by Ella James
Marchant and I are in my study, and I’m behind my desk, cradling March’s iPad as I scrutinize the chart his private eye, Dave, put together. I turn the tablet sideways, frowning.
To Catch a Criminal. I flick a withering glance his way. “Enjoying the drama, Radcliffe?”
“Not enjoying,” he says, his voice faintly defensive as he kicks his feet out and crosses his long legs at the ankles. “Just making do. I figured we should have a project name.”
“Right.” I look it over, curious to see the revised list of suspects. I note the absence of two names I’d expected to see: Bill Percy and James Meyers, both deviant little fucks who’ve bruised some of the girls at Love Inc. before.
“Percy wasn’t there that night,” Marchant says, reading my mind. Bill Percy was a prick in college who is now a prick lobbyist for the gambling industry. He got rough with one of Love Inc.’s employees; he claimed he was drunk, and she decided not to press charges. “His wife caught him boinking the housekeeper,” March tells me. “He checked into Bellagio around three. Meyers was at a vaping convention in Virginia, so they’re both in the clear.”
Marchant takes a sip of his whiskey, then rolls up the sleeves of his rumpled button-up. “All in all there are twenty-six suspects, including you and me. Eleven stand out.”
I scan the eleven bolded names. “My guy’s been on Rutherford and Kriss for going on sixteen days. He says they’re both clean as a whistle.”
Marchant passes his almost-empty glass from one hand to the other, looking moody and restless. “I say we drop Rutherford. He likes it weird, but I think that’s only when he fucks Brad. Everyone seems to like it weird with Brad. Devotion to the pacifier does not a kidnapper make,” Marchant mutters.
I lift my head, brows arched. “A pacifier?”
March shrugs. “That’s what Brad says.”
“That goes on the list of kinks I’ll never understand.”
“So now it’s a list of one?”
“Funny. We’ve got a more important list to worry about.” I bring each name up as a slide and flip through one at a time. Name. Picture. Possible motive. “Let’s keep the tail on Kriss. There’s just something about him.”
Marchant nods, punching something into his iPhone.
Since the evening Sarabelle vanished from my room, almost two months ago, we’ve paid a couple of Vegas private investigators to track people of interest. So far all we’ve learned is Vegas has a grand total of three decent PIs, and there’s no limit to the number of affairs a determined man of means can have. That, and one of Priscilla Heat’s screenwriters looks at kiddie porn. Dave, a Vegas local and ex-FBI dude, is our lead guy, and he’s the one who provided us with this list.
I flip through a few more slides. “Are we still on the ex-boyfriend and the stepbrother?”
“Sarabelle’s ex-boyfriend doesn’t do anything but a waitress,” Marchant says blandly. “And her stepbrother doesn’t do anything but Oxy.”
“Tell Dave to keep tracking them. I’ll add Michael Lockwood onto my dude’s list, you add Caleb Zeuss to yours.”
Michael Lockwood was one of Priscilla’s film crew; he quit his job just a few days after that night at the ranch. He’s come up clean so far, but something about him smells off. Caleb Zeuss is one of the cooks Marchant employs. He was on the clock that night, but no one seems to have seen him.
The cameras are useless, because while March was fucking Priscilla for Pimps and Princesses, someone turned them off. The woman watching the monitors assumed the system had glitched. Naturally, when she tried to convey this fact to Marchant, he did not want to be interrupted.
I hand March his iPad and pull out my phone, blinking at a new text.
“Cumming to your place tonight. Bringing a surprise. ~P”
I squeeze my eyes shut, opening them some seconds later to find Marchant out of his leather chair and standing in front of my desk. He leans over, pressing his palm against the sleek oak. “You alright, dude? You look amped.”
I glower. “Thanks.” I’m not doing coke, which March should know, but I’m sure as shit not justifying anything to him.
“You sleeping okay?”
I snicker. Marchant drains his glass and rolls his brown eyes. He slinks back to his arm chair, reminding me momentarily of the Pink Panther. “You gotten any more calls from Smith?” he asks me. Josh Smith is the LVPD’s lead detective on the disappearance, and he’s been on me like white on rice since the morning we called to report Sarabelle missing.
