by Meli Raine
But me? Rich?
I don’t feel rich.
I feel very, very deprived.
How about we meet at your place? Maybe Alice has something cool in one of those mysterious boxes, she texts. I’ll bring Thai takeout.
Sounds great, I text back.
I hate that Drew’s gone, she writes, as if I’m supposed to know that.
He is? Is he with Silas?
Yes. D.C. I hate the long D.C. work trips.
This is news to me. For two weeks I’ve wondered where he was and he’s been in D.C. the whole time?
Who are they meeting with?
Drew won’t say. Hi Drew! I know you’re reading this! Lindsay says in her text, making me laugh again.
Being constantly tracked shouldn’t be funny.
If I didn’t laugh, though, I’d just weep.
Okay. Tonight, seven. See you then.
Have fun sorting. I hope they didn’t send Alice’s giant vibrator collection.
LINDSAY! I type back, horrified.
You never know. People can be one thing on the outside and totally different on the inside.
Ewwww. Thanks for that image of Alice.
Wear gloves when you go through the boxes. Just sayin’!
I hate you.
She texts back a kiss.
I eye the boxes in a new light.
Box number two is filled with nothing but magazines. Over the last week, I’ve read about being an heir and making sure to meticulously go through everything, because people will hide stuff in the weirdest places. Stories abound of checks – even cash! – being slipped into books and magazines.
By the end of box two, I see Alice wasn’t one of those people.
The work is tedious, so I play music, high-energy pop that my friends danced to in college. My mind drifts, drawn to Silas.
D.C.? Why?
I’m so accustomed to being his job – literally – that it took some adjusting to understand that he has other duties. I know it intellectually, but not emotionally.
He’s not gone because he’s abandoned me.
He’s gone because he’s helping me and other clients.
We’re in a strange place, a holding pattern where the space between us is less, but still an echo-filled cavern. Churning emotions feel like that’s their natural state. As time passes, I’m starting to see my own feelings from a different perspective. When a storm spins the very air we breathe, it can feel like it’s permanent, never changing. The frenzy is reality in those moments.
It’s seductive. Horrifying. Alluring and oh, so easy to assume that this is the only manifestation.
Standing still is the only refuge. How do you stand still when you’re being relentlessly pursued by your own demons?
Box number three seems to be newsletters from an art association Alice was president of – in the late 1970s. I set them all aside for the museum curator, who will love the papers for their collection, and move on.
By box seven, I’m starting to think that Alice was very, very mundane. I’m also caffeine deprived and sick of the scent of old paper.
A text comes in. My heart leaps. It’s Silas.
Coming home tomorrow. Want to see you.
I miss you, I want to type back.
I thought about you, I want to respond.
I’ve done a lot of soul searching, I want to tell him.
Instead, I just write: Me, too.
He texts back a smile.
How’s work?
Can’t talk about it.
That bad?
Can’t talk about it.
You sound like Drew.
Can’t talk about it.
Broken record, huh?
Can’t talk about it.
I laugh. Because this time, he adds a smiley face.
What time works for you tomorrow? he asks. Dinner?
Can’t talk about it, I reply.
He texts back a goofy emoji.
I remember this feeling. It’s called normal.
Six? Seven? I text back.
Six. See you then.
I wait, hoping for more, but that’s it. My body fills with a light warmth, the rush of interaction with him now tempered as the happiness travels down to my toes, up to the top of my head, finding its way to parts in between. Who knew that a few characters on a cell signal could have so much power?
It’s not the technology that matters.
It’s the emotions we can transmit through it.
A big, steaming mug of coffee later, I move to another box. Bills, requests for donations, requests for art-colony teaching, and a ton of personal letters from fans, all addressed to a P.O. box, dominate this one. I save some of it and move on.
It’s box twelve where I hit pay dirt, the light outside slowly dimming as sunset starts to assert itself. Lindsay will be here any minute. I stand, cracking my back, enjoying the tingly rush of blood, slowing as I stretch.
As I lift the lid, there’s a folder that simply bears one word in Alice’s old-fashioned script:
WITCH.
Chapter 14
Silas
Red.
The room here at Margin of Error is nothing but red. Drew insisted we come to the club, the place where I worked for so long – too long – to weave myself in, to blend like velvet over cracked plaster, hanging as a cover for what was really underneath. The music is low jazz, designed to turn you on, make you hot and wet, twang your senses to scream before you do.
Make you yearn.
“I don’t give a shit what you think about this place, Gentian. They make the best damn dry martini I’ve ever had,” he says, shaking his head as if I’m arguing with him.
“Served with a side of latex and a ball gag,” I mutter.
“Not my game,” he mutters as he looks at a pony walking by, her hair styled in a high tail, hooves pulling her naked calves up nice and tight, her form outstanding. If I were the type to stare, I would, but this is making me more uncomfortable by the minute.
All I can think about is Jane.
“Lindsay know you’re here?” I ask him, knowing the answer. No. Absolutely no way would Lindsay sign off on this for Drew.
“She does,” he says, surprising the hell out of me. I almost spray him with beer. I don’t. I hold all my emotions in check. We’re trained to do that.
