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Reid ordered another coffee and dumped some salsa on his huevos rancheros while Detective Will Green examined the papers Reid had given him. Reid knew not to bother the man once he’d retreated into the zone—that place where cops go when trying to put all the pieces together. But he couldn’t help but watch every tick of the cop’s expression, hoping Will saw as much potential in the documents as he had.
One refill and a clean plate later, the detective looked up, lines of frustration cutting into his dark skin. “Where did you get this?”
Reid dodged the question, not ready to tell the detective he’d found the ledger—via illegal search—in a hollowed out dictionary in Kelsey’s nightstand. “Kelsey, the vic’s youngest daughter, contacted Hank about the evidence a few days ago. I think she found it when she went through some of her mother’s old things. I just got ahold of it last night, but from what I can tell, the ledger lists all of the victim’s client appointments and payments going back two years before her death. Including a big transaction scheduled for the day she was killed.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I saw that. Not sure what a hooker could do to warrant a twenty-five-thousand-dollar fee. No lay is that good.”
Reid gave him a humorless smile. “Celia LeBreck used to work in the high-end strip clubs. Not until after she had her second child did she start turning tricks on the street. Maybe she still had connections to someone she met in her glory days.” He pointed at the photocopies he’d made of Celia’s appointment book. “This J. Kennedy person listed on the last day. He’s in there a number of times before that, but only for a thousand bucks at a time.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe she had something on him and was upping the ante.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Reid said, nodding. “And maybe he didn’t want to pay up.”
“This definitely throws suspicion away from your client. I never did believe that kid was the guy, but I don’t know if this is enough to get you an appeal.” The detective stared at the copies again, rubbing his chin. “Unless we can figure out her code and actually get some solid suspects. Every name in here is a fake one.”
Reid sank back in the booth and sighed. “Yeah. J. Kennedy, C. Eastwood, S. Poitier, A. Lincoln. All celebrities or historical figures. Smart lady—protecting her ass and her clients.”
The waitress stopped by and refilled Will’s coffee cup. He dumped a few packets of sugar in and stirred, the contemplative look crossing his face again. “My guess would be that she didn’t pick the names randomly. If this was her way of keeping people straight, she probably had some reason to assign each name. Like Sidney Poitier probably isn’t a young white guy.”
Reid nodded. “Right. And she may have let clients pick their own code names as well.”
“Was Kelsey any help with who the names belonged to?” he asked, sipping his coffee.
Reid shifted in the booth. “Well, I haven’t exactly been able to talk to her about it.”
Will nailed him with shrewd eyes. “You have her evidence, but haven’t talked to her? How’s that work, Counselor?”
Reid cleared his throat. “Um, well, I sort of had the opportunity to get this from Kelsey’s apartment… without consent.”
Will titled his head back as if he were going to shout at the heavens. “Jamison, what the fuck? I know this case has eaten at you, but you’re breaking and entering now?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I got ahold of a key from the other daughter. She just didn’t know my intentions.”
He groaned. “Still makes the evidence inadmissible.”
“Unless Kelsey agrees to give it to me, which I think she would do—if I could find her.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
He rubbed his eyes, the all-nighter starting to catch up with him. “She’s kind of disappeared. She called her sister last night and then never showed up to meet her.”
His pissed-off expression switched to concern. “Uh-oh. You think something’s wrong?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Kelsey doesn’t have the best track record. She’s got a drug history and from what I gather, a habit of being flighty.”
“Well, if she doesn’t show up by the forty-eight-hour mark, her sister needs to report her missing—just to be safe. Although with the overload at the department, I don’t know how much focus it will get.” Will frowned and added even more sugar to his cup, as if the sweetener could make the bitter situation easier to swallow. “That girl was still living at home when all this went down. She’s the only one who may have a shot at identifying some of the people behind these names. Without her and her permission to admit this ledger as evidence, you ain’t got shit.”
Acid burned in his stomach. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
This case had ruined Reid’s reputation and had continued to keep him up at night. There was no way he was going to let such potentially explosive evidence go by the wayside. No, he needed to find Kelsey and find her fast.
Reid’s cell phone vibrated against the table, and he picked it up to check the caller ID. Ah, just who he needed to talk to. He plunked a few bills on the table and slid out of the booth. “Will, I gotta take this. Thanks for your help. I’ll be in touch.”
“No problem.” He lifted his coffee cup in salute. “Hope you find your girl, Counselor.”
A bloodcurdling scream wretched Brynn from the depths of sleep, and she jolted upright, nearly hurling herself off her living room couch. She glanced around frantically, her chest heaving with choppy breaths, but found nothing amiss in her sunlit living room.
