But this was a start, she thought, feeling equal parts excitement and nervousness. If he liked what he saw and wrote back, maybe she’d work up the courage to send him a photograph of her face.
She bit her lip, her heart racing. Maybe, one day, she’d even meet him.
“Black leather.” Thomas grumbled those words to himself as he plunked down into his office chair and ran agitated hands through his hair. “Shit.”
By itself, a black leather fiber wasn’t much to go on. All kinds of people wore black leather jackets. Damn—he didn’t even know if the fiber had come from a jacket. It could have come from gloves, a pair of pants, or even a pair of underwear from a novelty store.
The hell of it was, black leather could be found on anyone. From Hells Angels sporting black leather jackets to sixty-year-old grandmas carrying black leather purses, it was a common material. Apparently too common, he thought on a frown.
Thomas yawned as he stretched his muscles. His body was tired from a lack of sleep, but his mind kept refusing to rest. There was a correlation here somewhere, he knew. A correlation he was missing.
He stood up and trudged to the back of his office, and then into an adjoining planning room where he had photographs of Lucifer’s victims pinned up in a straight line across two walls. He took his time studying the death-scene photographs, looking once again for that small lead he knew was there if only he could find it.
All of them had been tied up.
He frowned. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Lots of killers tied up victims before they whacked them. It made torturing and killing them easier because they were defenseless to fight back.
There was also the bondage aspect inherent in tying a victim up. Most serial killers who also fit the profile for sexual sadists, which Lucifer definitely did, were aficionados when it came to collecting bondage porn. That this killer in particular had reenacted bondage death scenes with the victims wasn’t exactly noteworthy as far as an investigation goes. Still, it was something. Information to file away in the corner of his brain, to be retrieved at a later date.
Thomas’s eyes flicked from the photograph of Linda Hughes to the photograph of Carrie Stoddard. From Carrie to Marsha Graham. From Marsha to Lisa Pinoza. From Lisa to Genevieve—
His gaze flew back to Lisa Pinoza. Lisa was the only victim they’d found who had still been alive when police had arrived on the scene. She’d been badly injured, left for dead. She’d died of her injuries less than ten minutes later, unable to tell them anything about her attacker before she’d taken her last breath.
She had also been the only victim not missing her heart.
That was important. Why?
Thomas tried, for the hundredth time since police had found Lisa four years ago, to analyze that question from a psychotic thinker’s point of view. Why would Lucifer take the heart of every victim except for this one? What set Lisa apart from the others?
His gaze flicked down to the stats below her death-scene photograph.
Name: Lisa Marie Pinoza. Race: white. Age: 31. Marital status: married. Children: a five-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. Occupation: waitress at The Sacrament, a bar in downtown Cleveland.
Thomas stilled, thinking about the other discrepancy between Lisa and the rest of Lucifer’s victims. She was also, the stats reminded him, one of only two victims who wasn’t a white-collar professional. A victim who did not, for lack of a better description, wield a lot of power in life.
Black leather. Tied up.
Power.
He scratched his jaw. His partner, James Merdino, had spoken with Lisa’s husband after the murder. He’d said it was a dead end, that there was no new information to be gleaned from the spouse.
Thomas narrowed his eyes as he considered that. Moments later, he turned off the light in the planning room and made his way out the door and toward his vehicle.
It wouldn’t hurt for Cavanah to speak with Lisa’s husband himself. Nothing might come of it, but then again, there was always the small chance that something would.
Waiting for the computer to boot up, Nikki threw the towel she’d been wearing since her bath into a nearby hamper, then pulled on a T-shirt and sweats. Today had been a grueling day at work. She had lost a five-year-old boy who’d been playing with his father’s gun. The gun had gone off, and the bullet had lodged in the child’s chest.
She was more glad than she could say that she wasn’t on call tonight or tomorrow. She needed the time to recuperate, to forget.
She always aimed to leave work at work. But every once in a while a particular patient would get through the carefully constructed emotional walls she had placed around her heart. Today had been such a day. She’d never forget the sweet innocence of that five-year-old’s face. Or the look of unadulterated guilt and anguish on the father’s.
Nikki sighed as she plopped down in front of the computer and pulled up her Internet account. She checked her primary account first, the one at which friends and professional acquaintances emailed her. After answering those emails, she switched over to her D/s account, grinning when submissivegrrrl’s inbox revealed another message from Richard.
My sweet submissive Nikki,
For almost two weeks now we’ve been emailing back and forth. With every day that goes by, I find it harder and harder to concentrate on work when all I want to do is rush home and check to see if you’ve written me.
She smiled. She felt the same way. Nikki was too well trained and controlled to let her mind wander during an operation, but as soon as the procedure was finished, her thoughts would invariably turn to Richard. She was growing to like this D/s fantasy lover of hers. A lot. She wasn’t quite ready to meet him, but she knew the day would be upon them soon.
I understand your hesitancy in regards to meeting me—truly, I do. So I will endeavor to be patient, beautiful one, knowing that when I earn your trust, I will also earn the honor of meeting you in person.
