Jed found Dare sitting on a bench near the far end of the parking lot, staring over the cliff at the turbulent sea. In the distance, the sun touched the horizon, but it was mostly obscured by clouds and a thick fog that seemed to creep over the water.
He sat down next to the man who had, in some ways, become his closest friend.
“Don’t tell me I was wrong to walk away. Maybe it’s not what a Dom is supposed to do, but it’s what I needed to do. I wasn’t going to cool off if I stayed there.” Still as granite and tense as a hostage negotiator, Dare didn’t move.
“I walked away too.” Jed ran a hand over his hair. The bumpy texture tended to help him calm down. Or maybe he just liked petting himself. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so pissed at a woman before.”
“I’m in love with her.”
Jed had suspected as much. If neither of them had strong feelings for her, then they wouldn’t have cared about any of the things she hadn’t told them because they were inconsequential to the investigation. He shook his head. “It’s going around.”
“I know she’s had other boyfriends, other Doms. She’s trained, an experienced sub. That had to come from somewhere.” Dare finally moved. He rubbed his palm on the thigh of his jeans.
“But it would have been nice if she told us that we were about to meet the man who introduced her to it all. We used his dungeon.” Jed didn’t want to think of her with another man who wasn’t him or Dare. “Jealousy is a new emotion for me. I’ve been jealous of you, and now him. And her. Jeeze—can you imagine Tru going down on Jewell? Holy shit, that would be so fucking hot. At the same time, I don’t think I could watch.”
Dare’s chuckle was bereft of all humor. “I know what you mean. I watch her with you, and I think I don’t have a snowball’s chance with her, and then I realized that you must be thinking the same thing when you see her with me. You know what we need? Time alone with her. You had today. I get tomorrow. We need to make that a regular thing.”
“I agree that we need a schedule, but she should have some say in it. And you’re getting her tonight. I won’t do a public show.”
“Oh.” Dare sounded disappointed. “I thought afterward that we’d come back to you. She really liked when we had her at the same time.”
Jed washed his hand over his eyes. “I hate to say it, but I think tonight we all need to sit down and talk. A scene isn’t what we need. We need to be brutally honest, lay all our cards on the table, and so does she.”
Sitting back, Dare looked like a man about to be led to his execution. “Do you think she’ll do it? She was pretty clear about this being temporary.”
“She said that we’d see where it goes. Well, it has gone in a serious direction. We have to make sure she understands that, even if she’s not on the same page yet.”
“I admire your optimism.” Dare chuckled again, but this time it had an edge of humor to it. “I told my mom about all this.”
Jed had no idea how to even begin to have a conversation like that with his parents. “What did she say?”
“She’s happy for us, and she wants to meet Tru.”
If he hadn’t been looking over his shoulder at Dare, he wouldn’t have caught the movement in the corner of his eye. Two figures, dark shadows against the darkening sky, darted between two cars. He shifted to face Dare, leaning in like things were about to get intimate.
Dare put a hand up. “Whoa, there. While this would also make my mom happy, I’m just not that into you.”
“Shhh. Our suspects are sneaking around like thieves in the night. Man up. Pretend you love me.” In the twilight, it probably looked like a romantic interlude, and that suited him just fine. It meant Schatz wouldn’t know he’d been spotted. He put a hand on Dare’s neck and leaned even closer.
“Where are they, hot stuff?” Dare stared into his eyes like a star-crossed lover.
“You talk too much.” Just then, Zarah Braithwaite looked in their direction. Jed pressed his lips to Dare’s. He wasn’t nearly as soft and welcoming as Tru, and he sure didn’t smell as good. He mostly smelled like spaghetti and meatballs.
Schatz and Braithwaite disappeared into the bushes, and Jed let Dare breathe.
“Dude, I don’t know how Tru puts up with the way you kiss. You lack finesse, and you smell like beer.”
