quickly. “Madam, if you will permit me...” She reached out and touched the woman’s neck near the bandaid. Smoothed the woman’s brown hair back. “How terrible for you, Ms. Tilly. How perfectly awful, for a refined lady like yourself to be subjected to such an outrage. You must have been so frightened. I cannot imagine.”

As Alice Pearl stroked the woman’s hair, Jo Bright watched with her eyes squinted half-shut in an ecstasy of jealous rage. Unbeknownst to her, most everyone else in the ER wore the same expression, for the same reason, including young Cody Pruitt, the mustachioed Dr. Bennett, and the quickly mesmerized Mark Smart.

Monica Tilly froze with her mouth open to caw more unthinkable insults. She sat that way for a long beat, then tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks and she began to blubber. Unfortunately, she blubbered at the same decibel level that she cawed. “Oh, I am so sorry! So sorry for speaking to you that way!” She held Alice Pearl’s long hand against her cheek and sobbed. “You are the only person in this dog pound who has any sympathy, any compassion! I’m so sorry I called you a sl...a sl...I’m sorry!”

“Now, now,” murmured Alice Pearl, trying and failing to take back her hand. “Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances.”

Monica Tilly stared up into Alice Pearl’s wide blue eyes and actually kissed the long white captive hand. Jo Bright had suppressed an elated guffaw as she saw Alice Pearl suppress a shudder.

Now she maneuvered the Montero toward Corn Rock Hospital, though driving was difficult when her eyes kept trying to turn back toward the vision in the passenger seat. Jo Bright still couldn’t believe she was reacting this way to another woman but, being of sound and open mind, had decided that, since it seemed uncontrollable, she might as well enjoy it. “Ms. Tilly was lucky. I saw two of the other victims when they came in. They were hurt much worse, though not really that bad, but they were terrified. This guy must be pretty scary.”

“I’m sure.”

Jo Bright glanced at her passenger again, to find her sitting calmly, staring straight ahead, lovely chest rising and falling slowly. Her hands rested on her knees, index fingers meeting thumbs in small circles. Jo Bright thought that Alice Pearl must’ve had a pretty scary evening, herself, and wondered what had happened to necessitate this level of control.

She turned into the garage, spotted the Camry, and slowed to a stop behind it. Alice Pearl looked at her with somewhat luminous, slightly spaced-out blue eyes. “Thank you kindly, Ms—Jo, for the ride. I shall see you tomorrow.”

“Sure, Alice—see you tomorrow.”

Alice inclined her lovely head, opened her door, and almost seemed to float from the vehicle and across the pavement to the Camry. Jo pulled forward slowly, giving her time to get safely into the vehicle, and was almost around the corner when a red light began flashing and reflecting off the surrounding windshields and various colorful paint jobs, giving the garage the appearance of a NASCAR Studio 54. She braked and watched an ambulance pull to a stop near Alice’s Camry.

“Hey, there! Want to ride home in style?”

She heard Alice scream something unintelligible.

“But there’s a stretcher in the back. We—I mean you—can—”

The Camry squealed backward, nearly taking off the ECNALUBMA fender, did a seemingly impossible reverse 180, and screamed out of the garage through the entrance, leaving an astounded Jo Bright and a heartsick Mark Smart in its wake.

Chapter 6    table of contents  

Pendergast didn’t slow down until he had to, to turn into the hotel parking lot. He kept checking his rearview mirror, fully expecting to see a procession of vehicles following him, each one manned by a foolish grin connected to a ferocious stiffy. For the first time in his life, he considered giving up on a case and hauling ass back home.

He thought wistfully of his apartment at the Dakota, with its cool, dusky atmosphere, its calming waterfall, and its many rooms full of delightful treasures. He thought longingly of the days he would spend there, hidden from the world, wrapped up in reading and writing great literature; in studying and producing beautiful art; in listening to and playing lovely music; in hypothesizing and creating wonderful meals. Sitting rapt in his meditation room; relaxing in his favorite bubble bath; playing Trivial Pursuit and chess against himself. Perhaps even...dare he contemplate it? At last achieving the perfect skin formula for Helen II. It had not taken long at all to master the engineering skills necessary for the basic construction, but the skin solution either set too tacky or too murky or too thin, leaving bony metal prominences peeking through, and that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. So now he was involved in a different attempt, and he couldn’t wait to get home to his laboratory and see how the cloned skin cells were coming along.

