One Cut Deeper

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  “Let’s start at the beginning.” Sheriff Cutler jerked his head at his deputy, and the young man stood and took out a notebook. “How long have you known Mr. MacNiall?”

  I wanted to burst out into crazed laughter. This was just like Christmas Day, when my family had interrogated me. “He’s been bringing Sheba to the vet clinic where I work for over a year.”

  “When did you start there?”

  “A little over a year ago. I started about the same time, but I barely spoke to him until recently.”

  “So you’ve known him a year. When did you become personally involved with him?”

  In the Biblical sense? A tear slipped down my cheek but I answered the question. Truth. He ordered me to give them everything they wanted. “Christmas Eve eve. He asked me to dog sit Sheba because he was out of town at the last minute and we couldn’t board her.”

  “Do you know where he went that night?”

  “He said it was a business trip in New York.”

  “So you’ve been dating ten days? Eleven?”

  Sheba stood up and laid her head in my lap. Grateful, I smoothed my hand over her head. “Something like that.”

  “Did you move in with him?”

  There wasn’t any edge to the sheriff’s voice, no hint at condemnation or outrage. He might as well have asked me where I shopped for groceries. “Sort of. I’ve spent every night here since, but I wouldn’t say I’m living here. These are his things.” I’m his thing. His possession. But they won’t understand that.

  “Do you know what business he’s involved in?”

  “He said he’s a troubleshooter for Doctors Without Borders.” Truth. Maybe not all of the truth, but I didn’t have to say more if they didn’t ask. “I found some pictures in his bedroom the first time someone tried to break in.”

  “Wait, the first time? Deputy, do you have anything on that?”

  Deputy Daniels flipped through his notes. “No sir. That wasn’t mentioned in the first interview.”

  “My first night here, Sheba growled at the back door. Charlie called me because the motion sensors went off but the inside alarm never went off.”

  “But you don’t know who or what it was?”

  “No. No one got in. When Tasker approached me outside the college building, I assumed it’d been him.”

  “You saw this man Tasker twice, right?” Deputy Daniels scanned his notes. “Christmas Eve, near here. And then a few days later.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think he’s the one who broke in New Year’s Eve?”

  I opened my mouth but hesitated. I wanted to say yes. I wanted it to be simple. Even now, even though Charlie was gone and I was alone, I couldn’t disobey him. I tried again and whispered, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Tears trickled faster down my cheeks. “Because he knew about Sheba. She tried to get him at the college. He saw how mean she gets when someone’s trying to hurt me. Why would he then try to break in and let her bite him?”

  “Do you know who else might want to hurt you or Mr. MacNiall?”

  “No idea.”

  Sheriff Cutler nodded and shared a long look with his deputy. “I’m going to ask you some difficult questions now, Miss Killian.”

  I sniffed my nose and swiped my cheeks. “Okay.”

  Deputy Daniels went into the kitchen and got me a paper towel. Grateful, I wiped my eyes and nose.

  “Would Mr. MacNiall want to hurt you in any way that isn’t consensual?”

  “No.” I said it with all the conviction and belief in my heart. He’d already had the perfect opportunity to kill me. He’d held a knife to my throat while he fucked me. But he’d taken exquisite care to give us both the danger and pain we wanted without ever making me think I was taking my last breath. “He’d never hurt me like that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know that.”

  “He left you,” Deputy Daniels said. “He abandoned you. Are you sure you can trust him?”

  I pressed the paper towel to my face and hid my eyes for a moment. I sucked at hiding my emotions, and I didn’t want them to see those raw feelings reflected in my eyes. Rage that he was gone. Desperation. My overwhelming need for him, my weakness, all my dirty laundry. But I didn’t want them to know. Not if I could help it. Finally I got a damper on some of that tumult. I pushed it down, down into the broken heart of me that he owned. And I locked it there, for him, when he returned. He promised.

  Swallowing hard, I lowered my hands. They’d have to see my face to determine the truth on their own. “When you’re involved in the kind of relationship I have with Charlie, you have to have trust. Ultimate trust. I gave myself to him. Fully. Do you have any idea what that means? I trust him with my life.”

