city were. He couldn’t see the building being left haphazardly opened so that anyone could have access to it. A great deal of destruction could be done in a minimum of time. That could generate a costly problem for anyone who’d just bought the property. “Did you break in?”
“No, it was already open,” Allen told him. “I swear,” he quickly added.
Chris was still having a hard time buying that. “How did you know?” he asked. “Or did you just keep trying different doors until you got lucky?”
“We figured we’d find it open because this was where the big bash was last night,” Allen told him matter-of-factly.
“What big bash?” Chris asked.
Were they pulling his leg, after all? But there was no mistaking the look of fear he’d seen. That had been very real and there had to be a cause behind it. How did it connect to this so-called “big bash” they were talking about?
“The big one.” When Chris gave no indication that he was any clearer on the subject than he had been a moment ago, Allen stressed, “The floating one.”
“A floating big bash,” Chris repeated. It still wasn’t making any sense to him.
“Yeah, man,” Bill said almost impatiently. “These rich guys, they find these big, empty venues to hold these big, flashy parties. Lots of food, lots of dancing, lots of really gorgeous women in expensive clothes with expensive jewelry. None of this fake stuff, you know?” he asked, as if trying to make himself clear. “Everything about these women is super-real.”
Chris stopped walking, his suspicions aroused. “And you know this how?”
“We’ve seen them,” Bill said. Allen hit him in the ribs with his elbow. “What’s that for?” he demanded.
The answer to that was evident by the way Chris looked at the teens. “You’ve been to these parties?”
“Not exactly,” Bill said, with far less bravado. “We kinda hid out and watched them all go in.”
Chris looked from one teen to the other, waiting. “Go on.”
Allen picked up the thread as they began walking again. “When it was over and everyone left, we thought we’d go in and, you know, scout around. See if anybody left anything behind, like maybe dropped some money or some jewelry we could sell.” He looked to see if the detective understood what he was saying. “We weren’t stealing or nothing.”
Chris used a more descriptive word. “You were scavenging.”
“We were hunters,” Bill said, with just a touch of indignation, attempting to glide right over the fact that they were both trespassing on what was at bottom private property.
For now, Chris went along with the euphemism. “Okay, and exactly what was it that you two big game hunters found?”
The teens’ bravado was gone again, vanishing like the first blush of spring beneath a sun grown too hot too fast.
And then Chris saw why.
They were inside the deserted department store now, and rather than finding the debris that was usually left behind after a building was all but gutted, Chris saw glitter strewn across the floor like the confetti left after a parade.
And over in the corner, hidden behind a long table that had been brought in to accommodate food or a VJ or something along those lines, was the unclad body of a young woman whose color had been drained out of her less than a day ago.
Taking out his flashlight, Chris crossed over to the body quickly. While there was some light coming in through the store windows, they were far enough away to make visibility around the body rather dim.
Chris panned around the area slowly. The dead woman appeared to be a blonde in her midtwenties. There was nothing to distinguish her from any of the hundreds of other hopeful, beautiful blondes who flocked to Southern California each year, their heads full of dreams, searching for fame and fortune.
This blonde’s search had been traumatically and permanently terminated, Chris thought, wondering who she was and how many lives were going to be affected by her death.
He squatted down to get a closer look at the immediate crime scene, searching for anything that could give him a glimmer of insight as to why she’d been killed and why she’d been left like this.
Behind him, the two teenagers who had led him here were becoming antsy. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t getting ready to flee.
“She was like that when we found her, honest,” Allen cried the second Chris made eye contact with him.
Bill added his agitated voice to his friend’s testimony. “We didn’t do anything to her!”
Because of the lack of blood in the immediate area, Chris assumed that the woman had been killed somewhere else and then moved.
The question now was who moved her, the killer or these agitated teenagers. Turning off his flashlight, Chris got back up to his feet and faced them. “Did either one of you touch her?” he asked.
“You mean, like when she was dead?” Allen cried, his brown eyes widening. The idea clearly horrified him. “Hell, no!” he declared emphatically. “She’s dead.”
Chris turned to the other teen, waiting for his answer. Bill looked as if he was in danger of swallowing his own tongue—or throwing up. He shook his head vigorously. When he finally regained his ability to talk, he said, “We got out of here as soon as we saw her. We’re not freaks.” Stunned by the suggestion Chris had made, he cried, “Hey, man, what kind of people do you know?”
“Not the kind that you would invite to a party,” Chris murmured. Taking out his phone, he started to put in a call to his precinct. But he stopped when he saw that the teens were about to leave. “Where do you think you two are going?”
Bill and Allen exchanged looks. “We got class,” Bill told him, as if that was their get-out-of-jail-free card.
His call temporarily put on hold, Chris moved to block their exit. “Not right now, you don’t.”
Allen appeared distressed. “But I’ve got a second-period test,” the teen complained, then all but wailed, “I can’t miss it.”
“I’ll write you a note,” Chris told him dismissively. “Stay put or I’ll have to cuff you.” He didn’t trust them to obey. “Now stand over there where I can watch you,” he instructed, indicating the wall right behind the dead woman who had sent them running.
The teens regarded the body nervously.
“Could we stand over here instead, not so close to her?” Allen asked, pointing to an area in the opposite direction.
“Death isn’t catching,” Chris informed him in a no-nonsense voice. “Unless, of course, you and your friend try to run.”
Pinning them
