Sweet Vibrations

by Melinda Barron

  He held out the envelope and read off the numbers again.

  “So, we have an eight and a thirty-two in one corner. Then, separated from that, we have a three, a nine, a seven, and a four. Or put together we have three thousand nine hundred and seventy-four. You’re sure there was no safe in the house?”

  “Unless it was buried in the backyard, no. I boxed up everything I wanted to keep, hired movers to bring it over here, and then had an estate sale. I found no safe.”

  “What’s in the other boxes in the garage?”

  “Books, a few knick-knacks. Mostly things that I’d made for him when I was a kid.”

  Tears swelled in her eyes and she looked away. Lake brought her face closer to his and gently wiped away the few that slid down.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I know this must be hard for you.”

  “He was the only person who ever really cared about me.”

  “Not anymore.” He traced her hairline and then smiled at her.

  The tears fell and Lucy shuddered when he pulled her closer.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” she whispered.

  “Me, too. I keep hoping we’ll develop a bond. I know I feel it. Don’t fight it, little Vixen.”

  “I’m trying. Can we end my punishment now?”

  She bit her lip as he glanced at his watch.

  “Yup. Then we can shower and you can help me with this.”

  She looked down the erection that pressed against his shorts.

  “That’s just mean. You get off and I don’t?”

  “Yeah, but it’ll reinforce the fact that you need to behave, won’t it?”

  Lucy stood and crossed her arms over her chest. Lake pushed up from the couch. And lowered his face to within inches of hers.

  “Won’t it?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl. Now, let’s go before we’re both late for work.”

  Chapter Nine

  The New Mexico sun beat down on Lucy as she sat on the picnic table outside Brownlee’s and finished her dinner. Lake hadn’t called with any information about the key, or the numbers on the envelope. A glance at her watch showed that it was after six, so he was sure to be back at work now.

  She smiled when she remembered their shared shower. She’d hoped that Lake would give in and let her come, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d let her give him a hand job, not allowing her to take him in her mouth. His words still rang through her ears.

  “Penetration of any kind, oral, vaginal or anal, implies trust. We’re not there yet.”

  When she’d reminded him that she’d taken him in her mouth the first night, he’d laughed.

  “True, and I loved it. But I let it get out of hand. And I’m not backing down on this.”

  After the shower, Lake had insisted that he load the last box into the truck with him, in the hopes that he might have some free time between appointments to go through some of it, and see if he could find a clue.

  She racked her brain to think of anyone who might know what the key meant, or why Craig had hidden it under the seat of the Indian. It seemed a strange hiding place. But then again, it had proven effective, since she hadn’t found it when she’d gone through Craig’s belongings.

  She remembered the names of a few of Craig’s friends, Rodney Baker and Jeff Black, both of them very nice men who’d offered to do anything for her when Craig had died. Then there was his boss, Alan Malfee, who ran Roadrunner Deliveries.

  A quick call to information provided numbers for all three men.

  Rodney’s wife was polite, and happy to hear from her, saying that Rodney was out of town on a bike run with friends but would call when he got home. Lucy left her number, chatted with the woman for a few minutes before hanging up.

  Jeff had been polite, but sounded confused when Lucy said she’d found something in Craig’s things that didn’t make sense to her. He’d pressed her for details, which she refused to give, then got mad and said he couldn’t help her identify something if he didn’t know what it was.

  Finally, she told him it was a key and he’d laughed.

  “Could be anything. Maybe it’s the key to some chick’s apartment.”

  Lucy had never thought of that. She’d thanked him for the idea and hung up. She thought about it for a few minutes, and knew that they key was too small to belong to an apartment.

  Her final call, to Alan Malfee, had been just as unproductive. The man had been distantly polite, saying that he missed Craig, who had been one of his best drivers, but he had no idea what the key was for.

  “I’ll take it, though. Maybe it’s to something up here.”

  Lucy had politely declined, and agreed to let him know if she found anything out.

