by Sarah Fine
I had to play this right if I had any hope of finding Ben. I pulled out my wallet and opened it, revealing the thick sheaf of bills tucked inside. Concentrating on keeping my hands steady, I pulled out one of the hundreds and laid it on the tray. “I’m easy to underestimate,” I said in a low voice.
The man’s gaze was riveted on my wallet. “Apparently,” he said, spinning the tray on his palm so that the glass cylinders were closest to me. On closer inspection, they were pretty much glass dildos, all different colors and sizes, some with swirls and some just tinted pink or purple. “Pick your pleasure.” His thick fingers slid the hundred off the tray and into his pocket.
“That was for information,” I said.
He grinned. “I think you need a hit first. Show me you can handle it, and I may consider pointing you in the direction of a supplier. They’re very discriminating, and if I send them the wrong sort, there are repercussions.”
Repercussions . . . like kidnapping someone? I looked down at the glass cylinders. Do this for Ben. I reached for a smallish one with blue swirls. Show this guy you can handle this.
Except I couldn’t.
The moment my fingers closed over the thing, waves of hot need rolled up my arm and into my chest, shooting surges of tingling pleasure into my belly. My muscles went slack, and I fell back on the beanbag. Suddenly my clothes were too tight, and my free hand rose to tug at my shirt while the other desperately clutched the glass cylinder. My lips parted, and my eyes met the man’s. He was leaning over me, watching with interest as my breath rushed from my lungs and my hips began to undulate. Humiliation swelled inside me, but it wasn’t enough to make me let go. I needed this so badly. It was like being with Ben: addictive, necessary, a compulsion I could never deny. I’d always loved sex and had never been shy about it, and this feeling . . . Even though I knew the man was watching, even though it was too intimate, too private to share, even though Franz was right next to me, I couldn’t stop the movement of my hand as it tilted the tip of the cylinder down, as my hand sank between my thighs. If I didn’t do this, I would die.
“Go ahead,” whispered the man. “Don’t hold back.”
I couldn’t have if I’d tried. My hand pressed the tip of the cylinder to my clit, and the few layers of clothes that separated the object from my body made no difference at all. I arched back as my body buckled under the weight of the most exquisite pleasure I’d ever known. The orgasm shook me from top to bottom, and I bit the back of my hand to stifle a scream as the rhythmic clenching took over, wringing me out. I thought I heard the man chuckling, but the roaring in my ears drowned him out. The ecstasy went on and on, and I had time only to catch my breath before another tsunami dragged me under once more.
CHAPTER THREE
I came back to myself all at once, jerking up to a sitting position as the glass cylinder fell from my grasp. The room was still quiet except for the occasional moan. Franz was sleeping beside me, his pen poking up from his waistband, his mouth half-open. I stared down at my hand, which was trembling and slick with sweat. In fact, my whole body was the same, and as I shifted I could feel the damp aftermath of all that pleasure between my legs. I could barely hold myself up as I rose to my feet, bracing myself against the wall to keep from sinking back down. A quick glance at my phone told me it was one in the morning.
Clutching my purse to my chest and forcing down a sob, I made my way past the remaining magic addicts: the soccer mom, the anthropology professor, maybe teachers at the local school or someone’s dentist for all I knew. The salt of the earth, who’d come here to have an untraceable high. And somehow Ben was wrapped up in it, and I’d done nothing for him except to make an ass of myself. The urge to flee was instinctual and powerful. My humiliation was so deep that it felt like I couldn’t contain it. I’d completely lost control of myself. For hours. I focused on getting through the curtain of beads without getting snagged and then rushed up the steps. The bouncer was no longer guarding the door, which was slightly ajar.
Desperate for fresh air, I shoved it wide, then stumbled back when it hit something solid. It was the bouncer, who threw the door open, looking startled. Next to him was another man, tall and lean and hovering in the shadows.
“You okay?” the bouncer asked, rushing forward to grab my arm and steady me. He jerked as soon as he touched me. “Ow. You’re not okay.” Wincing, he pulled me onto the landing and yanked his hands away. “But you’re not hurt.”
