Free Lloyd Corricelli - Ronan Marino 01 - Two Redheads & a Dead Blonde by Lloyd Corricelli Page B

and found more of the same. It did hold one secret that I had previously suspected; Karen had the greatest collection of lingerie I had ever seen. She must have kept the local Victoria’s Secret in business. There were all kinds of teddies, garters and panties of every color and fabric.
    On the nightstand was her answering machine. There were two new messages, one from her mother and another from a bank offering some sort of credit card protection plan. I opened the drawer and found zilch I hadn’t seen before. A vibrator wasn’t much of a shock in this day and age. There was nothing under her bed but shoes and an old pair of silk panties. I also found some dust bunnies, but they weren’t talking.
    Her desk was covered with schoolbooks and her laptop computer. I flipped through every schoolbook, finding nothing of interest. Rifling through her desk drawers, I found her most recent bank statement. She had a checking and savings account from the Lowell Five Cents Savings Bank. Her checking balance was close to a thousand dollars, more than I ever had as a student but not unusual. Savings was another story. She had thirty-two grand and change.
    Where the hell had she gotten that kind of money? Though she never complained about finances, I had assumed she was your average cash-poor college student. Well, maybe a little better off than average because she did have a nice car and her own apartment, but I always figured those were from money she’d saved while in the Navy. This was definitely suspicious. Was she dealing? I didn’t want to believe that any more than using. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this.
    I looked deeper into the desk drawer and under a bunch of old notebooks there was a black portfolio book like models use. I’d seen many of them when I lived in LA. Every woman I met out there seemed to have a modeling portfolio, headshot or screenplay. I opened the book to a fully nude eight by ten photo of Karen on the beach. She looked as beautiful as any model I’d ever seen in any men’s magazine. I turned the page and found a second nude; again on the beach, this time highlighting her abundant breasts.
    The entire book was full of similar photos, pages and pages of her in various poses leaving nothing to the imagination. There were some really nice black and white ones that showed off her muscle tone, especially her stomach. She had been extremely proud of her belly and had done a couple of hundred sit-ups a day to maintain it. If there was any part of a woman that I found especially attractive, it was a strong, flat stomach. Some men go for breasts, some legs. I was an abs man.
    Karen had mentioned once in passing that she was interested in maybe posing for Playboy one day. These photos clearly showed that it wasn’t out of the question. They were professionally done, and I was thankful that they were tasteful, nothing there that could be used for a gynecology textbook. Was this how she made all that money? I don’t know how much nude modeling pays, but I highly doubted it was that much unless you were a Playboy Playmate.
    As I turned the pages, a business card slipped out on to the floor. I picked it up and looked it over. The card was printed on pink linen and contained only a 1-800 number in black letters. My first guess was the modeling agency she had done the photos for. I didn’t get a second guess as I felt a sudden sharp pain across the back of my skull followed by complete darkness.
     
    * * * *
    When I regained consciousness, my arms were handcuffed behind my back. I was in a forest in a small clearing, lying face down in a bed of pine needles. It was still light out, but the sun was starting to set. My head was throbbing and my vision slightly blurry, but I managed to make it to my knees.
    Two men entered the clearing, neither of whom I recognized. Both were roughly six feet tall, early thirties and looked like pretty tough customers. One had red hair cut very short and lots of