Blood is Black in the Moonlight Read online

My God, here it comes.

  My eyes turn upward. “Shit! I fucking knew it. If that’s what you’re after, get the hell out!”

  His eyes widen. “Why not? We click so well together?”

  I turn my head to the side, narrowing my eyes. “The last guy I was with got hurt in ways he didn’t deserve. I don’t want that for you. You deserve better than me.”

  A timid smile slides across his lips as he fidgets with the sheet. “I’m sorry. I just feel connected to you.”

  I glower at him and tilt my head to the side. “We have nothing in common, kid. You’re just a cock for me to ride. Either fuck me or get out.”

  I know that was harsh, but it’s for his own good because if we go steady, I will just hurt him like I did my husband. He’s a sweet guy and doesn’t deserve me.

  He climbs on top of me, sliding between my thighs. “My bad.”

  “Damn right.” Wrapping my legs around him and just as he begins thrusting, my cell rings. “I’m sorry, Greg. You’ve got to pull out. It’s work.” He lets out a groan and rolls of me. My fingers clumsily fumble through the clutter, knocking over empty whiskey bottles.

  Damn it!

  I find my phone lying in the midst of bottles scattered on my nightstand. “Go ahead, LT.”

  “Lobos, we got another DB down at the port.”

  Greg inches his fingers inside me and shoves his head between my legs. My body jerks as I grab a wad of the sheets. Biting my lower lip, a quivering gasp escapes.

  Shit, this kid has a way with his tongue.

  “Devi, you alright? Why are you breathing so heavy?”

  “Why—” I gasp as the muscles tense in my legs

  “—why can’t this asshole take a holiday?”

  “You can ask him when we catch him. Get your ass down here.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m on my way.” After hanging up, I open my legs wider running my fingers through his short brown hair. I am tempted to let him finish me off. I’m on the verge, but I have to go. “Greg, you’re going to have to pull your tongue and fingers out of me. That was work,” I say, tapping him on the head. He raises his head, and I yank the sheets back, catching a whiff of our musk. Greg sits on the edge of the bed; he kisses my neck tenderly, grasping a handful of my breasts. He tries to lure me back in bed, and it's working, but I can’t give in, work calls. I giggle at him and force his hands down to my lap. “Seriously, stop, I need to get dressed.”

  He backs up and sits next to me. “Sorry, you’re just so addicting.”

  I smirk. “Well, like anything, I’m only good in moderation.”

  Something tells me I’m going to regret all that whiskey we drank earlier, a headache is already building.

  “Devi, I noticed a female grim reaper tattoo with roses growing out of her skull on your back and a similar tatt sleeved on your right arm. What do they mean?”

  “Santa Muerte, a silly Mexican tradition. I got it because I thought it would protect me in Iraq, and well, I guess it worked. I’m still breathing.”

  I lied to him. I got this tattoo when I was infiltrating the Cartel. The tattoo is one of their symbols, and they gave it to me as part of the initiation when I first killed for them. However, I added my own customization to it: black eye sockets with a stitched mouth and bright red roses growing from the temple of the skull. I made Lady Death beautiful again. So sick of criminal organizations in my country using her to justify their evil.

  I stand up, slipping on my black panties, and black jeans. I grab my crimson red button-down with a black dragon slithering down the side of the shirt. When I was a kid, I loved dragons, but it’s to be expected. I grew up playing D&D with my brother and his friends.

  Shit, all the buttons been ripped off how the hell did that—oh, now I remember. I let Greg tear my shirt off, and the buttons flew across the room. I grab a long-sleeved black button-down shirt out of the closet with a red dragon slithering down the arms of the shirt. “Okay new rule, we need to exercise restraint during rough sex. Ripping my shirt off is against the rules from now on.”

  He grins. “I’ll be gentle next time.”

  I beam a wolfish grin. “Just with the shirt, I hope?”

  He chuckles. “Obvi.”

  I saunter over to the dresser, grabbing my Sig P226 40 Cal. It’s solid black, and it holds ten rounds of death to anyone who’s sick of living. After making sure there is a full magazine, I slap the mag back in the weapon and rack the slide. Slipping it down in my holster hooked to my belt.

