Blood Groove by Alex Bledsoe

lines made her look her age.
    She wore ragged denim jeans low on her hips, with a wide leather belt. The flared cuffs had a stitched checkerboard pattern at the bottom, and her shoes, toeless and with inch-thick cork soles, were the tackiest she could find. She debated between a more demure T-shirt or her final choice, and decided the bright red halter top would imply confidence that she didn’t really feel. It was a bit too small, so it also gave her cleavage and made her boobs look respectable even though she felt hugely self-conscious. Luckily it would be dark where she was going, and no one from work should be anywhere around.
    She had a knife taped to her right calf, like Leslie had once shown her, and a small Mace sprayer in her pocket. Fifty dollars in cash was distributed between two pockets. If she couldn’t cut, blind, or buy her way out of a tight spot, then she had no one to blame but herself. If someone did attack her, she hoped that she’d have the presence of mind to remember what was where, and not die because she tried to spray the knife at somebody.
    And that was it; her disguise was complete. She left a note on her kitchen table outlining her plan and where she intended to start. If the worst happened, then this would give the police somewhere to start looking for her body. She knew one of her own morgue slabs might be waiting for her at the end of the night, but she almost quivered with exhilaration at the danger of it. Would Lyman feel the need to personally avenge her? Would Skitch actually get her job? Would Dr. Francisco speak at her funeral?
    She climbed into her car and headed downtown.
     
    •  •  •
     
       Fronting on Dudley Street, Elmwood Cemetery was the oldest graveyard in Memphis. Its residents went back to 1852 and included victims of the
Sultana
, a riverboat that sank in 1865 and killed an unbelievable seventeen hundred people. Danielle had supervised two exhumations there, so she recognized the address immediately in Leslie’s files. It didn’t surprise her that it was also a place where teenagers might go to do things adults wouldn’t condone. The place had isolation, the spook factor, and acres of dark grassland suitable for all sorts of illicit activities. But she doubted that single white girls just wandered into it looking for a good time. She’d need to find some other people, tag along with them, hope they wanted to get high on the new stuff, and procure a sample. Simple as death.
    She parked in a paid lot and locked her car. She carried only the door and ignition keys; everything else, keys to her apartment and office, were hidden beneath the felt-covered cardboard bottom of the locked glove compartment. If she got rolled, they might take her car, but they’d never find those other keys.
    It was a warm and scaldingly humid night, and for that reason alone she was glad she’d chosen the skimpier top. Sweat beaded on her shoulders and lower back. She fought the urge to suck in her bare stomach. Her breasts bounced with each step; she recalled watching Suzanne Somers jiggle her way through
Battle of the Network Stars
, and for the first time really felt sorry for her. As she took in the dark, gritty neighborhood, she kept hearing the refrain of a Three Dog Night song:
Mama told me not to come . . 
.
    She walked with her head down along the empty sidewalk until she turned onto Decatur Avenue, a three-lane street lined with bars, porn peep shows, and businessesclosed behind barred windows. The light, noise, and traffic were a total change. Not only were cars cruising, windows down and music blaring, but little knots of teenagers, the very creatures she sought, milled about or prowled the sidewalks. Most were white boys, and she knew that once she caught their eye, they’d be all over her. It was not vanity, but psychology: she’d dressed to be provocative, after all. How bright, she suddenly realized, was
that
?
    She recalled other really stupid things she’d