  When Briscoe came outside and looked pointedly at his watch she went back to work, stocking pots and moving trees and plants. She helped load a truck with sacks of gravel, and by quitting time, she was covered in dust.

  A quick glance at her watch showed that she had a little more than an hour before she was supposed to meet Lake at Tygers. She planned on being a good girl tonight, very submissive and very eager to please.

  She barely had enough time to go home and shower, then take the truck out to the club. She might be late, but at least she would be clean. She strapped on her helmet and straddled her hog, loving the way it felt as she started down the road. The larger ball on her piercing had definitely increased the stimulation she felt when she rode the bike, and this morning she’d thought she would come before she got to work.

  The feeling had been a double-edged sword. She would have been breaking Lake’s edict, but it would have released the pressure she’d been feeling for the past day. She’d fought the orgasm down, but now that she was back on the bike, the feeling returned.

  “Soon,” she whispered to herself. “Very soon.”

  It was just dusk when she pulled into the driveway. She parked the bike and went into the back gate. Fred bounded across the yard and barked out a happy greeting.

  “How’s it going? Need some water?” She refilled both his dishes and patted his head. She ignored the toy he picked up, saying, “I’m already going to be late. Do you want to get me into trouble?”

  She patted him again, then stepped toward the sliding glass door.

  She stopped abruptly. The door was open. Not enough to let Fred into the house, just a few inches. She thought that she’d closed it and locked it that morning, but part of her wondered if maybe Lake had come outside and the door hadn’t latched. Or maybe he was inside right now, to surprise her.

  She pushed it open and then looked at Fred, who thumped his tail against the ground in happiness.

  Lucy shook her head. Fred was the best security system a girl could have. There was no way he would let anyone in the backyard. She stepped inside the house, leaving the door open just in case, and set her purse down. Movement from the kitchen caught her eye.

  “Lake?” She was greeted with silence. “Is that you? I thought we were…”

  She took a step toward the kitchen, then stopped. The living room was in shambles. The boxes she and Lake had gone through were overturned, their contents thrown across the room. Furniture had been upended and lamps broken.

  “Shit.” Lucy inched backwards toward the patio, then fell onto her back when a large man barreled through the dining room doorway and pushed her to the floor.

  The wind left her body as the man landed on top of her, his knees holding her in place as his hands pressed her shoulders to the ground.

  “Give it to me, bitch!”

  She tried to focus on the face, hidden by a ski mask.

  “What?”

  “Now! I want it! Give me the key!”

  “No! What key? Who are you?” Lucy screamed at the top of lungs. “Get off me!”

  Fred’s angry bark filled the room. Seconds later the large black lab catapulted across the room and landed on the stranger, his bulk knocking the intruder off Lucy.

  The man let out an exc
lamation of pain, accompanied by a fierce, “Fuck, Fred! Down, boy!”

  Lucy tried to stand, her mind reeling as sounds of Fred’s snarling and biting filled the room. She turned toward the struggle in time to see Fred slam against the wall and let out a howl of pain.

  “Fred! No!”

  The man jumped up and knocked her down, and her head slammed against the floor, and then everything went black.

  * * * * *

  Lake looked at his watch and sighed. She was an hour late. He’d pushed her too hard today, tried to get too much out of her too fast. Now he was sure that she wasn’t showing up.

  She’d been a half-hour late the first night, so he hadn’t been too concerned about it at first. But the longer he’d waited, the more he knew that she wasn’t coming. It hurt his heart to think that he’d driven her away.

  She’d seemed happy after the shower this morning, even if she hadn’t had an orgasm. She’d teased him that he’d owed her more than one tonight. He’d informed her that she had to earn it, and, if she wasn’t careful, she wouldn’t even get her one. Things had seemed so perfect after the fiasco of the feeding incident.

  When his cell phone rang, he snatched it up quickly and frowned as Eric’s number appeared on the screen. He flipped the phone open.