  I always keep a bullet in the chamber because you won’t get a chance to rack the slide on the street. I take my 357 snub-nose and slide it down in a clip-on holster on the back of my belt.

  He frowns. “I wish you didn’t have to run. I’d love another go at that ass.”

  I saunter over to him and playfully slap his cheek. “I would love to nothing more than go for round two, but I have to catch this guy.” I’m about to walk out the door when he calls out to me.

  “Hey, Detective. It’s kind of hard arrest bad guys without this.” I turn, and he’s holding my shield.

  I stroll over and give him a peck on the cheek and clip the badge to my belt. “Thanks. Hey, don’t go blabbing to your college buddies about how you’re drinking and fucking a cop. You’re still under 21,” I say, putting on my OD green field jacket.

  “Damn, maybe I should, so you can put me in cuffs and have your way with me. I could be your slave ready to obey your every command.”

  I beam a lustful smile. “Hmm, tempting, but maybe some other time.”

  I shut the door behind me and rush down the steps and into the damp streets. The full moon illuminates the night sky with a bluish hue. The streetlights glisten off the wet concrete of the parking lot. The streets are pretty much empty, except for cops on their beat and homeless people scavenging for food or lying around tweaked out of their heads. It’s that time of year when it gets colder than a nun’s bed and hotter than the Devil’s scrotum on the 4th of July the next day.

  Climbing into my 2014 ebony Dodge Charger, my original car was a black Sedan, but I lost it in a nasty divorce. So I had to buy another one. After cranking the engine, I notice Greg dropped his 8-ball of cocaine on the seat. The old cravings hit me like a tidal wave. My jaw tenses finger aches from the death grip on the steering wheel cold sweat breaks on my forehead. I manage to resist the manic hunger and toss it out the window and exhale surfacing from the abyss. I don’t wanna crawl back in bed with that demon again. Greg is lucky he fucks like an animal, or I’d arrest his ass for leaving that shit in my car. I’ve been clean for two years now. When I was undercover, it was the only thing that jacked me up to do the shit I had to do without blowing my cover.

  ***

  The air above the port is tainted with the noxious fumes of diesel and dead fish. I cut through an alleyway between two warehouses. Reaching the edge of the alley, my Lieutenant walks over to greet me. A towering man with salt and pepper hair, in a long-sleeved white button-down, and dress pants. He has to look down to talk to me. “Sorry to bother you on your day off, Lobos.”

  I shrug. “Oh, what the hell, Frank. You only disrupted my sleep. Same MO?”

  “There’s a moon. He used barbwire as a strangulation device. No sign of theft or trace evidence of glove residue. So yes, I’d say it’s the same MO.”

  “And you’re sure this wasn’t a copycat?”

  He sighs. “I’m pretty sure. All the same, I got Anti-gang trying to rule out this wasn’t just a gangland slaying. After all, it’s not beyond local gangbangers to copy a serial killer to cover up their tracks.”

  “Well, if nothing else, we got till the next moon till he or she strikes again. Which is in the next couple of days, so let’s get to it.”

  Most cops assume serial killers are male, but history has shown females are just as deadly, and in some cases, they’re far more sadistic.

  I slip on a pair of latex gloves I took from the forensic kit in my trunk. “Well, shall we?”
r />   He shoots me a smug grin and raises the tape. “Ladies first.”

  “Nice to know chivalry isn’t dead.”

  Ducking under the yellow crime scene tape, we stroll to the body lying face down in a puddle. Giving the Moonlight Killer’s rep drowning is not the cause of death here. No, it’s something far more sadistic.

  I walk up to a petite brunette medical examiner, with creamy white skin and freckles bridging across her cheeks. “Who was he, Amber?” I ask.

  She stands up and lowers her mouth cover. “Robert Stetson forty-nine years old. The guy was loaded. We found a business card for Horizon Oil. He was an executive for the company.”

  “Poor bastard almost made it to fifty.” I rest my hands on my hips. “This sounds like our suspect.”

  “That’s because it is, Lobos. We found a keycard for the Avila suburbs.”

  Another rich guy ganked in the city of Tampa. Definitely our guy.