  “Even now?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  The two cops looked at each other again, silent communication I didn’t have to hear to read. They’d written me off as the duped, clueless girlfriend and they sure weren’t above using me to get to him. Deputy Daniels laid a business card on the table. “If you hear from him, no matter how small, we need to know. He’s not in trouble. We just need to find out who might have tried to hurt you.”

  “Now that he’s gone—” I had to swallow hard, the word cutting my throat like razor blades, “—do you think I’m still in danger?”

  “Oh, doubtful.” Sheriff Cutler pushed to his feet. “But if you see anything suspicious at all, give Daniels a call.”

  “That’s my direct number, Miss Killian. We’ll have a car out here in five minutes if there’s a problem.”

  I walked them to the door. Sheba sat beside me, but she didn’t watch them go. She kept looking up at me and whining.

  Deputy Daniels hesitated at the door. “Will you be staying here, if we have any other questions?”

  I dropped my hand down to Sheba’s neck and threaded my fingers in her thick fur. “As long as I can. I don’t know if he owned this house, rented, if it’s paid for. But as long as I can, I’ll stay here. In case he comes back or calls or...”

  The look of pity he gave me was another blow, but he didn’t say anything else.

  I shut the door behind them and then dropped to my knees and hugged Sheba. “What am I going to do?” I whispered to her. “There wasn’t time. I don’t know what he wants me to do.”

  She whined and licked my cheek. Looking at her, I knew I couldn’t take her to my tiny apartment. Even if they took pets—and by pets, they meant twenty-five-pound lapdogs, not hundred-and-twenty-five-pound dogs—she’d be miserable. No yard. No place for me to walk her that didn’t involve streets and sidewalks. Even if Charlie hadn’t made me promise to take her with me everywhere, I would have taken care of her in his absence.

  I looked around and cursed my stupidity. Instead of making frantic love to the master and asking about his past, I should have been asking how I was supposed to take care of everything. Even if the house was paid for, it wouldn’t do me any good to stay here if they turned off the gas and electricity for nonpayment. No way could I pay all the bills for both his and my place on my meager salary, yet I didn’t dare let my apartment go, in case I was forced to vacate the premises.

  I tried to imagine what he’d say. What he’d want me to do. For one thing, he wouldn’t want me sobbing on my knees all over his dog. So I got up and refreshed my coffee cup. Standing in the kitchen, looking around at his comfortable home, I couldn’t imagine that he hadn’t prepared for this. He’d warned me that he’d have to leave and I’d made him promise to come back for me. From the beginning, he’d taken care of me like no other lover or dominant I’d ever had. He’d been determined to make sure I could live my life. He’d been too careful and considerate to dump everything on me and walk away. He had to have a plan.

  The Master always had a plan.

  I just had to fi
gure out what that plan was.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I tore his house apart.

  Not literally, though some of the rooms did look as though a small tornado had hit. Anything that had to do with him as Charlie MacNiall that I could find, I gathered up in a basket I’d found in the living room.

  Sadly, it was mostly empty. A few pieces of mail in the recycle bin addressed to him. The pictures from Doctors Without Borders. A gas receipt he’d left on his dresser that bore the last four digits of his credit card. When I went in to work tomorrow, I’d take a quick peek at his client account and see if he paid with the same card.

  Next, I started up the massive computer in the master bedroom. The desktop was as sparse as the basket, which was a good thing. I could find my way around a computer pretty well, but hacking was completely beyond my skills. If he had anything password protected that wasn’t sheba, I had no idea what to do. The only three icons on his desktop: the recycle bin, a scary-looking icon I assumed was for the security system, and the colorful Chrome wheel (no blue E for this master). I checked the recycle bin but it was empty. Not surprised.

  I started up an internet session and checked his favorites. He’d bookmarked the vet clinic and an online banking site. Crossing my fingers that he was lazy like me and had his user ID and password stored as favorites, I hit the bank’s homepage.

