I nodded yes.
"Well, I was looking at case files. Turns out I was looking through the wrong pile. I was supposed to be looking at local cold cases, things that happened right here, but I grabbed a pile of national cases instead. The ones everyone is supposed to keep in mind, you know. In case you pull over an out of state car or they have extended family in the area they may visit. The keep in the back of your mind as you work pile. Anyway, it was her case I grabbed, and I found this inside."
He shifted and pulled something out of a Manila envelope I didn't realize he'd had with him. It was a large, 8X10 picture of a teenage Claudia Russell. She was smiling in this one, standing with a group of girls. They all had their arms around each other, poolside, wearing bikinis. She was on the far right, closest to the camera. She was beautiful, and she looked happy. She was wearing a black string bikini, hamming it up for the camera. One arm around the girl beside her, and the other raised up in the air holding a soft drink.
I sighed. "It's such a shame." I said to Caleb, still looking at the display of carefree youth in my hands.
"That was taken right before she disappeared. Just a few weeks." He paused and said, "Do you recognize her?" He asked the question quietly. Hesitantly.
I looked at him, puzzled. "I guess so. It wasn't a picture they ever put on the news, but yeah, it's her alright. The same face. Her hair is wet and slicked back, and she's smiling in this one. Why didn't they release this one?"
"Look at her breasts."
'Leave it to a man to check out the rack on a missing teen,' I thought, but I looked. She had large, full breasts, and I could see quite a bit of skin since her arms were raised and she was wearing a triangle shaped string bikini. I was about to say, "Yeah, and?" when I saw it.
'No.' I thought, pulling the picture closer to my face.
The bottom of my stomach fell out. I shouldn't have had the wine, it started to curdle, sitting like a rock where my stomach used to be. I felt like I was going to be sick. I looked to Caleb, hoping and praying I was wrong. I wasn't. Of course I wasn't, or Caleb wouldn't be here, showing me a picture of a beautiful, happy, missing woman with a birthmark on the side of her breast.
A small birthmark that almost looked like it was in the shape of a butterfly. A birthmark Caleb and I had seen once before, on the side of the breast of a woman we had met our first night in a swinger's club. A woman whose breast I had touched, the only woman on the entire planet I had ever kissed.
Fuck.
Chapter 14
What if's
I sat speechless for a long time, my brain on overdrive. I remembered her clearly. It was our first time at That Other Club, and it was supposed to be our only time.
She was sitting topless against the wall, with a guy's hand up her skirt, playing with her. Chris was his name. He continued to finger her as we talked. He called her Jessica. I felt her up, I saw that birthmark up close. I'd kissed her, playing it up for Caleb's enjoyment. She seemed to defer to Chris, before speaking. Could he have taken her? Was he a kidnapper? Is that why she seemed to check with him before speaking?
That was almost two years ago. The birthmark was unmistakable. I struggled to wrap my mind around it all. Our first time at a sex club, my first and only female kiss, was a girl who had been missing for years. If we had only recognized her, maybe we could have saved her.
There was no telling what all she'd been through. Did he make her go to these clubs? Did he take her all those years ago? Or is he her newest owner, having bought her online? She hadn't looked beaten or starved. Were those clubs the only times she was allowed out? Was she a runaway? All these questions swirled around, making my head ache with them.
Now I understood why Caleb came to me, why this case was important to him. When he said it was his own, unofficial lead it was because he recognized her from that night. No wonder he felt like he had to do this off the books. You can't go to your boss and say 'Hey, this missing girl is someone we played with at a swinger's club months ago. Can I look for her at sex clubs, on the clock?'
This changes everything, just as Caleb knew it would. I looked at him, pain showing clearly in my eyes. "If she had said anything. Given any indication..."
"I know. I've thought everything you are thinking. I'm a cop, I should have noticed, recognized her."
"That was ages ago, they could be anywhere. She could be dead by now. She was right there, literally in my hand. Caleb, I kissed her."