  I kneel down and study the victim in a puddle of garbage with cigarette butts floating on the surface. His throat was slashed open, shredded arteries and muscle tissue in his neck look like grounded hamburger. The jagged wound reeks of the telltale coppery smell of blood. I turn out the tag on his black suit jacket.

  Armani. The guy has excellent taste in suits I’ll give him that.

  By the victim’s size, I would say he was a weightlifter. So unless the killer is a trained martial artist, the Moonlight Killer blindsided the victim. That being said, it doesn’t require much effort when your killer ambushes you with a barbwire garrote. Even if he had fought back, he would’ve bled out before he got the attacker off him. He was fucked forty-two-ways from Sunday.

  Something catches my eye I didn’t pick up on right away, must be the whiskey or the pills. For someone who had their neck sliced open with barbwire, there’s not a lot of blood at the scene. The killer must’ve garroted him somewhere else and dumped him here. The contents in the victim’s wallet are bagged tagged and numbered on a folding table under a tarp. A brown Leather bound wallet with seven hundred bucks, a black Master Card, and a receipt for the nightclub called Dark Desires. Damn, a Goth bar is the last place I’d expect a guy like him would be getting his drinks although it’s a brothel as well. He probably went there to get his dick wet. This is a lead to follow up on, but in the past, we’ve always got the last place they were alive, so not really a big break in the case, unfortunately. I mark a packet of Nicorette gum.

  A hopeless struggle.

  “Lobos!” A man with an Arabic accent calls out.

  The clean-shaven bright-eyed Detective is Jason Sadir. The brass stuck him with me. It shocked me; they put him on this case. Usually, they gave the noobs the open and shut murder cases, but instead, he landed the Moonlight Killer case. I know the brass only put him with me to appease the nagging mayor and the shit-eating vultures with the media to make it look like we’re doing our best. However, I’m skeptical of his investigative skills. He came from the beach area where his biggest concern was drunk drivers, bar fights, underage drinking, and writing tickets for littering.

  Despite his lack of experience, my LT says he’s a sharp kid. So I’m going to give him a chance.

  I walk over to the wall, his eyes fixed on Moonlight Killer’s usual poetry. “What is it, Sadir?” He points to the wall where the bastard inscribed his blood poetry.

  Well, it’s plain to see this isn’t gang members. The writing is on the wall literally.

  “Just like the others, MK left a verse from the bible written in the victim’s blood.”

  It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

  “Well, sir. I think you can tell Anti-Gang to back off. I’m willing to bet money it’s the victim’s blood like the others. This guy is an oil executive like the last three.” “Detective.” I turn in the direction of the voice, and a patrol officer is standing next to a young security guard his eyes burn with fear. “Be right back, Jason.”

  “Detective, this is Thomas Rickman. He’s the one who found the body and called it in.”

  The poor kid is shaken up. Hell, who wouldn’t be; you work third thinking it’s going to be a quiet night, and all a sudden, you stumble upon on a dead body, and your blood runs cold. Your mind starts to play out all kinds of scenarios like is the killer coming for me next?

  “Hey there, Mr. Rickman. How are you tonight?”

  He exhales nervously. “Well, I’m pretty fucking freaked out right now, officer. I think I’m done working this creepy fucking harbor,” he says, shaking.

  I flip open my notepad with my pen at the ready. “I don’t blame ya. Listen, I know you’re freaked by what you saw tonight, but I need you to ask you a few questions. Are you able to do that?”

  Some officers use IPads, but I prefer the old school notepad over the hinky touchscreen that, for some reason, hates me.

  “Sure, whatever. Just hurry up; I wanna get outta here.”

  “What time did you find the body?”

  “12:50 am. That’s when I called 911 on my cell after finding… the corpse.”

  The body had to have been dumped a few minutes before that time. It’s a ten-minute drive from the club to the port. That puts the time of death roughly at 12:40

  “Did you see any suspicious vehicles or persons?”

  “No, officer. I didn’t. As I said, I just found the body on my patrol. Look, c-can I go home? This place is giving me the creeps,” he says, growing agitated.

  “We’re almost done. How long have you worked here?”

  “Only a month. Geez, what the hell does that matter?” his voice raises.

