Rise of the Dunamy (11 page)

21

S
ofia knew that Lucian was a playboy, but never really understood to what level until she saw his condo. From the outside, the building was nice enough. It was a very new, very clean building that sat towards the center of the quaint community. The top floor appeared to have been split into two penthouse condos. Each had a balcony that ran the full length of the short side of the building, around both corners, and halfway down the front and back sides of the building. The most appealing quality was really the location. The building was walking distance from nearly everything you could need. There were numerous restaurants, a grocery store, pharmacy, and nearly any other shop or store that she could imagine. But it wasn’t until Lucian took her into his half of the penthouse that she realized how spectacular the building was.

The doorway opened into an enormous living room. To the right was where the sofa and two large recliners sat, each with a perfect line of sight to the huge flat-screen television that hung on the wall. To the left was what appeared to be a dining area that had been converted to a dedicated computer space. A large desk housed an oversized monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. There were various nooks that held a variety of speakers and plastic covers to a multitude of games and programs, and a door on the bottom that Sofia was sure held some elaborately built computer. But the most impressive piece in the room was a huge salt-water aquarium that teemed with a variety of beautifully-colored fish. Based on the appearance of the tank, it was clear that Lucian took excellent care of it. There was hardly any sign of algae and the glass was cleaned beautifully. Sofia marveled at the tank for a few moments before turning her attention to the rest of the apartment.

A row of large windows and a sliding glass door led out to the balcony that provided both rooms with a beautiful view of the bustling community below. The kitchen was beyond the computer area. It was lined with beautifully stained cherry cabinets and granite counter tops. One thing Sofia found to be impressive was how clean the apartment was. There wasn’t a sign of even the first piece of stray clothing lying about. Sofia was truly in awe as she looked around the elegant space. She hadn’t even realized that she had allowed her mouth to drop open as she panned the room.

“Lucian, this is beautiful.” Sofia gasped. Lucian looked around as he nodded his head. “I agree. Thank you for noticing.” He replied casually. Sofia laughed quietly at his response.

“How very modest of you.”

“Well, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I live in some shack. I mean, I know this place is amazing; that’s why I live here. At least I said thank you.” Lucian’s response was very deliberate and seemingly well thought out. It was the sort of response that Sofia had grown to expect from him.

“I’m not about to get into how much money you make, but I will say that I am very surprised that you can afford this.” Sofia joked as she continued to peruse the knick-knacks that drew the room together.

“Well, I really enjoy the work that I do with the medical examiner’s office, but that isn’t really the only work I do. They allow me some pretty flexible hours and I do some freelance stuff that pays pretty well. Plus, Shane does what he can.”

“Is he here?” Sofia wondered out loud.

“He is. If he’s not out by the time we roll back through this room, I’ll go get him. For now, we can take a look at my room.” Lucian held his arm out to direct Sofia to the hallway across the room that ran beside the kitchen.

Judging from what she had already seen, Sofia’s expectations for the master bedroom were extremely high, and she was not disappointed with what she saw. The first, and most obvious, feature of the room was the amount of space. A king-sized, cherry wood, sleigh bed sprawled along the wall to Sofia’s right. Across from it was yet another oversized flat-screen television that hung neatly against a large section of wall that jutted into the room. Past the bed, the room opened into a large sitting area that had been decorated with two beautiful dark red leather antique reading chairs that shared a small, marble-topped pedestal table. They reminded Sofia of the type of chairs two old Englishmen might have in their office, where they would smoke their pipes and read the news. The chairs were positioned facing the large windows that continued the pattern from the kitchen and dining area. The treatments were pulled to the sides, framing the stunning view of the tiny community and the more distant high-rise towers of downtown Atlanta.

Sofia couldn’t help but wonder about the need for the additional chair. Was it so common for Lucian to bring women home with him that it justified an additional piece of furniture to accommodate them? Or was it simply there for a sense of balance or symmetry? Sofia realized that it was highly likely that Shane had spent more time in the extra chair since he and Lucian were so close, but she couldn’t shake the idea of how many other women had shared that view with Lucian. She continued to debate the purpose as she continued her tour of the stunning room.

