H.E.A.T. Book Bundle (H.E.A.T. Books 1-3)

by Nicola Claire

  “Another addiction,” I murmured. Then shook my head. “What if she was chosen on purpose? Because of exactly those things. Her penchant for kinky sex. Her presence in the casino part of the club. Of course, once we started looking into her background we’d suspect erotic play gone too far. We’d look at her boyfriend, who happened to have a solid alibi.”

  “A liaison with two women witnessed by security cameras in every hallway and lift in a hotel downtown at the exact time of death is pretty hard to fault,” Damon commented, striding over to Flack and picking up a coffee cup.

  “But entirely believable, if you credit their open relationship,” I added. “So, boyfriend’s out, we look at her boss. Merely because he attends Sweet Hell.”

  “And has a submissive wife,” Damon offered.

  I wasn’t convinced he did. Certainly David Gordon was very protective of his wife. He called her fragile. Easily upset. But when she opened the door to Jones and myself she didn’t look cowed. She even glared at us for not taking off our shoes once inside. A submissive would not behave that way with authority figures, would she?

  “Maybe,” I concurred. “But he’s not our only suspect.”

  “The Marcrofts,” Damon supplied.

  “Because they own Sweet Hell,” I mused. “Because the murder was performed across the street from their building at a time where they’d obtained an extended license to open beyond normal closing hours. Because they are shrouded in secrecy and gag order their clientele. Because their cameras failed.”

  “Convinces me,” Flack offered.

  I nodded. “But not because of all of that.”

  “Then what?” Damon asked.

  “The hooded figure who does all the talking,” I said, still pacing.

  “The Grand Master,” Damon supplied.

  “That’s what they call him?” I asked, coming to an abrupt halt.

  Damon nodded his head, then sipped from his coffee mug.

  “Like the Knights Templar and similar religious orders?” I queried.

  “I guess so.”

  I huffed out a breath. “And yet they’re not religious.”

  “Neither are the Freemasons and they have Grand Masters as well,” Flack provided.

  I rubbed at my face.

  “What are you getting at, Lara?” Damon asked.

  “I don’t know. This is too… mixed up. We’ve got high profile businessmen, prominent police officers, a boutique gaming establishment, and a secretive order that meets in a cavern not to honour Heaven, but celebrate Hell.”

  “And a murder across the street,” Flack added.

  “Don’t forget the assault in Boardman Lane, the missing street workers, and Carole.”

  I looked over towards Damon and held his steady, slightly challenging gaze.

  “You know we’ve found no evidence of Carole being anywhere near the Irreverent Inferno,” I pointed out carefully.

  “But she was seen in Sweet Hell.”

  “Once. The weekend she broke free of her halfway house restrictions.”

  “Then where is she?” Damon demanded.

  I forced myself not to sigh or show any defeat.

  “We’re still looking,” I offered.

  “But a dead body trumps a potentially dead one any day.” It wasn’t said bitterly, but the words most definitely were.

  I moved on. He was hurting. Worried. I understood. Really I did. It’s just that he was right. The dead demand our attention. Carole wasn’t confirmed dead or alive.

  Just missing.

  Samantha Hayes was lying on a cold slab of stainless steel waiting for her family to bury her.

  “The Grand Master,” I said, pulling us all back to the original topic.

  “What about him?” Flack said, when Damon remained silent. He wasn’t pouting, his body looked relaxed. I just think he was unable to talk.

  “He makes a show of it,” I offered. “Raised hands and cries up to Heaven.”

  “The goal is to traverse Hell so you can be worthy of Heaven, isn’t it?” Flack said.

  “Is it?” I shot back. “Dante’s Inferno is all about exploring one’s excesses of desire. In the higher circles it’s personal, pertaining to man’s own lusts and greed. In the lower, it’s desire through someone else’s pain.”

  “Sadomasochism,” Damon said, joining the conversation again.

  “Cawfield was your mentor,” I announced.

