Dead Sexy Read Free Page A

the phone. She frowned into the receiver. ‘There’s no dial tone,’ she said.
    ‘Whaddya know. Looks like they haven’t organised the connectage yet. Wanna borrow the mobile? Off-peak rates.’
    ‘Oh forget it,’ she said crossly. ‘Who would I call? I don’t even
have
a lawyer. And it’s what’—she looked up at the clock on the wall—‘nearly one in the morning.’
    ‘You could call Fox at the station.’
    ‘Yeah, right.’ Nicola shook her head. ‘Hello, Fox? I know you think I’m supposed to be home but I’m being questioned by a cop because he thinks I killed Johnny—you know, the fellow I promised you I wouldn’t see any more—in an act of erotic asphyxiation.’
    Da Mann rubbed his hands together. ‘Who said anything about erotic asphyxiation?’
    Nicola bit her lip. Da Mann imagined those lips moving up Johnny B. Wright’s inner thighs. He spread his legs a little wider. ‘Tell me about “erotic asphyxiation”,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure if I’m entirely familiar with the concept.’
    Nicola scrunched up her face. ‘I’m in trouble, aren’t I?’ she whispered. The truth was, she’d been in trouble from the day she met Johnny.
    ‘Maybe you are. Maybe you’re not. All I know is that I found you with a strangulated stiff, you claim you didn’t do it, and you say your boyfriend didn’t do it either because he was working. Well, I happen to have seen someone who looked an awful lot like the guy in the photo lurking round the building tonight.’
    Nicola swallowed dryly. ‘That’s funny,’ she said after a pause.
    ‘Funny odd or funny ha ha?’
    ‘Funny odd.’ She’d had a sense that Fox had been there, somehow. She’d felt his presence when she’d left the building, but put it down to guilt. Was he…? Could he have…?
    She realised that Mann was speaking to her. ‘There are tourists and there are travellers. Tourists ride coaches, travellers take buses. Tourists take photos, travellers write journals. Tourists want to see the sightage. They all end up at the Opera House. Travellers want to go to the places no one else knows about. Theyall end up on Bondi Beach. What about you, Nicola? Are you a tourist or a traveller? Sexually speaking?’ He smiled, a perverse vision dancing before his eyes of her tied up, naked except for stockings and those wicked shoes, gagged and blindfolded, and being expertly aroused by Johnny B. Wright.
    ‘Pardon?’ She gulped. His tone was creepy; if he hadn’t been a policeman she’d have been scared. She wasn’t quite following. Maybe she missed something. The air conditioning was making her feel like a recipe for gazpacho. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Could we continue this some other time? Or am I under arrest?’
    Detective Mann leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and locked his fingers together under his chin. ‘Yeah. We can continue tomorrow—but I need some more detailage from you first. And no, you’re not under arrest. Tell me once more like you mean it, though—should you be?’
    When Nicola got home to her one-bedroom flat in Potts Point, she switched on the light. Fox’s red braces were draped over the back of the chair in the entryway.
    ‘Hey, honey.’ Fox’s sleepy voice greeted her from the next room.
    ‘Fox,’ she cried, startled, immediately killing the light. ‘I, uh, didn’t know you’d be here!’
    ‘I swapped shifts with Vince. He’s got some family thing in Woy Woy he needs to go to on the weekend.’
    ‘Woy Woy,’ she repeated.
    ‘Come to bed, Nic.’ His voice sounded unusually stern. ‘Please?’ he added, more by way of command than plea.
    Nicola hesitated. ‘I’m just going to have a shower first. Be right there.’
    She shucked off her clothes and stuffed them into the laundry hamper. Under the hot jet, Nicola scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. Tears poured down her face and she washed them away as well. Drying herself with a big fluffy towel, she patted her