Pretty Business

Trigger Warning: Violence, gore, and mentions/intensions of sexual assault.

“Hey, girl!” I shouted across the bar toward Ali, the bartender and my best friend.

“Hey, bitch!” she shouted back as she poured a beer, her hand resting on the spout as she watched the foam reach the top of the glass. “Your usual, Lila?” She raised a blond eyebrow at me.

“Please and thank you!” I called back. She got out a new glass and filled it with ice, club soda, and cranberry juice. The clunk of the glass hitting the bar in front of me could only be heard by the two of us, the music of the club drowning it out within three feet. “So who did you set me up with today?”

Ali pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of a gorgeous guy who looked to be in his late twenties. She didn’t say anything, just raised another eyebrow.

“Nice,” I said, sipping my mocktail. “And you’re sure about him?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. His name’s Nick. He should be here soon.” She said the last sentence in a sing-song manner, raised her eyebrows with a smile and strolled away to help other thirsty customers.

I looked around myself and saw the usual suspects. People in glittering outfits, sweat pouring down their faces causing stains in glamorous clothes and makeup to run down beautiful faces. Everyone around me was sloshed, and that included the drinks covering the sticky floor. The music was so loud, I could barely hear myself scheme.

After a few minutes of people watching and gingerly sipping my beverage, I caught sight of my date sidling up to the bar. From a distance, I was able to take in his appearance without looking too interested. His brown hair was styled in a way that looked like it was intentionally messy while his eyebrows looked like they'd been shaped by a professional esthetician. The button-down shirt he wore looked like silk and was half tucked in, the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbows. He practically screamed privilege, wealth, and self-assurance with that cocky smirk on his face.

Ali walked over to greet him, nodding in my direction. He glanced over and his smirk widened. I had made sure my cleavage was on full display in my little black, sparkly cocktail dress. The satisfaction I felt as his eyes drifted downward almost made me giddy.

Nick came over and nabbed the seat next to me as Ali set down a full glass of beer in front of him.

“Hi,” he said seductively, glancing again at my chest.

“Hi,” I said with a smile, brushing my auburn hair behind my ear. This was going to be so easy. “I’m Lila.”

“Nick,” he replied. “It’s very, very nice to meet you, Lila.”

He held out a hand and I took it, expecting him to shake it but instead he lowered his head and planted a wet kiss on the back of my hand.

“How gentlemanly,” I said with a giggle.

“What can I say, I like to treat women like the queens they are.” He kept a hold of my hand. “So what brings you out tonight, Lila?”

“Oh, you know.” My smile felt screwed onto my face at this point. “I didn’t feel like queuing up another murder documentary on Netflix for the ten thousandth time. Ali convinced me to come out tonight. What about you?”

“I’m just a regular.” He licked his lips, his eyes once again trailing down my front, resting at my cleavage. “I’m usually here on the weekends trying to figure out what kind of trouble I can get myself into.” He gave me a movie-star smile and winked. 

“Oh,” I gave another giggle. “Not to sound cliché, but you come here often, huh?”

He laughed. “You can sound cliché all you want, baby. In fact, you can do anything with that mouth of yours and the result would be pure poetry.”

Nick rested his arm on the counter and planted the other one around my waist, bringing me an inch closer to him. I leaned further into him, letting him have the control.

“What kind of trouble are you looking to get yourself into tonight, Nick?” I said as quietly and seductively as I could to still be heard over the music.

He leaned forward and “whispered” in my year at full volume, “That depends.” He leaned back just enough to look me in the eye. “What kind of trouble are you?”

Ali glanced at me from where she was serving someone else and winked.

I leaned back and gave Nick a bright smile. “Sounds to me like I’m whatever kind of trouble you want.” I grabbed my drink and sipped it demurely.

We continued to flirt shamelessly back and forth for the next few minutes as I continued to drink my cranberry-flavored beverage. My eyes became unfocused every few minutes before I began slurring my words and losing my concentration. Nick seemed reluctant to notice as he droned on and on about his trust fund and how he has a solid place at his father’s company; the ladder he had to climb was more like a stepping stool. Or elevator.

