At any rate, they had both been enrolled in the same pre-med accelerated program and had finished their bachelors’ in two years’ time. Whereas Nikki had continued on, enrolling in medical school at nineteen, Kim had decided against it, physics by then her raison d’etre.
After leaving the accelerated Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine (NEOUCOM) program behind, both women had headed for Harvard, allowing their friendship to further grow and strengthen. Nikki had been in medical school, Kim in the physics department, but they had spent time together every night after classes let out, having decided prior to arriving in Cambridge to share an apartment.
They had struck up a deal from the beginning. Because Nikki had come from such humble beginnings and possessed little money, rather than getting further in debt and taking out loans to pay for her share of an apartment in Cambridge, Kim covered all the bills. In exchange, Nikki had done all the cooking, which she loved to do anyway while Kim had never taken to it.
Those years had been a blast. They had grown up together, become women together, taught each other, and learned from one another. Kim had given Nikki fashion sense, and Nikki had given Kim the security of knowing she was loved not for how much money she’d inherited but simply because she was Kim.
They had watched each other fall in love for the first time, and then held each other when their hearts had been broken for the first time. They had shared each other’s victories and felt each other’s disappointments. That Kim was purposely withholding information from her now, after their long and meaningful history, was disturbing.
“I’m sorry,” Kim said. “I’ll confide more in you when I feel up to recounting it, okay?”
Silence.
“Kim . . .” Nikki sighed. “I don’t want to press you—really, I don’t.” She ran her hands through her hair as she expelled a breath of air. “But you didn’t ask me to meet you today just to eat crêpes, and we both know it.”
“I don’t want to be a burden, Nik. I know things at work are crazy for you right now. Dr. Sorenson has it out for you and—”
Nikki waved that away. “I can handle Dr. Sorenson. He’s such a whiner that the chief of staff doesn’t put any stock into what he groans about anyway. Honestly.” She gave her friend a level look. “Besides, Kimmie, you are my best friend. If you can’t unload on me, then what kind of a friend am I?”
Kim considered that for a moment. “Okay, fair enough. But I have to warn you . . .” She sighed. “Nikki, these images are not pleasant.”
“I’m a surgeon. There is little I haven’t seen.”
“Touché.”
Nikki offered her an encouraging smile. She lowered her voice. “Go on, sweetheart. Tell me. You need to get this off your chest.”
Kim was quiet for a prolonged moment. Eventually, however, she made eye contact and lowered her voice to the same hush as her friend’s. “There is this woman . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know who she is, or even what she looks like. The image of her face in my dreams is so muted as to be nonexistent.”
“Go on,” Nikki murmured.
Kim quietly cleared her throat. “She is enraptured with this man. This man who, just like her, I cannot see. Except for his eyes.” She shivered. “His eyes are the most chilling, icy blue. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.”
Nikki nodded, but said nothing.
Kim leaned in closer. “She goes to meet him. Funnily enough, considering that she cares for this man, I get the impression this is the first time she’ll have ever met him face to face.”
Nikki’s forehead wrinkled, but she said nothing.
“I know. That makes no sense. Anyway, after that, the images flash forward to this black space. A dark room? An abandoned house? I don’t know. It’s so dark I can see nothing but silhouettes. I’m able to see what is happening to the man and the woman by a single ray of moonlight that penetrates wherever it is the couple is standing. Other than that, I get no impressions of where they are.” She frowned. “The scent of water is strong—very strong.”
Kim sighed, looking away. “That’s when it becomes awful, Nik. The things he does to her . . .”
She glanced back, making eye contact. “This woman is tortured for hours. And when I say tortured, I do mean tortured. I’m not talking a little bit of pain here. I’m talking being raped so brutally that blood flows down her legs. And while he’s raping her, he’s also stabbing her. He stabs her just right, so that the cuts don’t kill her until he’s ready to deliver the death blow. So he can keep pumping away inside of her while she’s still alive.”