  His user ID was filled in, Charlie222. No surprise there, though the twos made me close my eyes for a moment as I touched the healing scabs on my thigh. I tabbed to the password box, but nothing prefilled. Most banks had pretty tight security, so I didn’t think sheba would be long enough. If he’d wanted me to find his account, then he would have made it easy.

  Holding my breath, I typed Sheba222 with the capital and hit enter.

  When that worked, I drooped with giddy relief. My eyes widened at the balance. Twenty-five thousand dollars and some change. For a just-above-minimum-wage earner, that was a fortune. His last charge was $832.26 at Lowe’s. He really had gone to replace the sliding glass door. I swiped at my tears and kept looking for clues. On the automatic payments tab, he had scheduled payments going to cover the vet clinic, the electric company, the gas company, and internet. If I did nothing, those bills would continue to be paid until the money ran out. It’d last for years if needed. Flipping through his regular charges, I couldn’t find anything for the house. Either it was paid for, or he paid it off a different account. Nothing for his car or insurance, either.

  Nor could I find a charge for the plane tickets. He’d been to New York twice since we started dating and there weren’t any charges to this account in the last thirty days for any airline. In fact, the only other debits were at gas stations and the Price Cutter on the edge of Springfield. I flipped through month after month, to the beginning of the account, opened last year with an initial deposit of thirty thousand dollars. No other deposits had been made and the account was only as old as his past that I knew about.

  The year he’d lived here as Charlie MacNiall.

  But why? Why would he go through all this trouble to set up an account with all these payments a year ago?

  Everything hinged on that time frame. When he started bringing Sheba to the clinic where I just happened to work. Was that coincidence?

  The Master always has a plan.

  Chilled, I shut down the link and went to his office. I’d never seen him in here. A large wooden desk sat beneath the window. Standing in the doorway, I decided the room looked perfect. Too perfect, like a magazine picture. An office should have messy stacks of papers, used pencils, a printer powered up and ready to go. But everything sat silent and pristine. The pencil holder held perfectly sharpened pencils with untouched pink erasers. The pen tips still had the waxy cap on them. A thin layer of dust coated the surface of the desk.

  I opened the three drawers on the side one by one, and found a dictionary, a cookbook with some Post-it notes as tabs, and a stack of brand-new legal pads. I kept the cookbook out so I could read through his favorite recipes. I flipped through the legal pads, though they looked untouched, in case he’d hidden a clever letter to me. Now, that would thrill my poor, aching subbie heart. But there wasn’t any special message for me.

  I was well and truly on my own.

  * * *

  I can do this. I’ll pretend he’s on a trip. I have his instructions.

  I went through the motions and cooked myself dinner in his kitchen. I made extra, so I could have some for lunch, but I pretended I’d save it for him to eat later. After all my snooping, I didn’t have time to take Sheba for a walk before dark. Even though she was a guard dog, I didn’t care to stumble around in the dark with below zero temps, especially if someone might be watching with the intent to hurt me.

  Especially if Charlie...

  I stifled the sob and headed to bed. The cold, empty bed, so huge and barren. I might never share it with him again.

  Nine o’clock came and went without a call. Not that I’d expected it since his phone was disconnected. I couldn’t even think about sleep, so I pulled out my laptop and logged into the forum as invisible. I didn’t feel like chatting widely with anyone, not tonight. It’d be too hard to pretend I was still giddy with happiness. Littlewren was online, so I started a private chat with her.

  littlewren: Hi, hon! What’s up? U ok?

  She knew me so well.

  slaverainy: Just need to talk. U have time?

  littlewren: Always 4 u.

  slaverainy: M is gone.

  Even typing that made tears flow from my eyes. Blinking them away, I kept typing before my silence gave too much away.

  slaverainy: Just feeling lonely until he gets back.

  littlerwen: poor thing. He’s taking care of you tho?

  slaverainy: Yeah. Things have gotten deep. Fast.

  littlewren: How deep? Want me to convo DaddyBear in?

  slaverainy: No, it’s more a slave thing.

  littlerwen: Gotcha. The best Ds always push hard. U 2 set limits tho, right?

  slaverainy: He insisted. I don’t have many limits tho. U know that.

  littlewren: But u gotta be smart, hon. Don’t take things 2 far just to make him happy.

  slaverainy: I know. He wouldn’t do that.