“Awe, baby, it looks like you’ve had too much to drink,” Nick finally said, concern overtaking his features. “Let me get you a cab and get you home.”

“N-no,” I stammered. “I’mmmm okay, I wanna keep t-t-taaaaalkin’ toyou.”

“Nah, it’s okay.” He stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me up as well. “Let’s get you out of here. Come on, I know a shortcut to get outside.”

I protested a little more before allowing him to pull me toward the back of the club. I stumbled a few times in my heels, grabbing onto his arm for dear life to keep myself upright. I just barely caught the smirk that appeared on Nick’s face at that.

He brought us to a back door to the club, which opened without sounding the alarm it so proudly claimed it would. The cold air hit my face with a welcome jolt. The smell that accompanied it was not nearly as nice.

“Whr areweeee?” I slurred. We stood next to an overflowing dumpster that definitely was the source of the stench and a good twenty yards away from the crowded, noisy street. There was a little setup across the alley that looked like a temporary home—or bed—of a vagrant, currently unoccupied. If anyone were to scream back here, it would likely not be heard.

That “bed” was where Nick was leading my stumbling form, definitely not toward the street. I put up a weak fight, protesting that we should’ve been moving toward the street where the cabs were. My heeled feet stumbled as I tried to angle myself toward the street to no avail.

“Shhh.” Nick pressed my back up against the wall, blocking me with his body so I couldn’t go anywhere. I could feel the cold, rough bricks scratching my back as I attempted to loosen his grip. “It’s okay, baby. Just let it happen.” He began kissing me and running his hands all over my body, from my backside up to my breasts.

“Wait…don’t…” I protested meekly.

"Just let it happen," he repeated, crooning into my ear as though I was his lover and this was a consensual romantic interlude.

I whimpered softly as his tongue found its way into my mouth and decided this was as far as I was going to allow this. I pulled away roughly and said, perfectly clearly and coherently, “I wouldn’t continue if I were you.”

Nick completely froze. He didn’t even remove his hands where they were currently cupping my breasts. He looked down and saw the knife I had pointed directly at his crotch. “What the fuck?” he whispered.

Looked like he hadn't noticed that the level of my drink had never gotten any lower. Or felt the sheath I had strapped to my thigh under this pathetic dress.

“I have a question for you,” I said, and pressed a little harder with the knife, grinning when I heard fabric tear. “Did you murder Trina Johnson?”

“What?” he squeaked. Very unmanly of him. “What are you talking about?”

“Trina Johnson.” I said slowly, as though I was talking to a child who had trouble remembering things. “She died two years ago, in an alley just like this. Did you murder her?”

“I’ve never heard that name before!” He finally had the sense to release my breasts and made a clumsy attempt to swat the knife away. I grabbed his wrist and twisted, the giddiness from earlier returning as I heard a pop. I whirled him around so that it was his back that was now against the wall. The knife remained where it was, poised and ready to sever what was likely his favorite body part.

“I don’t believe you,” I said sweetly. “And I wouldn’t attempt anything like that again, by the way.” I tilted my head back and stared directly into his eyes. “She would’ve been blond, same build as me, same eye color, same bone structure. The autopsy said she was drugged before she was raped and murdered.”

Nick whimpered the slightest bit as I tightened my hold on his injured wrist.

“Did. You. Kill. Her?” I asked, word by word.

“N-no. No!” Nick shouted the second no. “You’re the first person I’ve ever drugged! Or…tried to drug…Whatever!”

“Psh,” I scoffed. “Yeah, like I would believe that.”

I let the knife sink deeper into the fabric and Nick began to wail. Maybe it had sunk deeper than I thought. Oh well.

“Okay!” he shrieked. “Okay, you’re not the first one I’ve drugged, but I only started about a year ago! You said she was killed two years ago, right? Right?” He was borderline hysterical.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I asked softly.