  “Hey, I managed to run…”

  “Get your ass to Lucy’s.”

  “What, Eri…”

  “Now!”

  The phone went dead and Lake took off for the door at a dead run.

  * * * * *

  “I’m all right. Leave me alone. Where’s Fred?”

  Lake’s heart calmed a bit as Lucy’s voice reached his ears. He could tell she’d been crying and was scared, but at least she could talk. When he’d rounded her corner and saw all the emergency lights he’d barely been able to breathe. Not that he’d been able to do so since Eric’s call. During the drive over, he thought he would hyperventilate.

  The officer at the front door had let him in after calling out to Eric and seeing an ID. Lake followed the noise to the dining room. He saw Eric’s blond head high above all the others.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Break-in,” Eric said. “She’s fine. But when the officer got here, she was unconscious. A neighbor called it in after hearing a ruckus. About ten minutes after the call, they ran her license and I recognized her name on the scanner and called you.”

  “Thanks.” He took a step toward the paramedics. “I’m a doctor. Let me in, please.”

  Lake nodded at a paramedic he knew named Steve, who nodded back and moved away. Lake knelt down near Lucy and whispered her name.

  “Lake. Oh Lake, he killed Fred.” She collapsed into his arms, crying against his shoulder as he held her tight. “He killed Fred. Oh, Fred. Where’s Fred?”

  She repeated the phrases over and over as Lake held her close.

  “Relax, baby, breathe deep. It’s gonna be OK. I’ll take care of you. Relax. I’m going to set you back so I can examine you, OK? Breathe deep for me.” He gently pushed her back, then took a light from the paramedic and examined her eyes.

  “Doesn’t seem to be a concussion,” Steve said. “I think she just got whacked pretty good. There’s a hell of a goose egg on the back of her head.”

  Lake nodded, then ran his fingers through her long hair. He found the spot easily as his free hand wiped away her tears.

  “I want Fred,” she whispered, her tears still falling. “He saved me. I want Fred.”

  “He’s a hero, then,” Lake said. “Shush, it’s OK, baby.”

  Lake glanced up at Eric, who nodded toward a wall where Fred lay motionless on the floor. A paramedic was checking the lab, so Lake knew that the dog wasn’t dead.

  “I found a number on the refrigerator door and called her vet,” Eric said. “And we’ve told her that. But she seems to be stuck on the idea that the dog is dead. There’s blood on the carpet, and trailing to the backyard so the dog must have mauled the guy pretty good.”

  “What about the cats?”

  “Cats? We haven’t seen any cats.”

  “Then they’re hiding. What the hell happened?” Lake stood and moved toward his friend.

  “Well, we haven’t been able to get anything out of Lucy. The neighbor said that he heard Lucy’s bike drive up about nine-thirty. He was in his backyard and heard her talk to Fred. Then, a few minutes later, he heard a fight. By the time he got over here to investigate he saw a large man, dressed in black, running for the alley. He found Lucy and called nine-one-one.”

  “Shit,” Lake said. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Let me through so I can treat the dog.” Both Lake and Eric turned toward the deep voice that sounded from the doorway.

  “It’s all right,” Eric said, motioning to the cop standing guard.

  The vet went immediately to Fred and started to examine him.

  Lake knelt back down in front of Lucy. “Let’s go outside, baby.” He helped her stand, then lifted her into his arms.

  “Stop that. I’m too heavy to be carried.”

  Lake forced a smile. “You just earned a punishment,” he whispered in her ear. “Behave.”

  He carried her to the backyard, where he sat her down on an outdoor barstool.

  Eric followed, and introduced him to Jon Tyler, the neighbor who’d come to help.

  “I wish I could tell you more,” Jon said. “The dog never even barked until Lucy got home, and at first it was a happy bark.”

  “That’s odd,” Lake said. “The dog barked and barked at me the first night I was here, until Lucy told him it was OK.”