I toss back the remainder of liquor in my glass and stand, stretching my sore legs. “I think he’s finally gotten the hang of calling Lehland,” my attorney.
“What about your old man?” Marchant asks.
“His people have stopped calling, too. I guess they’ve got all their fires put out.” No one but Josh Smith and a few others from Love Inc. and Priscilla’s company, Heat Enterprises, knows Sarabelle disappeared from my particular room. Given the political sensitivities, it needs to stay that way.
Marchant, on the other hand, has been all over the news. His business hasn’t suffered at all. In fact, he says it’s picked up. Bunch of sick fucks out there.
His phone buzzes, and I feel a jab of guilt. He should be at work. He’s busy, weeknight or not. I should have met him there instead of being such an avoidant fuck.
Now I have to get him out of here before Priscilla shows up. He has no idea I’m being blackmailed, and I’d like to keep it that way for a little longer.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I’m on the balcony attached to my bedroom, looking at fucking Facebook of all damn things. Since that night in my bedroom at the vineyard house, I’ve taken to prepping for Priscilla’s mandated visits by browsing the albums Libby DeVille unwisely has set to “public.” I feel like a freak as I rub my palm over my boner, but it’s better than popping a blue pill.
My life has been fucked up this way ever since that night with Sarabelle. I woke up the next morning stark naked, sprawled out on my back with a splitting headache, a killer case of dry-mouth, and a lipstick heart drawn around my left nipple. When I sat up, the room tilting around me, I spotted a yellow note stuck to the nightstand by the king-sized bed. I recognized the large, loopy handwriting from the note that came with my bourbon night before.
“Last night, the Hunter was hunted. Do you remember how hard I made you cum? xo, P”
I didn’t remember, but I’d been roofied before, and I knew what the hangover felt like. Not sure what I’d done with Priscilla Heat and hoping to hell and back that the answer was nothing, I slung my clothes on and left without giving Sarabelle a second thought.
I got the call from Marchant on my phone about an hour later. “Did you take Sarabelle with you?”
Now, clutching my iPad, watching the driveway, I remember how suffocated I felt sitting beside Marchant in the private waiting room inside the LVPD. And how ill I’d felt when I learned that another escort had gone missing a few weeks before. Ginnifer Lucky, a 22-year-old from Arkansas. Vanished just after her last shift at another brothel. I had an alibi for that night in August, but Marchant didn’t. It had been his night off, and he’d spent it at his private home in Summerlin.
Neither of us answered any of their questions. The LVPD didn’t need to know anything except that Sarabelle fell asleep in my room and I awoke the next morning to find her gone. I was back at the Wynn two hours later, wearing the floor thin as I paced my suite with Marchant, trying to find some clue as to where Sarabelle had gone.
Donnie, the escort who’d brought me the drugged drinks, confirmed they came from Priscilla herself. According to the sticky note I’d found in my room the day after, I fucked her that night, but I didn’t remember doing so for obvious reasons. I could have performed in my juiced-up state, but it seemed unlikely. Had she really come into my room after filming all night with Marchant for a sunrise fuck with a man she roofied? What would be the point of that?
For that matter, why roofie me? My only theory was that
she’d been angry I’d rejected her. But it was still really fucking weird considering Sarabelle disappeared that night.
The person who’d tried to send Marchant an S.O.S. about the camera malfunction was an escort named Geneese Loveless. Richard, March’s head of security, had been out with the flu, and with Rach away at her sister’s funeral and March chasing his dick, Loveless had volunteered. I know Loveless well—I used to be one of her regulars—and I can vouch for her trustworthiness. She wouldn’t hurt Sarabelle, and she wouldn’t have let anyone else, either.
It’s always possible that Sarabelle got up and walked away on her own, but she never returned to her room, and she left her purse in mine. She didn’t have her phone or car keys.
Clearly, someone took her.
It took me two weeks after Sarabelle’s disappearance to track down Priscilla. When she finally surfaced, shit really hit the fan.