“Because I get the drugs from a guy from work! I’ve only been working at my dad’s company for a little over a year! You can call the office! Fact-check me! I swear!” Spittle showered my face as he yelled each sentence barely two inches away from it.

"What's the guy from work's name?"

"Jeff!" I filed that information away for later. Maybe he was the one who killed Trina.

“Fine,” I said, and he relaxed slightly. “So you didn’t kill Trina.” I plunged the knife into the soft flesh of his crotch and pulled back immediately, allowing him to plummet to the asphalt under us.

Nick howled, clutching his crotch as blood seeped between his fingers.

I knelt down to look him in his tear-filled eyes. “You still drug and rape women. You tried to drug and rape me. You obviously can’t continue on, and unfortunately I have no faith in rehabilitation. Or the justice system.”

His eyes widened to perfect circles as I raised the knife. His shout was cut off abruptly as it came down. 

***

I went in the same door we’d gone out and was thankful it seemed just as deserted as it was earlier. Catching Ali’s eye again, I gave her the same wink she’d given me earlier to signal that Nick had indeed put something in my drink and I was good to move forward with my plan.

I made my way behind the bar and to the back offices where I knew there was a bathroom that conveniently had a broken security camera pointed at it. Ali would take care of all the other surveillance later.

Once inside, I locked the door and stripped out of my cocktail dress as quickly as possible, thankful for the dark color that hid blood stains so well.

I pulled out the duffle bag I’d always kept hidden behind the toilet in a little nook in the wall and pulled out my replacement outfit before shoving in the dress along with the long, auburn wig I ripped off my head. I took out a package of wet wipes and hastily wiped the blood off my feet, legs, hands, arms…pretty much my whole body. It was a good thing I’d bought a value pack of these things on Amazon. I threw the used ones back into the duffle rather than filling the little trash can with them for someone to find later.

Once I was satisfied all the blood was gone from my body, I turned to the mirror. My blond pixie cut was fortunately easy enough to style after being suffocated by that wig. I took another wet wipe and began removing the makeup on my eyebrows, erasing the painted-on freckles, and cleaning my eyelids, lips, and cheeks of the dark colors they’d been smothered in.

Finally, I forced myself to look at my reflection, at my own face, without alterations or embellishments. Trina’s face looked back at me.

With a shaking hand, I set the timer on my phone for three minutes—five seconds longer than yesterday—and made myself look. I hadn’t been able to look in a mirror at all for the first year after my identical twin had been murdered, but I was getting better at it, little by little.

I was hopeful that the more I did this, the easier it would be to catch my own reflection in store windows and glass doors without thinking it was Trina and then falling apart when I realized it wasn’t. The first few times that had happened, I’d had full on panic attacks in the middle of department stores and restaurants.

I breathed deeply and looked, reassuring myself that I would find her killer one day. The police had let her case go cold, but I would never stop looking. And hey, if I took out some serial rapists and murderers along the way, who cared? The world was a better place without those fuckers.

The timer went off and I immediately looked away, changing into the shimmery button-down blouse and tight jeans from the duffle bag and stuffing everything I’d been wearing into it. I put it back behind the toilet and exited the bathroom, first listening for any telltale signs that anyone was out there. I really didn’t feel like explaining why one woman went into the bathroom and now someone completely different was coming out. 

I came out of the back area, my expression innocent and gate casual, winding my way back to the bar and signaling Ali.

“So?” Ali asked as soon as she had a minute for me. The vodka cranberry she set it front of me made the same clunk that was ignored earlier. “How did the Pretty Business go, Kristy? Was that him?”

I gulped down half the drink before coming up for air and shaking my head at her. “Pretty Business is taken care of, but it wasn’t him.”

Ali’s face fell. “Damn it.” She looked down and shook her head. “Are you sure?”

I looked at my drink. “He gave me a couple facts to check about him. I’ll do that when I get home, but I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth.”

She sighed. “We’ll find him eventually, Kris.” The determination on her face made me smile.

“Of course we will.” I sipped my cocktail again, then covered it with my scrunchie drink cover.