Safeword (29 page)

Slowly, I became aware once more. Ben had untied me, cleaned the oil and come from my torso, and was rubbing salve on my wrists when I was finally able to focus, so relaxed, I almost couldn’t move.

“And you’re back,” he said. His skin glowed in the dim light, a nice contrast to the pajama pants he’d changed into at some point between my orgasm and now. “You went deep that time.”

I could only nod, watching his deft fingers as he administered after-care. He wiped his hands on a towel and tossed it in the direction of the bathroom. My fastidious Ben
had
to be tired to be leaving dirty laundry on the floor. He slid into bed and pulled the covers over us both. I scooted on weak limbs into his side.

“How long was I gone?” I murmured. He flipped off the lamp, wrapping the room in velvet darkness. The steady beat of his heart against my cheek kept me in the here and now.

“Maybe twenty minutes. Want to talk about it?”

I smiled.
Ever the shrink
. “I’m not sure I have the words.”

“Okay.” He kissed my hair and, wrapped up in each other, we dropped off to sleep.

MY EYES fluttered open almost of their own accord, and I took a moment to orient myself to the sound that had woken me. A dull thump, I thought, coming from the living room. I listened, the silence losing itself in my straining ears. Nothing.

Probably just one of those weirdly vivid dreams.
I’d been having a good one about being on a scavenger hunt with Ben, and every clue leading to the next one took us to increasingly erotic locales, from a sex shop to the upstairs rooms at Collared. It was all very silly and fun and made my morning wood particularly insistent. I thought back to the night before and I didn’t recall Ben getting his happy ending, though I’d admittedly not been the best witness.

Slinking out of bed, I took care of my morning ablutions, intending to return to Ben for a little early-bird-gets-the-worm. It was still dark out, and though I was anxious to see if Dennan had made contact, I assumed, by Myah’s lack of call, there was no news and I didn’t need to scramble to the station. My chilled skin delighted in the warmth of returning to the bed to cover Ben’s body with mine. He responded with the most delicious of sounds, the most sensuous of moves. I marveled at him and my luck in finding him.

Blissed out in the afterglow, I was groaning into Ben’s neck when my phone rang.

“I don’t want to move,” I bitched.

“So don’t,” he murmured, squeezing me into him.

“You’re no help.”

“That’s not what you said last night.”

I snorted. “You fucked me into oblivion last night. Pretty sure anything I said was gibberish.” I reached for my phone, squinting at caller ID.

“Technically I didn’t fuck you.”

“Details, details,” I mumbled, sliding the ringer notification to ignore and snuggling back into Ben, losing the phone somewhere beneath the covers.

“Not going to answer? That’s not like you.”

“No reason to talk to Victoria.”

“Your ex-wife is calling you before seven, and you’re okay ignoring her?”

“Yep.”

“What if she’s hurt?”

“She can call Trent. Or 9-1-1.” He remained quiet, so I raised up to look at him. “She has people, Ben. She doesn’t need me. She’s also a master manipulator. I’m not getting sucked into whatever drama she thinks supersedes our divorce. I have enough to deal with.”

“Okay,” he said, letting it drop.

We lazed for only a few more minutes before Ben decided coffee was more fun than me, after I blew him. He got up and went to the kitchen, and soon the house filled with the aromatic scent. Unable to put it off, I got up to shower and get ready for work. When I emerged, a cup of coffee was waiting for me.

“No patients today. Think I’ll work from home.” He scratched his belly absently.

“Sounds good.” I leaned in to kiss him goodbye. “I might be late. I’ll call to let you know.” He nodded and turned toward his home office, leaving me to admire the view as he walked away. I managed to go the opposite direction, getting in my newly returned car and going to work instead of after him.

“Bad night?” I asked a scowling Myah, who pulled into a parking spot at the station just as I slammed my door. She passed me her extra coffee, and we trooped inside. It was a nice morning, the potential of spring flitting in the air like an elusive butterfly. The sun was bright, and despite the chill, the air was full of promise.

“It was okay. None of us slept much. Cole tried to distract Marshall with explosions and mayhem. Poor kid put up with a Die Hard mini-marathon. We were all up late, and when he finally did sleep, it wasn’t peaceful.”

I clucked my tongue sympathetically. “It was good of you to do it. His parents will be here today, and he won’t be so alone then.”

Her face wore a haunted expression. “I think he’s alone even in a crowded room. He needs better help.”

I knew what she meant. “Maybe we can talk to his parents or suggest he talk to them. Otherwise, it’s out of our hands.”

I had just set down my cup to remove my suit jacket when Lawanda approached with purpose.

