A Dead Man's Pulse

by Samantha A. Cole

  She loved how the Doms at The Covenant were so protective of the subs, even outside of the club walls. Especially with that sick serial killer running around targeting submissives. Even though Tiny didn’t participate in the lifestyle, he was just as protective as the Doms, if not more so, of the female members. Standing six foot eight, the man was the size of a refrigerator, and anyone would have to be insane to mess with him. She also knew he sometimes worked as a bodyguard when the Trident bosses needed him to and that he’d been armed at all times since they’d learned about the killer’s choice of victim.

  A yawn escaped her as she pointed out her small house to her escort who chuckled. “Tired?”

  “Well, it is after midnight and I’ve been up since 6:00 a.m. The only reason I went to the club tonight was for Colleen’s birthday.” Trident’s office manager had become a good friend of Georgia’s over the past year or so, having come out of her shell since working for the Sexy Six-Pack as Devon’s wife, Kristen, had dubbed the original men who’d started the business.

  Pulling into her driveway, Tiny smiled. “I’m sure she was happy you could celebrate with her.” He put the vehicle in park and added, “Stay there, Miss Georgia. Let me take a quick walk around the house to make sure everything looks good.”

  Georgia knew better than to object and if she were honest with herself, she appreciated the gesture. Once he exited the SUV, he closed the door and locked her inside. He then turned on the flashlight he’d grabbed from under the driver’s seat. It was one of those heavy-duty Mag-lites that could fracture someone’s skull if swung hard enough. Her brother, Greg, who was a police officer in Miami, had given her two of them. One was in the house and the other was in her Camry.

  As Tiny rounded the side of her house, Georgia’s gaze followed the glow of the flashlight until it disappeared. The silence surrounding the vehicle made her shift uncomfortably. Tipping her head forward, she checked the side-view mirror. Not seeing anything of concern, she then glanced over her shoulder, scanning the area directly behind the SUV. Normally, she wasn’t a scaredy-cat, but for some reason, tonight, she was on edge. When she spotted the beam from Tiny’s flashlight bobbing from the far side of the house, she released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  Finishing his inspection of her property, the big man strode to the passenger side of the truck and opened her door for her. “Everything looks okay. I’ll walk you to your door.”

  Holding out his hand, he helped her down from the elevated height. At five foot four, she was dwarfed by both the man and his vehicle. She dug into her purse and by the time they reached the front door, she had her keys out and ready. Unlocking the door, she swung it open and turned to thank her escort to find him frowning. “You didn’t set the alarm?”

  Shit. Of course he’d notice that. She usually set it, but some days she was in such a hurry or in a mental fog that she forgot. Her brother would kick her ass if he knew since he’d insisted on having it installed in the first place. “I must have forgotten. I promise it won’t happen again. Thanks, Tiny. I appreciate the ride.”

  Bending down, he gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek. “Glad I could help. Now, lock the door and set the alarm so I know you’re safe.”

  “Yes, Master Travis.”

  He grinned at the snarked title he never used. “Brat. Get going.”

  Once she’d done as she’d been told, she waved at him through the door-side window, and then watched as he returned to his truck and drove away. Sighing, she kicked off her shoes and left them and her purse next to the hallway table. Yawning again, she stretched on her way to her bedroom. Tomorrow, or today as it was, would be a long day and she’d be looking forward to a nap as soon as she got home from work. Thankfully, the gymnastics team’s season, that she was the coach for, didn’t start up for another week.

  Flipping the foyer light switch off and the hallway one on in a flick of her hand, she headed for the bathroom. The small, two-bedroom ranch was the perfect size for a single woman. The neighborhood was nice and quiet, and she had a decent-sized plot of land. She’d spent many a weekend cultivating the landscape by herself, planting flowers and shrubs to give herself a small Eden in Florida.

