by King, Asha
For a moment, he leaned against her borrowed car, thinking about it in great, vivid detail. Heat flooded his veins, thinking of her cowering, screaming, begging for forgiveness even as she knew her punishment was inevitable.
But that would be rash. And she wasn’t his target tonight.
His gaze honed in on the front door, watching and waiting as a blonde exited alone. Her hair was thin and almost white, silky and swishing over her shoulders. Her braless tits bounced beneath the pink half-shirt that barely contained them, little white tennis skirt flouncing at her hips. If he tipped his head to the side, he’d see the underside of her ass. Long, strong legs were made leaner by a pair of white Mary Janes. A small purse hung over her shoulder and she rifled through it, pulling out a cigarette.
He closed in on her.
She was still fumbling with her cigarette as he approached; closer still and he realized it was a joint. Though her purse was tiny, she couldn’t seem to find a lighter.
He reached into his back pocket and produced one. “Need a light?”
Her blue eyes widened, startled, then she took him in and smiled. As he flicked the lighter, she leaned forward and let him light her joint. She sucked in a breath and then blew on the smoke, tapping ash onto the ground. “You want?” She offered him the joint.
He shook his head, still smiling. “I should quit.”
Chapter Eleven
The ringing of Natasha’s phone invaded her dream. It was incessant, and even tugging a pillow over her ear wouldn’t drown it out. Eventually she reached over and pulled it from the nightstand, fumbling to blindly turn it on.
“Hello?” she mumbled, eyes still closed.
“I was about to hang up.”
She had no damn idea who the hell was talking to her. “Huh?”
“It’s Keish. And I know you’ve been nosing around about the murder, so I’m offering you a chance to help.”
Tash sat straight up, blinking against the bright light of day in her apartment. “Anything.”
Her cousin tsked and sighed. “Oh, so now you’re awake.”
She glanced at the bedside clock—yeah, she’d overslept all right. It was already ten and she hadn’t done that in weeks. But then observing the escapades at a sex club until one in the morning, following Archer home, then driving all the way back to Stirling Falls made for a long, exhausting, sexually frustrating night.
“When are you leaving?” Tash asked as she stumbled out of bed, rushing around her room tossing around clothes.
“You don’t even know where we’re going yet.”
She hit the speakerphone button, set her cell on the dresser, and set about stripping out of her underwear and oversized T-shirt. “Fine, where are we going?”
“We’ve narrowed down the timeline of when the victim was killed. She went out Friday night and never made it home, and no one’s sure where she went, so we’re canvassing places in Hastings County. Plain clothes.”
It wasn’t like Tash had anything else to wear. She slipped on fresh panties and a bra that did not match at all, then rifled around for some jeans. Two fans blasted from either end of the bedroom but she knew outside was likely painfully hot; she opted for white cropped pants instead of anything too warm.
“Okay.” She stopped by the mirror, realized she should probably have showered, but then rarely did cops actually help her out voluntarily, so she didn’t want to delay Keisha. Instead of worrying how she smelled, she rolled on deodorant and went to find a shirt in the closet. “Why am I allowed to help with this?”
“The victim is a little more than a small town girl, Tash. She’s the stepdaughter of a retired Air Force Lieutenant-General with a lot of friends in a lot of places.”
Tash paused after snagging a red and white stripped, short-sleeved blouse, and frowned at the phone. “Why hasn’t that been in the paper?”
“Because the family wants all details about her completely private.”
That poor morgue assistant was going to be in so much trouble.
“Perry will look the other way if ‘additional resources are utilized to assist with this case’, so he says.”
Tash slipped on the blouse, pinned her hair up into a loose bun, and grabbed her phone. “I doubt he means me.”
“Me too, but he didn’t specifically say not to call you. And rumor has it you’ve been poking around our prime suspect—if anyone’s going to pick up on evidence pointing to him, it’s you.”
She had a point. And while neither of them was saying it, they both knew Tash was also the one to jump in if anything illegal had to be done. Still, she also had another priority job to do. “Ballpark on how long we’ll be?”
“Depends if we find anything,” Keisha said. “Couple of hours? Or five or six? Up front, I have to tell you that if something official is found, we have to call Perry, and you’ll need to leave. Leo can drop you somewhere or you can take a cab. Okay?”
It was pretty rude in her opinion to just cast away the person helping when it wasn’t convenient anymore, but then Keish was taking a risk even inviting her to help with this. “Sure, fine. I gotta go grocery shopping later anyway, so leave me at the store when we’re done.”
“You got it.”
And as for Archer...well, he’d likely just be sitting around home again and she could always just not charge Adam for her time checking out Hastings County. “Okay, I’ll be down in a sec.”
“Outside your building now.”
Natasha stuffed the phone in her pocket and rushed out of the bedroom.
****
She had a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, and was trying not to complain about being stuck in the back of Keisha and Leo’s car like a perp. At least it was a regular car and not a cruiser.
Downtown Hastings County was even smaller than Stirling Falls, but made up dozens of little side streets not quite wide enough for double car traffic. Small shops and independent restaurants were tucked around corners and dark alleys. She didn’t know the town all that well but figured she was about to.