  “The dog knew the intruder,” Eric said.

  “He called him Fred,” Lucy said from her chair.

  “What?” Eric asked.

  “The man. When Fred jumped him, he said, ‘Fuck, Fred,’ and I’d never said his name.”

  “Well, that helps narrow suspects down a bit,” Eric said. “If the dog knew him and let him into the backyard without putting up a fuss it puts a whole new spin on things.”

  Chapter Ten

  It was after three by the time Lake pulled into his driveway. Lucy dozed on the seat next to him, and the cats, who had scratched the crap out of him, were making a fuss from their respective carriers.

  “Quiet down,” he said to them. “You’ll wake her!”

  Eric pulled up next to him. Lake carried Lucy into the house; then he and Eric each took a carrier to bring Scarlet and Rhett inside.

  He took the felines into a spare bedroom, set up a litter pan, and food and water with supplies he’d brought from Lucy’s house, then opened the cage doors and ran.

  “Don’t scratch the furniture,” he yelled from the other side of the closed door.

  He’d stretched Lucy out on the couch, and she’d barely stirred.

  “You know, this has something to do with that key you told me about,” Eric said.

  “Maybe. But I don’t know how someone would find out about it.” Lake grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator.

  “Bullshit. You tell me about a key that a dead man left, and then a few days later the dead man’s niece is attacked. Someone wants that key. Did you figure out where it went?”

  “No. We went through two boxes of stuff earlier today, and there’s one more box sitting in the cab of the truck.”

  “Well, haul it in here and let’s take a look,” Eric said. “’Cause I know you’re not going to sleep since you’ll be too busy checking on her.”

  “That’s right,” Lake said. He did just that, gently stroking her cheek after he checked her eyes. Then went to the truck and hauled the box inside.

  “I went through part of it tonight, but I didn’t find anything unusual.” He set the box on the table, opened it, and put the papers he’d already been through on the far end. He and Eric sat and started to sift through papers and duplicate checks.

  Every twenty minutes, Lake went to the couch to check on Lucy, who slept quietly.

  Around six, Eric gav
e a low whistle. “This might be something. A duplicate check dated about a month before he died, to Hungry Hippo Storage. I’ve never heard of it, have you?”

  Lake reached for the phone and dialed information at the same time he shook his head.

  He asked for a number in Albuquerque, and was told there was no listing. On a lark, he asked if there was a listing in Santa Fe. He quickly jotted down the number and passed it to Eric.

  “Hmm,” Eric said. “Why would a person who lived in Albuquerque go all the way to Santa Fe to rent a storage unit?”

  “I’d do it. If I was trying to hide something.”

  “Exactly.”

  * * * * *

  The ringing phone woke Lucy. It took her several minutes to get her bearings and to realize she was someplace she’d never been before. Then last night came rushing back. The image of Fred flying through the air and slamming into the wall, and the intruder’s voice as he screamed at her to “give it to me.”

  She moaned and sat up, then focused on Lake as he came out of a doorway.

  “Lie back down,” he said. “I’m fixing breakfast. You just relax some more.”

  “Fred.” The word came out as a whimper.

  “That was the vet on the phone. Although he’s not out of the woods yet, Fred’s still alive.”

  Lucy gave a half laugh, half sob and buried her face in her hands.

  Lake sat down next to her and gathered her in his arms. “He’ll be fine, Lucy. You’ll see.”

  “What can you tell us about last night?”

  Lucy stiffened at the voice. She recognized that voice. Master X. She looked at the blond man who looked like a Viking and who now stood near the same doorway Lake had come through. He grinned at her sheepishly, and she blushed and turned away.

  “Not much.”

  “Lucy, this is Detective Eric Neal, my best friend.”

  She nodded when Eric said, “Hi Lucy.” Then she leaned into Lake and told them everything she could remember. When she was done, Lake helped her to her feet.

  “OK? Feeling dizzy or anything?”

  “No.”