  Flushing the toilet, she washed and dried her hands then used a makeup remover wipe to clean her face. She shut off the light, making her way to her bedroom. Her hand reached for the switch that would turn on the lamp sitting on her night stand, but when she flipped the switch nothing happened. Damn it. It seemed like, lately, all her light bulbs were reaching the end of their lives, and she’d used the last spare one yesterday for the lamp in the second bedroom she used as an office. For now, there was just enough moonlight coming through the edges of her closed curtains for her to see. Mentally putting light bulbs on a shopping list for tomorrow, she reached down for the hem of her shirt. But she never had a chance to remove it as an arm wrapped around her waist at the same time a damp cloth was slapped over her mouth and nose.

  Panic coursed through her as she struggled and fought against her much bigger assailant. She tried to hold her breath while she kicked and clawed at him, only finding fabric everywhere she scratched. Twisting in his arms, she caught sight of his face out the corner of her eye. What? Him? He was a Dom she knew, but had never played with. Why is he doing this? What does he want? I have to get away! Georgia continued to struggle as seconds ticked into minutes. Her mind blurred as her movements weakened. As she collapsed into darkness, her last thought was her brother was going to kill her if she died.

  The Dom let Georgia drop to the floor. For a small thing, she sure was feisty—just how he liked them. When she woke up in his dungeon later, he was looking forward to her spirit putting up a fight. Tucking the rag doused with an isoflurane derivative—chloroform didn’t work like in the movies—into his pocket, he then pulled out a tourniquet and a syringe filled with a combination of barbiturates commonly used for anesthesia. He’d gotten very good at estimating his victim’s weight so he wouldn’t give them an overdose. Quickly wrapping the tourniquet around her left bicep, he found a large vein and injected the drugs into her system. That would keep her out long enough for him to carry her out the back door and lock it behind them, then leave her in the shadows at the side of the house while he retrieved his vehicle from where he’d parked it three blocks away in a used car lot. The trip to his dungeon would be about fifty minutes at this hour of the night, with traffic at a bare minimum. After he chained her to the bed there, he’d return home and get some sleep. The fun wouldn’t begin until she had woken up from the drugs and had a few hours to panic over her predicament.

  Stepping over to the bedside lamp, he screwed the light bulb back in place until it lit the room. The Dom glanced around to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything out of place and there were no signs he’d ever been in the house. Turning the lamp back off, he bent down and picked up the petite woman. Luck had been on his side tonight. Since the police and Doms had been stepping up their game, making sure the submissives in the area knew to take precautions and being escorted whenever possible, he’d needed to step up his game, too. The Internet was the greatest invention ever for research. For the past few weeks, he’d been practicing picking locks with a set of tools he’d found on-line. There were countless instructional videos on YouTube.com and while he was still practicing harder locks, he’d been able to pick the one on Georgia’s back door within five minutes. He’d been watching her for about three weeks now, and saw she was sometimes lax with setting the alarm system in her house. From a side kitchen window, he’d been able to see the alarm panel near the back door had been dark. Being careful not to leave any scratch marks on the brass, deadbolt lock, he’d gained entry about a half hour before she got home. He hadn’t expected Daultry to drive her home and walk around the house with a flashlight, but the asshole didn’t come inside with the sub. If he had, the Dom would have shot him with the 9mm handgun he had holstered at his lower back. The big oaf was lucky he sucked at being a bodygu
ard—it’d saved his life.

  An hour later, his new masterpiece was naked, blindfolded, and restrained spread eagle on the old hospital bed in the sparse, one-room building in the woods bordering Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. It had been used as a utility building a few decades ago, but then abandoned when a new one had been built a mile closer to the main road at another turnoff. The only other items in the concrete structure were a cabinet that held his tools and a St. Andrew’s cross where his scenes took place—where his masterpieces came to life and then met their deaths at his hand. He was their Master and their executioner, and only he said when enough was enough. No one else. Him. The ultimate Dom.