  I stared at the blinking cursor, trying to think of the words to explain some of the turmoil swirling through my thoughts. Not just his profession, the trouble we were both in right now, but the long haul. Assuming we got out of this mess, what would our future look like?

  slaverainy: I’m afraid that scene after scene, we’ll go just a bit further, sliding a bit darker, and then what’s left?

  littlewren: He’s a biter. What else is he into?

  I swallowed hard, my fingers shaking for fear of her reaction.

  slaverainy: Knife play. Blood.

  littlewren: Scary stuff but it can be hot. Rape fantasy? Ping dancerGirl. She had some good info on playing that kind of scene safe a month or 2 back.

  I let out a long breath and my shoulders sagged with relief. She’d been my online friend for a long time and I didn’t think she’d condemn us for playing with such dark elements, but I hadn’t been sure. Especially since she knew my history.

  slaverainy: No rape fantasy. I remember her. I’ll look her up.

  littlewren: Fear can be an aphrodisiac but you have to b safe 2. It’s a fine line.

  slaverainy: No kidding. Outside the scene, I’m not scared of him. I trust him in and out of the scene. But he does like me to be scared in the scene. Not real fear. But there is danger. I know that.

  littlewren: U wonder how far it’ll go. Next time, or the time after that, will it always b safe.

  slaverainy: Yeah, a little. It’s so intense, so scary, so good. But where will it go? How far is 2 far?

  littlewren: You 2 will have to talk. A lot. You have to keep the boundaries clear and hard. U trust him to stop?

  slaverainy: Yes.

  Even now, with him gone on the run and cops asking q
uestions, I trusted him. He’d never lied to me. He’d stop without question if I gave him the safeword we’d agreed upon.

  littlewren: Good. Trust. Communication. Try not to start a scene without talking about it first. Plan it. Then u know what to expect. Even rape fantasy and capture scenes are staged and planned.

  slaverainy: Good point. Thanks, hon. I feel better.

  littlewren: *squishy hug* I’m always here for u. No judgment. Just honest ear and lots of hugs. Just remember the most important thing.

  We’d already talked about communication and trust. To me, those had always been the most important elements in a scene. The safeword with Charlie. What else could she mean?

  slaverainy: ?

  littlewren: U r strong enough.

  My throat ached and I had to close my eyes a moment. I’d come online searching for some elusive proof that things would be okay. I needed some kind of validation that I wasn’t making a huge mistake with Charlie, especially with my past. It’d never occurred to me that the confirmation I’d been seeking had been there inside me this whole time.

  I was strong enough. I knew that now. I wouldn’t ever forget it again.

  slaverainy: Hugs, thank u. Love u.

  littlewren: Love u 2.

  I shut the laptop and pushed it out of my way. I hugged his pillow and prayed he was okay. I read until my eyes hurt and the battery on his e-reader died. Then I lay awake and stared up at the ceiling and made plans of my own. I was going to get a tattoo like his, on my thigh where he’d cut me. Once it healed. And I was going to take more self-defense classes. In the closet, I’d found a box of small blades like those he carried, so I’d slipped one beneath the pillow, added another to my purse, my car, and then stashed another in the kitchen. I’d add a new to-do to his list: an hour of practice every night. He’d taught me for a reason. Everything he’d done was purposeful, with careful forethought. I wouldn’t let him down.

  Don’t forget your promise, Charlie.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I went through the motions at work well enough that Dr. Wentworth didn’t ask if I was okay. I stopped by my apartment to do some laundry and grab a few clothes. While waiting on the dryer, I checked off keep connected to your family and friends by calling Sam. I didn’t think Charlie would mind that I combined the two tasks today. She barely asked about Charlie or my life, because she was going through hell in her own marriage. I listened and promised to come by in a day or two to see her, though the last thing I wanted to hear was her sob story about how Frank forgot to make the bed or whatever other shit she’d taken offense to.