  Damon almost dropped his cup of coffee. He’d known. I’d already told him Cawfield had been present last night. And the photos should have told him which hidden face Cawfield’s had been under those hooded robes that had watched on behind the screen. The set-up involving Eagle would have only clinched it.

  But I was thinking it would take Damon a while to get over what he’d had to do in that cavern. What Eagle had begged of him. What Cawfield had witnessed.

  “He wasn’t a member, but his informant knew the rules,” I went on.

  “The rules?” Flack asked.

  “The rules for the Irreverent Inferno. The fact that each circle is a personal test. ‘Prove your worth.’ The member pushes himself outside his boundaries in order to exit each one, to pass the test and move on, but he knows it will get harder and the stakes higher, the further he progresses through Hell. Cawfield tried to sell Eagle’s corner last night. What did he say?”

  “‘That’s the winning ticket,’” Damon said, staring at the floor. His cup of coffee forgotten in his hands.

  “Yeah,” I said. “‘You claim that one and you’ll skip right to the eighth circle.’”

  “How?” Flack asked.

  “Last night was all about the third circle: Gluttony. Overindulgence of addictive activities. Fourth through seventh are greed, anger, heresy, and violence. The eighth is fraud.”

  “So how does it work?” Flack pressed. “Damon skipping five circles in one night?”

  “If Cawfield is to be believed. And I believe him,” I said. “Or, at least, I believe his informant is a full member of the Irreverent Inferno and was not leading him astray. In which case, gluttony was achieved because it was assumed Damon was exploring his excess of desire through the sexual aspect of whipping Eagle. Overindulging in it, in fact.” Damon had been forced to stay with Eagle all night. Until Sweet Hell closed its doors at four.

  Damon made a choking sound and turned away. His coffee cup sat half empty on the bench. I could tell his arms were crossed over his chest, even though his back was to us.

  I pressed on. This wasn’t enjoyable, but necessary. I had a murderer to find. An arsonist to track down. And, God willing, a missing woman to locate. I wasn’t convinced Carole was still tied up in Sweet Hell. But if Eagle had been lured there, then there was no telling what a barely reformed sex and drug addict would do.

  “And the others?” Flack asked, his eyes on Damon and not me.

  He knew too. That we had to do this. Work it out. But he was also worried about his friend.

  “Greed, essentially because he chose to accept the offer of claiming that corner. Putting himself before any other initiate. Anger in the action of whipping someone, or in having to perform in such a way, at all. Heresy, carrying out an act that is not considered Christian.”

  “And that act?” Flack pressed, when Damon just lowered his head and stared at the ground.

  “Adultery,” I whispered.

  “How is what Damon did considered adultery?”

  “We’re not married, but we’re also not in an open relationship.”

  “It looked like he cheated on you,” Flack said, astounded.

  “To Cawfield and his informant, yes.”

  “But you guys had broken up,” Flack argued.

  Damon did turn at that, the brown of his eyes darkening.

  “I passed the lust circle test with Lara.”

  “Oh,” Flack said softly.

  “Broken up or not, it would have been clear to Nathaniel Marcroft that we still had deep feelings for each other.” My hands had
fisted, my words were clipped. I was breathing too fast.

  “I’m sorry,” Damon mouthed from across the room.

  I nodded, forcibly relaxed my fingers, and sucked in a deep breath, holding it for the count of three.

  “I think we can safely say that cheating on your girlfriend at a sex club type scene is not a Christian act,” I said after a few long seconds, where both men ignored the fact that I was battling my own demons. “Therefore that just leaves violence. And I don’t think we need to explain how whipping someone, even for sexual gratification, can be construed as anything but a form of violence.”

  “Holy shit,” Flack said. “So, Damon’s made it to the eighth circle of Hell.”

  “I’m not going back,” Damon suddenly said.

  I cocked my head and took a good look at him. He was serious. Doing what he’d had to do to Eagle had been too much.

  “What about Carole?” I asked.

  He adamantly shook his head.

  “You can’t say my sister is not connected to Sweet Hell and then use her as lure to get me to be your undercover agent.”