As she rounded the corner of the large portion of wall that came into the room, it’s purpose was unveiled. Two large Venetian doors allowed a glimpse into the most immaculate walk-in closet she had ever seen. Everything in the closet was neatly arranged, including exquisite mahogany organizational boxes that had been filled by various odds and ends. There were numerous individual shoe racks, all filled with designer dress shoes and sneakers. Sofia had always admired Lucian’s sense of style, but hadn’t really noticed how extravagant his wardrobe seemed to be. A number of built in drawers housed various different undershirts, socks and underwear as well as an extensive collection of both watches and sunglasses. A large tabletop surface was fitted with a personal mirror that made for an ideal grooming station right inside the closet. An impressive collection of neatly pressed clothes hung above it all. Everything was sorted according to a variety of different specifications and spaced the perfect distance apart keeping them in pristine condition until the time that they were to be worn. Above all of this ran a shelf filled with designer hats and baseball caps. The shelf sat at a downward angle, allowing for maximum visibility as well as accessibility. The hats spanned the color spectrum several times over and included a number of different styles to fit any occasion. All in all, this was truly the most amazing room that Sofia had ever seen in any home she had ever entered.

“My God, this is a nice closet,” she said as she stepped inside to inspect it more closely.

“I know, right?” He replied, fully aware of the effect that his elaborate closet had on women.

“This is so much nicer than any room in my entire apartment, let alone my closet. I mean, I don’t wear that many different outfits so I don’t really need much, but this really makes me want a nicer closet. I could put so much stuff in here.” Sofia thought back to her own closet and how much junk she had shoved into it. She had never been very organized away from work, and her closet was a clear representation of that. Most of her work clothes ended up scattered throughout the room on every clean, flat surface she could find when she returned from doing laundry. Her closet was more of a place she packed with every random item she had accumulated over the years than clothing.

“On second thought, it wouldn’t matter how much space I had – it would probably end up filled with junk.”

“Oh, like hell it would!” The thought of his closet in a state of disarray made Lucian cringe. “Mm mmm,” He said shaking his head slowly with a scowl. “Nope. No junk makes it in there. Honestly, it wouldn’t even be up to you. I’d have your stuff straightened before you knew what was going on. I can’t stand a mess in my house.”

Sofia felt a thrill as she considered the possibility of living with Lucian. As they left the closet and entered the master bathroom, Sofia could see what Lucian meant. The entire bathroom was spotless. The tile, the sinks, the jacuzzi and stand-alone shower had all been cleaned recently. The smell of cleanser was still lingering in the air.

“Someone was trying to make a good impression,” Sofia joked as she looked around the room.

“How so?” Lucian responded flatly.

“Everything is spotless. Not just in here, but the whole apartment.”

“Oh no. Don’t get me wrong, I want you to like it, and I definitely cleaned a few small messes today, but I clean on the regular. I wasn’t kiddin’ about not being able to stand a mess. I clean this place every four or five days. I’m not full on OCD about it, but I like the place to stay tidy.” Sofia thought for a minute and realized she couldn’t remember the last time she had cleaned her apartment and couldn’t imagine what Lucian would say if he saw the piles of clothes and dishes that had accumulated there.

“Anyway, it’s a bathroom; not much to see.” Flicking the lights off, they turned around and headed back towards the living room. Sofia took another glance at the closet as they passed, shaking her head at the level of detail that had gone into the setup.

“There’s no way you’re already done,” came a voice from the kitchen as they exited the hallway. Sofia’s head snapped around quickly to find the source. A lanky, clean-cut black man stood in the kitchen preparing coffee.

“There you are,” Lucian replied with a smile. “Sofia, this is Shane.” Each extended their hand over the bar as they greeted one another.

“Shane Betts. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Shane extended his beautifully manicured hand in Sofia’s direction. Sofia instantly realized how much more attention Shane paid to his hands than she did.

“I’m Sofia. Very nice to finally meet you, Shane.”

“There’s just no way you’re already past that closet. I just heard you guys come in a few minutes ago.”

“Yup. She didn’t really dig it, man.”

“I liked it!” She protested. “ I’ve just never really paid that much attention to that sort of thing. I could definitely get used to a closet like that, though. Especially if you’re going to be the one keeping it clean.”

“No doubt about that,” Shane replied smugly. “That man is nothing if not orderly. I’m clean and all, but I only wish I could be as organized as Luci. So, what are you guys going out to do?” Shane asked.

“Are we done with the tour already, Lucian?” Sofia asked quickly.

“Yeah. I think for now we’re good. I showed off my half. I’ll let Shane show you his spot whenever he’s ready,” said Lucian, with a wink.

Shane added, “I’ve got some projects going on right now that have it a little junked up. Maybe next trip. It was really nice to meet you,” Shane added with a nod as he approached Sofia. He shook her hand gently with a warm smile before taking his coffee back to his room.

“So, we have the whole day, what would you like to go do?” Lucian asked.

“We could take another look at the bedroom,” Sofia said softly as she eased in for a passionate kiss, only hoping to tease Lucian. After only a few seconds Lucian began to massage her butt and inch his hands towards her inner thigh as he slowly pushed her back towards his room.