I check my watch and stroll into my bedroom, replaying the first night Priscilla surprised me here. I stepped out of the bathroom, near naked from my shower and planning to hit the hay. I sensed company before I saw her, and I stepped toward the cabinet beside my bed, where I keep a loaded .45. I don’t think she knew that, but she must have guessed based on the way I moved.
“Calm down. It’s just me, Hunter.”
I’d turned to find her in a form-fitting trench coat and high-heels. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”
I can still see the determination on her Botox’d face as she smiled. “How many people know about your mother?”
My gut clenched, but I held my poker face. “Rita?”
“Your biological mother: Roxanne. The escort who worked for Lotti Bleaufont at the Hartland Casino in the early ’80s. She died in child birth. Some big-headed boy.” Priscilla grinned wickedly and held out a folder. I snatched it from her and flipped it open. Mine. From my safe. My birth certificate, which lists the name of my biological mother, and the certificate of adoption, from when my father’s high school sweetheart and second wife, Rita, adopted me. Both certificates had been kept under lock and key my whole life; no one could know my upstanding paps had once been head over heels for a Vegas escort.
“This would be such a lovely story for Page Six, don’t you think? Your father would be known for something besides pissing off Russia.”
“What do you want, Priscilla?”
She’d smiled. “I just want to get into your bed. I think you’d enjoy it.” She shrugged. “If you disagree, I think you will agree that your story is just too salacious, given what’s happened lately. Mother was a prostitute. A prostitute disappears after you fuck her. Sounds kind of creepy-kinky, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds like you know a lot of things that aren’t your fucking business.”
Her eyes widened, and she smiled widely. “Of course it sounds that way to you, silly man…”
I INHALE DEEPLY, returning to the here and now. I hear the sound of fabric swishing on the other side of my bedroom door and step back into my room just in time to greet her.
“Hunter.”
I hate the way she says my name. Like she’s talking to a puppy. Like she owns me, and for a secret I don’t give a shit about, not directly. I’m not overly worried about the blow to my father’s reputation if people find out my biological mother was an escort. It’s other things I need kept quiet—things more likely to come to light if a bunch of reporters start snooping around my family’s past. The kind of things that, if they were revealed, might even make me more likely to be wrongfully convicted in Sarabelle’s disappearance.
Maybe she’s the one who kidnapped Sarabelle—out of jealousy that I chose Sarabelle over her that night they were filming. Until I know for sure she’s not, I’m going to keep this hellish charade rolling.
Priscilla reaches behind her back, and the long, suede robe she’s wearing tonight falls dramatically to the floor, revealing only skin. She’s on me, has me stripped and on my mattress in a matter of minutes. Her hand slides around my cock, and I can’t help but respond. I grit my molars as I harden and throb, forced along by nimble fingers and a warm, damp palm.
“Come for me, Hunter. Come for Mommy.”
I slit my eyes open, and the glare of the bathroom light on her face makes them shut again. I’m having trouble finishing. I squeeze my eyes shut more tightly and picture another face…another pussy—tight and slick, puffy and pink. I’m done in no time.
“What a good man. If you want to keep your mommy happy, we’ll do chains tonight. It’s your night to wear them. I get to hit.”
I shut my eyes again and rub my temples.
“I brought your surprise.”
It’s molly, and I roll my eyes at the little pill. “Never been a fan.”
“I think you’ll like it this time.”
I pretend to take it, we fuck, and when Priscilla leaves, I follow her, thirteen miles to a small brick home with a familiar address. It’s the home of Michael Lockwood, the film assistant who recently quit working for Priscilla. The one who used to work security for Governor Carlson. Drake Carlson—the political heavyweight Priscilla used to fuck.
I park down the street and dial our guy, Dave. “I’ve got a change of plans. You remember Lockwood? Lives on Anderson? I want him followed, night and day. Priscilla Heat, too.”
Elizabeth
Napa, California
“I ALREADY TOLD you, I’m his sister.” I look the evil nurse right in the eye and lock my jaw, like I mean business, because I do.
“Mr. Carlson doesn’t have a sister,” she says after glancing at her clipboard.
