Dahlia's Kiss

“You could just ask me my name,” I spoke, trying my best to look cross.

“Praise the angels, she speaks!” Tally threw his hands up as if in church.

“Shutting her up is the hard part,” Sterling added, gripping me by the elbow to lead me away. “Sterling, wait.” Tally took on a serious tone. “Don’t you want to know the rest?”

I dug my heels into the ground and forced the Incubus to a full stop. It wasn’t easy. His over six-foot frame was like a wrecking ball bent on destruction, and I was a twig holding him back. But, something in Tally’s tone must have struck him.

“Tell me.”

“The perp left a note.” The smug grin that grew across the man’s mouth was intriguing. None of this bothered him. The murder of a man from a wealthy family was just an interesting day at work, a story to be told on a barstool later.

“You’re fucking kidding.”

Tally’s grin grew broader. “Nope. Guess what it said.”

“I’m not into guessing games. Just fucking tell me.”

“You’re no fun. It said, ‘She’s destined to be mine. Any man who put his hands on her will rot. Hunting season has begun and I’m an expert shot.’” Tally watched Sterling with bated breath, waiting for his response. When he gave none, the other detective looked dejected. “What do you think it means?” he asked in a much more somber tone.

“How the hell should I know?”

“Just sounds like a psychopath who’s infatuated with a random woman,” I offered as Sterling glared at me in anger. “I mean, people who kill other people are rarely sane, right?”

Tally nodded his head and opened his mouth to speak as Sterling pulled me away toward the entrance of the hotel. “Keep your mouth closed. If you start offering your opinion on things, people will remember you. And all it will take is one pair of your panties to get into the wrong hands and it’ll start looking really suspicious that I just happened to bring the woman they belong to right to the scene of a crime.”

“Sorry,” I said. I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes. “Is that what’s in the bag?”

Sterling unrolled the brown paper bag and held it open to me. Inside, the black crotchless undies I’d worn that fateful night with the two men lay in a crumpled mess. There were still hints of dried semen in their folds. I remembered clearly putting them back on before I vacated the room and discarding them on my bathroom floor before getting in the shower. I lost track of them after that. I’ve done laundry since then. Judging by their used appearance, I lost them before that happened.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.” I pushed the bag away.

“Rethinking that little rendezvous with the Incubus earlier? Worried he might have been a cold-blooded killer, after all?” Sterling closed the bag and stuck it in the pocket of his jacket.

“I’m rethinking both of my Incubi escapades today. It could have been either one of you, really. I mean, to be fair, I never told you what apartment was mine, and you found your way right to my door. How do you explain that?”

Sterling guided me to the elevator and held me back as four crime scene technicians stepped inside. “We’ll get the next one, thanks,” he told them. “For one thing, I can smell you. Your scent would have led me right to you, but it wasn’t necessary. I’m a cop, remember? I pulled up your driver's license. Handy little things. They have your address printed right on them.”

I felt like a fool.

An empty elevator car dinged as the doors slid open. As we stepped inside, Sterling pressed the button to close the doors with force, watching them close with an emotionless face as another man held his hand open to catch a ride. He was too slow.

“Ever fucked in an elevator before?” I asked.

“Dahlia,” he chided.

“I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

The numbers of the floors rushed by, an irritating ding marking their departure. As the eleventh passed and our stop loomed, my palms began to sweat. “I’ve never seen a dead body before. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come.” The doors slid open with a whoosh, and the floor plan of a beautiful suite opened up before us. “The whole floor is the suite. You can’t usually access it from the elevator without a key, but the manager opened it up for us.” The place was crawling with cops and techs, taking pictures and dusting for prints. There was a man on his hands and knees pressing transparent tape to the carpet, then cataloging each strip once he removed it. The bulk of the activity seemed centered around the bedroom.

“Detective Sterling?” A man rushed to Sterling’s side. “The man’s family just arrived downstairs. Tally is with them. I just thought you should know.”

“Thanks, Virgil. Has the body been moved?”

“No, sir. They were waiting on you.” The man looked a bit green as he spoke. “You said you don’t want the bodies moved until you get a good look at them.”

Sterling nodded. “Clear the room. I want my good look.”

“Yes, sir.” Virgil rushed into the bedroom, barking orders and pushing others out. When he emerged half a minute later, he nodded to Sterling and departed himself.

“You ready?”

“Yeah, I think so.” I couldn’t feel my legs, but he didn’t ask me that.

Inside the room, David lay curled in crimson-colored sheets, the edges of which were white. His face was turned toward me, his eyes shooting accusations in my direction that I couldn’t defend myself from. His mouth hung open, and I couldn’t help but think about my underwear being shoved inside of him. I wondered if his killer at least waited until he was dead for that one last offense.

Sterling snatched a box of surgical gloves off a side table and snapped a pair onto his hands before handing me a set of my own. “Don’t touch anything. It’s bad enough that your underwear was in his mouth. You don’t want your fingerprints in here too.”

I did as I was told, feeling the cold latex covering my hands like alien skin. I approached David and wanted to caress his hair. My eyes blurred with tears, and I fought to hold it all back. I didn’t even know the man, not really anyway. But he was dead because of me. His body was cold, eyes unblinking, and the odd thought came over me that he would never have another erection. What if I was the last woman he slept with? Why did that feel so wrong?

Placing his hand on the side of David’s head, Sterling turned him to examine the bullet wound, and I felt my lunch enter my mouth. I turned away quickly and retreated to the living room to wait.

Blood was totally not my thing.