"Meaning Alana deliberately seduced Gerard James just to prove a point to Cherry?"
"Oh, Alana wasn"t the only Trollop to seduce away Cherry"s conquests. It"s something of a game for them all."
"Then why would Cherry want to be one of them?"
"Because they were the "in" crowd, and Cherry is desperate to be seen with the right people."
"Even if she hates them?"
"Even if." Dia shrugged. "She is attracted to the power she thinks they hold. She wants that, even if the personal cost is high."
And that personal cost might just give her a motive for murder. "I don"t suppose Cherry is a shifter?"
"No, as human as they come."
d.a.m.n. Though I should have known better than to hope things would fall into place that neatly. "Have you seen Cherry recently?"
"No, not for at least a month." She frowned. "In fact, she left in something of a hurry after our last meeting. She smelled frightened."
"What did you say to her?"
"That an event from her past was not as buried as she thought, and that she needed to be careful about who she let in her door."
I smiled. "That"s a warning as clear as mud. As usual."
She shrugged. "Cherry was never very open when it came to readings. It makes it hard to get details."
I raised my eyebrows. "I"m not very open, either, and yet you"ve been able to read me."
"That"s because you"re not unresponsive to psychic intrusion. You"re just very well shielded against it."
"Oh."
She smiled and waved her spoon at my hand. "You want me to do a reading today?"
I s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand out of her way. "No, thanks. I"ve had enough bad news to last me a lifetime."
She laughed softly. "One of these days I"m going to do another reading, and you"re going to love me forever."
I raised my eyebrows. "Only if you see true love and kids in my future."
"And what did I say last time? You will gain what you want, Riley. It just won"t be in the form you have dreamed of."
I rolled my eyes. "How can babies not be in the form I dream of?"
She grinned. "No one said the future was easy to understand."
"And you make a living out of this mumbo jumbo?" "A very good living," she said solemnly, then chuckled. "I"m just glad most of my clients aren"t as skeptical as you."
"I"m not skeptical of your talent-just what it"s saying about my future." I took a sip of coffee, and licked away the froth from my lips. "Besides Alana, was there any other Trollop who might be on Cherry"s. .h.i.t list?"
Dia frowned. "For all Cherry"s faults, she doesn"t seem like the murdering kind."
"Many serial killers don"t."
She acknowledged the point with a nod, but added, "Cherry wanted to be a part of their group. Destruction wasn"t in her agenda."
"Well, it"s in someone"s agenda, and right now, she seems the most likely. Who else did she hate?"
She hesitated. "Enna Free would probably be next on any hate list."
I wondered if the body Kade had gone to check out today was Enna Free. If it wasn"t-and she was still alive-then someone had to get to her before the killer cat did. I grabbed my phone and sent Jack a quick message, asking him to haul in both Enna and Cherry, then pulled a piece of banana cake toward me and scooped up a spoonful. It was, as usual, delicious. This had to be the one place in Melbourne where I"d choose banana over chocolate any day. "Don"t suppose you"d know where Enna is today?"
"No, but there"s an invitation-only charity fund-raiser happening over at Sparkies this evening, and I know some of the Trollops are attending that. Apparently, there"s going to be some good man-meat there. Alana"s words, not mine."
I snorted softly. "You know, if a man said that about a woman, there"d be an uproar."
"The world is warped," she agreed, then waved her spoon at me. "You want to get into that shindig?"
"If you can get me in, yes."
"Risa, can you get Mommy"s phone out of her bag, please?"
The little girl leaned sideways, dug into the patent leather handbag sitting beside her, pulled out the phone, and handed it across. Then she gave me a cheeky grin and said, "Cake, please."
"Come here then, monster."
She scooted around, and I fed her cake while Dia made her call.
"Done," she said, after a few minutes. "And that"s enough cake for you, little one."
Risa"s pout lasted for all of two seconds, then she scooted back around the table again to finish off her c.o.ke.
"The ticket will be waiting at the door. The cost is five hundred."
I just about choked. "G.o.d, I"m glad the Directorate will be paying for it."
"You"re just lucky it"s one of the cheap functions. Some of the others can be a grand or two."
Thankfully, tonight"s event wasn"t one of those, because Jack"s reaction would not have been pretty. "Have you got Cherry"s address?"
"Not on me, but I can phone it through once I get home." She paused, and sipped her coffee. "Would you like a list of all the Trollops?"
"That would be great."
I dug into my bag, then handed over a small notebook and pen. She scrawled in fourteen names, then handed both the pan and book back. "Anything else?"
"What does Enna look like?"
Dia smiled. "I thought you might have guessed that."
I raised my eyebrow. "Blond hair, blue eyes, and rake thin?"
"Yep. It"s their calling card-even when they are naturally dark."
"Men do seem to like their blondes."