Panicked, Sofia’s eyes popped open. She believed that he would remain firm in his decision not to have sex too soon and had only hoped to tease him. Her eyes darted back and forth between Lucian’s eyes and his hallway as he proceeded to guide her back. The feeling of panic and excitement she had experienced several hours earlier in her own hallway began to come upon her as she envisioned what was to come. Suddenly, Lucian stopped kissing her as his lips hardened into a wide smile. He began laughing as he peeked through a single squinted eye at her. Sofia pulled her head back quickly with a confused look.

“What?” she demanded.

“I can tease too,” Lucian replied with a sinister grin. “I gotta say, you picked a really bad spot to try and play chicken.”

“Wha… Well.. What makes you think I’m playing chicken?” She tried to regroup, but she was still too flustered.

“You’re eyelashes were batting around like a pissed off hummingbird’s wings!” Lucian demonstrated how fast she had been blinking during his tormenting.

“Well! I was just messing around!” Sofia hid her blushing face behind her hands.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t get embarrassed. It’s cool.” He urged soothingly as he pulled her to him and hugged her. “I get that you’re nervous about it. You’ve told me before how little you’ve dated, and I can tell that this isn’t something to take lightly. I’m not pushing you for it; okay? It’ll happen and it will be great. Just calm down and stop thinking about it so much.” His words eased her thoughts considerably. Realizing that he was aware of her nervousness regarding the issue of sex seemed to take all of the pressure off. “But,” Lucian continued, “That teasin’ business is gonna have to stop. My mind is in the right place, but my penis and my brain don’t talk all that often. Ya feel me?”

Sofia laughed as she pressed her face into Lucian’s chest. Releasing her from his embrace, Lucian kissed her on the forehead and took Sofia’s hand as they exited the apartment.

22

A
fter another whirlwind day with Lucian, Sofia returned to work the following Thursday. She was making a conscious effort to hide her excitement about her blossoming relationship with Lucian as she entered the precinct. She had already spent most of the morning in a rush as she prepared for work. She had spent the night at Lucian’s after falling asleep in his arms. They lay in the bed talking for hours after their day of running around Atlantic Station. She hadn’t paid attention to the time, but knew it was past midnight when she had last checked. Lucian was good enough to make sure she was awake with plenty of time to get going, but she had found it difficult to leave his apartment right away. She ran down her mental checklist of things she needed to do to get ready for work and steadily marked off the least important things as she continued to delay leaving. It wasn’t until she got down to “change clothes” that Sofia finally pulled herself away from Lucian and rushed home.

Now she began feeling the effects of the limited sleep she had received over the past two nights as she approached her desk. The adrenaline was wearing off from being in Lucian’s presence, and Sofia’s eyes began to feel heavy.

Bishop started in on her right away as she sat down at her desk.

“Whatta ya think about getting a win under our belt before we get back to work on the people-eaters?” Bishop asked eagerly. Sofia didn’t have the energy to argue with him and was considering following his lead when the call came in about another set of victims that was being linked to The Cul De Sac case.

Sofia read through the rap sheet of the victim who had been identified by the patrol officers that were already on the scene. He had only been out of prison on parole for a few weeks. The victim had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter when he killed a family while driving under the influence two years back. He was granted an early parole when he offered up some information he had that was going to help out in an ongoing RICO case.

As they pulled up to the crime scene, another call came across the wire that there was a second location for them to check out across town. Sofia and Bishop’s inspection of the first crime scene revealed very little evidence, once again. The only difference that Sofia could tell was that he didn’t have a record as a violent offender. With the exception of the offense he had just been released for, he had a clean sheet. Although he wasn’t known to have been involved in any other criminal activities, the man had been beaten just as severely as the other victims in the case, if not more so.

Sofia looked over the gruesome remains, making a mental note of how much of the beating seemed to be focused on his face and head. Sofia pressed gently against his cheekbones and eye sockets, as well as all around his skull. The areas were all soft, and gave way under the pressure of her gloved finger as she did so. Sofia knew this meant that the bones had been shattered. She had seen such severity in the beatings of the other victims, but it was usually in the ribs, arms, and legs. While the other attacks were all equally lethal, this attack seemed much more angry than those.

As usual, no physical evidence from the attackers was found. Other than her observations about the victim, Sofia was unable to determine any other useful information. As tired as she was, Sofia hadn’t even felt the need to inform Bishop of what she had noticed about the victim. She assumed he would never make the same connections as he rarely looked over the remains for any extended period of time anymore. He was busy making small talk with the patrol officers, so Sofia handled most of the investigation before motioning for him so they could move on to the next scene. Slightly more hurried than usual, Sofia and Bishop were moving on to the next scene before Lucian ever showed up so she was unable to get any further information about the body. Normally Sofia would have slowed down the investigation of the site until he arrived, but today there was a second place for them to get to, so they went ahead and packed up to leave.