I looked down at myself. I felt like I’d run a marathon. My whole body was shaking, and my muscles ached. But he was right—I wasn’t in pain, except for the knowledge that I had embarrassed myself and uncovered Ben’s secret, or part of it at least. “I’m fine,” I said in a broken whisper.
The bouncer grinned and sniffed at the air. “Sandro said you went hard-core. That was some of our strongest stuff.” He inclined his head toward the man in the shadows before turning back to me. “He said you were interested in a supplier.”
My hope was like a shot of espresso snapping me to jittery attention. “Yeah,” I managed to say. Because maybe that supplier knew something about what had happened to Ben. “I am.”
“Bad idea,” said the bouncer’s friend. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing, Bart.”
“Excuse me,” I snapped. “You don’t know me.”
The man leaned out of the shadows. He was wearing motorcycle boots and cargo pants that hung from his lean hips. His black T-shirt clung to his chest. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. Everything about him was hard, including his face. Hollow cheeks, deep-set eyes, and a nose that held the slightest curve, like it had been broken at some point in the distant past. His mouth was curled in a condescending smile. “I don’t have to. I know your type.”
“Oh, really?” It was the second time tonight someone had said something to that effect to me. “Please enlighten me.”
The jerk’s smile became a sneer as he opened his mouth to reply, but Bart waved his hand. “Doesn’t matter. Sandro said I should point her in the right direction. She’s got the cash.”
The jerk rolled his eyes. “It’s your business, so it’s your risk. And speaking of, can we get back to ours? I’m parked out in the open.”
“This is Sheboygan,” said Bart.
“I don’t care if it’s Amish country. I’m exposed. I don’t like to be exposed.”
Bart laughed. “Sandro said you were paranoid.”
The jerk stared steadily at Bart. “When Sandro asks why I’m never coming back to fucking Sheboygan, you tell him it’s because you wasted my time. See how long this place lasts without me. Maybe longer than you get to keep your job, but not by much.”
Bart put up his hands. “Fine. Hang on.” He pinched the fabric of my shirtsleeve and gave me a tug toward the door, like he didn’t want to actually touch me.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I hated to admit it, but the jerk was right. I had no idea what I was doing.
“No problem,” Bart said, leaning down to speak in my ear. “He’s just touchy.”
I glanced at the jerk, who was glaring at us from the corner. Light from a passing car slanted across his face for a moment, and there was something familiar there . . . His eyes were the exact same color as Ben’s, like honey. It was a needle in my heart. “Who is he?”
Bart shook his head. “Uh-uh. You just forget you saw him.” He plucked a business card from his pocket and pressed it into my palm. “This is the only information I’m authorized to give you. There’s good stuff there—I promise. Slow release and long lasting.”
I glanced at the card. The address was in Milwaukee. “Long lasting, slow release. Good.”
“And not just pleasure.” He winked. “Though maybe that’s just what you’re looking for.”
My fingers closed over the card. I snuck one last look at the jerk, who was still staring at me. He seemed dangerous, the kind of person who could hurt people without the slightest pang of regret.
“No,” I said as Bart op
ened the door to the alley for me, releasing me into the humid summer night. “That’s definitely not the only thing I’m looking for.”
My fingers slid over the clear plastic as my thoughts whirled. Sun filtered through paisley curtains over the bay window of my parents’ kitchen, and through the screen door I could hear the sputtering engine of my father’s riding mower. It almost drowned out the low mutter of Detective Logan’s voice in the dining room as she spoke to her partner on the phone.
She had brought me the evidence bag as a peace offering. After my distraught call to him the day before, my dad had apparently gone straight to her boss, who happened to be an old golfing buddy of his. She’d showed up this morning to make nice—but I could tell she still believed Ben had disappeared himself.