  Following Captain Bowman from TPD’s Special Ops Division through the lobby of the FBI building, Ian and then Devon flashed their government IDs to the armed guards manning the metal detectors. All three men were waved around the huge walk-in device—the guards knew them by sight now and were aware of the weapons they were carrying—before approaching the bank of elevators. While they waited for a car to open up, Ian tilted his head side to side, cracking his vertebrae. He’d gotten very little sleep last night and so had Angie. They’d only gone to the club to celebrate Colleen’s birthday, otherwise, they would have spent the Wednesday night at home. They’d only been home an hour or so, when Angie had made a beeline for the bathroom. They’d thought her upset stomach was a thing of the past as she entered her second trimester, but, apparently, Little Bit hadn’t liked something Angie had eaten and she’d spent half the night in the bathroom. After her stomach was empty, the dry heaves had continued and Ian had to make a 2:00 a.m. run to the store to get saltines and ginger ale for her.

  When Ian had left their bed this morning, Angie was still sleeping, so he’d asked Kristen to check on her for him in a little while. The task force meeting was scheduled for oh-nine-hundred. After that, he’d be able to go back to the compound and catch a catnap for a bit.

  The bell above the middle elevator car dinged and when it opened up, Parrish came rushing out with two other agents on his heels. He spotted Ian, Devon, and Bowman immediately. “Good, you’re here. We might have another missing submissive.”

  “Shit,” Devon spat. “Who?’

  Sympathy crossed the special agent’s face and Ian’s stomach roiled like Angie’s probably had last night. He knew what the man was going to say, but he didn’t know the who. “It’s a Covenant sub, isn’t it?”

  Parrish nodded as the blood drained from the faces of both Sawyer brothers. “We’re not a hundred percent sure yet. Georgia Branneth didn’t show up for work this morning. Her purse and keys are in the house, but there’s no sign of her car.”

  “That’s because it’s at our compound,” Devon informed them. “It wouldn’t start last night so Tiny drove her home. I told her I’d have Babs check it for her.”

  “Tampered?” Ian asked.

  His brother shook his head. “I don’t think so. Looked like the alternator was shot, but I can have Babs check now.”

  When he pulled out his phone, Bowman stopped him. “Hang on. If it was tampered with, it’s evidence. Let’s do it by the book. I’ll get patrol over there and tow it back to the PD garage.”

  Devon nodded. “All right. I’ll let her know they’re coming and make sure no one touches it.”

  “On the way to Branneth’s house, give your man, Daultry, a call and have him respond there, too. I want to know everything that happened after he left the club with her last night.” With a hand gesture, Parrish got them all walking back toward the building’s main entrance again.

  Ian was glad the fed gave no indication Tiny was a suspect, because he’d put their friend and employee last on a list of over a million suspects before he even considered him to be their killer. If anything, Tiny was going to be devastated when he found out what happened. If Georgia had been kidnapped.

  By the time they reached Georgia’s small, ranch-style house, there were three patrol cars, two unmarked vehicles, a FBI Evidence Response Team Unit (ERTU) van, and, unfortunately, two news vans. Ian was certain more were on the way. The uniformed officers had already begun to hang the yellow tape around the property, and their vehicles had blocked the road so the press was stuck behind them, unable to get good shots due to the high shrubs blocking the view of the house. A patrol officer put his vehicle in drive and moved it a few feet to let Bowman, Parrish, and Ian’s vehicles in the restricted area, before blocking the way again. Before climbing out of his SUV with its darkly, tinted windows, Ian took the Tampa Rays baseball cap Devon had retrieved from the backseat, and placed it low on his head, hiding his facial features from news cameras. His brother donned another cap. The last thing they needed in their businesses was to be identified while investigating a crime scene.

  Getting out of the vehicle, they strode purposely toward the front steps of the house—at least there they were out of camera range—and met with Bowman, Parrish, and the other feds. There was also a woman Ian didn’t recognize standing next to SA Novik who made the introductions. “This is Ms. Branneth’s friend and vice principal at the high school, Janet Benson. Ms. Benson, this is Special Agent in Charge Colt Parrish, Captain Al Bowman, and investigators Ian and Devon Sawyer.”

