No, she couldn’t. But as the image of that female hanging from the ceiling came back to her, she realized she might need him. Assuming he was who he said he was.
And that was not a given.
“What do you want to ask me,” she said. “I told the operator all I know.”
“What’s your name?”
“Helania.”
“I’m Boone. And I’m sorry that we have to meet like this.”
If they were not separated by twenty feet—and a gun—she had a feeling he would have offered her his hand, and she was glad he couldn’t. She didn’t want to touch him—although not because she was repulsed by anything about him.
It was the opposite, and that was the problem.
“So what happened last night?” he prompted.
Helania cleared her throat. Like that would pull her thinking together. “I saw a male of the species go down to the lower level with a female. They didn’t come up for quite some time, and I had to check and see if she was okay.”
“Do you come to the club regularly?”
“In the last few months, yes.”
Make that the last eight months, she thought. Since Isobel had been killed.
“The female in question—you were a friend of hers, then? You knew her.”
“No, I was just worried for her safety.”
“Had you seen her at the club before?”
“That I don’t know. She was wearing a mask, and she still had it on when I . . .” Helania swallowed hard as horrible images flooded her mind’s eye. “Anyway, with all the costumes, it’s impossible to say whether she’d been there before.”
“Why were you concerned about her welfare?” Boone held up his hands like he was trying not to offend her and make her defensive. “I mean, people have sex at the club, and it happens down there, I’m sure. It’s all part of the experience, right? I’m just wondering why you felt the need to check on her.”
“Females are allowed to watch out for each other.”
“No doubt. But I’m trying to figure out how you knew she was in trouble—”
“I didn’t kill her.”
The male—
Boone—recoiled. “I didn’t think you did. Why would you call the body in if you had?”
“I have to go—”
“Was the male she was with wearing a mask? Can you tell me what he looked like?”
She shook her head. And then remembered he probably couldn’t see her. “No mask, but he had sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see his eyes. He was also wearing a black skull cap pulled low. He was big, bigger than you.” It seemed odd to use the male’s body as a comparison, as if she had crossed some line of propriety. “He carried her down there while they were kissing. That’s all I know.”
“How long was it until you went to check on them?”
Helania was unaware of deciding to lower her gun. One moment it was still pointed at his chest; the next it was settled down by her leg.
“I should have gone sooner.” She felt her shoulders slump under her cloak. “I let them go for too long.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.” She’d gotten distracted searching the crowd for other signs of unrest or danger. “I was people watching. I didn’t . . . I should have gone sooner.”
“Can you give me any idea of how long it was?”
“It might have been well over an hour, but it could have been longer. I thought I smelled the blood, you see.” In her mind, Helania replayed her descent down those stairs step by step. “I caught the scent emanating from the basement and had to follow it.”
“Were you here with anybody?”
“No, I only come on my own.”
The male—
Boone—crossed his arms over his chest, and didn’t that make him look even bigger. Especially as he frowned. “Do you have any specialized training?”
“What do you mean?”
“As in self-defense? You said in the message you left that there had been another victim. And yet you went down there, away from the crowd, to track the scent of blood. Weren’t you worried about your personal safety?”
She pictured Isobel clear as day. “Not at that time, no. I was only worried about her.”
The female was either blindly heroic . . . or utterly reckless, Boone decided as he stared into the shadows thrown by the old building. Thanks to his eyes adjusting, he could make out her form, the black of her cloak offering a subtle contrast to the density of the rest of the darkness she had hidden herself in. She