Heather was glad Sammy was friendly and talkative. The box that he said looked like a coffin was scaring her, though. It was a shot in the dark that she had asked him about strange luggage.
The next call was to Rod in Japan. It was late evening for him, but he told Heather he would take the Heroshi Company Jet to Hawaii to come help find Michelle. He would arrive in about five hours. He, too, was very concerned when she told Rod that Omar was probably in Mexico and had transported a coffin-shaped box on the jet he rented.
Heather’s phone beeped and she saw a text from Mike: “Lookie Here!”
Heather punched on the photo app. She squinted at the minuscule picture that he had taken from one of the roof-tops behind Omar’s place. It was a little too dark to see very well, so she turned on her computer and went into her email. There she saw the picture clearly.
The guy inside Omar’s apartment didn’t look so much like him up close. The picture showed him wearing jeans and no shirt, in Omar’s living room. This guy was shorter, with definite Asian features and an almost pug nose, it was so short and straight. But his hair was styled perfectly like Omar’s, with the silver strands interwoven into the black hair. He could have been a dead ringer from far away. What was missing was Omar’s musculature. Omar worked out incessantly and was a master in many of the Martial Arts. This guy was slim, like Omar, but lacked muscle definition.
Heather called Mike’s cell. “You did great! That guy sure isn’t Omar.”
“Uh-oh,” Mike said. “Things are heating up.”
“You get caught peeping?”
“Ah, no, but it looks like there’s going to be some kind of orgy right there in the living room. Two—no three girls—are stripping naked and taking off the guys clothes. I better stop looking now.”
“No,” Heather said, laughing. “Take more pictures. We’ll send them to Omar’s cell phone, wherever he is. I bet he didn’t count on his double and pet witches taking advantage of his absence like that.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Mike said. “This really is a peep show.”
“Well, don’t enjoy it too much,” Heather said tartly. “Send me some. I want to see, too.”
Mike was laughing. “Coming right up. Give me Omar’s cell address. I’ll bounce the mail around before I send it, so he can’t tell where it came from.”
“You’re the ‘jack of all trades.’ Porno photos and sending anonymous email.”
“Just your basic nerd. And I’m a little too nerdy to keep watching this. I’m going to pack up and leave before someone sees me. I took plenty of explicit shots.”
“That should upset Omar, knowing his double was blown by an anonymous person who might show the pictures to the HPD. Or publish them on a porn website.”
“I’ll see you back at your place soon.”
Wow, Heather thought as she slid through the new pictures on her computer. Mike wasn’t kidding. This stuff was hot. It occurred to her that someone could make a mint selling the photos, because Omar’s witches were very beautiful and very naked.
When she looked at her watch, she decided to go over to Michelle’s place and feed Lucifer. He was used to getting an early breakfast. Michelle always got up at the crack of dawn.
Heather took her address book and phone with her. When she got to the door she gave her usual knock, wishing that Michelle would answer and all the worry was for nothing. But when she got inside her apprehension only intensified. She was sure something terrible had happened.
Lucifer jumped into her arms again and she was so busy catching him that she stepped right into a plate of food next to the door.
“Ah, yuck,” Heather exclaimed when she looked down at her bare foot and saw icky cat food stuck to the bottom on of it.
Lucifer was yowling in her ear again, but he wasn’t attacking. Quite the opposite, he seemed friendly as he settled down and started purring, licking her chin and patting her cheek. She could really get to like this little feline, Heather thought, as she hopped one-legged into the kitchen and cleaned the mess off her foot.
Heather knew she was the only person who had a duplicate key to Michelle’s apartment. So someone had used Michelle’s own key to try to feed Lucifer. That person knew that Lucifer would attack, so they had pushed the food just inside the doorway and left.
As far as Heather was concerned, it was proof that Michelle was gone—probably abducted. But someone wanted to keep the cat alive. Someone who knew that the cat was valuable because of its prior training as an attack animal. That someone could only be Omar.
Considering the amount of food in the plate, Lucifer hadn’t eaten much, if anything, Heather thought, when she went back and looked inside the dish. She was thankful that it wasn’t gross, bloody meat, but regular cat food. When Omar had the cat he had fed him human body parts, Heather knew. Evidently Omar thought the special food led to demonic abilities.
Michelle’s boyfriend, Rod, had identified a human liver and heart as part of the food Lucifer was eating. Heather didn’t know where Omar got Lucifer’s food and preferred not to.
While she watched Lucifer growl, shake each piece of meat, scoff it down, and then clean his paws, Heather called Heroshi Corp, where Michelle worked. The receptionist, Susan, said that Michelle had called in sick for a few days. She had the flu and didn’t want to spread her germs around.
Someone had given an alibi for Michelle’s absence, so no one would look for her. When