Thanks to her partner’s call, though, I had a few moments alone with the bag. Inside was Ben’s agate and his necklace, the one with the tiny anchor pendant. The chain was broken, like it had been ripped off his neck. They’d been found by one of our neighbors down the street, possibly thrown out the window of the vehicle that had taken Ben away. No doubt the detective thought he’d done that himself, too.
But I knew better. These two things were a part of Ben, and had been for as long as I had known him. Until last night, the mere thought of them had made me smile. Now, though, as I stared down at the smooth, variegated surface of the agate, my thoughts were in a much darker place. When I’d seen the couple in the magic den last night, him stroking that wooden spoon before caressing his lover’s face, her moaning at the sensation, it had dredged up my own memories of Ben touching his agate before stroking my skin. Then Franz had said Ben had a supplier that catered to more advanced magic users, and it had sent my suspicions into the red zone.
Slow release. Long acting. My eyes stung as I slowly clicked each puzzle piece into place. Had Ben used magic on me? I swallowed back the lump in my throat and tore open the bag. Detective Logan had told me I couldn’t touch this stuff because it was evidence, but in that moment it felt like the only way to keep the dread from devouring me. The agate was cool against my fingertips, not warm like the last time, when Ben had dragged it along my skin. Even so, I felt the faint pulse of pleasure, enough to harden my nipples and tense the muscles of my thighs. I dropped it in disgust. “How could you?” I asked in a choked whisper.
With clenched teeth, I reached out to touch the pendant, wondering if that would have the same effect. The anchor is the sailor’s final lifeline in stormy weather, Ben had said when I’d first asked about it. It reminds me that I should always have hope, even in my darkest hours.
He’d placed my palm over the lump of his pacemaker then, and I had shed tears because I couldn’t believe I was with such a beautiful man. Now I was shedding tears because I couldn’t believe that beautiful man had manipulated me. Why would he have thought he needed to? I’d fallen for him the moment I’d met him, in an exam room on my first day on the job, his arms full of a litter of puppies he was trying to vaccinate. He hadn’t needed to touch me—all it had taken was a look. And the more I got to know him, the deeper I fell.
My finger resting against the pendant, I recalled the way Ben would fiddle with it every time we fought. I once joked that I needed one, too, because for once I’d like to win an argument. I let out a strained laugh and pinched it between thumb and forefinger, mimicking how he would hold it when things were tense, including the last night we were together. A barely perceptible hum vibrated along my finger and up my wrist, but it definitely wasn’t the same sensation as when I’d touched the agate.
“Ms. Carver!”
I yanked my hand from the bag. “Sorry. I know I wasn’t supposed to touch.”
Detective Logan leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “Put it back immediately.”
I looked down to see the pendant still pinched between my fingers. “I . . . just needed to hold it for a second.” I braced myself for her wrath.
Instead, her face softened. “You needed to hold it for a second,” she said quietly.
I blinked at her. “Yeah. I’m sorry. Please believe me—I didn’t mean to mess up your evidence.”
“Of course you didn’t mean to mess up the evidence,” she murmured.
I frowned at her. “Really?”
She gave me a vague smile, her brown eyes soft. “Really.”
I looked down at the broken chain and pendant as the strangest chill went through me, a crazy suspicion taking shape. Slowly, I tucked it back into the evidence bag and then wiped my hands along the skirt of my sundress. “Okay.”
“Everything all right?” my mother asked as she came up behind the detective.
“Yeah. I just . . . need to get this evidence back to the station.”
Detective Logan put the evidence into her work bag. “I’d better get going. My boss let me know I’m interviewing the contractor who placed the lien today. Even though he has an ironclad alibi.” Her skepticism was back, and I sagged with relief as Mom turned to escort her to the door.
“Mattie,” Mom said. “Could you do me a favor and check on our elderly gentlemen? Barley’s napping in the library, and I just got Grandpa settled in there and gave him his medication. His nurse will be here in a little bit to do his nebulizer treatment. He might be a little groggy, but I think he’d be glad for the company while he waits.”
