“Christ,” she muttered. “I’ve gotta get out of here.”
It took a few minutes, of course, to do what she had to in order to leave for the night, but she took care of things quickly and bolted before anyone could come up with anything that required her continued presence at the station.
She called and ordered the food on her way to the restaurant, so it’d be ready and waiting for her, and did stop for wine even though she wasn’t usually much of a drinker. She even remembered Alan’s aspirin. Still, it was barely half an hour after she talked to him when Mallory entered his apartment with one bag full of little cardboard cartons and another holding the wine and aspirin.
“You look jumpy as hell,” he commented as soon as she walked through the door.
“It’s a jumpy time.” Mallory knew the way to the kitchen, of course, and lost no time in getting the wine out and hunting through his cupboards for glasses. “Jesus, Alan, not a single wineglass?”
“Housewares aren’t a priority with me. Sue me.”
“My life has come down to drinking wine from jelly glasses. Could this day get any better?”
Alan had swallowed several aspirin dry, then began setting out the cartons on his breakfast bar, where they normally ate. He paused to look at her intently. “I heard. Couldn’t have been much fun, finding that body.”
“No.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.” She poured wine into one of the glasses and immediately took a swallow. “I intend to drink at least half this bottle, part of it while I shower away the assorted smells of today, then choke down some shrimp and vegetables. After that, unless you object, the plan is to adjourn to your bedroom and fuck like bunnies. Possibly all night. Unless you still have your headache, of course. Tell me you won’t.”
“I expect the aspirin to work any minute,” Alan replied. “And that plan suits me just fine.”
The Mexican restaurant wasn’t crowded despite the fact that Saturday night was usually one of the busiest. As the owner had told them mournfully when he escorted them personally to a cozy table back in the corner, people were going out less at night since the murders had started. And after what had been found today, undoubtedly most of his usual patrons were home with their doors locked.
So if Rafe and Isabel didn’t have the restaurant to themselves, they did have their own secluded corner of it. With quiet music playing in the background and an attentive but unobtrusive waiter, they were almost in their own world.
Almost.
“You still believe Jamie didn’t mutilate Jane Doe?” Rafe asked as they were finishing up the main course. They had been talking generally about the murders and the investigation, both with too much experience as cops to allow either the clinical details of brutal death or the bloody images they had seen all too recently to affect their appetites. And both shying away from anything more personal.
“I’m positive. My guess is, he was watching Jamie and saw her put the body into the trunk of Jane Doe’s car. I don’t know if she drove the car to wherever she planned to leave it, or if he did-and when she came back either to the playroom or to the car for some reason and didn’t find the body, that was when she really freaked out. In any case, I think he put the body in that old garage. And amused himself with it.”
“That’s sickening,” Rafe said.
“Definitely. He’s very twisted, our boy.”
“So his reasons for picking Jamie as his first victim in Hastings were probably twisted as well.”
“Well, it may have been about Jamie being a dominatrix rather than a lesbian. Her wielding so much power over other women, power he wanted and didn’t have. Maybe sheer jealousy was the trigger. Or envy. Maybe he couldn’t stand the fact that she could control the women in her life.”
“And he couldn’t control the women in his.”
“Maybe. Or it could have been the fact that her partners came to Jamie, willingly put themselves into her hands, submitted to her. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get that response from women. Ironic, really. He always goes for the smart, successful ones, the ones least likely to allow themselves to be dominated in a relationship, and yet to dominate women is what he desperately wants.”
“So for him it really is the unattainable.”
“Unless his taste in women changes, yeah.” Isabel’s voice was wry. “He’ll never get what he wants-except by killing them. It’s only when they’re dying and then lifeless that he’s the one in control, stronger than them.
“In killing Jamie, he could have achieved a particular sort of satisfaction, because she was a dominatrix. For the first time, he was able to dominate a woman whose specialty was dominating others. Even if he had to kill her to do it.”
“She possessed traits he wants to destroy?”
“That’s usually the case with a sexual sadist.”
“But not this time? Not our guy?”
Isabel frowned. “Targeting the breasts and genitals is a classic sign of a sexual obsession. But this guy, our guy, the sense I get is that he seems to be… punishing them for being women. So maybe he is trying to destroy the feminine traits in his nature. Or maybe he’s furious with them because they’re too female for him, literally too much woman for him to handle.”
“And that isn’t a sexually driven motivation?”
“Not really. More a question of identity. His.”
“This is fascinating,” Rafe said.
Isabel stared at him for a moment, then sat back in her chair with a sigh. “See, this is why my social life sucks. I always end up talking about killers.”
“My fault. I did ask.”
“Yeah, but the subject sprang to mind. Doesn’t say much about my sex appeal.”
Rafe eyed her. “It says we’re in the middle of a murder investigation. And so.”
“That’s a handy excuse. Can’t you tell when a woman is fishing?”
“You’re not serious? Isabel, you have to know you’re gorgeous.”
“My mirror tells me all the pieces fit together nicely, but that doesn’t mean I’m your type. Lots of men prefer petite redheads, or very slender brunettes. Or-women who don’t carry guns and know a dozen different ways to really hurt a guy if he pisses her off.”
He had to laugh. “I admit that last bit is enough to give any man pause, but you don’t see me taking to my heels, do you?”
“No, but since we sort of have to work together-”
“We don’t have to go out to dinner together. Isabel, I’m here because I want to be, period. Just for the record, I don’t prefer petite redheads or slender brunettes. And I never figured you for the insecure type.”
“And here I was thinking I was coming on too strong.”
Their attentive waiter appeared to clear the plates and take their order for coffee and dessert, and Rafe waited until he’d gone again to respond to her somewhat mocking comment.
“So what happened today?”
Isabel blinked. “You know what happened today.”
“What don’t I know? What’s got you so rattled that you’re pushing yourself to… make a different kind of connection with me when you’re not sure it’s what you want?”
“Who says it’s not what I want?”
“I do. Hell, you do. Look at your body language, Isabel. As soon as you decided to end the shop talk and get into more personal territory, you leaned back. Away from me. That’s not as good as a sign, that is a sign. Your words say you’re interested, but your body says stay away.”
“Dammit,” she muttered. “What was that I said earlier about you making a fair profiler? I’m changing my assessment. You’d make a very good one.”
“So I’m on target?”
“Well, let’s just say you’re not far off it. I am just not very good at this sort of thing.”
Rafe had to smile at her disgruntled tone. “You’re a very confident woman, Isabel-almost always. Very sure of yourself. But right now, at this moment, you’re scared. Why?”