He got out of the car, felt to make sure his ass was on straight, and proceeded toward the entrance of Corn Rock’s only hotel, determinedly turning his mind away from Helen II and toward the Slasher. He hadn’t really anticipated meeting the Slasher on his first night in town, but he certainly hadn’t anticipated everything else, either. He should’ve known he was in for trouble when he saw how D’Agosta had reacted to Alice. He had wanted to be unrecognizable, to pass as female, but never in his wildest dreams had he expected to be groped and kissed. Eww. Still, teasing D’Agosta had been fun. Thinking of it on the way across the lobby, he smiled, and it was returned by the young man at the counter, who immediately started toward him. Drat.

Pendergast speeded up and almost ran past the elevator, not even caring how strange Alice must look taking the stairs three at a time like a terrified giraffe. He reached his room before finding his key and stopped groping in the handbag for it, extracting instead a tiny instrument from Alice’s underwear. He seemed to just caress the lock and the door opened as though by magic, then stuck, so he finessed it with a kick that vented some of the evening’s frustrations and sent the door crashing back against the interior wall hard enough to stick again with its knob buried in the drywall.

The desk clerk, who reached the top of the stairs just in time to hear the woman of his dreams growl a curse that sounded like, “Ungoverned monkey-dicked bastards, every one!” and shake the entire rickety building with the force of one kick, teetered on the top step, windmilled his arms, and fell backward with a great cacophony of grunts and squeals and thumps that Pendergast did not hear, being in the process of digging the door from the drywall and slamming it hard behind him. His usually preternatural hearing was muffled by his slightly askew wig and by his total indifference as to whether he ever heard another male voice as long as he lived.

He stalked into the center of the room and stopped. Closed his eyes and bowed his head. Took deep breaths. Pictured a beautiful meadow overrun with dandelions and wild roses. Inserted a babbling brook. But the babbling reminded him of the night’s assorted nuts, especially Monica Tilly (who had become too busy kissing his hand (eww) to babble about how she had thwarted the Slasher, except for breathing the words knee and balls between kisses), so he dried the brook up, lost the vision, and set about making ready for bed.

He grasped the wig and carefully removed it, then peered at his reflection and was not happy. The way things were going, he was likely to have visitors in the night, visitors that he may not be able to resist thrashing in the hallway, so he undressed, using the very tips of two fingernails to toss the doffed scrub pants into the trash, showered, then put on fresh makeup. He got dressed again in his female parts, blue floral pajamas, wig, and a daisy-patterned hair net, the better to maintain the wig and leave his ears free to detect possible visitors. He lay down on his back and listened intently. Somewhere in the lobby, the desk clerk was whimpering. Pendergast sighed with sadness at the pathetic state of men who could neither build nor become their perfect mates, and, closing his eyes, fell instantly asleep.

Chapter 7    table of contents  

Pendergast, dressed in a long-sleeved white lace blouse and a long, tiered denim skirt festooned with white lace, followed Jo Bright up the stairs of the hundred-year-old Victorian house, glancing around at the many framed paintings and prints that seemed to hang everywhere. She had good taste. Some of the originals hung in his own residences in New York. The largest print, a van Gogh entitled “Starry Night,” hung over the bed in the large, airy bedroom she escorted him to. He had lusted after the original for years and had even, at times, stood before the painting in the New York museum and entertained thoughts of how it might be acquired without permission. Jo’s spread, pillow shams, and curtains echoed the print with renditions of the swirls and loops in van Gogh’s night sky, painted onto dark blue material.

“Oh, did you make these yourself?” he Aliced.

Jo laughed. “Yes, I did. I am so in love with van Gogh’s skies that I couldn’t bear to get some bourgeois pattern to go in here with that beautiful print, so I tried to copy his sky as best I could. He’s probably spinning in his grave, but I meant well. It’s a tribute.”

“It’s really very good.” Pendergast meant it.

