Dominance (Fox Meridian Book 8)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘You were right,’ Kit said, sounding a little depressed. ‘We just received the case files from Fargo. They gave the final release clearance just before five p.m. CST. I guess I lost the bet.’

  ‘You can buy me a drink or something,’ Fox replied. They were in the apartment viron, and Fox was going over her notes on the recent interviews. ‘Have you had a chance to scan it?’

  ‘Scan is the correct word. I took a look at the autopsy since I assumed that would show up any similarities. Mister Killian was definitely tortured prior to death. COD was given as exsanguination, as for Mister Winsford. However, Mister Killian was found tied to a tree near his home with his belly opened up from hip to hip. It was carefully done. He probably took at least thirty minutes to actually die. There are obviously similarities, but it is not a clear match.’

  Fox nodded. ‘Too close for my tastes, but you’re right. Go through the rest of the data. I’ll start on it after I call my parents.’

  ‘I’ll put a copy on it and set up the call.’

  A few seconds later, Jonathan and Andrea Meridian were resolving into the viron. Fox could almost have suspected the avatars were masked: both her parents were wearing suits and Andrea’s long, coppery hair was tied up into a bun at the back of her head. Beyond that, they both looked good, if tired. Jonathan had had a little work done to smooth out some age lines and tighten a few things that were getting loose, but he still looked older than Fox, for which she was grateful. Andrea still looked a lot like Fox’s slightly older sister, though the updo made her look a little older than usual. They made an attractive couple; somehow Jonathan’s solid features, blue eyes and brown hair went perfectly with his more exotic, green-eyed wife.

  ‘Did I drag you two out of a meeting?’ Fox asked.

  ‘We’re just back from meeting with the NAPA audit team,’ Andrea said. ‘That’s two hours of my life I’m never getting back.’

  ‘Sorry, am I interrupting your dinner?’

  Andrea waved the question away. ‘Too many snacks. I might fix us a light supper later.’

  ‘Snacks, wine, and the kind of politics that makes your belly ache,’ Jonathan said. ‘It doesn’t make you feel like sitting down to a meal.’

  ‘I’m going to take it that things did not get off to a great start,’ Fox said.

  ‘I’d describe the NAPA people as adversarial.’

  ‘Your father must be tired,’ Andrea said, ‘he’s actually using fairly diplomatic speech. I’d describe them as “wanting to see us fail.” The inspector in charge of the team is a man named Alan Meier. He smiled a lot and promised us a “fair and thorough investigation” of our suitability. He was lying through his polished teeth the whole time. Of course, I may be just being paranoid.’

  ‘They say they’ll be here for two weeks,’ Jonathan added. ‘They want access to every case the Watch has handled and they intend to interview a load of our people. They’ll be going after Ray and his staff too.’

  Fox frowned. ‘Two weeks? They went through Fargo in five days and gave a glowing report. Kit?’

  Kit dropped herself into the conversation seamlessly. ‘Hello, Jonathan. Hello, Andrea. That all sounded fairly bad.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Fox said. ‘See what we have on Inspector Alan Meier. If it’s nothing, get a profile run on him.’

  ‘I’ll check the Palladium databases, but I can tell you one thing immediately. Inspector Meier covers the entire Kansas Belt, so him and his team did the Fargo audit.’

  ‘Huh. Flag this through to our audit team. Maybe they want to take a more direct interest on this one.’

  ‘You think there might be something more than our paranoia involved, Fox?’ Andrea asked.

  ‘I don’t think we’re being paranoid,’ Jonathan said before Fox could reply.

  ‘I’m going to reserve judgement,’ Fox said, ‘but record every interaction you have with the audit team, and make sure all your Watch staff do too. I’ll drop Ray a message to tell him the same and put him on alert.’

  ‘This is going to be a terrible couple of weeks,’ Andrea grumbled.

  ‘I don’t think these audits are supposed to be fun, but they are supposed to be fair, and we’re going to make sure NAPA keeps them that way.’

  17th January.

  ‘Alan Joseph Meier has been with NAPA for twenty-two years, starting out as an officer and working his way up.’