“And you smell like Alex’s spicy balls, but at least it’s not ketchup.” Jed sat back and openly stared at the place where the suspects had gone and willed his brain to make sense of what he’d witnessed. “This settles the question of whether Braithwaite is a hostage or a suspect. She led Schatz into the bushes.”
“Let’s see where they’re going.” Dare leaped to his feet. “Tru is going to have to wait.”
They crept to the place where the suspects had slipped into the brush, and they followed on silent feet. The sun hadn’t quite set, so there was still a little light for them to see where they were going. However there wasn’t a path to follow, so they had to rely on their ears and intuition to tell them where Schatz and Braithwaite had gone. Branches of brush snagged at his shirt and scratched his arms and legs. If he’d known that a nature hike in the frigid, foggy night air was on the agenda for the evening, he’d have worn pants and long sleeves.
The sounds of someone moving through foliage ceased, and Jed stopped, holding up his fist to signal Dare. They stopped and listened. After the longest time, Dare tapped Jed’s shoulder and shook his head. Just as Jed was about to suggest they continue with caution, they heard the sound of voices.
“The opening is somewhere around here.” Carried on a soft ocean breeze, Zarah’s words skimmed past their ears.
“You said you knew where it was.” Schatz’s deeper voice didn’t need the help of the wind to travel.
“I do, but it’s been forever since I was here. And Angelo didn’t take me with him that time. I had followed him because he wasn’t acting like himself.” The sound of her voice moved away, and Jed followed it the best he could. Moments later, she laughed, a musical sound. “Didn’t he go to meet you? Why don’t you know where the hidden entrance is?”
“No, he didn’t meet me. I told you that I’m new to this branch of the organization.”
“What about the guy we’re going to meet? He’s your boss, right?”
Schatz made an aggravated noise. “You talk too much. Just find the cave entrance.”
They were being loud enough to put Jed’s mind at ease. Those two had no idea they’d been spotted or that two FBI agents were in hearing distance of their quiet conversation. Jed didn’t know how long they crept through the tangle of high bushes and scrubby pines before they came to the edge of the continent.
The growth didn’t fade or drop away. Instead, it tried to creep down the edge of the cliff, stubbornly clinging to life via crevices and clever roots. In the daytime, this camouflage wouldn’t have fooled them, but darkness shrouded them. The sun had set, and they didn’t have flashlights. The one on his cell phone would have lit up the place, but that would have also alerted Schatz and Braithwaite to their presence.
On the edge of the high cliff, Jed’s foot slipped, but he didn’t go far because Dare grabbed him. Heart racing, Jed threw a stoic nod of thanks over his shoulder at his buddy. This wasn’t a fall anyone survived. The two of them carefully followed the edge of the cliff for a while longer, but the voices and sounds of Schatz and Braithwaite had disappeared.
Jed stopped and looked around. “We lost them.”
Dare peered back the way they’d come. He used the flashlight app on his phone to shed some light on the issue, and they backtracked with Dare in the lead. The path they’d made was easy to see now, and they retraced their steps.
Before long, Dare pointed to a place where broken branches marked a possible path down the cliff face. He crouched down and pointed his flashlight to illuminate the evidence. Though it was difficult to see, a shelf came out about six feet down, and it looked as if there might be a cave or deep crevice leading into the rock.
“You think they went that way?” Jed hoped not. He wasn’t keen to climb down the sheer face of a cliff without any equipment or even the right kind of shoes. He was wearing sandals—sexy, manly sandals.
“One way to find out.” Dare slipped his phone in his pocket. “I’ll go. You keep watch.”
Jed hadn’t brought his gun, and neither had Dare. “I think that’s a bad idea. I can’t cover you if they are down there. I say we find a good hiding spot and keep watch. They’re going to have to come out eventually.”
“But they’re going to meet someone, probably to pick up illegal gems.”
Yeah, they wanted to catch the bad guys, but Jed didn’t see where that was going to happen tonight. “They’re in a cave high above the ocean. It’s more likely they’re stashing something or retrieving something that’s been stashed. Our best bet is surveillance. We’ll catch them red-handed on the way out.”
