Velvet Haven

Horrible for relationships.
    Not that she’d done any better. The guys she attracted were all the wrong sort. Besides, she wasn’t into relationships. Based on what she saw rolling into the ER, it was better to stay single and wear out sex toys than get tangled up with the wrong man.
    Out in the hall, two uniformed cops were waiting for her and she suddenly forgot all about sex and the irritating Dr. Sanchez. By the look on their faces, they meant business. Serious business. And Mairi had the sinking feeling that somehow she’d been found out. Hell, maybe the nuns had put a security camera in the library.
    “You Mairi MacAuley?” the older officer asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Detective Morris wants to see you.”
    Mairi followed them through the busy ER to the back, where their largest trauma room sat across from the ambulance ramp. A trail of blood streaked across the floor from the sliding doors to a cubicle where the curtains were drawn.
    “What’s this about, Officer?” she asked. “I’m not in trauma tonight. I’m assigned to DVSA.”
    “DVSA?”
    “Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault,” she clarified.
    The curtain suddenly pulled back and a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit stood before her. “I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that this qualifies.” The detective glanced down at the laminated name badge that hung from her lanyard. “Mairi MacAuley?”
    “Yeah.”
    “In here.”
    One of the cops moved her forward and Mairi froze, unable to step inside the cubicle. “What in the hell—”
    “Hell was, indeed, the last thing she saw,” the detective murmured. Mairi swallowed hard when she felt bile rise up her throat. “So, Miss MacAuley, you know this woman?”
    She shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the naked body. Her torso had been used for a canvas, her skin marked with knife wounds. Symbols were carved in her skin, and her wrists, neck, and ankles displayed bloodstained rope burns.
    In a pile on a chair next to the stretcher were a hot pink leather dress and a pair of shiny black thigh-high stiletto boots. The detective followed her gaze to the chair. “The clothes were lying beside her. Her purse was there too. Inside was this.”
    He handed her a crisp white business card. Mairi MacAuley, RN, Crisis Worker, St. Michael ’s Hospital.
    Shit.
    “You remember her now?” the detective asked. Shaking her head, Mairi approached the gurney, taking in the macabre artwork on her skin, noting the black wax that had been dripped onto the girl’s breasts and mons. The stench of burning skin and hair made her want to gag, and she looked away, to the face that Mairi knew she would see in her nightmares.
    Her eyes were open. She hated when they died like that. And the endotracheal tube that was sticking out of her mouth told her that she hadn’t been dead when she arrived. She’d been alive, and . . . suffering.
    “Well?”
    The eyes were familiar, but she couldn’t recall counseling a young woman with fluorescent pink hair. She reached for the bangs and pulled the nylon wig off. A cascade of blond hair toppled out of a bun, and the wig fell from her hands.
    “Lauren Brady,” she rasped, recalling her meeting with the girl last week, right after Mairi had found the manuscript and stolen it.
    “Remember anything about her?”
    “Seventeen. No parents. Ward of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.”
    “The home for troubled girls?” the detective asked as he flipped open his notebook and began writing.
    “Yes,” Mairi whispered, closing Lauren’s eyelids so she wouldn’t have to see the vacant stare. The action made the elastic cuff of her lab coat ride up, revealing the pale, jagged scars on her inner wrist. Nonchalantly, Mairi pulled it back down, securing it by curling her fingers around the elastic.
    “When did you see her last?”
    “Thursday afternoon. I volunteer at Our Lady once a week. She was my last appointment of the day.”
    The detective grunted as he wrote down everything she told him. “So St. Mike’s has an outreach program or something with Our Lady?”
    “No.”
    “No? You do this pro bono? You a saint?”
    Mairi felt her face flush with anger. “There’s still some charity in the world, Detective.”
    “Yeah? I ain’t seen it in years.” He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowing. “Our Lady had problems with narcotics last year. Know anything about that?”
    “You don’t have to work in a hospital to get your hands on narcotics. Besides, the days