  “I didn’t say there was no connection,” I pointed out carefully. “I just said there was no obvious or official one.” I paused, then added, “We could still find out where she went after her Sweet Hell visit last weekend.”

  “At the Irreverent Inferno?”

  “You said it yourself,” I offered quietly, “Carole would have been drawn to a place like that.”

  “Once upon a time,” he whispered back.

  “Look,” I said, glancing down at my watch and then stilling.

  “Look what?” Damon pressed.

  “Is that the time?”

  “Eleven-forty by me,” Flack helpfully supplied.

  “Damn it. I’ve got to get a move on.”

  “What about the Grand Master?” Damon asked. “You figured something out about Samantha Hayes just now. And it had to do with the Grand Master. What was it?”

  I lifted my head from rummaging around in my handbag for my cellphone. I pulled the device out, dialling, as I said, “Death is the ultimate betrayal. Treachery. She knew her murderer. She trusted him.”

  “The ninth circle of Hell,” Damon murmured, his face whitening. “Not erotic asphyxiation gone too far.”

  “It was purposeful,” Flack agreed.

  I placed my cellphone to my ear and listened to my father’s voice-mail message. Just over an hour until the banquet started. He’d already be dressed, probably on his way to pick up his date. I was so fucking screwed.

  Hart was going to kill me.

  I pocketed my phone and looked across the room to Damon.

  “The Emergency Services banquet at the Town Hall,” I said.

  He frowned. “Is that today?”

  “Were you going to go?”

  “No, Marc is, on my behalf. I can’t be bothered with that crap half the time. And you sure as hell don’t like attending those things.”

  I laughed. It sounded a little crazy.

  “Phone him,” I said. “Beg, steal, bribe. I don’t care. But we have to go.”

  “We do?” he said, already pulling his cellphone out of his jacket pocket. I loved that about Damon; when he saw I was on a mission, he paved the way with gold. Didn’t even hesitate.

  “The Marcrofts are going to be there,” I offered, as I waved good-bye to Flack and started for the door. Damon was on my heels. “And David Gordon with his submissive wife. Not to mention HEAT representation that ordinarily would have included you, if you didn’t have an anti-social girlfriend, that is.”

  Damon chuckled behind me, then held open the door to the carpark by stretching his arm out over my head. I could smell his cologne. I wanted to turn into him and not cross the threshold. But then I noticed he hadn’t correct me either. So, I moved on.

  “And,” I added, when I came abreast of my sedan, “I have a feeling that whoever is behind this will be unable to ignore the lure.”

  “Why?” Damon asked, his cellphone already to his ear.

  “Because my father will be there as well.”

  “Hold on,” he said into the phone. “Just a minute.” He lowered it. “And that’s relevant because?”

  “Because I haven’t been to a meal with him for over six years, and if all four suspects for the murder case are at this banquet, then I have be. And for me, that’s my kind of Hell.”

  Damon stared at me.

  “You’re saying the murderer is personally interested in you?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what I was saying.

  HEAT arsonist. Carole Michaels dragged into Sweet Hell. Damon forced to follow into the Irreverent Inferno looking for her.

  Our relationship facing the greatest test of all.

  “Not me,” I said. “You. And if I’m in Hell, you’ll be right there with me, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Time’s marching, you better pick up the pace.”

  The murderer was the HEAT arsonist, I was sure. I just needed to prove it.

  The fact that I didn’t have an identity, as such, was a definite disadvantage. But the dots connected. Including why Eagle was lured in. Why Cawfield was chosen as the recipient of the tip-offs. All because of my connection to Damon Michaels. All because the murderer/arsonist knew that I would follow the clues, dragging Damon with me. Putting us at odds.

  I just couldn’t quite fit in the Boardman Lane assault, unless it was just to escalate the evidence against Damon, choosing a method he’d already succumbed to: Bloodying his knuckles. But that didn’t ring true. Not enough, anyway. It was the thorn in the side of my theory.