Dare didn’t look sold on the idea. “We don’t know they’re down there.”
Jed used the flashlight on his phone to search for clues—a scrap of clothing, a footprint, anything to indicate they’d been there. On the dirty floor of the rocky shelf, something metallic glinted. He focused his camera on it, set it for nighttime mode, and snapped a picture. “Broken fake fingernail. Braithwaite had teal, glittery polish on her nails.”
They moved farther down the cliff and positioned themselves so that they could see the shelf with the broken nail. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was something, and stumbling around in the dark was getting them nowhere.
_______________
Tru waited for an hour. At first she didn’t move. Too stunned to think, she remained on her perch at the foot of the bed. The thoughts tumbling through her head were too random and incomplete to make sense. Liam’s quiet pain... Jed’s face turned away... Giving...Taking... Submitting... Feeling... Gram... Alex... Poppy...Visions...
Once the shock wore off, her brain sorted out the relevant details and began shouting at her—regrets and recriminations mostly. She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. Liam’s parting shot had hit hard because nothing he’d said was wrong. This wasn’t supposed to be serious. Like every relationship in which she’d ever engaged, it was supposed to have been temporary fun.
But it wasn’t. Not anymore. She’d suggested seeing where this experiment led. At the time, she hadn’t thought it would go anywhere serious, but it had—for all three of them.
She found no comfort in the fact that Liam was keeping in mind the terms of the deal, but she took heart from the fact that the terms made him upset. That meant he was at least invested in the relationship. She wasn’t sure if his feelings ran as deeply as hers—but at least he had them.
And Jed did as well. He may not have been active in their “discussion,” but he had been just as hurt as Liam. She hadn’t meant to hurt them, and that pain weighed heavily on her heart. Perhaps they’d gone off to develop a plan for how to get Tru to fall for them? They had no way of knowing that she already had.
After all, what clues in her behavior could have led them to think anything had changed on her part? None. She hadn’t changed a darn thing. They wanted her submission—her complete submission—but she hadn’t given it. Oh, she’d given piecemeal parts, especially during sex, but she hadn’t surrendered to them. Not once had she knelt for them. That had been a hard limit, even with Alex after that first time. Kneeling for a Dom was a deeply spiritual experience that had sent her reeling into the deepest levels of submission. That wasn’t something she had ever wanted to give to another person.
It wasn’t that she was afraid Liam or Jed would abuse or fail to cherish her submission; it was that she’d never before wanted to let anybody get that close to her. Yeah, she’d been having visions of Liam and Jed for a while, but that was no substitute for spending the time necessary to build a relationship. And yeah, she hadn’t known them for that long, but it didn’t seem to matter. She’d been close friends with Alex for seven years when she’d agreed to be his submissive, and that hadn’t made her want to get on her knees and give him everything.
But this was different. She hadn’t wanted it to be, but it was. And so she slid to the floor and knelt to wait for them to return. Her actions would speak when her words were not adequate.
She remained that way for twenty minutes—a test of endurance for anyone’s knees—before she had to get up and move around. While she didn’t have osteoporosis yet, the bones in her legs and knees weren’t used to holding that kind of position. Sometimes sitting for long periods also caused soreness. It could have been a long-term side effect of chemo, or it could just be bad genetics. Tru chose not to think about it. She emptied her mind and tried the position again. And again. And yet again.
After two-and-a-half hours with no sign of Liam or Jed, she gave up. She knew they hadn’t left because they weren’t here for her. They were here for work, and they weren’t going to give up until they caught their murderer. They had most likely caught sight of the suspects at the public event and stayed to watch. Tru knew that Anton Schatz and Zarah Braithwaite had said they wouldn’t attend, but they’d probably changed their minds. Voyeur/Exhibitionist night may not have been their cup of tea, but it was one of those events that tended to draw people in whether they liked the brew or not.