He was impressed anew with this Jo Bright, who had first surprised him with her pragmatic outlook and her nursing skills and knowledge. He had actually enjoyed working with her in the ER. And now, to learn that she was a very gifted amateur painter! And (his eyes strayed from the van Gogh to where she was bending over the bed, straightening the spread) Jo Bright’s derriere was almost as delectably rounded as Alice’s. Must be all that walking when on duty. He really liked the way she was straightening that spread. He could watch her straighten that spread all day long, and then— He stopped the thought cold, remembering Helen II cooking back at the lab, and sat Alice’s suitcase down beside the bed. But he couldn’t resist an inquiry. “Are any of the paintings downstairs yours?”

“A few.” She didn’t offer any more information.

He made a mental note to find out later. Just professional curiosity, of course.

“I have several more van Gogh prints, if you’d like to see them. They’re scattered all over the house.”

“I would.” He wanted to see the rest of the house, including the other tenants’ bedrooms, and this might be the best way. He followed her to the next room, where a big beautiful print of “Night Stars Over the Rhone” hung over the bed.

Jo gazed at the print and sighed. “This is my favorite one, next to “Starry Night.”

Pendergast looked around the room, which was much smaller than the first room. There were no other adornments. No van Gogh spread or curtains. Just a plain white spread and white lacy sheers. Personal items like makeup and a comb and brush and a few pieces of clothing were strewn haphazardly around the room, as though someone had moved in quickly. He turned to her. “Why, ah, did you give me your room?”

She blushed prettily. “The first room is mine! How did you know?”

“It is quite obvious.”

The blush deepened. “I...I guess I just wanted to give you the nicest available room. You are a guest, after all...and a friend.” The blush hinted that she really meant more than a friend.

Pendergast’s heart gladdened surprisingly, but he kept his face composed. “Nonsense. I am a tenant. I will be paying rent like the rest. I do not wish to evict you from a room you have endeavored so strenuously to adorn, and with such splendid results.”

Jo Bright looked at him silently. Suddenly it hit him that he was Alice, not Aloysius, and Alice probably wouldn’t speak so formally. “I mean, it’s really cool, and I wouldn’t want to, ah, bum you out.”

Jo smiled, albeit somewhat warily. “I’m not bummed out, Alice. You seem to really like Vincent. I want you to enjoy the room.”

“Very w—okay.” This Jo Bright had a way of making him forget who he was supposed to be. That wouldn’t do. “Let’s look at the other prints.”

They wondered from room to room, and he tried to keep his mind on ingress and egress and angle of view, and to stow away tidbits of information about the women who lived there. But it was hard, even for him, even when he came upon lingerie and hosiery and a lone purple vibrator standing sentinel in its charger on a bedside table, because he found himself in the very strange and unaccustomed position of wanting to impress Jo Bright with his knowledge of art, and of van Gogh in particular. Luckily, she apparently felt the same way, and kept up a running commentary on when and where each painting was done and even what was going on in the artist’s life at the time.

They ended up back in her room, looking at the “Starry Night” print. Jo sighed again. “He painted this in the asylum at Saint-Remy, from memory. He couldn’t go outside.” She stepped a little closer to Pendergast, as though fleeing a chill. He glanced at her and she shrugged. “I always feel so...so much empathy when I think about him. Such a brilliant, tortured soul. He endured so much pain. I am drawn to him, wishing I could’ve been there and helped him somehow.” Her eyes moved from Pendergast’s eyes to roam his face. “His face was thin, his blue eyes penetrating...like yours. I can tell from his portraits that he had an air of sadness about him...like you...” Her gaze returned at last to his. Her voice trailed off. Her eyes misted and she raised a hand as though to touch him, then turned quickly back to the print. “It is said that his last words were...”

Pendergast, without realizing he was doing so, murmured along with her soft voice: “La tristesse durera toujours...” Then, as she turned her moist eyes back to his, he translated, in a whisper, “The sadness will last forever.”

Jo Bright studied his face again, then stepped forward and put her arms around his waist, holding him lightly. He did not feel the need to pull away, as he usually did when embraced by someone he did not know well, and was surprised and pleased, then surprised again that he was pleased. He frowned.

Then Jo Bright spoke. Her head leaned against his breasts, and her soft voice was slightly muffled by his blouse, but he could hear her well enough. She said, “I like you, Alice. I’m glad you’re here.” She sighed a third time and relaxed against him like a tired child.