  They were in a second murder room which Kit had set up for the purpose of analysing the Kansas Belt audit team; they had yet to decide on what to call a murder room when they were not handling a murder. Kit had exceeded the initial requirements and there was a lot more in the dark space than just Meier’s ID image: she had put in his family and known associates, and linked in all the members of his team. She was working on filling in the rest of the association tree, but there was quite enough of it just from Meier.

  ‘Twenty-two years and he hasn’t got to captain?’ Fox asked.

  ‘His rise was not exactly meteoric. However, his assignment to the leadership role in the Kansas Belt audit team was unexpected. Our audit analysis team suspect that someone applied pressure to get him the job which means that he has gained some important political backing from somewhere.’

  ‘Hmm… Has anyone run a financial analysis on him?’

  ‘A shallow one. He has a home in Chicago, an upper-level apartment in one of the more prestigious arcologies.’

  ‘Unless he’s very careful about expenditure, he’s living above his means. Get authorisation to make a deeper run. Include searches for hidden accounts and find out where he’s getting that extra income from. Is he political?’

  ‘He has a few vote delegations,’ Kit said, ‘but not an especially large number. He did support both police privatisation resolutions and showed some active support for Wayden during the bidding for the Chicago policing zone. Interestingly, his eldest son, Joseph, is employed by Wayden Executive Services. He’s a patrol officer in Fargo.’

  Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘I wonder if that was declared in the audit report.’

  ‘The Fargo Agri-Zone report notes no conflicts of interest.’

  ‘Huh. Okay. Keep going. See if anything else pops out. I’ll go talk to another you in the other room.’

  Kit grinned. ‘Give me my love.’

  ‘Ha ha.’ Turning from the current display, Fox walked into the waiting elevator car, which was really just a visual convention anyway, and stepped out of it again amid the illuminated chaos of the Winsford/Ashburton case. ‘Other you said to pass on her adoration,’ she said to the instance of Kit waiting for her.

  ‘I believe that copy may be getting bored,’ Kit replied.

  ‘Maybe. What did we get from the Killian files?’

  Kit turned and indicated Kent Killian’s ID image and a bank of documents rolled out for Fox to look at if she wished. ‘The documentation is sloppy and the detective, Gerald Barren, seems to have given up relatively quickly when he could find no forensic evidence to identify the killer. The case was marked inactive after three weeks and there was no additional data added to the files after the second week. The lab work was far better and that has given us the sexual element which appeared to be missing. Mister Killian was awarded a “good citizenship” prize two years ago. The award came in the form of a large quartz column on a wooden base which had his name and the name of the award carved into it. The award was found on Mister Killian’s lounge carpet, along with several patches of blood and other bodily fluids. The writing on the award had been defaced and the crystal was found to have blood and faecal matter on it. The blood matched Mister Killian.’

  ‘The killer anally raped him with his good citizenship award…’ Fox took a second to clear the imagery of that out of her head. ‘I’m going to say there’s a specific meaning to that.’

  Kit nodded. ‘I believe it strengthens the idea that revenge is a motivator. The killer is saying, literally and figuratively, “You can take your good citizenship award and cram it up your ass.”’
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  Fox bit her lips together. ‘Don’t make me laugh in the murder room. So, what are we saying? Ballpark ninety-five percent chance that this is the same killer in all four cases?’

  ‘Given the evidence, something like that. I’ll get Pythia to run a proper analysis and get official numbers for the report. However, I believe we can take something else from these crimes having seen four of them.’

  ‘The killer’s quite possibly a woman.’

  Kit deflated a little. ‘Oh, you spotted that.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Your reasoning?’

  ‘Well, three of the victims were anally raped, but an object was used in each case. This could be a straight man refusing to perform the act, or selecting the item to use specifically. Uh, that does seem to be a factor in Mister Killian’s torture. However, I feel these acts are suggestive of a woman seeking revenge for some sexual crime, likely rape. She wishes to subject the victims to the same feelings of humiliation and degradation, but doesn’t have the appropriate body part.’

  ‘Uh-huh. To me it’s also that it just feels like a woman. Ex-military or police, but a technical background since she’s managed to get through some fairly tough security.’

  ‘She knows at least some forensics,’ Kit added. ‘She’s managed to avoid leaving identifiable trace evidence at four crime scenes.’