Leo parked on the main road in front of a pawn shop and the three of them climbed out of the car. Cell phone in hand, he thumbed over the touch screen. “Sending the map to each of you, area broken into three with your assignments. Now...” He turned toward Tash, cocking one sandy eyebrow, and she knew something she wouldn’t like was coming.
Tash leaned against the side of the car, the wrapper from her takeout balled up in her hand. She sipped her coffee, blinking innocently up at him.
“Stick to the map.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it, Tash.”
She pulled out her cell phone, went to her email to find the canvassing map, and waved it at him. “I got it.”
“Call us if for any reason you go off map.”
She popped the phone back in her pocket and sipped her coffee, patting Leo on the arm as she walked past him. “Stop worrying.” The coffee gone, she disposed of it and the breakfast sandwich wrapper in a nearby trashcan and started for the first place on her list.
During the ride, Leo and Keisha had gone over what they knew: that Deborah Ann Walker had last been seen Friday evening around six by a neighbor who saw her leaving her apartment and locking the door behind her. She didn’t drive, so had no car for them to know how she got anywhere. They checked the local taxis, no one picked her up, so that left them with her sticking with places within walking distance. Tash had a photo of Walker in her email as well.
The first two places turned up nothing—small town like Hastings County, even on a Friday they were closed by six so she definitely hadn’t visited them. A deli Tash checked next didn’t recall seeing her either. Houses were scattered between shops and she glanced up at them as she wove around side streets. No one hand mentioned actually going door to door at residences yet, so she stuck with the businesses.
A small vintage shop hung on the corner, sixties peasant shirts and long beaded necklaces hanging in the window. Tash ducked under the
ivy-wrapped arbor out front and brief stone path. The shop must’ve been a house at some point but now was fully converted, with a sign to the side inviting visitors to check out the used bookstore on the second level.
Bells jangled above the door when she stepped inside. A tiny narrow hall with trippy art and fractal paintings on the walls awaited her.
“Hello?” she called.
The stairs ahead of her creaked and moments later a young woman appeared. She smiled brightly, looked just like the hippy one would expect in a vintage store, long dark hair without a fringe framing a Caucasian face, bright blue top that flowed over an ankle-length skirt. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
“Yes, a friend of mine got this really cute top and she won’t tell me where she got it. I thought maybe it was from here.” Tash followed the hippy proprietor past the stairs, into the main room of the shop.
It was like someone collected a bunch of people from decades’ past and they all exploded in the room—the sixties and seventies decor was present, yes, but a flapper dress also hung on the wall and three mannequins were dressed in classic pinup dresses, posed off to the side. Tash took it all in and only when she realized the store owner was looking at her did she remember to continue.
“It was this little purple top, flowy and a bit like a babydoll dress.” She pulled out her phone, brought up the picture of the victim she had, but cropped it so the focus was on the shirt and her face was hidden. She turned the screen to the shop owner. “Look familiar?”
The hippy stared at the picture. Something flashed over her face for a moment, an expression Tash couldn’t decipher, before she looked up and took a step back, shaking her head. “No, sorry. Not one of ours.”
The woman’s smile looked forced. Tash regarded this, tucked the phone back in her pocket.
“I was about to head to lunch,” the shopkeeper said, stepping toward the door. “If you don’t mind—”
Absolutely every inner alarm Natasha had was blaring loudly. “Oh, I’ll just be a minute. I’d like to check to be sure.” She swiftly rounded the hippy, heading deeper into the shop.
The woman was at her heels. “Maybe you can come back later.”
She definitely didn’t want Tash in the back of the store, so of course, Natasha kept going. Scarves dangled from the ceiling, which she pretended to browse. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find here, just that her gut told her to keep looking.
“I’d really prefer if you leave now,” the woman spoke up, still following like a shadow.
“You’re extremely rude for an indie shop owner,” Tash mumbled. Her eyes settled on a door tucked against the wall. A red curtain hung from the frame, caught and pinned to the side to reveal the handle. A chain hung on the doorknob, pale, polished steel. On either end dangled an inch-thick strip of black leather with buckles.
“There were definitely rope burns but something else as well, possibly a cuff of some sort that was less damaging. Some traces of leather under her fingernails, so that’s what the police are leaning toward.”
“So you wanna tell me what’s down there?” Tash turned, braced her hands on her hips, and gave the woman a look.
“I’m phoning the police if you don’t get out of here!”
“Okay. Do it. Because I’m here canvassing the area and I’m sure they’d also loooove to know what’s behind door number one and if it has anything to do with the murder they’re investigating.”
“Oh God, so it’s true.” The hippy stumbled back, her face ashen as if she was going into shock. She slumped against the counter, the register rattling behind her. “Oh God, Debbie.”
Well, that confirms that. “Her name hasn’t been publicized—how did you know it was her?”
“I heard they found a body and no one’s seen her. I just knew, oh God, I knew.”
“When did you last see her?”