"I know. Please. Help me look for her."
"How? Where do you even start? If you start asking questions, he could disappear with her again. We only saw her the one time."
"I'll take care of that part. I have friends in vice, I can ask around. If he has her up online- swinger's websites, or selling time with her, maybe I can find out if there is a club they frequent more than others."
"What if that was it? His once in a decade outing with her?"
"What if it's not? What if they are known in certain underground circles? If I can find out something, will you help me? Not every weekend, trying every club, but if I can narrow things down. Will you go with me? As cover, to blend in. Nothing dangerous."
I looked down at her picture again. Her innocence called out to me, her birthmark now a glowing neon sign in my head. What if it had been me? Taken young, forced into those places, afraid to say anything. I'd want Caleb looking for me. I'd want someone, anyone looking for me. And all I'd have to do to help is hang out in sex clubs, looking like half of a couple, searching boobs for birthmarks.
Maybe they would remember us, too? That might make it easier, if we see her again. They had played with us before, we might seem like a safe couple to play with again. If we could get her alone, even for a minute.
I turned back to Caleb and said, "Of course I'll help."
"What are you going to say to Roger?"
Shit. I'd forgotten about that part. I just told him I wasn't seeing anyone else, and now I'm planning on going back into the swinger's clubs with Caleb? 'I'm sure he'd totally understand,' my sarcastic inner voice chimed in.
"I don't know what to tell Roger. I have to be honest with him, right? It's not like with you and Ashlee. I really care about Roger. We just had the boyfriend talk, ten minutes before you showed up. He's a good guy, ex-military. He'd understand a rescue operation. With my ex... Inside hot, naked sex clubs..." I trailed off, not even buying that myself. There is no way he would understand.
I wouldn't. Not if he came to me, trying to explain why he wanted, no, needed to go to a swinger's club with his ex to save someone she had been slightly intimate with.
"Yeah," Caleb jumped in. "Honesty is the way to go. Totally. Because you've told him everything up to this point, right? About us? He knows how we spent many a Friday night in rooms full of curtained beds? In clubs with orgy rooms, learning about squirters naked in hot tubs. I'm assuming he knows how much you like dancing in shadow boxes. Being taken from behind on back-woods country roads where people stop and ask if they can join in. Being tied up to bed posts with your own toys. So he's all good with your wants, needs and desires?"
I looked at him, shocked at his insensitivity. "You mean my wants, needs and desires to have a normal relationship after all that? With a man who doesn't need others around to want me? A man who thinks I am enough to make him happy? A man who might eventually want to tie himself to me and only me, with a wedding, and babies?"
"Getting ahead of yourself a bit, aren't you? You've been his girlfriend admittedly for all of twenty minutes."
"At least I know what I want. You get what you want- freedom to go to those clubs, without a whiney girlfriend, a chance to play with the girls you couldn't seem to stop talking to on the phone, the ones from those clubs- and you don't even go. Kate said you haven't been once since us. That's what you wanted, and you got it."
"No I didn't. What I wanted was you. You, warm and willing beside me in those clubs. I told you we could stop going. I told you I didn't want to, but I would. For you. T
he only thing I couldn't promise you was forever. I wasn't enough for you either, not as I am. I know you. I know soft, romantic love making won't be enough for you in the long run. You'll want to just get fucked, and you'll think of me. When you ache to be tied up and blindfolded, and your marriage is dull and your babies are screaming, you'll think of me."
"Stop it. We didn't fight like this when we were together, I'm not doing it now. I don't have to explain myself to you. Or the amount of honesty in my relationship, it's none of your damn business what I tell Roger." I said, not with more anger but with resignation.
"I'll figure something out with Roger. I'm going to have to. I can't not help you. Not knowing who she is now. I have to try."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said all that. I'm happy for you, I really am. You didn't deserve that. You deserve to be happy more than anyone I know. It's this case, it brings back memories."
"So now what?" I asked him.