You’re a special lady, Nikki. Everything about you is exciting and intriguing. From your submission fantasies to your profession, there is nothing about you that escapes my awe. I sometimes find it difficult to believe that you are interested in the likes of me, a lowly underpaid schoolteacher, but I will never look that particular gift horse in the mouth. *smiles*
Nikki smiled back to the screen. There was nothing lowly about being an underpaid schoolteacher. To her way of thinking, it was one of the noblest professions in existence.
She continued reading.
With the same passion and intensity with which I respect you, so too do I desire you, sweet Nikki. I will treasure your last email to me forever. . . . I mean that.
She blushed, recalling that email. Divulging her most secret yearnings hadn’t been easy, but telling them to Richard had felt right.
At Richard’s gentle prodding, she had revealed her most intimate fantasy to him—the very one she daydreamed about at least twice a week.
The fantasy involved being handcuffed to her Dominant’s bed while being “made” to perform for his pleasure. She would suck his penis first, opening her mouth like a good little girl (she loved to be called that in her fantasies!) at the Master’s request. When his cock was stiff with need for her, he would settle himself between her thighs and thrust inside, then ride her body into wave after wave of delicious, submissive orgasm.
In her fantasies, her Dominant was in love with her and would tell her how much that was true over and over again as he thrust in and out of her welcoming body. She had neglected to mention that part to Richard, not wanting to appear pathetic, as though she expected him to love her before they truly knew each other.
Still, they were her fantasies. She could dream about whatever she wished, love included.
I am a Dominant by nature, Nikki. It’s not something I need to pretend at. To me, there is nothing more sacred or sexy than the trust a submissive places in her Dominant.
I can make all of your dreams a reality. I can fulfill fantasies yo
u didn’t even know you had . . . .
I want all of you, Nikki. Your body, your soul, and your heart.
I hope I’m not scaring you off . . . please tell me if I am! I just feel so connected to you, as if everything between us fits. I know it sounds crazy when we’ve never met, but why else would we email back and forth several times a day—long, detailed emails that reveal our truest selves to the other—unless both of us are coming to the same conclusion?
Please tell me I am not making a fool of myself here. *smiles*
Yours,
Richard
Nikki took a deep breath and blew it out. Richard was right. As insane as it sounded, she too felt the connection growing between them. It became more and more pronounced with every email they sent off to each other.
And it wasn’t just sexual compatibility, either. They seemed well-suited as friends, too—and as lovers in a general sense. They shared the same political and religious beliefs, the same . . . everything! He was almost too good to be true.
A little unnerved by how fast her feelings were developing, but smiling contentedly nonetheless, she hit the “Reply” button.
The Cleveland PD wasn’t even sure Lisa Pinoza had been one of Lucifer’s victims. The fact that her heart had been intact when she’d been found had set her apart from the other women enough to warrant suspicion that she’d been done in by someone other than Lucifer—an altogether new perpetrator. Perhaps even her husband, Vincent. But Vincent’s alibi had been squeaky clean—it was kind of hard to fake being in jail.
The CPD had then tried to ferret out possible lovers Lisa had taken up with, even though James Merdino had reported back that Lisa’s husband had believed her to be faithful. They’d never come up with anything solid, so perhaps Vincent Pinoza had been right.
Thomas, however, doubted it. All signs pointed to Lisa having willingly met the man who’d murdered her that fateful night, for reasons other than friendship. Unlike his partner James, Thomas held no doubts but that Lisa had planned to dally with this man on the night of her death. He was also certain he knew precisely who that man was:
The devil himself.
The manner in which Lisa had been tied up was eerily similar to Lucifer’s other victims. Same knots, same type of hemp rope. Even some of the stab wounds she had sustained had been, although not as well thought out, proficiently clean.
Not everyone at the CPD considered Lisa Pinoza one of Lucifer’s victims. Thomas did. What he needed to understand now was why Lisa’s murderer hadn’t put the same amount of effort into killing her as he had into the others, which would include why he hadn’t taken the heart.
The stabs Lisa sustained had been brutal, angry. Not the clean, precise, orderly cuts found on the other victims’ bodies.
Thomas ascended the cement steps leading to Vincent Pinoza’s modest home. The tiny postage-stamp-shaped house was small but well manicured on the outside, he absently noted.
He lifted his hand to the doorbell and rang it, tugging on his tie as he did so. Goddamn, he hated suits.
A minute later, and wearing nothing but a towel around his middle, Lisa’s widower showed him into the living room.
“We were young when we got hitched. Young and stupid.” Vincent sighed and lit a cigarette. He ran his hands through his wet, shoulder-length brown hair, the bottom strands falling to rest on the Harley-Davidson T-shirt he’d thrown on after escorting Thomas inside the house. “But I loved Lisa a lot, always had. We’d been going out since high school, didn’t you know?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I did drugs back then,” Vincent admitted. “Heavy shit. Coke. Heroin. You name it and I did it.” He took a long drag from the cigarette. “Been clean since the day she died,” he murmured in a faraway voice.
“Did Lisa start looking for a way to escape?” Thomas asked softly.