She pictured Jed and Liam sipping beers and watching their suspects watch people have sex. If she wanted things to happen tonight, then she needed to go find them. In preparation, she selected the corset top and skirt that her Doms had chosen for her once before, and she spent some time making sure her hair and makeup were styled attractively.
The “shows” were confined to the event room, a place where regular demonstrations and classes were held. It had originally been a banquet hall when this place had been expanded in the 1940’s as a summer camp.
Tru entered the room unnoticed. In several places, couples performed for the audience that had gathered, and that’s where everybody’s attention was focused. She passed a bound man being spanked, but she didn’t notice any other details because she was focused on the onlookers. That’s where she’d find her Sirs. Other stations showed various degrees of people engaged in foreplay or sex, and she searched among the audience for Liam and Jed. They had to be there somewhere. However, two circuits of the room proved her wrong. Tamping down a mixture of alarm and despair, she roamed the public areas of Zangari’s Fetish Inn, but it was mostly deserted. Everybody was in the banquet hall, eating in the sight of people having kinky interludes.
She found herself in the deserted dining room. Dinner service had long ago ceased, and she wandered to the server station where she knew there was a bar. Zangari’s didn’t have a formal bar, but it did have a liquor license to serve drinks with dinner. Tru helped herself to a whiskey sour. Leaning against the stainless steel counter of the server station, she contemplated her next steps. Jed and Liam were nowhere around. In her search of the public areas, she’d spied their car still in the parking lot. They hadn’t gone far without a car.
She worried that they might have come across some trouble. Nowhere in her wanderings had she come across Schatz or Braithwaite. What if the duo was in the midst of some other nefarious, illegal scheme and Jed and Liam had discovered them?
What if they were hurt or stranded somewhere, and they needed her help? Setting her glass down, she resolved to find them. First thing, she headed in the direction of the room Braithwaite and Schatz shared. If they were inside, then she’d know that Jed and Liam were hiding from her and not working on their investigation. She went through the dining room to the sitting room off the lobby because that was the easiest way to get to the room she sought. The moment she stepped through the threshold of the sitting room, the bell on the front door jingled. Jewell had introduced that signal for use when the front desk clerk had duties to complete that would take them away from the desk.
Tru crouched behind a sofa. She felt stupid, but if someone discovered her, she could always pre
tend to be adjusting the strap of her high-heeled sandals. From her vantage point in the sitting room, she saw a couple stroll through the lobby, holding hands and smiling the way lovers did. She was about to get up and continue on her mission when a noise from the kitchen startled her into staying put.
A dark head of hair poked out from the door that swung both ways. Anton Schatz looked around the room, but he didn’t seem to notice Tru crouching in the sitting room behind the sofa in clear view of anyone on that side of the dining room. The lights in the dining room were off, but ambient light spilled in from the sitting room and from the lamps lining the patio outside.
Still, he didn’t look in her direction as he crept from the kitchen. Zarah Braithwaite followed him. The pair exited the dining room through a side door and turned toward their room. Tru slowly got to her feet and tiptoed to the lobby. She followed the pair at a distance, and she was mildly disappointed to see them return to their room.
While raiding the kitchen at a bed-and-breakfast made the list of things normal people didn’t do, it was an action Tru wouldn’t put past either Anton or Zarah. Both were unsavory characters, and if they were hungry, they wouldn’t let a closed kitchen stop them from eating. Scowling on behalf of Alex and Jewell, Tru went back to the kitchen to make sure they hadn’t left a mess. She checked the counters, sink, refrigerator, and pantry. Nothing seemed amiss. At least they’d cleaned up after themselves.
That meant Liam and Jed were out there somewhere with the sole purpose of avoiding her. Still scowling, she returned to the server station and finished her drink. Then she made another. And another.
She’d lost count of her drinks when she noticed Alex standing at the entrance to the server station. “Hey. I thought you were supervising tonight.”
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