Trained well.
“And she’s okay with it?”
“I come home to her, right? I don’t look, don’t touch. We’re only here because the place isn’t bugged. No surveillance of any kind. No internet. Everything’s done offline. Signals are jammed. Our phones don’t work. We might as well be in Green Bank, West Virginia, where all electronic signals are banned in the Radio Free Zone.”
“Or 1978.”
“Don’t knock it.”
“Why a sex club? Of all places? You made me do six months here undercover, Drew.”
“I thought you could use the stimulation. Quit bitching, Gentian. Most men would consider getting paid to become a Dom a fucking dream job.”
“I’m not most men.”
“You’re allowed to be a man, though. With feelings. Impulses. Interests.”
“Did you get a lobotomy? A personality transplant? Who the hell are you? Because you’re not Drew Foster. I worked here. Worked. Undercover.”
“And why?”
“To make sure this place was as clean as you hoped.”
“And?”
“It is. The last thing anyone here wants is a record of their being here. You know that.”
“Best way to do that is to never come here.”
“They have to. It feeds them. It’s part of who they are.”
“Jane know about this?” he asks me abruptly. At the mention of her name I have a physical reaction, all engines revving, going into overdrive.
The nudity surrounding us isn’t helping.
Neither are the chains and spanking benches.
I avoid his question.
We’re in the l
ounge, so no play is going on, but in the back rooms there’s plenty. Rules outlined, contracts signed, Dom and subs in perfect harmony. Or whatever comes as close as possible to perfection.
My time here was intermittent. It wasn’t deep cover. Fuala McIntire, the club’s owner, had come to Drew with a request: clear the place of electronics. Worried that someone was gathering counter-intel on high-ranking politicians, she had opened her club to us.
My job: be as convincing a Dom as possible to blend in.
Turns out a good Dom doesn’t have to sleep with clients. Doesn’t even have to touch them.
He just has to know how to get inside someone’s mind.
And help them find their place in their body.
My three-month assignment turned into six as I uncovered a network of low-level employees who were spying. Recording device after recording device planted in bathrooms, play rooms, even the back loading dock near the private entrance. Fuala’s trust in me grew. Weeding out the moles was about being diligent. Observant. Tenacious.
Those qualities, applied to the mess with Harry Bosworth, aren’t yielding the same results.
Yet.
Being here in D.C. for two weeks comes at a cost. We’ve been visiting Quantico, congressmen, the president himself – but that’s just for show. The real work takes place in bars, in front of computers with data analysts, in coffee shops, and in whispered conversations where the phrase “cone of silence” is redundant. We are pattern matching.
That’s my job.
Above all else, I find patterns. Like a data analyst, I sift and sort, performing rituals that glean clues.
Unlike the database jockeys, I act.
My data is the twitch of an eye. A change in cadence of a voice. The alteration of a breathing pattern. The subtle movement that turns deadly before my consciousness can detect it. My rat brain has a bigger role in what I do than anything else. Being in my body isn’t just my job.
It’s the difference between life and death for clients.
Drew told me I needed the assignment here at the Margin of Error back then. Needed it. He was right.
“Hey, Dirty,” shouts Busy, one of the cocktail waitresses here at the club. She strides on over, full-leather outfit skin tight but not showing skin. Staff are off limits to patrons.
Unless staff consents otherwise.
“Dirty?” Drew’s eyebrows go up at my nickname as Busy gives him a once-over.
“Friend?” she asks me. “Or new client?”
“Neither. He’s my boss.” Busy knows who I really am. Not my name. No details. But after my six months here were up, Fuala chose to tell a few key staff members that the club was clear. She instituted a series of procedures to keep the place surveillance free, and in the training, revealed me to Busy.
Who took it in stride.
“Dirty?” Drew says again.
“There an echo in here?”
“What the hell did you do to deserve the nickname ‘Dirty’?”
“Scat play,” Busy says instantly, making Drew choke on his own tongue.
“Jesus Christ, no,” I growl, glaring at her.
She smirks. Makes the piercings in her lip glitter as the light hits them.
“Dirty – I call you that because we’re not allowed to know your name – wouldn’t touch the subs. Ever. Wouldn’t. Wouldn’t get his hands dirty. Someone started calling him that ironically and it fit.”
“Dirty,” Drew drawls out, giving me an ominously mocking look. “Whew.”
“Why you here?” she asks Drew, sizing him up. “You look like you could do a tour or two here in Dirty’s shoes.”
Drew laughs, a harsh sound that’s really him covering for his own reaction. “I’m good. Got plenty going on, thanks.”
She shrugs. “Your loss.”
“She’s right. Your loss,” I tell him, putting an elbow in his ribs. He flinches and gives it back. My fake-gunshot wound has healed considerably in the last two and a half weeks, but it’s still tender. I flinch.
That means I lose.
“Can I get another dry martini?” Drew asks her with a smile that is as close to flirting as Drew gets. “Whoever makes these is a master.”
“No. Not a master,” she says, puzzled. “Just a bartender.”
I chuckle. Drew rolls his eyes. She takes the empty glass, gives me a wink, and leaves.
