by Sophia Reed
Now on Monday I was searching for a man who might be lying about the rainforest cure. Maybe I had started to recover only because I wasn't in that deep and because I didn't have access to anything else and because I had been taken well in hand.
Maybe I was searching for him because of both addictions. To the drug. And to the way he made me feel when he just took me and did what he wanted to me.
It hurt. It fucking hurt and while it was happening I was humiliated and furious and promised myself that never again would I let him do what he was doing to me.
But I didn't leave.
There was the fact that I wanted my job back. And now there was the fact that Samuels was gone and I didn't know what that meant for my job. Obviously I fit into the whole chain of command, just like any other police officer. But Samuels had been my handler and undercover narcs weren't the same as rank and file officers.
It was a waiting game with PD. While I waited to find out when they wanted me back and what I was going to be doing, I might as well continue to beat down the addiction..
That's what I told myself. Carefully avoiding considering my use of the term "beat down" rather than simply "beat."
Cole St. Martin obviously lived in Las Vegas. That's where I'd first been taken. After that I didn't know. I could find his principal residences – all seven of them, and not all in the U.S. – but I couldn't find out where he was now. I could contact his staff at his pharmaceutical company, but I absolutely couldn't get my call put through, and I was not going to leave a message.
I could put a PI on him but I didn't have that much money and most PIs actually know and work with the police and they're not that reticent. It would get out. I had no idea if Cole had a reputation for what he did and I didn't want to find out when it came back to bite me in the ass.
I’d joined PD after two years of junior college and finished the rest of my degree as a hybrid online and on campus student who was also a patrol cop and who never slept. I never regretted it. By the age of 20 I was wearing the uniform. By 23 I was back out of it and going undercover. Now as 24 was getting long in the tooth, I was back out of deep cover and wondering if I'd ever get to go back in.
But the whole time I'd been working my way up, I'd had to put up with the good old boy network, same as any woman who pushes her way into a non-traditional career. I hadn't been wanted in my tae kwon-do class until I proved myself by never lusting after or dating any of the men who fit so easily into the do chang. I wasn't wanted at the gym in the heavy weights section where I was once told to leave after a businessman using 30 pound dumbbells to do concentration curls became angry that I was using 45s. I definitely wasn't wanted on the force when I came in as a twenty-something recruit. Big boobs. Big eyes. Not enough testosterone.
I wasn't going to blow that work, the work I'd put in to not be one of the guys laughing at guy humor and making dick jokes. It was work I'd put in to show that I had their backs the same as they, hopefully, maybe theoretically, had mine. I didn't want to be seen as kinky or even sexual, or as a gold digger looking for her way out of the job, or as a woman pining for the man she'd met on "vacation" when she needed some of her saved up downtime to take care of "family matters." I didn't need to remind anyone that my father was facing charges of impropriety on any of his cases.
So I searched on my own. I still had a week. It wasn't much time. It would have to do.
I had no idea what I meant to do if and when I found him. Leave Mark a note? Gone to find the man who beats me and might save my life and might be my lover. XXOO Don't wait up.
Would I lie and tell him I was back on the job? One phone call and he could disprove that and I didn't want to lie.
Just disappear? He deserved way better than that. I was starting to think Mark deserved way better than me.
This – searching for someone, trying to find where they'd gone to ground – I was supposed to be good at. But Cole hadn't broken any laws. Well, not any anyone knew about. He was a private citizen with the ability to pay whatever necessary to keep his whereabouts private.
And he was. He could be anywhere in the world, but where he'd taken me was close to home. He spent most of his time in Las Vegas and that's where we'd been to start with. If the second location had actually been a separate location, it was close to where we'd started despite the ride by blindfold in the car that had taken hours. I thought that was misdirection.
A man of his proclivities and having the money he had could go anywhere he wanted to pursue his pleasures. For all I knew, he only needed someone to beat and "fix" once a month. Once a quarter. Once a year. Maybe that had done it for him. Maybe the erections were chemically enhanced and all he really wanted was the sadism.
Maybe I shouldn't be looking for him.
That thought made me search that much harder.
San Francisco had a lot of dungeons. I had to start somewhere. If he didn't pay to have a girl delivered to his door every time he needed one and if he needed one more often than once every blue moon, maybe his name or at least his general description would be evident in the clubs.
The dungeons.
It was a stupid idea. There were probably as many dungeons in Seattle as San Francisco so why was I thinking San Francisco? It was twice as far from Seattle to Vegas as San Francisco to Vegas. For that matter, Vegas probably had plenty of dungeons, as did any major city. So why was I going to San Francisco?
"Because it's famous for sex," I said aloud. "And he lives in Vegas. He may not want to play there." Not because a billionaire needed to be shy about his sexual preferences, though money wouldn't shield him from being shy. But because lawsuits would be a lot easier from someone in the same city who woke up with a morning after case of regret.
Just like that I had a plan.
I'd heard from my father that morning. He was stuck in the hospital and when they released him, he'd be going to rehab. "Since you seem to think it's a good idea," he said, letting me know he now blamed me.
