Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [40]
“Does Lorie know?”
“I’m on my way to Treasures as we speak to give her the bad news. Sanders received the information about fifteen minutes ago and contacted me immediately. A guy by the name of Charles Wong was found shot several times, the fatal bullet right to the head. Sanders personally called the police chief in Blythe, Arizona, the little border town where Wong lived, and managed to get some info that wasn’t released to the press. It seems that Wong had been stripped naked and was wearing a mask.”
“Son of a bitch. It has to be the same perp. It’s the same MO.”
“I agree. That makes three victims that we know of, three actors who appeared in Midnight Masquerade, one killed each month since the first of the year. Sanders is going to contact Nicole Powell’s old friend, Special Agent Josh Freidman, at the Bureau and share what info we have. We seem to definitely have a serial killer on our hands and we’re going to need all the help we can get to find and stop him before he kills again.”
“Before he gets to Lorie,” Mike said.
“Yeah, before he gets to Lorie.”
“Is Derek with you?” Mike asked.
“He’s at Treasures with Lorie.”
“I’ll meet y’all there. See you in about ten minutes.”
Shontee Thomas twirled around and around on the podium, the full skirt of the satin bridal gown she wore swishing against the tulle netting beneath. She had never been this happy in her entire thirty years on earth. At long last, everything was coming together in the best way possible. In exactly two months, she would marry the most wonderful man in the whole world, Anthony Trice Johnson. They had met a year ago, introduced by mutual friends at the Atlanta nightclub Tony owned. Their relationship had started off on the fast track from the first date, which had ended at Tony’s apartment, in his bedroom, in his bed. At the time, she had been working as a waitress six days a week at a local restaurant and taking night classes to become a masseuse. A real ladies’ and gentlemen’s spa masseuse, not a hooker using the term “masseuse” as a cover for her real occupation.
In the beginning, Shontee had hoped Tony would never have to know about her past as a porn star. She had made half a dozen films in her late teens and early twenties before quitting the business and undergoing antibiotic treatment for an unpleasant venereal disease. When she, along with three more of Travis Dillard’s clients, had tested positive for gonorrhea, her agent and producer had been forced to close down production on his latest movie. But after she and Tony had been dating for about three months, he had come right out and asked her if she’d made some porno movies using the name Ebony O.
She had wanted to deny it, to lie to him, to tell him he’d gotten her mixed up with some other woman. But instead, she had told him the truth, the whole truth, about her life before and after she’d made those movies for Travis Dillard’s Starlight Productions. She’d thought for sure Tony would turn tail and run. But he hadn’t.
“I’m not especially proud of a lot of things I’ve done to get where I am today,” he’d told her. “I’m no saint myself. Why should I expect my woman to be? I love you. What you did when you were just a kid doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is that you love me and treat me right.”
“Oh, Tony, I do love you and I swear I’ll always treat you right.”
She was one damn lucky sister and she knew it. She was going to be Mrs. Anthony Trice Johnson and live in a big fancy house with hot and cold running servants. She was already driving a cute little Mercedes convertible and wearing a three-carat diamond. Life didn’t get any better than this.
“You look like a dream,” Tony said from where he stood in the doorway watching her. “A wet dream.” He winked