Pendergast felt a strange little flutter somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.

Chapter 8    table of contents  

Jo Bright’s arms tightened around Pendergast’s waist and she murmured and pressed closer to him. Her body was warm and soft—as soft as he hoped Helen II’s would be when he finally got the recipe right. Soft, but firm...in all the right places...so devastatingly feminine...and she smelled wonderful...and she would taste—oh, no.

Pendergast realized that he’d better wake up or Jo was going to think Alice was packing a sawed off shotgun in her underwear instead of the peashooter that really lurked there. He brought all his stupendous intellect to bear, opened his mouth, and said, “Oh, my.”

His mind, usually busily working on several different complicated, difficult tasks at once like a supercomputer (except when he was working a case and honed it down to laser focus), was as confused as a blond at a spelling bee. So he brought all his amazing physical and metaphysical power, and his feet remained rooted to the floor. Jo kissed his neck, soft, open-mouthed kisses that made him want to squirm against her like a worm on Ecstasy.

“Alice...Oh, Alice...I don’t...I can’t...I don’t know what...” Jo Bright stood on her tippytoes and kissed him full on the mouth, her soft lips moving against his, her questing tongue sweet and tantalizing, thereby cocking the already loaded shotgun in Alice’s underwear. He hadn’t been kissed like that since...since...

Still kissing, Jo pressed her body tightly against his and he stooped reflexively, retracting his pelvis, which cursed him for every kind of idiotic wimpy fool that had ever drawn breath. So intent was he on keeping his shotgun away from Jo that he inadvertently let his mouth make its own decision, and that decision was to stay locked on her mouth and to return her kiss, with interest.

The front door slammed and a cheery female voice called, “Anybody home?”

Their lips separated suddenly with a sound like a horse pulling its foot out of the mud. Each looked toward the stairs, then back at the other, then away, only to glance askance at the other and start zeroing in on the other’s lips again. Footsteps on the stairs finally made the decision for them, and they backed away from each other as a rather sultry brunette carrying a handbag and a shopping bag appeared and headed for them.

“Hi, I’m Amber! You must be Alice! Welcome to our humble abode!” Wide smile, dark eyes, knock-out figure, and fingernails like the claws of a tree sloth. Surely this woman wasn’t a nurse.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” he managed to Alice, just catching himself in time to refrain from bowing and air-kissing her hand. He shook his head slightly, glancing again at Jo, whose eyes looked glassy, with way too much white showing, like a mare scenting a rattler.

“Well, come on, see what I bought!” Amber headed for the room with the purple vibrator. Jo glanced at him and followed her.

He tagged along, trying and failing to keep his eyes off Jo’s delectably rounded rear end. Off both their delectably rounded rear ends. Had dressing as a woman somehow released some inner sex demon? Just because he liked black silk and sometimes had dreams in which he was a giant French chocolate and hoards of women were attacking him, licking and moaning and nibbling, didn’t mean he was...kinky, did it? He’d been hit on before by beautiful women and had felt nothing. Perhaps Vincent had been half-right. Oh, Lord, was he a lesbian trapped in a man’s body? No, no, a transvestite...no, that wasn’t quite right, either. Exactly what...?

Amber threw her purse on the bed and rummaged in the shopping bag, extracting a frilly pink something. “You guys are going to compete to borrow this!”

Jo glanced at the purple vibrator, then at Pendergast, and colored visibly. Pendergast felt his own face flushing. Now it matched the rest of him, which already felt broiled, especially his pelvis, which was ranting and raving and generally making a dire nuisance of itself. While maintaining an interested expression on the outside, he turned his gaze inward, using an ancient Tibetan mind-over-matter technique to try to rein himself in. But his mind was on one track, and it didn’t seem to matter, because he couldn’t derail it. It did not help his efforts when Amber yanked her knit top over her head and her knit skirt right behind it, revealing a purple bra and panty set that a stripper would’ve felt bashful in.

His face must’ve given away his surprise, shock, appreciation, and lust, because Amber laughed and said, “Alice, you look like you want it first.”

He peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth and, befitting all his education, upbringing, and class, managed a soft, “Oh, urk.”