“I think you enjoyed this assignment a little too much, Gentian.”
“I hated it at first,” I admit. “It grew on me.”
“You never touched any of the clients?” he asks in a tone that’s either admiration or scorn.
Can’t tell which.
“I was never obligated to note that detail on my reports, boss. None of your business.”
“Why? You weren’t involved with anyone back then. You were cleared to do whatever it took to make the mission a success. You’re – well, you’re human. Or are you?”
“I am. And this conversation is pissing me off.”
“It should. The fact that you have the nickname Dirty because you didn’t touch women you could have touched – who consented to being touched –”
“Not all of them,” I correct him. “You really don’t understand how any of this works here, do you?”
“Why would a woman come here to be a sub and not want to be touched?” he asks, revealing his complete ignorance. It’s rare to see Andrew Foster in this position. I like it more than I want to admit to myself.
“Stop, Drew. Just... stop. If you’re not going to bother to learn how D/s relationships work, and how sex clubs operate, just shut the hell up.”
“Touchy touchy. Or should I say not touchy touchy.”
“Jane’s right. You can be a real asshole sometimes.”
“Only sometimes? Must be mellowing.”
Busy delivers a fresh drink for Drew, another beer for me, and a large bottle of sparkling water with two glasses and a plate of limes.
“Thanks,” I tell her as Drew eyes the limes.
“What’s that?”
“Water. The way I like it.”
“You got soft. In the field, you could live with a pocket full of string and a piece of flint. Nothing else.”
“We’re not in the field.” I look pointedly at his martini.
Music with a loud beat, techno and intense, starts in the other room. Two puppies on leashes walk by, led by a woman wearing a catsuit. The dominatrix speaks German to her puppies.
“What’s that about?” Drew asks, jaw barely moving.
“Do your own research, Foster.”
“Does Jane know anything about this?”
“God, no.”
We sit in silence long enough to both get nice and uncomfortable. Discomfort is nothing compared to what we’ve been through. The key to being out of sorts is that it’s always temporary. Feelings pass.
Pain passes, too. It fades.
Scars, though, are forever.
“We’re here,” he says slowly, leaning toward me, eyes tight and hard, “because we need to talk about all the threads we’re chasing. When we’re in danger of surveillance, I can’t think. You’re sure this place is clean?”
“As sure as I am about anything else. You know I can’t give you a one-hundred-percent guarantee.”
“Right.” He rolls the stem of his glass between two fingers. “We hashed out some of it at Paulson’s place, but now that we’ve been here in D.C. for two weeks, what’s new? We’ve got Monica going to Corning and offering Harry as a vote puppet. We’ve got money laundering through campaign donations for Harry and Corning. We know that Monica somehow got Corning thinking Harry would help with legislation that assisted El Brujo’s smuggling efforts. And when Harry said no, Corning ordered the attack on Lindsay.”
“That was meant for Jane.”
“Maybe,” he says, jaw grinding.
“Probably,” I amend.
He nods. “And we know Harry told my dad and Paulson’s mom about what Corning was doing. Bo
th were killed.”
“I wonder why Corning turned negative on Harry so fast,” I begin, more coming on the heels of what is emerging.
“Because Harry said ‘no.’ Guys at their level don’t like being told ‘no.’”
“Hmph.”
“Wait, wait, wait...” Drew frowns, closes his eyes, and breathes. “What about that guy at Quantico? Said something about Harry and Anya’s affair being common knowledge.”
“What?” I sit up straight. “I would have remembered that.”
“You were taking a piss. The forensic psychologist working on Corning. Been around forever, retiring in two years. He said back when he was a field agent in California, people knew about Anya and Harry. No one ever said a word. They figured Harry and Monica’s marriage was a sham. A front. Not a love marriage. They were a power couple and nothing more.”
“I can see how that would be believed,” I mutter.
“But Harry and Anya were never outed. The press would have been all over it from day one, even when he was just running for local office.”
“Maybe no one had proof?”
“You’re in love with the proof.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re in love with her, you dumbass,” Drew spits out at me.
“How would you know?”
“Oh, I know all right. I know.”
“But how?”
“Because you’re being a dumbass.”
“I can be a dumbass without being in love.”
“Sure, you can. I’ve seen it in Afghanistan. But this kind of dumbassery has love written all over it, Gentian. It’s a special kind. It smells different.”
“Dumbassery has a scent?”
“On you, it does.”
“We’re here to talk about work. Not my love life, Foster.”
“You’ve managed to merge them. Not my fault.”
“I did it again, didn’t I?” I reluctantly admit. “This time, a client. Last time, a colleague. Why can’t I fall in love with some nice woman at a coffee shop? Or a human-rights lawyer? Or an optometrist?”
“We can’t control who we fall in love with.”
“No, we damn well can’t,” I agree. “And neither could Harry.”
At the mention of his father-in-law’s name, Drew’s head jerks, eyes on me with a predator’s gleam. “That’s at the heart of this, somehow. The affair between Anya and Harry. Monica isn’t the type to let that go. Not one bit. And yet Anya worked for Harry for twenty-five years, her daughter – his daughter – hidden in plain sight. Why would Monica allow that?”
