Lucy Rothschild pulled her BMW into the closest parking
slot and shoved the vehicle into park. Rain pounded the
hood of her car and bounced off the asphalt as she turned
off the Beemer. Her gaze slid to the front of the strip
mall and sought the green and white Starbuck’s sign next
to the golden glare of Blockbuster Video. Light from
within the coffee shop poured out onto the wet sidewalk
while the raindrops slipping down Lucy’s window smeared
vivid color and inky shadows like an abstract painting.

She opened the car door then hit the button on her
umbrella with her thumb. The red canopy opened as she
stepped from the car. She paused briefly to shut the door
behind her before moving across the parking lot, dodging
puddles on her way.

Unless this internet date was different from the other,
she wouldn’t even use the pen and paper in her pocket.
Unless hardluvnman was different from the others, while
they waited in line for coffee, he’d give her the slow up
and down as if she were an Airedale at the Westminster
Kennel Club Dog Show. If she passed inspection, he’d pay
for her triple grande skinny latte (hold the whip,
please), ask her what she did for a living (although she’d
clearly lied on her bio and stated she was a nurse), then
proceed to talk about himself (what a great guy he was)
and his former wife/girlfriend (and what a dumb bee-yatch
she was). If Lucy didn’t pass the slow up and down, she’d
pay for her own coffee. Which had only happened to her
once.

Bigdaddy182 had been a real cheap bastard with a silver
tooth and a neck-hair ponytail. He’d taken one look at her
and said, “you’re skinny” as if that were a bigger
abomination than his beer belly. She’d bought her own
coffee then proceeded to listen to him talk about himself
for the next hour. While he’d rambled on about his run to
Sturgis and his bitch of an ex-wife, Lucy had thought
about different ways to kill him off. Bad heinous ways. In
the end, she knew she’d have to stick to her female serial
killer’s m.o., but erotic asphyxiation seemed too good a
way for him to die.

Two steps from the sidewalk, Lucy planted her foot in a
puddle. She’d almost made it. Cold water rushed over the
toe of her black ankle boot and splashed the bottom of her
black jeans.

“Crap-ola!” she said and stepped up on the curb. She
opened the door to Starbuck’s and moved inside. The smell
of rich dark coffee filled her head, and the low steady
hum of voices coalesced with the sound of the coffee
grinder and espresso machine.

Lucy closed her umbrella and her gaze took in the gold
walls and the patrons sitting at brown tables and hard
wooden chairs. No man in a red baseball hat. Hardluvnman
was late.

She shoved her umbrella in the stand by the door and moved
to the counter. When he’d e-mailed her and asked her to
meet him, he’d written that his real name was Quinn. Lucy
preferred to think of him as hardluvnman. She didn’t want
to think of him or any of these dates as real people. It
was easier to kill them off that way.

She ordered her latte, sans whip, then took a seat at a
small round table in the corner. She supposed it was a sad
commentary on her love life that the only dates she’d had
lately weren’t even real dates at all. The only reason she
was subjecting herself to men like bigdaddy182 was because
she needed research for her new mystery novel, dead.com.

Lucy raised the latte to her lips and took a cautious sip.
She just needed one last victim for her book, but even if
hardluvnman turned out to be a decent guy who didn’t need
to die, Lucy was done with internet coffee dates. She’d
had enough of the men who acted like it was her job to
pursue them. Like she had to convince them to ask her
about again. If this last date didn’t prove fortuitous,
she’d figure something else out. Like taking all the
lying, cheating, needy characteristic of all her former
boyfriends and roll them into one. But she’d done that
before and she was afraid her readers might catch on that
the victims in all her books were starting to resemble the
same recycled losers.

No, it was time for new losers. She’d agreed to meet
hardluvnman, as opposed to some of the other candidates,
for several intriguing reasons. First, his photo on the
dating site was so grainy it was hard to determine what he
actually looked like. It just gave an overall impression
of dark, intense broodiness that she found a little
mysterious. Second, in his bio he stated he was a plumber
who owned his own business. Which could be a lie, but was
probably the truth because really, why would anyone lie
about being a plumber? Third, instead of falling into the
thirty-five to forty-year-old never been married or
divorced categories, hardluvnman had written that he was a
widower. Which could be the truth, or could be a sleazy
way to score sympathy points and trick women into bed. If
the latter were the case, Lucy had her last victim. Voila!