Fine with me. Whatever got him healthy. The case was waiting. I think he'd realized that as long as he was still a patient he didn't have to be a defendant. That was good. It gave us both some time.
Once I knew he was okay, I booked a flight, packed a bag, and drove to the airport.
It wasn't until I was showing my boarding pass that I realized I hadn't left Mark any word at all.
6
Cole
Mystery dinner party. The things you can do when you have money and a certain bent to your personality as well as the ability to satisfy it.
One of the rooms Annie never saw, having stayed only twenty days, was the formal dining room. Or the most formal dining room. The compound actually consists of five different houses set into a pentagon shape, with underground tunnels leading from one to the other, as well as paths between the foliage. In the Southern Nevada desert, that's a lot of sage and cactus and we're high enough for there to be some pines. The development is new, built on the coattails of a national park because money means more to some people than beauty and they don't understand that once a place is built up, the beauty they advertised isn't there anymore. Just people.
And they call me a philanthropist.
The dinner parties happened once or twice a month. In the beautiful mirrored room with white marble floors and chandeliers dripping with crystals, I'd entertain anywhere from five to twenty beautiful women, carefully … sourced, is a good word. There were gentlemen all over the world finding these beauties for me.
It was like my own version of The Bachelor. The women came for dinner, dressed exquisitely and each believing she was the only one, only to find there was competition every bit as beautiful and glittering.
Dinner was pleasant, with delicious and healthy food as befits bodies as toned and graceful as those at the table. It was served by men who could have been Chippendales dancers, wearing black tuxedo pants and nothing else, and sometimes mid dinner I ordered not even that. The reaction of the women was informative. There wer
e those who wouldn't look, those who couldn't look away, those who flushed with pleasure or shame or embarrassment, or because they were becoming hotter and wetter and slicker and more anxious.
It was my pleasure to turn those women away.
My pleasure to find one or two or half a dozen who reacted with lust, their eyes glazed, their breathing fast, their décolletage beaded with sweat or flushed rosy, and send them on their way at the end of the night.
The girl, or girls, invited to stay were given not a rose, but an implement.
In the beginning I'd set them against each other, with cash prizes or jewelry but while that was entertaining, nothing was better than doing it myself.
Mystery Dinner Party.
There were two girls left at the table. The other three for the night had been led away. Josh and Curt had seen them home, innocent rides in town cars that ended with nothing more than a thank you and a parting gift of a very small diamond on a chain. Anything else would encourage repeat visits or lawsuits or blackmail.
I didn't have time for such bullshit.
Angela and Bailey. An ash blond and a brunette. They wore nearly matching ice blue and ice lavender dresses with plunging necklines. That didn't seem planned, just the luck of the draw, and maybe part of the reason I'd chosen them.
"Tell me what you think of the current situation with the presidential administration," I said, addressing Angela. She looked startled for an instant, her pale glossed lips an O of surprise I wanted to take advantage of. But then she closed her mouth, ordered her thoughts, and came back with a considered, reasonable account of what she thought.
I enjoy intelligent people. I enjoy good conversation and debate. When I pressed her, she defended her views, paraphrasing resources and more or less showing her work.
In my line of work, I dealt with intelligent people all day. Pharmaceuticals are literally life and death, whether because they're meant to prolong life and stave off death, or because they're being created from an unknown number of factors or at least unproven.
But the men and women I work with are not friends. My circle of friends is fairly small. My brother, who also works for the company. My best friend, who lives in London. We got together about once a month, but he's busy and so am I. My parents, living the good life in Florida and traveling because their son built a billion dollar business.
And the women. It's harder to meet someone when you're a billionaire than one would think.
Bailey joined the conversation so normally, it didn't feel any longer like a contest. Maybe she didn't realize that it was. When we ran down on the current terrible administration – it's always terrible to somebody, after all, but where we were now was far, far worse – I turned to Bailey and asked her what she thought the chances were of humans ever colonizing Mars.
It was out of the blue, that was certain. She blinked at the question, then considered for a moment, taking a long quaff of her cocktail before she answered.
"Unfortunately possible," she said, making Angelia laugh and me smile. "Mankind should stay here, stop reproducing, stop fucking up the planet – excuse me, I shouldn't swear at the dinner table."
"No, you certainly fucking should not," I said, and they both giggled, a little drunk or at least buzzed.
Good. That would help out later.
"But I think as for colonizing Mars, if mankind can change from users and destroyers and start looking at building things up and at letting them alone when they don't need to be fu – messed with. The possibilities are endless!"
They weren't, because she did end, and only about three minutes later when she saw me becoming restless. Angela had asked her questions along the way, a little aggressively, maybe, as if she'd figured out this was a contest, but the questions sparked interesting answers that all of us focused on and contributed too, so I allowed it.
Two beautiful women, two intelligent responses to random questions. I couldn't choose. I wanted them both.
I wanted them both and when Josh and Curt came back into the room I gave them instructions and they led the women away, strong masculine hands wrapped maybe too hard around slim biceps.
They'd be taken to separate rooms. They'd be tied up and gagged. They'd be left to wait for my pleasure.