Tears rolled down the woman’s cheeks. “Friday.”
“What time?”
“She was here...” She cleared her throat. “From around six-thirty, for drinks, until... Early, she left early. It was only eight or so.”
Although she already knew what she’d find, Tash decided she had to look anyway. “I’m going through that door now.”
The shopkeeper said nothing, her shoulders hunched and hair tangled over her tear-streaked face.
You need to call Leo and Keish, do this by the book... Who was she kidding, though? If she was by the book, she’d be a cop. Her first loyalty was to Adam, and she had to get down there and see things before the police came and shut her out of the investigation.
At least she had the presence of mind not to disturb any possible prints with her own. Tash yanked a scarf from the wall, wrapped her hand, and carefully opened the door.
Steps led downward and flipping a switch by the door cast light over the stairs. She headed down slowly, bracing as the hippy might have a case of the crazies and decide to bash her head in. But she made it to the bottom without any such incident and looked around.
Despite what she was expecting, it wasn’t a terribly imposing place. The walls were white, carpet beige. A simple sitting area was off to the side, where she could picture even little old grandmothers seated for afternoon tea on wicker loveseats with floral cushions. Of course, on the other side of the stairs was some kind of bondage swing, an array of crops and whips hanging on the wall, and a shelf of dildos in a row that went from small to large enough Tash couldn’t quite picture how they’d fit.
Though the scent of disinfectant hung in the air, it smelled like a regular cleaner instead of bleach and there was no obvious sign of blood.
Plenty of leather cuffs hung on the far wall, however, along with handcuffs and rope.
The police would definitely have to sweep the basement.
She headed back up the stairs and cast the scarf on the counter. The BDSM hippy sat on a barstool behind the register now, her head in her hands.
“Tell me what happened before the others get here,” Tash said.
The shop owner lifted her head, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Standard Friday night party. She’s been coming to the dungeon off and on for months now.”
“Was she alive when she left here?”
“Yes. Absolutely. No one in our group is a killer.”
“Did she leave alone?”
“Yes.”
“Was she tied up here?”
She shook her head. “Not this time. She didn’t stay long enough. It’s not sex and games right away—people talk, catch up. That kind of thing.”
So Walker left before the fun started. Assuming the woman was to be believed—that the lying hippy was telling the truth this time—Walker left and got tied up somewhere else.
And Tash had a sneaking suspicion she could guess where.
She was very aware of the weight of her phone in her pocket, and the need to call the actual cops to deal with this. She couldn’t explain to them her need to take an hour to interview the witness—this had to be fast. “Did she have problems with anyone here that you know of?”
The woman shook her head. “No. We have a very strict policy. No unwanted attention, no creepers—you get rejected and you push, you’re out for good.”
“Except you cater to people who whip others for fun.”
Her tears had faded and now the hippy scowled at her. “You’re a hell of a lot safer in a place like this than a vanilla nightclub where women get groped, drugged, and date raped all the time. Safe, sane, and consensual. That is what we practice.”
And Tash felt a flare of shame at being such a judgmental bitch—especially after she’d spent a couple of hours at a sex club the night before, attention more than a little rapt at what was going on. “Sorry. Do you know if Debbie ever went to a place called The Box?”
The shop owner frowned as she thought. “I don’t know. A few of my members have been there.”
“But not you?”
She indicated the still-open basement door.
“The dungeon here makes up a lot of my income—I can’t really afford their membership fees.”
Odder and odder—Archer walked right in, though supposedly he’d been out of the area some time. How long had he been a member? Tash pulled out her phone again and cycled to one of the many surveillance photos she’d snapped of Archer. “Have you ever had this guy in your dungeon?”
She looked over the photo but this time no obvious sign of recognition passed over her expression. “No.”
The police would probably ask her anyway, if they were still following up on Archer. Tash strolled toward the other end of the shop and dialed up Leo.
“Are you in trouble yet?” he asked as his answer.
“No, and you’re about to be very grateful you guys brought me along...”
Chapter Twelve
If Devin had to eat another peanut butter sandwich, he was going to go insane.
He pulled the truck up in front of Smith’s Quick Mart grocery store fifteen minutes outside the edge of Stirling Falls. Convenience store food wasn’t sustaining him anymore and this was the farthest he felt like going out of town just for produce.
The heat outside was thick and soupy, and he swiftly made it through the hot parking lot into the mostly-empty store. Cool air met him but he kept his hat shadowing his face, just in the off chance someone from town was in there to recognize him. He snatched a basket, and went about his shopping.
When it was apparent no one was staring, he relaxed bit by bit. Tension eased from his body and he hadn’t realized just how bunched up his muscles had been until they started to uncoil at last. It had been rough since getting kicked out of the place he’d been renting, like he no longer had anywhere to hide around here. He wished he didn’t stay so close to town, could’ve perhaps found somewhere other than the old house. A bed and breakfast, or motel room. Somewhere anonymous. Of course, all it would take was a few police visits for everyone to know. The last thing he needed was to explain to some nice old lady running a B&B why “MURDERER” was spray painted on her house.