  ‘Ex-cop then. Maybe military police, but a cop. Probably not current since she’s spent a while moving around the country and then hit two people in a week.’ Fox frowned at the image of Killian. ‘And she started with him… She started in Fargo of all places. It has to connect to the fact-finding tour. Or we have to prove it doesn’t so we can move on.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kit agreed. ‘That seems reasonable.’

  ‘I’m going to have to go to Fargo.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it should be a good test of your ability to handle low temperatures.’

  ~~~

  Sheela Na Gig was a little quieter on a Tuesday night than at the weekend, but there were still enough people able to work whatever hours they needed to who were into the kind of kink the club catered for that it was far from empty. Then again, the ‘welcome back from the Moon’ party who were there to celebrate Terri’s return were doing a fairly good job of filling space on their own.

  Fox, Kit, Sam, Marie, and Helen had turned out with Terri, and they had needed one of the tables out on the floor, rather than a booth, to seat them all. ‘But I still think you should’ve invited Jackson,’ Fox said as they settled down with their drinks.

  ‘My father? At this place?’ Terri did not sound convinced. ‘I don’t think he’d survive.’

  ‘I think he’s more resilient than you think. Though…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, he’d have brought Mariel along. I think she’d have got right into the swing of things and Mariel in a leather corset and fishnets is probably explosive blood pressure territory.’

  ‘I concur with my colleague,’ Sam said. ‘I believe Mariel Hoarsen would make a truly wicked dominatrix.’

  Terri pushed her fingers into her ears. ‘La la la la la. Can’t hear you. Mariel and sex are no longer allowed to be mentioned in the same sentence. La la la.’

  ‘No one mentioned sex,’ Fox said and Terri removed her fingers. ‘Sex was implied, but no one mentioned it.’

  Terri’s eyes narrowed. ‘I will hurt you, Meridian.’

  ‘Only if you happen to have a really big gun on you, and I refuse to believe you could hide one in that dress. Anyway, how was Jenner?’

  ‘Grey. Everything else is classified. How are things down here?’

  ‘M.J.’s ratings went up six points this week,’ Marie said. ‘Naomi’s guest starring and the reviews have been amazing!’

  ‘I saw Friday’s episode last night. She was pretty awesome, but I think it was the interplay that sold it. All the Sisters, including you, really made it all look real. Your writer didn’t kill the dialogue, of course, but you all sold it.’

  Marie giggled. ‘We didn’t really script all of it. Adrian wrote the scenes, but then he was there when we shot them and we tweaked the lines on the spot. He decided tying us down to exactly what he thought we should say wouldn’t work. We swapped lines around when we could because Gilly would never say such-and-such, but Anne would. It worked.’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘And then,’ Sam said, ‘after the celebratory party on Saturday night, Fox took Naomi home with her and, so I’m told, was very late to bed.’

  ‘Fox and Naomi?’ Terri asked, her eyebrows rising as she turned to Fox. ‘You go, girl!’

  Fox did not blush, because she had worked out how to tweak her control code to stop it happening unless she wanted it to. ‘We… Yeah, okay, we did it like rabid bunnies in the spring, but… Well, we’re both busy women. I can’t see it becoming a regular thing.’ Sam gave Fox an odd look which she could not quite fathom. ‘I mean, it was… so hot. Damn! The woman’s worth every cent of whatever it costs to hire her.’

  ‘You should ask her,’ Sam said. ‘She’s here tonight.’

  ‘I noticed. She’s working.’

  Sam gave her a smirk. ‘Probably not all night…’

  ~~~

  ‘Welcome back, Terri. How was the Moon?’ Naomi, resplendent in a plazkin catsuit with a leather waist cincher over it, took the seat beside Fox and stretched out her long legs.

  ‘Grey,’ Terri replied. ‘It’s always grey.’

  ‘I suppose it is. And you can’t tell me about any of the interesting things you’ve been doing up there, of course.’

  ‘Nope. I am legally obliged to say that nothing interesting ever happens there.’

  ‘Until it does?’

  ‘Even then, it didn’t happen. The first rule of Jenner Research Station is that nothing ever happens there. When it goes public, it happened somewhere else.’