I'd have the pleasure of making them wait.
And then I'd just have my pleasure.
7
Annie
San Francisco rises up to meet a plane at a dizzying angle. One minute the jet is flying along like normal and the next it's nose-diving like we're all in a World War II movie. I freely admit I don't like flying and still flying into San Francisco is like diving. Takeoff is pretty extreme, too.
My internet search hadn't proved anything. Cole could be in SF. He could be anywhere. It was a place to start and only because once I got into some really nasty searches that made me wish my laptop had all the bells and whistles PD's had, I found some proof that maybe, just maybe, someone matching the description of Cole St. Martin had been spotted at some of the clubs in the San Francisco area.
Never in Las Vegas. Which was what I expected.
I had been held in Las Vegas. Probably. That second move had thrown me like he meant it to. Blindfolded and taken with no sense of time or place to start with, I could have been driven pretty much any distance. It was just a guess that it was still Vegas.
There were clubs in Seattle. Probably far more in New York and Los Angeles. I was starting in SF.
"You Lily? Hop in! That all the luggage you got? Short trip? Business? Or pleasure? If you need a guide or a ride… sorry, I tend to talk too much. New to the whole Uber thing and they tell you to be friendly."
Friendly. Probably not psycho. Jeez. "I'm Lily," I said, and slid into the car beside her.
She was kind of gangly, the way girls are when they haven't quite finished growing yet. I wasn't sure she was even supposed to be driving, let alone for Uber. Not my problem. Probably she wasn't going to OD from fet any time soon and she wasn't going to accompany me to any of the clubs. My responsibility ended there.
I had to stop thinking like a cop. Time enough to get back to that after this trip.
If there was an after. If there was something to go back to.
I had the loosest of all possible plans. Go to the clubs. Ask around as casually as possible Have you seen this man? About one of the world's richest men without sounding like a cop.
If I found him? God, I didn't know. While my Uber driver—Call me Kat! – burbled on about god only knows what, I thought about what I wouldn't do if Cole demanded it.
I wouldn't kill anybody.
I wouldn't procure for him.
Not true. I'd go get him a hooker if he wanted it. I'd get him a host of hookers, a raft of them. Though for the love of fuck the man lived in Las Vegas and prostitution was legal on the road leading right to the city's front door.
No. He'd want me. Clean, I was sweating and craving like crazy. My arms itched, the back of my neck, my head ached and my stomach was a writhing mass of horror. I felt like everything good had been sucked out of the world.
Then again, that might be my default mindset.
I needed to kick this and it wasn't going on its own and it wasn't going easy. Before the flight I'd found one more baggie in a pair of jeans that had escaped the laundry. I stood over the toilet with the baggie open and poised for probably five minutes before I gave up and gave in and shot up. Just prolonging the inevitable and I knew it. At the time I didn't care. I had hours and hours before Mark came home and an equally long time before my flight. It might even make the flight less horrible.
If I wanted everything back, I had to find Cole. He'd given me no way to get hold of him. He'd said if I needed him, he'd know.
I needed him and if he knew, he hadn't come.
I had no doubt what he'd ask this time. Telling me I didn't have to have sex with him, that was the used car salesman pitch for the first couple rounds. This time, it was pay up or shut up.
"Where
are you staying?" My driver asked.
Alarm bells went off. "Shouldn't you already know what?" Because if she didn't, who was she? Fresh faced and looking like a kid. I was fresh faced and looking like a kid and look what I really was.
"Right. Sorry. It's hard to make friendly conversation when you don't know shit about the passenger."
Apparently swearing wasn't against the rules. Or she hadn't noticed she'd done it. "How did you start driving for them?" I asked. It was better than asking how long she'd been driving in the first place.
"I'm older than I look," she said, answering the question I hadn't asked. "And yeah, I know your destination. I just don't know what I'm supposed to talk about." She sounded distressed now. I hadn't read stellar things about driving for them. Then again, given my job choices and what I was here to do, I was the last person to give her any advice.
Instead, I asked, "So are you in school?" Please say college.
"UCSF," she said. "Criminal justice."
"What do you want to do with that?"
Without blinking or seeming to be kidding, she said, "Write murder mysteries," and for the rest of the ride she talked about her favorite authors – everyone from Agatha Christie and Jane Austen to Stephen King and more Stephen King.
I gave her a huge tip and wished her well. Better another mystery writer let loose on the world than another cop. Especially one who drove like she did.
The dungeon looked like a slightly run down gym. Not a spa, not a health club. A gym. The old timey ones where people lifted big barbells and grunted and sweated and didn't make eye contact. Where half the people there probably got their tats in jail.
I suppose that was the look they were going for.
It was literally underground, accessed after passing through an adult gift shop upstairs, giving it a nightmarish feeling of being part of one of the amusement parks in Anaheim. The store itself featured an entire wall of dildos, some of them frighteningly real and some of them – one in particular which was as long as my forearm and lime green – hopefully only for alarming home décor or joke gifts. There were harnesses, masks, whips, paddles, something that looked like a pizza cutter, wands that had nothing to do with wizardry and plugged in or had a battery pack.