  I would ask has he tampered with the body, but judging by how pale he is, I highly doubt it. He probably ran away, screaming back to his guard post. I’m just glad he didn’t vomit on the body and contaminate the crime scene.

  “You can go. Leave your contact information with the officer here in case we have further questions.”

  I return to the body. “What did you get from the rent-a-cop, Lobos?” LT asks.

  “He says he found the body at 12:50 am. The Vic was killed at 12:40, and Dark Desires is ten minutes from here. We have a possible location of where he was murdered.”

  “And what’d you gather from the contents of the victim’s pockets?”

  “Other than he visited the nightclub in Ybor, and a business card for his oil company, not much.”

  “Well, then. We follow the same song and dance as the last victim. We retrace the killer’s steps.”

  “I’m on it, LT. Sadir, let's go.” I motion for him.

  “A second forensic team will meet you there in a bit.”

  We climb into my car and head over to the club.

  “I have never been to one of those Goth clubs before.”

  “I guess you’re about ready then aren’t ya. Look, this place is more than just a nightclub; it’s also a brothel. So you sit back and let me talk to the owner.”

  “How do you know it’s a brothel?”

  “Well, Sadir. I am human, and I have urges.”

  He stares at me, bewildered. “Wow, I never figured you for the type to indulge in sleeping with prostitutes.”

  I slump my shoulders and sigh. “See, this why you’re not talking to the owner. First of all, don’t call them that they’re escorts. Secondly, not all of us have the patience to go on dates and get to know the person. Some of us just want to skip all that bullshit and get laid.”

  “Uh, okay. Fair enough.”

  He tried to hide his judgmental tone, but I heard it loud and clear… to hell with him.

  Chapter 3

  The Goth bar on 16th in Ybor was the last place anybody saw the victim alive. I pull into the parking lot and see the club is still packed with people dressed in their Goth attire. Some of the outfits border on indecent exposure. “Man, do any of these people look in the mirror before they go out?” he comments.

  “Of course they do. They want
to make sure you stare at them.”

  After weaving through the line of people, a tall, muscular bouncer armed with a semi-automatic stops us. “You two on the list?”

  I pull my coat to the side, flashing my badge. “We’re always on the list.”

  A big bright smile slides across his face. “My bad, Officer Lobos, didn’t recognize you at first. Go on in.”

  Black and red décor lined the walls with pentacles and inverted red neon pentagrams framed behind the bar. The ambiance in this place would make Dracula and The Devil blush. A pair of gothic belly dancers with long black and red dreadlocks dance on the stage topless wearing skin-tight black leather pants dancing with snakes slithering between their tits; their minx like bodies gracefully gyrates in sync with the heavy drum beats, bearing prosthetic fangs at the crowd, and they cheer. It has my partner mesmerized. I backhand his chest. “Easy, amigo. You’re married, remember,” I say, shouting over the music. We continue making our way to the bar.

  My niece would love this; she’s hardcore into vampires. However, I tried to tell her zombies are the big thing now, but she doesn’t care.

  I sit down at the bar and slip a smoke between my lips. “Give me two doubles, of Scotch,” I tell the bartender who is attired like Baron Samedi, the voodoo god of the dead.

  I scoot the glass over to him. “I bought you a drink.”

  He waves his hand. “Oh… I don’t drink.”

  “I know you don’t drink. I ordered it for you to take the edge off. Because in the past couple of days I’ve worked with you, you’ve seemed on edge, and frankly, you’re starting to get on my fucking nerves.”

  “Well, I am sorry if I’m nescience, but I don’t drink on the job, Sergeant.”

  Taking a drag from my smoke, I glare at him. “Okay, first: stop with the Sergeant shit. I’m your partner, not your boss. Secondly: have a drink it’ll relax you a bit, and leave the damn wedding ring at home next time.” He reluctantly nods in agreement and takes the drink.

  A busty ginger woman in a jade bikini top and skin-tight black leather pants saunters over to my partner. Her black lips smile, revealing fake vampire fangs. I sip my scotch, watching her strut seductively to Jason, rubbing her hands on his legs. “Who’s your friend, Devi? He looks good enough to eat.” She moans.