  ‘Like me,’ Fox said. ‘I didn’t happen there.’

  ‘Okay,’ Terri admitted, ‘that’s a little more publicly known. And, probably, most people assume that some things MarTech produces come out of Jenner. But there are a load of projects that start and end up there because they don’t have any commercial viability.’

  ‘This sounds too much like work,’ Helen complained.

  ‘A valid point,’ Naomi agreed. ‘When did you get in, Terri?’

  ‘Got to the spaceport at six this evening.’

  ‘Hours ago. I was wondering why Helen was looking tired.’

  Helen sputtered for a second before rallying. ‘I have a lot of work on… and Terri didn’t waste much time before getting reacquainted, no.’

  ‘She’s getting harder to tease,’ Fox noted. ‘She’ll be immune before summer and then nothing a criminal can throw at her will faze her.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Helen said. ‘So this is on-the-job training?’

  ‘Of course. The Army calls it “hardening.”’

  Naomi leaned closer to Fox. ‘You sold that very well. I almost believed you.’

  Fox grinned. ‘I practise.’

  Naomi’s voice lowered, both in volume and half an octave. ‘I hope that’s not all you practise.’

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘Have you anything planned for later?’ And Naomi’s voice was back to normal.

  ‘No…’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Fox said. ‘Tomorrow I have to fly out to Fargo. I could be there for a few days so I want to get a charge in tonight.’

  Naomi smiled. ‘I can guarantee you’ll get a charge out of tonight. Trust me, I’m a nun.’

  18th January.

  She had asked ‘Do you trust me?’ and Fox had said ‘Yes, of course,’ and then Naomi had cuffed Fox’s hands behind her back. Another pair of cuffs had gone around her arms, just above her elbows, tightening the restriction, but the extra-flexible joints in Fox’s frame were quite able to handle the position she was forced into.

  Then Naomi had gone to work with fingers and tongue. She had brought them to mutual climax throu
gh simple friction, and then she had taken the strapless strap-on Fox had once used on Marie. For two solid hours, Naomi worked Fox over, and Fox took it because she was, when it came down to it, a machine and she did not tire…

  ‘I… going over… again,’ Fox said between gasps. At times like this, she forgot to forget that she did not need to breathe; some things were just too wired into the brain. She was lying on the end of her bed, her knees on the floor. Naomi was kneeling behind her and working that damned dildo in and out with a sinusoidal motion that was driving Fox crazy.

  ‘So soon?’ Naomi asked. ‘I think you should wait… a little longer.’

  ‘Can’t,’ Fox moaned. If her brain emulation had not been so overloaded, perhaps she would have caught the weariness in Naomi’s voice.

  ‘Can. Will. Not until I say.’

  Fox bit her lip and tried to hold back what she considered the inevitable. The feeling of pressure within her mounted. She barely noticed as Naomi sped up her thrusts, panting as she neared her own climax. Fox’s eyes were pressed closed so hard that stars danced and flares of bright colour swirled inside her eyelids.

  ‘Please… Please! Please, let me–’

  ‘Now! Come now!’

  Kit had once described her orgasms as ‘some sort of cascade effect.’ Fox had no idea what happened with her own program when she came, but it felt kind of like exploding, dying, falling forever into blinding light. When it was over and her sensory inputs could be considered trustworthy, she felt… empty. It took her a few seconds to realise that the feeling was because Naomi’s strap-on was no longer inside her, and she struggled back to drop onto her ass on the bedroom carpet to see what had happened to her partner.

  Naomi was lying sprawled on her back, a naked, blonde, long-limbed goddess with the obscenely pink dildo jutting up from between her thighs. Fox could have sworn the thing was throbbing. Sweat beaded Naomi’s tanned skin. Her chest rose and fell with a slight falter in it that spoke of weariness. The movement of her magnificent breasts was almost hypnotic.

  ‘You look… amazing,’ Fox said, almost a whisper.

  Naomi laughed, a slightly laboured bark of a sound, and turned her head to focus blue eyes on Fox. ‘You are amazing. I… I haven’t had someone… someone tire me out this much in… quite a while. You… You just kept taking it. You’re so… so responsive.’