  I had to work to get it out.

  Damon was picking me up in half an hour, having to swing by Pitt Street and grab the invitation from Marc, and then get himself dressed up appropriately for a black tie event. Thankfully traffic was light. I was still tearing down side streets, though, and even considered using my lights and sirens to cross major intersections, as I raced towards my house trying to picture what I had in my wardrobe.

  Fashion and I don’t mix, but I was sure I had something I’d worn more than six years ago that would suit. Back when my father insisted I attend these sorts of things. It would have to do.

  I pulled into my driveway like a madwoman racing and was out of my car before I realised I was not alone. My cellphone started ringing in my pocket as I came to an abrupt halt on my front path. My breaths stalled. All the blood rushed from my head. I wanted to puke.

  “Hello, Sport,” Carl said conversationally, standing up from my front steps and sweeping his eyes over my frame. He looked OK. Not good, but OK. Clean clothes, cleanly shaved. He’d lost some weight; probably had needed to, but this looked harried, not controlled. His shoulders slouched slightly; an unconscious stance that said more than his cared for clothing ever could. Who had been feeding him? Housing him? Watching out for him? Where had he been? “Caught you in a bit of a hurry, I see. This won’t take long,” he added.

  My cellphone stopped ringing, the call diverting to voice-mail, no doubt. Silence echoed in my little suburban street.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, but my words were mere whispers on the wind.

  “You got a bullseye,” he said in his gruff and familiar voice, ignoring the waver in my tone completely. “Right on your forehead, Keen. It’s getting larger and larger the longer it takes you to get this.”

  “Get what?”

  “Everything.” Carl wasn’t the same. I’d known this the moment I’d realised he’d been killing his former informants off one by one, culminating in the great staged hanging that was the Crown Prosecutor. He’d been cleaning up the streets. Protecting me from a hit Simon Kahui had ordered. A hit carried out by Carl’s former informants. Now deceased.

  I had a thought. A not altogether pleasant one. It certainly would throw a spanner in the works regarding my theory, that was for sure.

  “Did you kill Samantha Hayes?” I asked, my right
hand unbuttoning my jacket, making access to my gun in its shoulder holster easier to gain.

  Carl tracked the movement like a hungry hawk eyeing an ignorant rodent. I’d not always been so far beneath his disdain.

  “You’re not getting it, Sport,” he said, shaking his head with obvious disappointment. “The world doesn’t revolve around just you.”

  Well, that was putting it bluntly.

  “Do you know who did it, then?”

  “Knowledge is a powerful thing,” he said, as I heard the distinct sound of Damon’s HEAT truck turn into the street. “I know it’s not just about revenge. I know it’s not just about evading capture. I know it’s not just about the nine circles of Hell.”

  Damon’s car pulled up to the curb behind us. I heard him get out of the truck and carefully close his door. I held a hand up, to the side and behind me, telling him to stay where he was. To not come any closer. Carl was a loose cannon. A loose cannon that was misfiring.

  Carl’s eyes lifted over my head; he must have been looking at Damon. I wasn’t going to turn around, place my back to my old partner. I’d keep him firmly in my sights.

  “Then what is it about?” I asked.

  He chuckled. A sound so familiar and heartbreaking at the same time.

  “You need to take care, Sport,” he said softly. I didn’t relax my rigid frame at his concerned tone of voice. “What is it I used to say?”

  Jesus, that was an open ended question. What didn’t he say?

  “‘If it’s not one, it’s the other. And if it’s not the other, it’s something else.’”

  And then he smiled, as if he hadn’t just given me a shitload of cryptic nothing, and reached up to tip an imaginary hat at Damon. Then he started to walk off.

  I took a step toward him. His shoulders stiffened. Just a little, just enough for me to tell he was unsure of what I would do next. My hand went for my gun. He didn’t stop walking; out the front gate, passed a silently watching Damon, and off down the cracked concrete sidewalk.

  I turned enough to follow his progress. My heart pounding. My throat dry. My chest so tight it hurt.