I walked slowly down the hall, hoping Grandpa was in a good mood today, for both our sakes. He was lying on the hospital bed my parents had set up for him in the library, and Barley was in his own bed, sleeping in the sun. The room had a great view of the lake from its circular window, and they’d raised the head of the bed so Grandpa could look out on the waves, but his eyelids were drooping.
“Hey, Grandpa,” I said quietly as I knelt next to Barley and smoothed my hand down his soft flank. I could feel each of his ribs—he hadn’t been eating well since Ben had been taken, and I made a mental note to pick up some of his favorite treats from the house.
Grandpa’s eyes opened for a second before dropping closed again. “Mattie,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Didn’t think you . . . would be speaking to me . . .”
I pulled over a chair and sat next to him. “I’m sorry I got so mad.” I let out a slow breath. “And I don’t know exactly what set off your alarms about Ben, but you were right. I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”
His trembling fingers patted at the railing of his bed, and I put my hand up there for him to touch. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew it as soon as he tried to put the whammy on me.”
I looked at my grandfather’s craggy face. He used to be devastatingly handsome—I’d seen pictures of him and my grandma from when they got married in the fifties. They’d had a jet-setting life, with my grandfather’s business taking them all over the world. Their house in Arizona had been filled with mementos originating everywhere from Guinea to Mongolia to Iceland to Chile. I’d always been fascinated by them, particularly a little locked wooden box he’d told me had been carved by monks in Thailand. It was the only thing he’d brought with him from Arizona, and he slept with it next to his bed. “A touch was all it took?” I chuckled weakly. “Are you some kind of psychic?”
“No,” he said, then stifled a cough. “I could feel it on him. It wasn’t natural—I knew it immediately.” Another cough. “He was obviously using artificial stuff.”
I glanced toward the library door, hoping Mom was still occupied with the detective. “It turns out he was on this drug called magic,” I whispered. “And I think he was using it on me, too, without telling me.” The betrayal was a fresh wound.
“It’s more than a drug,” Grandpa said. “That’s all some use it for, but . . .” He sighed. “Some people have it, and some don’t.” His words were halting, and I was guessing his meds had really kicked in. “Like any other gift, each person gets to decide what to do with it. And those without, well, sometimes they just want a piece of it.”
“Hold on. Are you saying some people hav
e magic? Like, they produce it?”
He nodded. “Where do you think the artificial stuff comes from?”
“Um, a chemistry lab?”
He let out a rasping laugh. “Magic, in a chemistry lab!”
“Grandpa, you’re talking like it’s actual magic, not a drug.”
“It’s both. And your Ben was addicted. But he had no idea about me, thank God. Or you.”
“Wait, what about us? What are you talking about?” It felt so stupid to even be asking this, but I’d experienced enough the night before to know I couldn’t brush it off. “Do we make magic?”
“Heavens, no,” he said, then winced. “These damn meds. Pumped my brain full of molasses.”
Maybe that was why he was talking so much crazy. I chuckled uneasily. “No idea how you know so much about magic,” I said. “Doesn’t quite seem like your scene.”
His hand flopped onto his chest, and he rubbed the spot right over his heart. “More than my scene,” he said wearily. “And I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it.”
“I’m all ears.”
His face was ashen as he spit into a cloth and set it at his bedside. “I had a rough night, Mattie. Tomorrow? In the morning, maybe? Always a little sharper in the morning.” His voice had faded to a wheeze.
“Sure thing.” I was dying to know more, but I could hear his nurse bustling through the front door, and it looked like he needed her. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” Hopefully with a few leads he could help me understand. I kissed him on the forehead and headed home, more determined than ever. There was a little black dress in my closet, and we were going on a mission.
I sat in my car, holding on to the steering wheel like it could save me. The Phan Club was in a warehouse in Granville, a gritty neighborhood on the northwest side of the city. Judging from the cars lining the blocks in all directions, it was a popular place. I looked down at the card Bart had given me. On the back it just said Nestor, and I was hoping that he was a person, not a password.
