Brian Freeman
Stripped
The second book in the Jonathan Stride series, 2006
For Marcia
Must crimes be punished but by other crimes,
and greater criminals?
– LORD BYRON
PROLOGUE
She slipped the robe off her shoulders, and the white silk gathered in a pool of accordion folds at her feet.
Her naked body became a riot of color, bathed by the neon sign that towered over the rooftop patio. Giant letters spelled out the name SHEHEREZADE above her in flashes of green and red. The light spilled across her skin and painted psychedelic graffiti over the urns, fountains, and date trees that decorated the terrace like a Moroccan palace.
The city lived on light. Garish signs illuminated the valley, but their names told the truth of where they were. The Sands. The Dunes. The Frontier. Outposts in the middle of nowhere. Sanctuaries from the dust and sun.
Where the neon glow didn’t reach, the roof of the She herezade was dark, like the black desert lurking on the fringe of the Strip. She didn’t study the shadows. She didn’t see the man waiting for her there.
The luminous blue water of the swimming pool invited her. She had showered after her performance, but the heat of the dance lingered, and she yearned for the cool shock of the water. With nothing on but her high heels, she glided along the marble skirting to the end of the pool. Hot, gritty wind blew across her body. She kicked off her stilettos and stepped onto the diving board. She sliced the water as gracefully as a mermaid, then sidestroked leisurely to the shallow end. When she stood up, water dripped from her breasts. She ran her fingers through her wet black hair.
This was paradise. She was meant to live like this.
Very soon, she would be able to live like this anywhere in the world. No more sweaty showrooms with chorus line amateurs. No more playing the harlot in the closet. She had made the decision to escape months ago. Tonight was the last night. Tomorrow she would be free.
She wondered if she would miss it-the power she felt onstage, the hunger in the men’s eyes as they screamed her name. “Amira!”
Amira Luz. The Spanish beauty with the dark skin and teasing eyes. Her hair lustrous and long. Her nose sharp and angled like a blade. Her flesh full of sensuous curves. Amira Luz-goddess of the Sheherezade.
Yes, she would miss it. This was Las Vegas, where everything was sexy. Sinatra’s voice. The diamonds on a woman’s neck. Even smoke from a freshly lit cigarette. She could sashay through the casinos and hear whispers trail behind her. Here, she was a star. Once she left the bright lights behind, she couldn’t come back. But she wasn’t going to be a prisoner anymore.
A loud splash startled her. Her heart pounding, she turned and saw a creamy form knifing toward her under the water. She was frozen with fear, and then, relaxing, she grinned. He had arrived early to surprise her. She felt a surge of desire and anticipation, thinking of their making love in the pool.
“You little shit,” she said play fully, as he emerged out of the water in front of her, solid and strong, naked like she was.
But it wasn’t the face she expected to see. She knew him. He leered at her every day in the casino. A horny boy who wasn’t worth her spit.
She knew why he was here.
Amira stumbled back and started to scream, but he was on her in an instant, his hand clamped over her mouth, his other arm snaking around her waist. He jerked her squirmy body against him. He took his hand from her mouth, but before she could shout, he kissed her hard. Under the water, she kicked furiously, trying to dislodge him, but his legs were rooted to the tiled base of the pool. He lifted her effortlessly. She felt his erect shaft drag along her stomach.
First, rape, she realized.
And then murder.
Their mouths parted. She sucked in a breath and screamed for help.
“Shout all you want,” he told her, laughing. He ripped his arm from around her back and threw a stinging slap across her face, cutting off her cry. She tried to wriggle away, but he grabbed her again and shoved her whole body under the water. She felt his knee worming against her stomach, and then he jerked it upward, compressing her lungs. Her mouth opened involuntarily, water rushing in. Air bubbles leached from her nose. Thrashing, panicking, she tried to lunge above the surface, but his hands held her in a vise.
There would be no freedom for her now, she knew. She would always be a prisoner.
Her wide-open eyes burned with chlorine. Through the distortion of the water, she saw the man’s scrotum hanging like a huge pod, inches from her face. She had enough play in her arm to reach out and grab it, and as she tightened her grip and twisted, she dug her long, elegant nails into his testicles as if she were piercing a grape.
His animal wail carried to her ears through the water. He reared back, releasing her. She burst up with a splash and took several long, labored breaths, feeling the hot summer air rush back into her lungs. Her assailant was clutching his genitals and cursing. Furious, she laid both hands on his chest and shoved. His heels spilled out from under him, and he splayed back, landing flat on the water. Amira dove past him. She swam for the edge of the pool.
Behind her, she heard him scrambling to regain his balance. She felt his fingers scratch her leg as he clawed for her. Her left hand grazed the smooth marble, and she laid both palms flat on the tile, pushing herself up. She tried to pull her leg onto the skirting, but her foot slipped, and she lurched back into the water.
Quickly, Amira grabbed for the tile again, but she wasn’t fast enough.
He was right behind her.
He spun her around. She saw his eyes, contorted into dark little dots of fury, with a dirty stare that traveled from her face down to her full breasts and below the water to the black triangle between her legs.
“You won’t be fucking anyone tonight,” she said, smiling at death, spitting the words at him.
“Neither will you,” he hissed, his voice filled with malevolence.
He yanked her long hair from behind, snapping her neck back. With a hand around her throat, he drove her skull into the sharp edge of the marble, where the bone split with a sickening crack. An electric charge erupted behind her eyes, agony flooding into every nerve end. Then, as quickly as it came, the pain was gone, and she felt nothing at all. Her body was sinking, sliding, twisting, her limbs as powerless as a marionette’s. She stared peacefully at the night sky overhead and the fiery glow of the neon sign as the water closed over her face. It was her last glimpse of the city, living on light, dying on light. Her body corkscrewed down toward the deep end. Clouds of red trailed behind her. By the time she hit bottom, she was far away, on a wooden stage somewhere, her feet thundering to the flamenco beat as the crowd cheered.
“Amira!”
PART ONE. AMIRA
ONE
Elonda scanned Flamingo Road with the practiced eyes of a turkey vulture, lazily circling the desert landscape and hunting for prey. She spotted her quarry a half block from the Oasis casino and sized him up.