  Parrish gently shook the pale woman’s hand. “I’m sorry we had to meet this way, Ms. Benson, and I know you’ve already told your story more than once already, but please start at the beginning.”

  Taking a shaky breath, Janet told them what little information she had. “All I know is she sent me a text at fourteen minutes after midnight to say she was getting a lift home from the club she goes to because her car wouldn’t start and asked me to pick her up on my way to school today. I pulled up at ten to seven and honked the horn. When she didn’t come out, I rang the doorbell and called her cell and got no answer. I thought maybe she got her car started and forgot to tell me so I drove to the school. When she didn’t show up before the first bell, I swung by my house to get the spare key she gave me last summer to water her plants while she went on vacation, then came back here. When I saw her purse with her keys and cell phone in the foyer, and her nowhere to be found, I called 9-1-1.” By this point, tears were rolling down her cheeks. “I—I know the type of club she belongs to . . . but no one else at the school does. She was afraid someone would find out and she’d lose her job, which is why she went to that private club . . . um . . . The . . . The Covenant, I think it’s called. She never went to the public ones.” Her gaze bounced from one person to the next. “You-you think that serial killer has her, don’t you?”

  None of them wanted to be the one to confirm that, but Parrish sucked it up and did his best to sugarcoat it. “We don’t know, yet, Ms. Benson. Yes, she fits the profile, but so far all the victims were taken from their driveways. It appears Ms. Branneth made it inside—”

  “She did make it inside; I walked her to the door myself and made sure she locked it and set the alarm.”

  Ian turned to see his employee and friend marching toward the group. Tiny looked like he’d driven through hell to get there, his face filled with concern and guilt. Not because he had anything to do with Georgia’s disappearance, but because he’d been the last one to see her—well, almost the last person to see her. At Ian’s request, Devon hadn’t given Tiny any of the few details they’d had so far when he’d called to tell the man to meet them at Georgia’s house because she was missing, nor did Devon ask for any details of what had happened in the wee hours of the morning. They needed to hear what happened from his recollection without tainting it with anything that was said or implied to him. Usually a missing person case like this would require at least twenty-four hours before being investigated, but since the submissive fit the profile, they were waiving the normal wait period.

  Before Tiny could say anything more, Parrish held up his hand to stop him before addressing his agents. “Novik and Davis, please take Ms. Benson back to the office and get a full statement from her, along with a list of friends and famil
y. You know the drill. Ms. Benson, we’ll do everything we can to find out what happened to Ms. Branneth. Any information you can give the agents to help us will be greatly appreciated.”

  As the two agents escorted their witness from the scene, a crime scene tech exited through the front door. “SAC Parrish. We found something around back.”

  He pointed to the side of the house, indicating they should walk around instead of through the building. At the back door, another female tech was dusting it for prints while another male tech marked off two footprints in the soil next to the patio. Parrish started with the latter. “A set or different?”

  The man glanced up from his work. “Two different. One’s about a size twelve and the other is a size ten.”

  “The twelve is probably mine. I walked around the house last night with my flashlight to make sure she would be safe.” Tiny’s eyes watered and he turned his head to the side a moment to regain his composure. It bothered Ian to see the big man, who would never hurt a woman, get so emotional because one in his care had possibly been kidnapped by a serial killer. “I didn’t see anything. I’d locked her in my truck while I walked around, and then escorted her to the door. It’d been locked but I noticed she had an alarm that wasn’t set. She said she sometimes forgot to set it. Damn it! I should have searched the house. Fuck! This is my fault!”

  “Hey, Tiny,” Devon said. “Man, look at me, damn it. This is not your fault. If you saw anything that had made you think she was in danger, you never would have let her in the house alone. We don’t know if she left the house after you drove off. We don’t know anything right now. You can’t beat yourself up. If I was the one to drive her home, without something triggering my Spidey-sense, I would have done exactly what you did.”