“Don’t get comfortable. One of the canvassing teams got a hit on the pawn shop ID. You’re wanted at the Paradise Inn.” She passed Myah the address. It wasn’t too far from Master Key Pawn.

“Did any calls come in to the dedicated number?” I asked.

Lawanda shook her head. “Not a peep. Lotta other crackpots thinkin’ they saw something they didn’t, but nothing from your boy.”

Myah and I shared a look, and then moved to the door without a word. The drive south was quick but tense. Would the canvassing team have scared Dennan off? Would we be able to put a couple of men on it and grab him before he faded back into the shadows?

We got our answer when we arrived. The hotel manager, a grizzled man with scraggly white hair and porcupine whiskers, led us to a room, two patrolmen clomping along behind us.

“I haven’t seen him for a couple days. He paid through the end of the week, so we left the room alone. No cleaning since the weekend.”

“How long has he been here?” Myah asked.

“A month, maybe a little longer. Paid a week at a time and was quiet. We overlooked the mess, since it’s just paper. He promised he’d clean it up when he left. Must’ve forgotten.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully, the hair rasping against his nails.

“Mess?”

The manager eyed me sideways, like he recognized me or something. “Yeah. News-type clippings. Organized, but there’s a lot of it.”

“How do you know he’s gone?” Myah asked as we stood outside the door waiting for him to fumble through his keys. I thought all hotels used key cards these days, but this place was a throwback. If it had been updated in the last thirty years, I’d eat my shoe.

“Well, he always ate breakfast with me. Every day for weeks. Two days ago, he didn’t show. Haven’t seen him since. We left the room alone in case he came back.” The rattle of keys irritated me, my impatience barely held in check.

When the door finally swung open, it revealed a dark room with stale air that smelled of sweat and moldy food. Myah and I had drawn our weapons, and we motioned for the manager to step aside. A quick sweep of the room revealed its vacancy, and I holstered my gun, looking around. The walls were covered in paper, my face everywhere. Newspaper clippings, still shots taken from the Internet, but most disturbingly, a few photos obviously taken without my knowledge. Recent photos. I narrowed my eyes at pictures of Myah and me emerging from Jeremy Trexall’s house the day we’d shown him Sugar’s age progressions. Greatly disturbed, I shifted my focus to the rest of the room.

Besides the unmade bed, it was tidy. There were sample bottles of soap in the shower, a cheap comb and razor on the sink, and a pair of jeans draped over the back of the room’s one chair. Very little was revealed about the lone occupant, other than his apparent obsession with me.

Myah gave a low whistle. “Looks like we found your biggest fan, Gavin. We need to get forensics here.”

I approached one section of wall bearing several newspaper articles printed on plain paper and leaned close to read. They were old stories, mostly surrounding the events of my attack and recapping Lane’s arrest. A flower of unease bloomed in my belly.

“What possible connection could I have to Carter Black?” I wondered aloud, suddenly inexplicably angry, but careful to use the name under which he’d registered. “It makes no sense.”

“Victim psychology. You’ve gone through something similar to him,” Myah said, touching nothing as she circled the small space. The manager and other officers had hung back in the hallway, and one of them poked his head in the room.

“Everything okay?”

Myah turned. “Get Cole DeGrassi out here. We need this room secured and combed through. Also—” She stopped abruptly, squinting at something on the wall behind the door. Striding to it, she pulled the door from the wall and leaned in. I couldn’t see her face anymore, but when she turned to the officer in the hall, she was pale and spoke with a tinge of panic. “No one goes in or out of this room but Cole DeGrassi.” She pierced me with a look of both fear and determination. “Gavin, call Ben and tell him to pack a bag for both of you and go to a hotel. Preferably one that will allow him to pay cash.”

“What is it?”

She shook her head, strode to me, and crossed her arms. “Just, for once, do as I ask.”

Through all I’d been through, Myah had never shielded me from anything except the media clamoring for an exclusive of my ordeal. To have her do it now both scared and infuriated me. I tried to step around her, but she moved with me.

“Gavin, trust me,” she nearly pleaded.

“Myah, let me see.” She shook her head. I put my hands on her shoulders and gently shoved her aside, surprised she let me do it. I could hear the officer on his radio requesting my brother’s presence as I closed in on what had Myah so freaked.

Behind the door, the shrine grew gruesome. The photos turned my stomach. In the top row were Stevenson, Halloran, and Ditmar, each secured to their bed, still alive, eyes wide with fear. Each man bore wounds to their faces and upper torsos, but the fatal wounds had yet to be delivered. In the second row, they were dead, a grisly before-and-after comparison. This was not only conclusive proof of Dennan’s involvement, but evidence Ditmar was tied to the others, something we’d only assumed since DNA results had yet to be returned. There was also an old article some print reporter had done outside my old home when the press was still gnawing at the bone of Ben’s and my attack but had no new information. It was a human interest piece about how I’d already had a rough year with my divorce occurring only a few weeks before the attack, and front and center above the article was a shot of my old house, complete with the address on the mailbox. I shuddered. Alex had apparently done his homework in searching for where I lived.