The second crime scene was a little more secluded than the others had been, but the bodies had been covered up causing more difficulty than usual in their discovery. The stench that accompanied these bodies was much stronger and more potent than was common in this case because of the amount of time they had been allowed to decompose. This wasn’t the first time they had found victims in The Cul De Sac case in an alley, but the attackers had never felt the need to conceal them as they had this time. They weren’t well-hidden, they had simply been covered by large bags of trash from a nearby dumpster. It was much cooler in the alley than it was out in the open streets which only helped to conceal the bodies as the sun could not reach them in the shade. In the summer months, in full exposure to the sun, it wouldn’t take much time at all to identify the putrid odor of decay.

The bodies had been uncovered when the trash was collected that morning. The trash collector was still slumped over, receiving oxygen and attention on the back of an ambulance that had been called, due to the stress caused by the gruesome scene. Sofia felt a small glimmer of hope as she began to look over things. There were still no signs of any physical evidence, but it was encouraging to her that the Cannibal Killers had deviated from their normal habits on these two attacks. The small amount of hope she was feeling on the situation was still no match for how tired she was, so she again kept her thoughts to herself as she surveyed the location.

The victims were two more low-level gang enforcers and one well-known dealer from the area. The enforcers had been brought in before on some battery arrests, but the pusher had proven to be a much more difficult target.

He had been operating in the area for quite a while and had developed a system that kept the product completely free from ever being traced to him. He had even incorporated one particularly bold step into his process so that every baggie that was used to package his drugs was marked with a symbol that was identical to a tattoo on top of his hand. The mark was his way of slapping the police in the face and daring them to try to come after him. Sofia hadn’t heard much about the guy lately until a few weeks earlier when she overheard some of the VICE cops having a conversation about him. VICE was the division of the police whose responsibility it was to handle drug related crimes, even at the juvenile level.

Most often, juvenile offenders were found with small amounts of marijuana and penalties were minimal. Lately, however, a large number of middle-school-aged children were being caught with drugs like cocaine and ecstasy, and the cellophane baggies the drugs were contained in all bore the same emblem. This was the worst fear for police in every district. No officer wanted the children in their jurisdiction getting addicted to drugs. It was true that it looked bad on the officers that patrolled the area, but their biggest concern was much more benevolent. None of them wanted to see a child getting hooked on drugs.

Dealers were always trying to get their drugs to the youngest possible clientele, and even though most of the schools in the area had adopted numerous programs to keep the children safe from this filth, they were still finding a way in. When the “victims” of the cannibal killers were scum like this, it made it harder and harder for cops on the force to want to find those responsible for their murders. Sofia, on the other hand, still believed that it was crucial that they make absolutely certain the accused was given a proper trial.

After combing through yet another evidence-free scene, Sofia and Bishop loaded up and headed back to the precinct. As they started off down the road, Bishop finally addressed Sofia’s quiet mood.

“Not that I’m complainin’, but you’ve been really quiet today.”

“I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed,” Sofia replied softly as she rolled her head on the headrest to face him.

“Ha!” He laughed with a grunt. “You don’t think too highly of my detective work, I guess. Anyone would have noticed how quiet you’ve been. You’re normally yammerin’ my ear off with every single thought you have throughout the day.”

Sofia smiled weakly as she replied, “I’m exhausted. I didn’t get much sleep the past few days.”

“Gross! Stop talking!” Bishop exclaimed. “I don’t need to know anything about what the two of you did.” Sofia looked over at him, surprised by his response.

“Who…wha…what are you talking about?” She asked, somewhat embarrassed by Bishop’s implications.

“I know you and Lucian went out, and I don’t need to hear anything more about it. I don’t need the visual.”

“Wha…” Sofia hadn’t mentioned their date to anyone and was shocked that Bishop knew about it.

“The way you acted the other day; that was weird. It didn’t take much to figure out what had you flustered. Just don’t expect me to sit here and listen to how he defiled you.” Bishop was doing everything he could to keep from looking at Sofia as he spoke. He had hoped to make her uncomfortable, but hadn’t really anticipated how awkward the conversation would make him feel.

“Well… It wasn’t like that at all. We went to dinner and spent our off-days together. He was a perfect gentleman and nothing sexual even happened.” Sofia felt incredibly uncomfortable talking about such things with Bishop, but felt the need to address everything right away before any rumors got started. Bishop shuddered at Sofia’s comment and the pair spent the rest of the ride to the station in silence.