She sank back against the arm of the couch and put her hand to her sweat-slicked neck, the rawness in her throat confirming where the scream came from. “Dammit.”
She hadn’t had a nightmare in over a month and had dared to hope she was past them. But the blanket twisted around her legs and her pounding heart confirmed otherwise. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, the familiar images from the awful dream seeping through now that her mind was fully awake.
Unwanted hands. Being trapped. Darkness. Flashes of the always-faceless rapist now mixing with the image of the man who’d attacked her in Kelsey’s stairwell.
She released a groan of frustration and threw the blanket off her. “I am so sick of this shit.”
She wanted to holler the words, throw something through the sunny window, shake her fists at the fates. But she knew none of it would do any good. And right now, she didn’t have time to bellyache about her own problems.
She glanced at the clock on her DVD player. Right past noon. She’d stayed up all night, calling Kelsey’s friends, the clubs she’d worked at in the past, hospitals, and even put in a message with her police contact. But so far, she didn’t have squat and was at a loss as to what her next step should be.
Pound the pavement to talk to people in person? Report her missing?
She shook her head. Part of her wished she could just shrug the whole thing off and chalk it up to Kelsey being irresponsible. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really wrong. Why wouldn’t Kels have called her or left a note, something? She’d sounded really freaked out on the phone. Was she using again? Was that what this was about? She hoped to God that wasn’t the case. Last time her sister had gone on a bender she’d nearly killed herself.
The memory clenched Brynn’s chest in a vise grip. Kelsey was the only family she had left. If she lost her…
She gave herself a mental shake and took a breath. No. She wouldn’t go there. Would. Not.
She grabbed her cell phone off the coffee table and checked the screen. No messages. With a sigh, she leaned forward to set it back down, but it rang in her hand. The sudden noise made her jump, but she had the phone to her ear in record time.
“Hello?”
“Brynn, it’s me.”
Reid. Even after ten years, he apparently didn’t feel the need to say who it was. Like he knew she’d be able to identify his voice from any other man’s. She could. “Hey.”
“Any word from your sister?”
“No one’s seen her or heard from her. I’m running out of people to call. What about you? Did you find out anything?”
Papers shuffled, like he was turning the page of a notebook. “I talked to someone who’s a member and found out that The Ranch does hire attendants and pays them well. A person gets a bonus of ten grand when he or she completes the intense training program, which apparently involves a few weeks of total immersion in each side of the D/s relationship.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of money.”
“Yeah, no kidding. It could be pretty tempting for someone like Kelsey.”
She tucked her legs beneath her. “So how do I find out if she’s taken a job there?”
He sighed. “That’s the problem. The place is like Fort Knox. The only way you’re going to find out is if you go there yourself and look for her. My friend said he could probably get you in as a guest.”
She swallowed hard. “How would that work?”
“They don’t allow doms to come in as guests, only as full members, so your only option is to go in as a sexual submissive. You would have to be willing to submit to a member.”
Her fingers curled into the twisted blanket on the couch, the material still damp from her sweat-inducing nightmare. A bone-deep shudder went through her. “Reid, I don’t… I can’t… do that.”
The line went quiet, and she wondered if the call had dropped, but then he took a breath. “I could go with you. Save you the stranger part.”
Her throat seemed to close. Not just submit, but submit to Reid? The idea sent her brain and body into a tailspin. Her gaze darted to the picture on her side table—the last one she and her sister had taken with their mom. Before the murder. Before the trial. Anger stirred in her belly.
“Brynn?”
“No,” she bit out, her voice finally returning. “No fucking way.”
He snorted. “Calm down, LeBreck. It was just an idea. If you’d rather hand yourself over to some stranger, I’m sure there will be many at The Ranch happy to oblige.”
She closed her eyes, bile burning the back of her throat. No way would she survive either of his suggestions. “Let me make a few more calls. I’ll let you know if I need your friend’s help.”
“You know where to find me.”
“Why’d I even bother?” Brynn hung up her office phone and rubbed her forehead, a piercing headache hatching behind her eyes. Two days with hardly any sleep, and her body was no longer responding to caffeine.
A light tap on her open door made her lift her gaze. Mel stepped into her office, lines of concern creasing her forehead. “Still no word from your sister?”
Brynn shook her head. “I just keep calling her like all of a sudden she’s going to come to her senses and answer her phone.”
Mel plopped into the chair across from Brynn’s desk. “So what now?”
Brynn sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I have no idea. I’ve talked to everyone I can think of, and I can’t even officially report her missing to the police until tonight.”
“What about Reid’s friend? Have you given any more thought to trying to get into that resort? Sounds like a good lead.”