Below the macabre pictures, however, was another row, each depicting Ben and me in various stages of intimacy. Ben securing me into the corset, us entwined on our couch watching TV, kissing on the living room floor the night I’d wrestled with him to tell me what had him so upset. There were even more personal moments of us in the throes of passion.

There wasn’t anything from the last day or two, which was reassuring. The angle, I guessed, was from the patio at the back of the house. What was most horrific was that in each shot, our eyes had been scratched out.

What that meant, I had no idea. Maybe it was the insinuation we were blind to what was right in front of us, that someone was able to get close enough to take those photos without us noticing. Maybe it meant we weren’t supposed to be seeing something. Whatever the connotation, lumping both Ben and me together with the photos of the three victims was enough to send fright ricocheting through me.

I looked at my partner, eyes wide with understanding. “Okay, I’ll call Ben right now.” I stepped from the room, and the manager gave me a curious look as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. I waved him off and made the call, giving Ben as few details as possible. He was understandably concerned, but backed off when I said I would explain when I saw him.

“So,” I spoke to the manager. “You’re positive he’s not coming back?”

The man shrugged. “Pretty sure. I mean, he didn’t have much, but I thought it was more than this. I know he had a camera and an XBox, but I didn’t see them in there. Don’t know why he would take that stuff and leave clothes and the mess on the walls, though. Maybe he was in a hurry.”

Myah stepped out of the room, pulling the door mostly shut behind her. “If there’s any chance he could come back, let’s request a detail be put on this.”

Our attention was drawn by Cole’s approach, evidence collection kit in hand. Myah intercepted him, pulling him aside to speak out of range. He met my gaze with shocked eyes as he listened to her. Donning a pair of gloves, he slowly advanced on the door and pushed it open, stepping inside. I moved a few paces away to call Kittridge for a surveillance detail.

“DeGrassi, just the person I want to talk to. You and your partner need to get your asses back to the station immediately. As in yesterday.”

“But—”

“No buts, DeGrassi,” he barked. “I want you in my office now.”

“Sir, we just found Alex Dennan’s hotel room. We need a detail assigned in case he returns.”

“I’ll get Louderback on that,” Kittridge snapped. “Now if you are not in front of my desk in fifteen minutes, you’ll be lucky to still have a job.”

“What?” I asked, my palms beginning to itch the way they always did when I was in trouble.

He lost his patience. “Do it, or I’ll fire you on principle!”

I wanted to ask what had happened, but I was listening to dead air. He’d hung up. I called to Myah that we had to go.

“We’re kind of busy here. We can’t leave,” she protested.

I rolled my eyes, trying to calm the flare of foreboding in my chest. “We have fifteen minutes, or we’re fired,” I said. “Kittridge isn’t playing around.”

Myah went still. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me over the phone.” I was already walking toward the parking lot.

The drive to the station was mostly silent, both of us wondering what could have put us in the kind of hot water that would have Kittridge frothing at the mouth. When we entered the building, several pairs of eyes trained on us. Was it my imagination, or were most of them shooting us daggers? We didn’t bother to knock on Kittridge’s door, just stepped inside and shut it behind us.

“Sit,” Kittridge spat. “Now, DeGrassi, I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on in your head, but your self-preservation instincts are for shit. I don’t know if you’re sabotaging this case on purpose, or if you are literally so stupid you can’t keep the pests out, but I am done giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

I gaped at him. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. How have I sabotaged this case?”

Kittridge turned the flatscreen monitor on his desk around so we could see the paused video on KSMV’s website. My stomach dropped. Nothing good had come from KSMV since the beginning of this case, and this would be no different.

Kittridge clicked play, and the brief video Marshall had recorded the night before anchored the story. His plea to Carter Black was cut short when the anchor chimed in. “A source near the investigation of the deaths of Detectives Arnold Stevenson and John Ditmar and Officer Doug Halloran, has provided information linking the search for person-of-interest Alex Dennan to Carter Black, the apparent subject of the plea made by Marshall Schofield. Various media outlets in the St. Louis area aired a pre-taped message from Schofield to Black yesterday evening, encouraging Black to make contact with St. Louis police. Our source tells us the link between Black and Alex Dennan could be a link between the deaths of the police officers and David Strange, the man convicted in the kidnapping and sexual assault of two boys, including Marshall Schofield. Our sources refuse to speculate any further, but we will bring you details as they become available. In other news….”