The front door swung open and a man with thinning red hair
stepped inside. Lucy recognized him immediately. His name
was Mike, a.k.a. klondikemike. He’d been her first coffee
date, and the first murder victim. He moved toward a
blonde woman standing next to a display of mugs and
together they walked to the counter. Mike did the up and
down thing with his eyes and paid for the two cups of
coffee and a bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans. As the
two made their way to a table a few feet from Lucy, Mike’s
gaze met hers then slid guiltily away. He hadn’t e-mailed
her again after their date, but she could have told him
not to worry. She had no interest in a guy who talked none
stop while popping coffee beans like they were cross tops,
and whom she’d left with a plastic bag over his head in
chapter one.

Before she’d decided to online date in the name of
research, she’d always thought online dating was . . .
well, desperate somehow and more than a little lazy. While
Lucy could certainly understand why women sought men
online, she could not understand the reverse. Why would
any reasonably attractive man, who had a job, his own
neatly brushed teeth, and did not live with his mother,
have to search for a date online? Wasn’t picking up women
in bars and restaurant or even in the vegetable aisle at
Albertson’s in a man’s job description?

A month after her first online date, what she discovered
was that the men online like bigdaddy182 and klondikemike
not only expected her to purse them, they seemed to fall
into two categories. Those in want of killing, and those
so boring she’d wanted to kill herself.

Oh, she was sure that out there somewhere were some great
online guys. Nice men who just wanted to meet nice women,
and perhaps didn’t meet a lot of single women in their
everyday lives. Great guys who didn’t hang out in bars or
veggie aisles, but she hadn’t met any of them. In fact,
she hadn’t met any great guys, online or otherwise, in a
very long time. Her last boyfriend had been a charming
alcoholic who’d been off the wagon more than he’d been on.
The last time she’d had to bail him out of jail, she’d
finally had to admit that her friends were right. She was
an issues junky with rescue fantasies. But not anymore.
She was tired of trying to rescue assorted lame asses who
didn’t appreciate her.

Lucy pushed back the sleeve of her jacket and looked at
her watch. Ten after seven. Ten minutes late. She’d give
hardluvnman another five and then she was leaving.

She’d learned her lessons about dysfunctional men. She
wanted a nice normal guy who didn’t drink too much, wasn’t
into extremes of any kind, and didn’t have mommy/daddy
issues. A man who wasn’t a compulsive liar nor serial
cheater. Who wasn’t emotionally retarded nor physically
repugnant. She didn’t think it was too much to ask that he
have sufficient verbal skills either. A mature man who
knew that grunting an answer did not pass for
conversation.

Lucy took a drink of her coffee as the door to Starbuck’s
swung open. She glanced up from the bottom of her cup to
the man filling up the doorway as if he’d been blown in
from a “mad, bad and dangerous to know” convention. The
bill of his red ball cap was pulled low on his forehead
and cast a shadow over his eyes and nose. His tan cheeks
were flushed from the cold, and the ends of his black hair
curled up like fish hooks around the edge of the hat. Rain
soaked the wide shoulders of his black leather bomber’s
jacket. The jacket’s zipper lay open, and Lucy’s gaze slid
down a bright strip of white T-shirts to the worn
waistband of faded Levi’s. As his stood there, his gaze
moving from table to table, he shoved his fingers into the
front pockets of the worn denim, his thumbs pointing to
his button fly.

Mr. hardluvnman had finally arrived.

Like his photo on the internet site, Lucy could not see
him clearly, but she knew the second his gaze focused on
her. She could feel it pinning her to her chair. She
slowly lowered her cup as he pulled his hands from his
pockets and moved toward her. He walked from his hips, all
long and lean with a purpose to each step. He navigated
his way through chairs and coffee drinkers, but kept his
gaze on her until he stood across the small table.

The shadow of his cap rested just above the deep bow of
his top lip. He raised a hand and slowly pushed up the
brim with one finger. By degree, the shadow slid up the
bridge of his nose and past black brows. He looked down
through eyes the color of a smoldering Colombian blend.

Lucy was a writer. She worked with words. She filled each
of her books with a hundred thousand of them. But only two
words came to mind. Holy Crap! Not eloquent, but fitting.