Her stomach flipped over. “Mel, I don’t know if I could pull that off. I thought I was past all this crap. I did the therapy, took the self-defense classes, but the minute that guy put his hands on me the other night, the panic sucked me in. I was completely useless.”
Mel eyed her for a long moment, and Brynn could almost hear the gears grinding in her friend’s head.
Brynn pursed her lips. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What if…” Mel said, then waved her hand. “Never mind.”
“Oh, no,” Brynn said, shaking her head. “Just say whatever it is you’re thinking. It’s not like you’ve ever held back before.”
She leaned forward and straightened the papers in Brynn’s outbox, adeptly avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know, it’s just, maybe this is exactly what you need, you know? Exposure therapy.”
Brynn stared at Mel as if her friend had sprouted antlers. “Are you being serious? Exposure therapy?”
She shrugged, but still didn’t raise her eyes.
“Don’t you think turning myself over to some stranger’s sexual demands is a bit of an extreme prescription? I was raped, Mel. It’s not like I’m trying to kick a fear of spiders or something.”
She cringed. “I’m sorry, B. I’m not trying to minimize what you’ve been through. I just wish I could help you get past it. Exposure therapy is brutal, but you know it can be effective.”
Brynn waved a dismissive hand. “I already did the protocol with a therapist where I went through a retelling. The exposure stuff hasn’t worked. It didn’t even get the nightmares to stop.”
“Experiencing the memory in the counselor’s office isn’t the same as putting yourself in your most feared situation. And it wouldn’t be like getting raped again. They have rules at places like that. You could make the person stop at any time.”
Brynn pinched the bridge of her nose, the pounding in her head getting worse. “Mel, I love you, but you’re talking crazy. Not only does the whole idea make me feel like I’m going to puke, but I’m not going to hand my body over to some stranger who gets off on hitting women. I spend all day working with my clients trying to get them away from men like that.”
She sighed. “Dominance and abuse are two totally different things. You and I both know that.”
Brynn quirked an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
She shrugged, and then focused on picking invisible lint off her black pants. “I may have gone to one of those kink clubs once during grad school.”
“And you didn’t tell me? What sort of roommate leaves that kind of choice information out? I told you everything that was going on with me.”
“Oh, like that was so scandalous,” she said, looking up and smirking. “You were dating an accounting major for God’s sake. I didn’t want to freak you out. And anyway, I just went for research purposes. I didn’t actually participate in anything.”
Brynn propped her elbows on her desk and placed her chin in her hands. “So what exactly did you do if you didn’t join in?”
Melody rolled her eyes. “Duh. Watched.”
Brynn leaned back in her chair. “Oh, hell, I hadn’t even thought about that part. Even if I had the guts to try to get in the club, I forgot about the fact that others could see me.”
“Hey, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” Mel’s voice took on a saucy tone. “Some people find it exciting to be watched. You never know, you may be an exhibitionist under that good-girl facade.”
A long-dormant memory tickled the back of Brynn’s mind, making her cheeks heat. Her best friend had no idea how, once upon at time, she’d been far from angelic. She cleared her throat. “Sounds like my personal nightmare, not a fantasy.”
Mel gave her a sympathetic smile. “Fair enough. Just know I’m not trying to tell you what to do, hon. You need to figure out what feels right for you.” She stood and gave Brynn’s hand a quick squeeze. “But either way, Kelsey is lucky to have a sister who still cares enough to worry about her. A lot of people would’ve given up on her a long time ago.”
Mel’s words hung in the air long after her friend stepped out, wracking Brynn with guilt. Mel was wrong. Her sister was far from lucky. The only person in the world who cared about her was sitting on her ass in her office too scared of her own demons to try to help. A useless coward.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, turning Mel’s suggestion over in her mind again. Exposure therapy. Full immersion in her fear. The idea sounded padded-cell crazy, but what if her friend was right? What if the only way she was ever going to get past this was to jump off the proverbial cliff and plunge into her nightmare?
She was so tired. Tired of being scared. Tired of waking up in a cold sweat. Tired of letting what some monster did dictate so much of her life.
Maybe this was the answer. God knows nothing else had worked.
Her phone rang, startling her from her thoughts. She fumbled for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Brynn, it’s Tony Flores.”
Her contact with the police department. Thank God. “Hey, Tony.”
“Sorry I’m just getting back to you, but I had to check on a few things before I talked to you. Do you have a minute?”
She sat up straighter at the cop’s grim tone. She worked with Tony regularly for her clients’ domestic violence cases, and knew he only reserved that tone for bad news. “Of course, what’s going on?”
“I didn’t get your message until last night, but I ran your sister’s name through the system to make sure she hadn’t been arrested or hadn’t gotten in an accident or something. And I didn’t find either of those to be the case, but her name did pop up under something else.”