Nikki’s eyes widened. She shifted in her chair, slightly uncomfortable but engrossed in the tale. “Jesus.” She blinked, then blew out a breath of air. “No wonder you’ve got bags under your eyes. You must not be getting a wink of restful sleep. How long have you been having this dream? Is it the same one every time?”
Kim shrugged. “More or less. It varies in detail now and again, but yeah, it’s basically the same dream.”
“How many nights now?” she asked again.
Kim sighed. “Fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” Nikki frowned. She didn’t know what to make of this. She also didn’t know what to suggest to make Kim feel better. She’d have bags under her eyes the size of Texas if she had been haunted every night of the past two weeks with images like that.
“And, almost the worst thing about it is that the entire time he’s doing this to her . . .” Kim briefly closed her eyes while she took a deep breath.
“Go on,” Nikki whispered. “Tell me.”
“The entire time he’s doing this to her he’s humming—humming the theme song from the movie Somewhere in Time.”
“Have you thought about talking to someone, hon?” Nikki reached across the table and gently placed her hand over Kim’s. “You know, a professional?”
Kim scoffed. “I’m not crazy!”
“I know that!” Nikki said with just as much force. “I didn’t mean it that way, so don’t go getting your feathers ruffled.” She squeezed Kim’s hand. “I’m a surgeon, not a psychiatrist, but surely there has to be something on the market that can stop dreams. Then again, maybe not. But you should at least find out!”
“No way.” Kim pulled her hand out from beneath Nikki’s and made one definitive slash with it through the air. “No way am I going to a shrink. Uh uh. No.”
Nikki sighed. Her friend was as stubborn as a goat. Yet another trait they had in common.
“Kimmie,” she said quietly, “a recurring nightmare does not a premonition make. All of your verifiable premonitions have been small, almost insignificant in scope. And they have always occurred while awake, never in slumber. This sounds more like disturbed sleep patterns than anything else! Lots of people experience recurring dreams. You should see a doctor.”
“Maybe you’re right, but . . .” She blew out a breath of air. “I can’t.”
“May I ask why? It’s hardly a mark on your character.”
“Work,” she admitted. “If they ever found out . . .”
“They won’t. Besides, we don’t know that this is a premonition. As I said before, it could be something as simple as a recurring dream.”
Kim looked at her skeptically. “I really don’t think so, Nik,” she whispered. “But let’s use the best possible scenario and say that you’re right. Even so, what do you think would happen to my job if it was found out that I keep having disturbing recurring dreams about rape and torture?”
Her career would be over. Nikki frowned. She couldn’t deny the truth of that argument. An elite boarding school would never have a potential nutcase on staff. Not that Kim was crazy, but they’d treat her as though she were.
“Fair enough,” Nikki murmured, feeling as defeated as Kim looked. She was silent for a moment, and then, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Kim forced a grin. “Sell my memoirs and become fabulously wealthy?”
Nikki snorted. “You’
re already fabulously wealthy,” she muttered.
“Okay. So I’ll give the proceeds to charity, then.”
“Kim . . .”
“Don’t chastise me, okay?” She sighed. “Look, Nik, I’ll figure something out. I promise. But you have to understand that I can’t let something like this get out.”
Nikki smiled supportively, but on the inside she was still worried. “Sure,” she whispered. “I understand.”
Kim smiled back. “I wish you did understand.” She glanced away, her look thoughtful. “But you can’t possibly know what it feels like to be a freak,” she murmured.
Not true, Nikki thought, biting down onto her lip. It might not be exactly the same thing, but her intense D/s longings made her different, unusual. She didn’t really want to know just how unusual. And, like Kim, she didn’t want to chance her career being ruined if word got out.
Those were the reasons why she hadn’t confided her yearnings to anyone. Embarrassment was why she hadn’t even confided them to her best friend.