Vincent’s eyebrows rose. “You mean did she fuck someone else? Yeah, she did.”
The detective’s body stilled.
“Hell,” Vincent said. “Looking back I can hardly blame her. Here she was stuck with a deadbeat husband and two kids, supporting all four of us and my drug habit on a waitress’s salary. Shit, I’d have looked for an escape, too.”
Thomas said nothing. He didn’t want to interrupt Vincent’s train of thought.
“Lisa was good people,” Vincent said reflectively. “Had a lot of aspirations in life—aspirations I never had. She wanted to go to college, didn’t you know?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Yeah, well, she did.” Vincent took another long drag from the cigarette. “When we got married the deal was I’d work to put her through school. She wanted more out of life than this neighborhood. Can’t say I blame her.”
“But you started using drugs and she never got that chance. Did she?”
Vincent blew out a long puff of smoke. “That’s about the size of it.” He frowned. “I can’t tell you how many times I tried to quit. I knew Lisa’d leave me if I didn’t. But I couldn’t stop. Not until I had to. Not until Lisa was dead and the only thing the kids had left in life was me.”
Thomas nodded. He absently yanked at his tie, wanting to pull the damn thing off. “For the kids’ sake I’m glad you did,” he muttered. His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Do you know who she was having an affair with, by chance?”
“Not a clue.”
“Are you certain she was having an affair?”
“Positive.”
“How?”
Vincent sighed as he ran a hand through his damp hair again. “Lisa was depressed the last three years of our marriage. Ever since the second baby came along. But then, a month or so before she got killed, all of a sudden she was real happy. Know what I mean?”
Thomas thought that over. He inclined his head.
“It was like she had a reason to smile again.” He frowned. “I hated her for it back then because I knew the reason wasn’t me.”
Thomas waited for Vincent to make eye contact. “Did you have anything to do with her death?” he bluntly inquired.
“No.” Vincent’s nostrils flared.
“You knew I was going to ask,” Thomas said unapologetically, believing him. Vincent wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to have his wife murdered while he was in the slammer, his alibi airtight. That took a cunning that the detective’s experience told him this man lacked.
Vincent frowned. “You know something? I thought about it a time or two when I was flying high. Killing her, I mean. She was my wife and she was fucking someone else. But could I kill Lisa? No way, man. I loved that woman. I’d have probably killed the guy she was screwing if I’d got my hands on him, but not Lisa.”
“How do you know the reason was another man? It could have been any number of things that made her feel less depressed.”
“It was definitely another man.” Vincent shook his head. “She flat-out admitted she was in love with someone else.”
One of Thomas’s eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly. “Did you tell the police that?” he asked softly.
Vincent waved that away. “Yeah. Of course. This is all old news, man.” He took a final drag from the cigarette before snuffing it out into an ashtray. “Damn, I still miss her. I know she fucked around toward the end, but if I’d gotten my act together, we’d be married thirteen years next month.” He straightened in his chair. “Anyway, as I told you when you first got here, I don’t have any new information. I wish I did. I’d like to tear the bastard who raped her and killed her apart with my bare hands.”
Thomas inclined his head as he rose to his feet. That he could understand. More than Lisa’s husband would ever guess. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Pinoza.” He held out his hand to shake it. “I appreciate it.”
Vincent returned his firm handshake. “Any time,” he said as he led him to the front door. “Let me know if you find anything.”
“Will do.”
Thomas traipsed back to his car, the wheels in his head racing. Why would James
have neglected to mention in the reports he’d filed on Vincent Pinoza the possibility that Lisa had had a lover? He scratched his five-o’clock shadow, wondering if a mistake had been made somewhere down the line in the paperwork.
Thomas had been down in Savannah visiting his mother when Lisa’s body had turned up. James had hurriedly faxed the paperwork to him to look over, to bring him up to speed. He hadn’t thought to question his partner about Vincent upon his return because the paperwork had made it seem like a dead end.
He frowned as he revved up the Cadillac’s engine. There must have been a careless mistake in the paperwork.
A distinct possibility. And one he’d have to look into.
Chapter 5
Monday, June 30 7:52 P·M·
My sweet, submissive Nikki,
Today is our 3-week anniversary. *smiles* I can hardly believe it’s only been 3 weeks when I feel as if I’ve been waiting for you my entire life. I have to admit I’m finding it increasingly difficult to remain patient in my wait to see you face-to-face. I just want to know that you’re real, that we are real.
I want to thank you for your last email, for sharing another part of your soul with me. I can’t begin to appreciate the amount of stress you must be under each day at work. . . . I find dealing with 8th grade history students trying enough.;-) My respect, and passion, increases for you a hundredfold with every new glimpse into your being you grant me . . . .
Nikki paused from her reading as she glanced up from the computer screen. She turned around in the swivel chair at her desk in the den, her gaze seeking out the report she hadn’t yet read.
She sighed as she stood up to retrieve it, feeling bad that she’d gone so far as to hire a firm to check Richard out. But a woman can’t be too careful these days, she reminded herself. It never hurts to make certain you’ve checked—and double checked—your facts.
Jaid Black Page 4