She snorted softly. "Like redheads have any reason to complain. Except when they"re on a self-imposed diet, that is."
"I"ve got a feeling the diet might be ending."
"Really? Do tell."
So I told her about Ben and the case we were involved in, and we filled the next hour chatting away like old friends rather than new-something I"d once thought would never happen.
Of course, as much as I would have liked to stay there all day, I couldn"t-Jack would have a pink fit-so I eventually headed back to the Directorate.
Jack wasn"t in the day-shift office when I arrived, but Kade was sitting at his desk. I tossed my bag on my desk, then walked over to the coffee machine. We finally had mugs rather than those horrible plastic cups, but it didn"t make the coffee taste any better. Jack had promised a machine upgrade, but after months of hearing a similar promise when it came to our office area, I had no expectations of it actually happening any time soon.
I slopped some milk into both cups, pressed the coffee b.u.t.ton, and shoved the first cup underneath, then glanced over at Kade. "So who was murdered this time?"
He grimaced and leaned back in his chair. "One Cherry Barnes. Thirty-four-year-old divorcee who"s been dead for three weeks." Well, so much for my thoughts about Cherry having all the right motives for murder. "And no one noticed the smell?"
"Apparently not. No one reported her missing, either. Her mom and sister thought she was off on a cruise with some man."
"So who found her?"
"Pest control. They"d been called in because of a sudden influx of rats in the other apartments."
I screwed up my nose and switched mugs. "Don"t tell me-"
"Yep, they"ve been chowing on the body. I don"t think the pest controller will be eating for the next week."
"I"m glad I wasn"t the one called in." I plonked my b.u.t.t on the edge of his desk and handed him a mug. "I guess the body was too badly decomposed to tell whether she"d been mutilated or not?"
"She was, but according to Cole, it wasn"t our cat. The slashes to her back and stomach are different."
I raised my eyebrows. "Different how?"
Kade shrugged. "He wouldn"t be pinned down. I guess we have to wait for the report."
"What about Alana Burns?"
"She"d been slashed on the neck, and there was bruising. She wasn"t as cut up or eaten as our second female victim, but both did happen."
"So the violence is definitely escalating." I paused and drank some coffee. It was bitterer than usual, but maybe that was a direct result of drinking the silky smooth stuff at the cafe. "So if Cherry died three weeks ago, we might have another male body out there waiting to be discovered."
"Could be. I"m currently going through the cops" unsolved murder files, just to see if I can find anything. " He reached forward, grabbed a folder, and handed it to me. "Forensic reports for Gerard James and the shoe seller. The DNA found at both scenes matches."
"What about Alana Burns? Any DNA found on her?"
"No. But Cole suspects they"ll find plenty on the body of the second woman. She was bitten a lot."
I opened the folder and skipped the photos, going directly to the reports. At first glance, there didn"t seem to be anything I hadn"t already guessed. "So has Cole got any idea of what we might be dealing with?"
"He thinks it could be a bakeneko."
"A what?"
Kade grinned. "My reaction, too."
"So what is it?"
"Apparently, it"s a cat with supernatural abilities."
"A cat? So we"re not dealing with a human shifter, but an actual cat who can take human shape?"
Which certainly went a long way to explain the arrogance the woman had shown by waving to the witness. Cats had a huge sense of their own superiority.
"Makes trying to catch this b.i.t.c.h a whole lot harder, doesn"t it? I mean, she really isn"t going to be thinking like a regular person." He shook his head, then took a sip of his coffee. His expression crinkled up in much the same manner as mine had. "G.o.d, that"s awful."
"Won"t stop either of us from drinking it, though."
"h.e.l.l, no." He raised his cup in salute, brown eyes twinkling. "I did an Internet search, and the only thing I could come up with was a couple of j.a.panese legends."
"I"m guessing they didn"t say how to kill this thing." j.a.panese myths rarely did, for some odd reason.
"No. But they did say that a bakeneko can change its shape into that of a human, and has been known to eat parts of its own mistress in order to shapeshift and take her place."
"Well, some of that criteria certainly fits."
"Yes. But why is it going after these men? Why would a cat-a real cat-want to destroy these people?"
"I don"t know, but something has obviously set her off. We just have to try and find out what. " I took a sip of coffee and studied the file for a moment. "I wonder if she actually belonged to any of the dead women?"
"Hard to say. She obviously knew the layout of that house pretty well-she ran straight to the open window when she was escaping us."
"Yeah, but I didn"t see any cat trays or food bowls, which suggests she didn"t actually belong there."
"You think she"s a stray the women picked up?"
I smiled. "From what Dia said, the only thing these women pick up is men."
"So why the curiosity over who the cat belongs to?"
"I don"t know. It"s just a niggle."
He studied me for a moment, then said, "You know, there were food bowls in Cherry Barnes"s kitchen."