“You’re not a freak,” Nikki softly reiterated. “You’re just gifted.”
“Boy oh boy, is this hombre gifted or what?”
Detective Thomas Cavanah snorted at Dr. Felix Goldstein’s sarcastic assessment of Lucifer’s work. He’d known the fifty-year-old coroner for over five years and highly respected him. “Or what,” Thomas murmured.
“His cuts are clean, precise. His hands are steady.”
“How pro do they look? Are we talking Boy Scout level, a surgeon, what?”
“Maybe a surgeon, but not one that graduated at the top of his class. Somewhere in between is my best guestimate,” Felix said thoughtfully. He threw a white sheet over the remains of Linda Hughes, then motioned for Thomas to follow him into an adjoining conference room.
“Well, that only leaves a million or so occupations to plug into the databases,” Thomas said dryly. “Thanks for clearing that up, Doc.”
Felix smiled. “I wish it were that easy.” He sighed as he took a seat behind the desk. “Because of how my field is portrayed in the media, people think my job is simple.” He held up a hand. “The coroner examines the dead, runs a few tests, and the perp is nabbed. If only it really were that straightforward.”
One corner of Thomas’s mouth hitched up in a gesture of camaraderie. He knew exactly how Dr. Goldstein felt. In the movies, a cop’s job was more science than art. In reality, the opposite was true. There was a lot of science involved, these days more so than ever before, but it still came down to intuition, gut instinct, problem-solving skills, and tenacity. In a word, art.
“So,” Thomas said as he took the seat across from the coroner. He tugged at his suit, feeling big and uncomfortable in it. At six-foot-three and carrying around two-hundred-forty pounds of solid muscle, he had never warmed up to the professional-suit attire of a detective. He belonged in a football jersey and sweats. “You got anything new?” he inquired, his gravelly voice sounding sharp for a man who hadn’t slept in two days.
“Actually, yes,” Felix said, surprising him.
Thomas’s eyes slightly widened. He ran a callused hand across his five o’clock shadow. “Well hell, Doc, why didn’t you say so?”
“Very rarely do I get to make such a dramatic announcement. Allow me to savor it, eh?”
Thomas smiled. “What do you got for me?”
Felix sighed. “Not as much as I’d like, but at least it’s something.”
The detective sat up straighter in his chair. “Go on,” he prodded.
“We’ve got a fiber.”
Yes. “It doesn’t belong to Ms. Hughes? You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of fiber?”
Felix frowned. “Now there’s the shit part.”
“The shit part?” He grunted. “What are you saying, Doc?”
“I’m saying that the fiber was too threadbare to positively ID.” The coroner sighed. “When I burned it down to analyze, there just wasn’t enough there, buddy.”
Thomas closed his eyes, momentary defeat gnawing at him.
“But . . .”
“But?” His eyes flew open. “There’s a ‘but’?”
Felix smiled. “A small one, but yes, there is a ‘but.’ ”
Thomas threw a hand toward the coroner. “What is it?”
“Just my hunch.” Felix steepled his fingertips together. “My hunch will never hold up in court—you know that, Detective. The defense would shred it to bits.”
Thomas waved that away. All he needed was a lead. He’d find evidence that would hold up in court once he had something to go on. “Tell me.”
Felix nodded. “Leather. I think the fiber was black leather.”
Thomas chewed on that for a protracted moment. “Any particular reason you think that?”
“None. Just experience, Detective. Nothing more, nothing less.”
But experience made up for plenty. He inclined his head and then rose to his feet. “Thanks, Doc,” he murmured, holding out his hand for a shake. “Let me know if you find anything else.”
Kimberly Cox arrived back home a little past two in the afternoon. She felt drained by the time she opened up the doors to the colonial-style brick mansion nestled within the elite suburb of Hudson, where she lived, worked, and had been raised.