Amber lifted the pink concoction over her head, then let it fall down around her in a swirl of frothy lace. It came to the edge of her purple panties. Pendergast guessed that this garment was what one meant when one referred to a “baby-doll nightie.” Though he could not imagine any little girl’s doll wearing such provocative attire. Well, maybe Barbie. An announcer in his head boomed, “Yes, it’s on sale now! Every little girl should get one for Christmas! Barbie’s Whorehouse! Accept no knock-offs! Ask for it by name!”

Amber twirled once, then yanked the vision of pinkiness off and tossed it to Pendergast. “Here, try it!”

Jo’s eyes were white saucers, each centered with a slice of kiwi. “Yes, try it on,” she said. “I want to see you in it.”

He stood frozen, the eyes of both women upon him, thinking that he’d rather be back in the cave with Job; back in the subway tunnels with the Wrinklers; even back in D’Agosta’s arms in the murky hallway, than to be here, wondering what an ordinary woman would do in such circumstances. He consulted his own version of the What I’ve Figured Out About Women list that all men carry around in their heads and found that, as far as he knew, any normal woman would acquiesce. Luckily, the strangeness and stress of the moment had at least decocked his shotgun, which was returning to its usual calm 0.38 Special state. Oops, its usual 0.45 caliber state. Make that a nine-millimeter. Oh, for God’s sake, shut up and just do it!

Luckily for him, Alice was as bitten by the cold as he himself, and had worn a lacy white camisole over the lacy white bra under the lacy white shirt. He unbuttoned the shirt slowly, watching the women watch him, and shrugged out of it, unpleasantly surprised to find that he didn’t mind it. Not at all. In fact, watching two attractive females watch him undress was quite...pleasant. Okay, so he was unpleasantly surprised by the pleasantness of it. He started to slide the nightie down over his head and Amber said, “No, honey, you gotta take off that cami. It won’t look right.”

Thanking the stars that he’d chosen full-coverage bras, the better to keep his breasts on his person, he caught the hem of the cami and lifted, thanking the stars again that he’d shaved his pits. Though the hair there, like everywhere, was almost translucently white, each pit sort of resembled a tiny cloud in the sunshine, which wouldn’t have worked with the red wig at all. He knew women sometimes bleached their facial hair, but had never heard of them bleaching their pits. Still, anything was possible... Oh, for God’s sake, shut up and just do it!

He let the pink nightie drift down over his head and felt it swirling around him. Once again consulting the manual in his head, he wiggled his hips to make it swirl a little more and exclaimed, as Alice, “Oh, it’s divine!”

“Take off your jeans!” Amber laughed. “It doesn’t work with the jeans! And you can’t feel how silky it is.”

Drat. The thought was automatic, but he found he really didn’t mind. In fact, he was looking forward to feeling the silky material swirling around his legs. Only...the garment had barely come to the bottom of Amber’s panties and he was at least a foot taller than she. That meant that it wouldn’t cover Alice’s panties. The Derringer was secreted in the elastic at the top and wouldn’t be a problem. But he had not hidden his candy. He tried to think. “I...I...”

Jo Bright, chest heaving just enough to be obvious only to someone trained in observation, murmured, “Yes, take off the jeans. Take them off right now.”

“I...I...I can’t. I’m er...having my period and I’m afraid I may have, er...flooded my tampon. I’m afraid I’ll mess it up.”

The women frowned and blinked and he realized that if Alice had that problem, she probably should take steps to correct it. He murmured, “Excuse me,” jerked the nightie over his head, handed it to Amber, grabbed his shirts, and made his escape to the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom Jo had assigned him.

Safe behind its locked door, he drooped a little in relief. His silver eyes met Alice’s cornflower blues in the mirror. Perhaps this whole endeavor was a mistake, especially moving in here. But he really wanted to pop...er, catch this guy, and the guy had struck so nearby! Living in this house would probably be his best chance.

He knew he was upset by his attraction to Jo Bright, an attraction he hadn’t felt since... And she was obviously attracted to him, or, rather, to Alice. He thought it highly ironic that, when he finally met a woman who attracted him enough to draw him out of his self-imposed shell, she was a lesbian.

Forget drat. Shit.

***

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