women. Just because there had been no female bodies in his wake didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty as the walking sin he was, it just meant he had a really good hiding place for the—
Asia pushed away the finality of that train of thought. She reverted to her analysis of her target. Julian was, among these many other things, a nomad. He’d moved through seven states in as many months, finding large cities and enjoying them with a perverse and obvious relish, rather like the way he enjoyed his women…with the arrogance only a genius criminal mind could attain. He thought he was so clever. He thought he was miles above detection.
Asia, however, had detected him.
Much to the embarrassment of a few police departments across the United States, she alone had made the connection between Julian and the missing women, painstakingly tracking back over an all but trackless trail, making sure she found proof that he was in every single city on every single date of every single disappearance. Once she had established that, she had taken her proof to the FBI, who hadn’t even known the cases from city to city were linked. After all, he didn’t fit any profile any of them had ever heard of. Rarely did a serial killer cross state lines as he had done, and when one did, and subsequently escalated at the rate of Julian’s pace, he usually began to get sloppy. At that point they would be indulging in their own twisted, worked-up emotions, prey to stressors and triggers that would send them spiraling out of control.
Also against the usual profile of a serial killer was Julian’s remarkable sexuality and control. Often sexual dysfunction was key to this sort of mentality; rape was the only way they could find their sadistic pleasure. But Julian lured woman after woman to his lairs again and again, made thorough love to them, and then…he let them go. He didn’t have a type he stuck to; he didn’t have a tried and true lure. He didn’t do anything where anyone could see or hear. He never left as much as a drop of DNA, his or theirs, to guide his hunters back to him.
How was that even possible? How did women simply enter his apartment, never be heard from again, without leaving a trace that their paths had even crossed? How had Kenya simply faded from existence, as if she didn’t have a sister dying in increments every day because she was nowhere to be found?
Asia’s sister had very likely been Julian’s tenth victim. And if Asia hadn’t personally seen Kenya with the bastard the night she’d disappeared, she would never have gotten this close to him. Every time she looked at him, she could see the last image she’d had of her sister as Kenya had stood draped against that gorgeous body, winking at Asia from around his side, so proud of her conquest as she’d brazenly fondled his ass.
It was pure fortune she’d even been there at all. Asia wasn’t the nightclub type. Oh, she had been in more of them than she wanted to count; clubs, bars, and seedy piss-water places trying to pass themselves off as one or the other. People seemed to have a jones for sticky floors, meat-market socialism, and tawdry lighting backed by music that whined, droned, or throbbed. She had never enjoyed it, never wanted to tolerate it, and never had a choice, it seemed, as she ended up in them time after time. But the night of her disappearance, Kenya had begged and pleaded with her to come out and “relax” and “loosen up” and try to have a good time. What her sister had really wanted was a tough-assed bodyguard in the form of a lethal sister to keep the losers off her while she scoped for something rare and fine to take to bed for the night.
She had found Julian.
A rare find indeed. In a club packed with male meat, Asia’s beautiful, rambunctious sister had managed to pick the one and only psychopathic killer in the lot.
But he had a pattern, just like they all had patterns. It had taken some time, but she had figured it out. He picked a city, spent a few weeks getting comfortable and fucking everything in a skirt. Then he picked exactly two women in each city to do…whatever it was he did with them…before moving on to a new location. Asia wanted to be clinical and methodical about what this man had likely done to those girls, but she still cringed and shied away from definitively saying he murdered them. Not because she didn’t believe he was fully capable of such an act, because she did, but because one of those women was her sister, and while she knew in her gut he was responsible for every one of the disappearances, she had no solid proof he had actually killed them. For all she knew and the evidence showed, he could be some kind of collector, keeping them captive and alive somewhere…anywhere.
This was her only hope.
Asia set aside her night-vision goggles and checked her face in her rearview mirror to make certain she hadn’t disturbed the dramatic sweep of color and sparkles decorating her lids and lashes. The cool blue of her eyes was dramatically enhanced by the effect of midnight blue liner and lash coloring, as well as the blue-violet shades of her shadow. Her hair had been twisted back into a simple coif, but shimmering ribbons of silver hung from it in long coils. She got out of her car, the damp Florida air striking her legs as her heels hit the pavement. She then turned toward Pussy Willows, the nightclub where Julian was working as a bouncer, per his usual MO, as well as general eye candy in order to attract the young, beautifully single women the club needed to lure in eager and recently paid males to spend time and drink their money.
Asia had spent the past half hour watching these girls flirt with danger and come on to almost-certain death, all the while knowing that Julian had only taken one victim since arriving in Fort Lauderdale and that, if he stuck to his meticulous schedule, he had only four days remaining before he moved on. He was probably growing a little itchy for his second victim by now.
Asia was determined to be that second and very last victim.
Julian smiled at the buxom blonde with his usual flirtatiousness, one shoulder back against the doorjamb as his gaze drifted down the line of potentials who wanted so badly to gain admittance to the exclusive hot spot. The blonde was cute, but a bit too tawdry for Pussy Willows, which was aiming for just a touch more class than her overtly tits-and-ass approach to her wardrobe. She continued to flirt outrageously with him in hopes he would give her and her girlfriend the nod and let her in, but Julian could tell her patience was wearing thin after twenty minutes of being unsuccessful. The midnight hour was bearing down; he could smell the coke and X lifestyle on her, pressuring her to have fun and get wasted already. She clearly wasn’t used to not getting a response to her “charms,” and it was ticking her off as her ego took a beating from his indifference.
He would have taken pity on her, but the club manager had already been out twice that night to dress Julian down for his choices of admittance. If Vernon arrived a third time with his nasty, derogatory attitude in tow, Julian might end up sacrificing his prime position at the club door in order to belt the shallow, prejudiced bastard so hard his head would snap clean off his neck. Since this would be in antithesis to his goals, it was best if Julian didn’t provoke such an encounter by letting the under-par girl through the door.
Still smiling, he leaned forward toward the girl in question. “Beat it, sweetie,” he drawled. “My boss is a dick and he won’t let me pass anyone who isn’t wearing designer and diamonds.”
Not that Julian was completely certain what that was supposed to mean. From his perspective, clothing and jewelry weren’t the clues that led to an outstanding woman, but it seemed to ring true to the other bouncers and since it was crucial that he fit in, he had to follow their lead. He wasn’t there to make waves and stand out.
He was also aware of the fact that it was only his charm, his looks, and his accent that made the phrase come off as helpful instead of as the insult it really was. The blonde nodded and sighed in resignation, muttered a curse, then grabbed her friend by the arm and walked back down the line away from the club. Vincent, the other bouncer, liked to call the reaction “sour grapes.” It was just another reference that went over his head and, like many others, gave the impression that he was a bit simpler-minded than