To outsiders, she led a charmed life. Having been born the sole heiress of a multi-millionaire father, she had wanted for nothing her entire life. Indeed, she had never felt the social pressure to outperform others in the way that many of her school peers had. She had grown up knowing it wasn’t necessary, counting herself blessed that she could choose to work at a profession she loved rather than feeling obligated to choose one merely because it was high-paying.
She didn’t have to keep up with the Joneses; the Joneses were too busy trying to keep up with her. Not that she bothered competing.
Much to her social snob of a father’s dismay, his only child had never cared much about coming off to others as pretentious and worldly. She was just plain old Kim, a spinster schoolteacher who loved working with kids and was passionate about physics—a subject most people fell asleep just thinking about.
Kim valued logic and reason, higher thoughts and self-contemplation. She did not value this . . . this thing . . . that she had become.
She sighed a bit wearily as she padded into the bedroom, exhausted from a lack of sleep these past two weeks. She could only pray that the fates would grant her mind a bit of surcease and permit her to get some much-needed rest this afternoon.
Sleep without dreams. Sleep without nightmares.
She was beginning to forget what it felt like.
“Please,” she whispered to the walls as she stretched out onto the four-poster bed and closed her eyes. “No blood. No death. No screams.”
Her dreams of late had been a bit more complicated than what she’d expounded upon to Nikki. Not much, but a little. She hadn’t seen the point in going on and on about all the little details, though. She’d given her best friend the gist of it all, and Nikki had been correct in that talking about them aloud had helped her to feel less burdened. Perhaps Nikki was right. Perhaps she truly was suffering from nothing more than a recurring nightmare.
It wasn’t as if Nikki needed to be forewarned or anything, Kim reminded herself as she took a deep breath and blew it out. Her best friend was a sensible, logical, intelligent female. Not the type to get herself into weird scrapes like the woman in her dreams.
Kim smiled, bemused. Besides, she told herself as she drifted off into blessed slumber, Nik would never be into things like that.
Chapter 4
Monday, June 9 4:37 P·M·
“You’ve got mail.”
Nikki clicked the mailbox icon on her screen, her hands shaking slightly ever since the computerized voice had announced that there was something in her electronic inbox. She blew out a breath, mentally chastising herself for reacting like a teenager to ema
il from men she’d never so much as met before.
So what that they happened to be into things she possessed the courage to imagine only in her wildest, most wicked dreams.
She smiled as she pulled up submissivegrrrl’s inbox, the account she had created before responding to the personal ads. She was pleased that all five potential candidates had written her back. She took her time reading through the correspondence, mentally noting which ones she had the most in common with.
In the end it came down to two men, both of them living and working in the Cleveland area. Bachelor #1 was Paul, a thirty-eight-year-old accountant living on the east side. A divorcé, he was a single father of two kids and, understandably, didn’t want his young sons to know about this part of his life.
Discretion was Paul’s middle name. Perfect.
But it was Bachelor #2 who really snagged her attention. Perhaps because she liked his photo more, perhaps because his writing had a poetic flavor. It was fluid and graceful, masterful and certain. It felt like the writing of a Dominant, if such a style of writing existed.
Dear submissivegrrrl,
To answer the question foremost in your mind, I have been involved in the D/s lifestyle for over nine years. I am a professional by day, a Master by night . . . .
Nikki savored the entire email, her mind already wondering what he would be like in the flesh. If he looked anything at all like his photo, then he was as handsome and well-built as he was dominant. She smiled.
An added bonus. She was more interested in the dominance.
Bachelor #2 was a thirty-six-year-old schoolteacher named Richard. A divorcé like Bachelor #1, he had a daughter who lived with him full time.
Nikki smiled as she clicked the “Reply” button in her email program. She typed up a five-paragraph response, indicating her interest and expounding upon their commonalities. Before clicking “Send,” she attached a photograph of her body in profile, her face turned away from the camera. She wasn’t comfortable enough yet to show him more.
Jaid Black Page 3