I reach into my worn Coach bag and grab a fifty, shamelessly sliding it across the high-gloss counter. If I had more, I’d offer it all. But the only rehab I could get Mom into this time is seriously pricey, eating up our meager allowance from the DeVille Trust, and my fellowship money only goes so far. If Suri didn’t let me live at Crestwood Place with her for free, I’d never make ends meet.
The nurse raises her right eyebrow and looks from my money to me. I cross my arms in front of my chest. “How many visitors?” I ask.
“Excuse me?”
I meet her pale brown eyes and hold her gaze. “How many visitors has he had since I came Monday?”
Her lipsticked mouth twists, and her eyes flicker down the hardwood hall toward Cross’s spacious, private room. “Thirty minutes,” she says, shoving the fifty back at me. “That’s all you’re getting. And I know you’re not his sister.”
I slide the fifty into the pocket of my pea coat, where my phone is hiding, and hold my contraband-filled purse close to my side. I walk quickly to Cross’s room, the way I always do, because I truly am eager to see him, coma or not.
For the first four weeks, it was medically induced, but when he began healing from his neck and hip surgeries, they decreased the sedatives so he could wake up. But he hasn’t. I think I might know why, and I can’t stand how much that knowledge hurts. But Cross’s secrets are safe with me.
I push through the door, the lemony scent of some sort of cleaner fills my nose, and I feel angry that I’m the only person who visits him. Suri came the first two weeks, but she had to stop. All she can do when she sits in Cross’s room is sob, and the nurses say that he can hear us. Cross’s parents—I could skin them both alive. They got him this swanky room at Napa Valley Involved Rehab, but neither Cross’s mom nor his dad has visited since the first twenty-four hours after the accident.
It makes me queasy remembering that first day. How I couldn’t sleep at all and how I itched to be here by him. I even bought a fake ID with the surname ‘Carlson’ so I could slip into the ICU with him.
The next few weeks weren’t much better. He looked a lot different then, all bruised and swollen. One of the saddest things about right now is that he looks like Cross again.
Today the top half of his bed is raised. His head is propped between two pillows. As always, he looks peaceful. Beautiful. His almost-black hair is short—they shaved it for his su
rgery—and his long, dark lashes make his face seem pale as porcelain. The awful tube that once went down his throat has been removed, because he’s breathing on his own. A tube that feeds extra oxygen into his nose is taped to his cheeks, and I know that under his gown, snaking into his abdomen, is a feeding tube. Sometimes I peek because I want to understand what’s going on with him. I wish I was his next of kin so I could get all the information, but there’s a nurse who likes me—Nanette—and she’s told me they think his brain is fine. He sometimes squeezes my hand, and once when I kissed his forehead, he moaned. He just won’t wake up yet.
As soon as I make it across the fluffy, olive-colored rug and over to his bed, I grab his wrist and squeeze his hand. I force myself to look at his still face and smile as if he’s really here.
“Hi, C. How’s it going?”
I imagine him answering, because otherwise having a conversation with myself is just too weird. I kiss him on the cheek and sit in the beige wing-backed chair I’ve come to think of as mine.
“When I called the other day, Nanette told me you opened your eyes for a few minutes. I can’t believe I missed that! I had a test that day. You’ll be glad to know I passed.” The machines around him hum their response, and for a second, I get tripped up. It’s been two months since the night of the crash, but sometimes it’s still too strange to see Cross like this.
“So...what else is there? Suri and Adam might be having problems, but she keeps it quiet. I think she likes to pretend they’re okay. Probably because she wants them to be. You know she loves her decorating stuff here, and I think Adam is pushing her to move to New York with him again. It is the place for literary people I guess, but it’s just not Suri. I think she’s coming here tomorrow. If she gives you the scoop, I want to know.”
I babble some about classes. In the time since Cross’s accident, the new year has come and gone, and I’ve started the last semester of my second year of grad school. I search my mind for other updates, skipping over Mom (still in rehab), pop culture (Cross wouldn’t care), and my non-existent love life. I look down at my jeans. “I’ve been doing a paleo meal plan, just for kicks. I feel good, so I might keep going.”