"I'll start asking around. See if anyone sees her at a particular club often, or online. She went by Jessica, right? At least that night?" I nodded yes. "I'll see what I can find out, and we can go from there. I've gotta go anyway. I've got to get to work."
I opened the door for him and shut it behind him when he left. I leaned again the door for a while, soaking it all in. I was angry at him, which was silly. It wasn't his fault I was in this mess.
I invited him to that scene, I got him hooked, and I walked away. It's not his fault he figured out who Jessica really was, I actually admired him for wanting to help her. He's the messenger, not the cause, but I was still angry. I had something good now, with Roger, and that was about to be tested. I hated to admit it, even to myself, that I was also angry he might be right. What if romance isn't enough for me anymore?
Roger is the first guy I've really even looked twice at since Caleb. What if Caleb is right? What if normal isn't enough?
Chapter 15
A Toast
I didn't sleep well that night, restless thoughts and troubled dreams kept me up. Dreams where I was back in that club, Jessica's, or was it Claudia's, breast in my hand, when she is grabbed and whisked away by unseen hands, pulled into darkness.
Dreams also of Caleb. Hot, steamy dreams of Caleb, where I look over Caleb's shoulder and see Roger, watching us, disgust and loss of trust in his eyes. I watch Roger walk away, into the faceless arms of another woman. His future wife, who isn't me, with kids at her feet, as Caleb tugs me, deeper and deeper into a world of writhing bodies, french maid outfits and orgy rooms.
I wake up covered in sweat, tangled in my sheets. The sun isn't quite up yet, but I climb out of bed anyway and make some coffee. It's only Thursday. Roger only dropped me off at home last night, but it seems like it has been days since I've seen him. I toss around the idea of calling him, asking to see him, but I change my mind.
Nothing has changed in Roger's world, only in mine. Calling him would seem needy. We have plans tomorrow, and I need time to think. I spend Thursday and Friday working and thinking, and I decide to tell Roger. He has to fly out again Saturday morning, but we have dinner and then my bar planned for tonight, Friday night. I'll spend tonight at Roger's and he can drop me off at home Saturday morning. I'll tell him, some time tonight. On the way home tomorrow isn't enough time, and I don't want to send him off to fly a plane with that kind of brand new knowledge swirling in his head.
So tonight it is, I decide nervously. Tonight I will tell my brand new boyfriend that I plan on going to sex clubs with my ex, to find a missing woman, who I have kissed, and played with her breasts. Yeah. Great. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
'Are you sure?' I ask myself dozens of times as I shower and shave, dressing for my date tonight. The same thoughts circle and circle in my head. I don't have to go with Caleb at all. I can pretend that summer never happened, that Jessica is fine. I can let Caleb handle all that, after all, he is the cop, not me.
I rule those thoughts out every time they surface. I know me, I know I can't leave this alone. I'd never forgive myself knowing I had the chance to help find a nationally known missing woman, and didn't even try, because I was uncomfortable telling my boyfriend about my past.
Roger rang the bell, and I took one last long look in the mirror. I wasn't looking at my hair or outfit, but into my own eyes. This is it, I thought. Nothing will be the same after tonight. Either Roger won't understand, and I'll lose him before we really even get started, or he will understand, but I'll have to somehow juggle the sex clubs with my ex and a trying to be normal relationship with Roger. Only one way to find out.
I opened the door and saw a glorious display of roses where I expected my boyfriend to be. "Holy crap." The words escaped my lips before I could contain them. The roses moved aside and Roger's smiling face stood in their place.
"I thought our first date as an official couple should be marked somehow. Do you like them?"
"I love them, they are beautiful, Roger. Thank you." I took them from him, saying, "I wish I had something to give you as well, if we are marking the occasion. Come in, come in. Let me get these beauties in water."
"A kiss and your company tonight is all I want from you."
"Let me put these down then, so I can greet you properly."
I laid them on the counter and turned to Roger, arms open. He hugged me tight, saying, "Damn, you smell good. I've missed holding you." He pulled away just enough to turn his lips to mine. He kissed me like he hadn't seen me in ages, and I kissed him back while I still could, like he was mine and I wasn't about to lose him.
"Keep kissing me like that and we will be staying in tonight." Roger teased as we finally broke apart, pulses racing.
"Fine by me." I grinned up at him. "No reason for the roses to suffer though. Let me get them settled."
I turned my attention to the flowers to buy some time. They really were beautiful. Two dozen yellow roses. They made quite the statement standing proud in a large vase as I set them in the living room.
I turned to Roger and said, "They really are breathtaking. Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'm starving. How about we go get something to eat before I waste away to nothing. I've been looking forward to taking you to dinner all day."
Sounds like a chance to put off my discussion a bit longer. I jumped at the chance saying, "By all means. I can't have your demise on my conscience. Or on my carpet. Let's go."
Dinner was more than pleasant. The wine, the food and the company made it easy to forget my troubles. Before long we were finished, and walking into the bar like we didn't have a care in the world. I figured I'd tell Roger later tonight, at his place. I pushed those thoughts aside, determined to fully enjoy what might be my last night in this bar with Roger at my side.
We danced and partied the hours away, hanging out mainly with Kate and Michael, but we also visited with Caleb and his table. Ashlee seemed subdued. She didn't pull anything aggressive or stupid, but she hardly left Caleb's side all night. That was fine by me. I was content to live and let live if she was. It was funny though, because it was almost like she was afraid to leave Caleb alone. Like she was afraid when she came back she'd walk in on us doing all of the things I'd mentioned to her in the bathroom last week, right here on the bar table.
Kate mentioned that Michael was going out of town tomorrow evening, to attend a family thing. She said he was going to be gone a few days and mentioned how much she enjoyed having the house to herself for a while. She said she had quite a send off planned for him before he left, though. We asked her what she meant and she said anytime her man was going to be gone for a while, she made sure she was still foremost in his mind, so she didn't have to worry about him straying or even flirting too much.
"Men are hunters by nature. So if I do my job right, when he is out on the town without me, he is too drained, sated and satisfied to hunt. Instead he is sitting calmly, thoughts of me in mind. The taste of me still fresh, and if I drain him completely, there are no wild oats just begging to be sown. Don't
get me wrong, I don't worry about him cheating, he is a good guy. I don't see any harm in stacking the deck in my favor, either." Kate said with a feline grin that made it easy for me to picture her as a lioness, secure in the knowledge of where her lion will be feeding.
Later on, Caleb catches me alone. "Hey, Ashlee has been sticking to me like glue, so I only have a minute. I got lucky with that guy in vice, he said he heard rumors of a lady with a butterfly birthmark at a certain club a couple of hours from here. Are you still in?"
"Yeah I guess. When? Next Friday?" My mind was racing, maybe I could put off telling Roger until he got back. That way I could just enjoy tonight. Or maybe his friend in vice heard wrong. Maybe during the week Caleb will say never mind, it was a butterfly tattoo, wrong person. Hey, it could happen.
He shook his head no. "He said Saturdays were the busy nights at this particular club, and this Saturday they have a theme night. Some kind of an S&M thing. He said some S&M club was donating supplies, trying to recruit new members or something. They figure where else to go fishing for new S&M wanna be's than a swing club. Devote a room to it, like a free sample. Get new people curious, hook them for free or some such. It's supposed to be big. He said the chat rooms have been buzzing about little else. We got lucky on our timing. If they go there regularly, they might not pass up a night like that. Unless of course they don't like the crowds or the attention and they skip a night like that. Who knows, but either way, if they frequent this club, someone in a crowd that size might know something."
"This Saturday?" I asked in a panic. "Caleb, that's tomorrow."
"I know. Decide fast. Incoming." He smiled over my shoulder, as Ashlee and a few others rejoined the table. Roger arrived shortly after that, his hands full of drinks.
Two Player Games: (Corrupted 5-8) Page 8
