One former prostitute running a half-way house for abused women… who was also implicated by the ‘missing’ submissive as an accomplice to that murder, as well as the person responsible for the brands that Aris suffered as he died.
One supposedly unwilling accomplice to the dead Dominant, who was now being pointed to as the grand architect of this whole thing, who’d hired me to find the evidence needed to put the prostitution ring out of business and give suspects to the murders of the dead Dominant and the dead client, all while keeping her name out of it.
Wait a damn minute...
The only person who’d claimed Veronica was unwilling was Veronica. And while the video recordings she’d hired me to find could put the Dallas guys out of business, they could also put her and her husband into the spotlight and under the microscope of public attention. That would be bad for her husband’s political future and her marriage in general.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became.
Veronica set this whole thing up.
I was willing to bet that she coerced peaches to cometo me with this whole damn thing in the first place, because peaches had no use for me before Aris was murdered. Hell, she had no use for any Dominant in the Atlanta scene except for Aris.
That pissed me off even more that we were letting her get away damn near scot-free when we had her dead to rights.
This was what I thought I was getting away from when I left the force: politics.
I guess I was going to have to get used to it, no matter where I went. The only consolation was that I was more comfortable from a financial base than I once was.
To top it all off, Veronica hadn’t been at all flustered by the idea of paying me. Where does a U.S. Congressman’s wife get the money to pay a private investigator in a way that won’t turn up when the press looks at her finances?, I thought.
I also had to wonder, given that she was left-handed, if I’d been sitting across from the person who’d tried to shoot me. I was pretty damn certain I was being played by someone, and I knew that person was Veronica, and that was pissing me off by the second. I’m the one who plays people, not the other way around.
But of course, the other questions still lingered in my mind, and probably would until I decided not to incur any acts of lunacy.
Why did peaches kill Aris?
How does Selena really fit into the grand scheme of being a willing accomplice to Aris’ murder?
And finally, how the hell did Jenna even get out of Vegas long enough to get involved in this mess without anyone in the Vegas community knowing about it, and did they cover up her departure to keep Ramesses from knowing?
All of these questions were swirling in my head like a perfect hurricane, and the answers to the questions lay in the eye of that hurricane. All I needed to do was wade through the storm to get to the eye, and thus, the peace that those answers would provide.
Metaphorically speaking, of course…
I realized that it would take me months to find out all of the answers, and I also realized that my business partner was not about to foot the rest of the bill on the extra time to figure it out.
Since speculating, as usual, was getting me nowhere, I decided to go search Terrance’s place again before it got dark.
Maybe it might help with the answers to at least one of my questions.
Searching someone’s house in the dark is about the dumbest way to go about things.
Do you want to know why?
Either you have to turn on the lights, thereby alerting any observers that someone is in the house, or you have to stumble around in the dark with a flashlight. You might as well just save some time and call the police yourself.
Breaking into the house again was fairly annoying; if I’d planned ahead I could have stolen one of
Terrance’s keys and just let myself in. But I honestly had no real intentions of coming back to the house to find more pieces to a puzzle that I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to be able to solve.
I went in through the doggie door, again, and went right to the office. Your average amateur will waste hours looking for the hidden safe or the secret door.
Me, I go to where the paper trail leads.
The office was a mess and searching through it without creating more of a mess or actually cleaning things up was a pain. It was worth it though.
I found a small folder with some forms in it. It seemed that Terrance was planning to go into business for himself. He’d purchased a domain name, gotten a business license, and even had a business plan. I took a few pictures with my phone and left the file where the police could find it. I kept looking through papers until I noticed the sun was going down and then did a cursory search of the house for the videos. I strongly suspected, though, that they were in a safety deposit box downtown. The paperwork was in the file.
Downtown ATL we go.
Life was never in black and white. It’s a mixture of shades of grey. Sometimes doing the right thing produces the wrong results.
Yes, I’m trying to justify my decision to break the law.
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t hard to do. I got a copy of Terrance’s death certificate from the Coroner’s office and then I forged his signature on a power of attorney document. I put together a fake driver’s license and I rented a week of secretarial help over the Internet.
I didn’t want to involve Ayanna in what I was trying to do because she was still too ‘honest’ to do any real dirty work for me. But I will admit, she hung on pretty good during that whole thing with Jenna in my office, so, there might still be hope for her yet.
Ramesses would have to rely on plausible deniability if this all blows up in my face. He knows how the business goes, considering his old man did some ‘things’ back in the day, before Big Brother was able to look over everyone’s shoulder. But I knew that it wouldn’t. Like I said, I was damn good at what I did.
Armed with these items I presented myself at the bank to claim the contents of Aris’ safety deposit box.
I know what you’re thinking. Cameras, right? Banks are crawling with them. The truth is that most banks have lousy black and white cameras that don’t have a lot of detail. Thankfully for me, Aris banked at one of those small-time Georgia banks that you’ve probably never heard of, which meant that they didn’t have the capital to afford the type of surveillance that Wachovia or Bank of America could afford. All it took was a simple wig, a couple of cheek pads, a prosthetic gut, and some tinted glasses, and voila, a complete change in your normal appearance. All that was to say: I wasn’t worried about cameras.
The safety deposit box held several compact discs and some manila envelopes. I didn’t bother to examine them, I just swept them into a briefcase, thanked the bank official for his time, and left.
Just because it’s relatively easy to break the law doesn’t mean that I enjoy it.
When I got back to my house I broke open one of the manila envelope and took a look at the pictures that were inside. Veronica photographed well, though it’s hard to say which was her better side, front or back. It was easy to say that chains and leather really became her. I see why she would be a bit worried about these images getting loose by someone with a grudge.
The second envelope contained letters from Veronica to Terrance. Long story short, he had been
blackmailing Veronica. It looked like she’d gotten a kick out of it, too. Right up until the end when he’d
demanded that she have her husband help him get a zoning permit for his new business.
The picture started to make a little more sense to me. Terrance blackmails Veronica and she enjoys it. She hates it, but she enjoys it. Terrance enjoys it too. He’s then got her helping him with his recruiting. She puts the girls at ease and Terrance moves in with his brainwashing ‘sales pitch’.
Lather, rinse, repeat…
Then he started demanding money from her.
She hated it, but she enjoyed it.
The tone of
her letters was clear on this.
But wait a minute...
Then he wanted her to have her husband do some-thing. She pleaded with him, but he’s implacable on the matter.
That’s what changed, I thought.
And that’s where the dangers of shades of grey came in. If I was right, then Veronica, a potential client, had killed Terrance to protect her husband. She had him killed and then had her heavies toss his house looking for the evidence.
She orchestrated the whole thing.
But something still wasn’t adding up.
If Terrance had truly folded like a paranoid poker player when the Dallas folks put pressure on him, then why hadn’t he just told her where the evidence was and saved himself some torture?
He would have, therefore it must not have been an option. I thought about the mask and the ball gag.
So, let’s see…
Someone had tortured Terrance for the sake of torturing him. They made sure that his genitals were not identifiable once he was on the verge of taking the eternal dirt nap. That places Selena front and center as the person that possibly coerced Aris into playing with him in the dungeon.
Vengeance, not interrogation…
But they also made it look like it was all his idea to switch roles, which took peaches out of the initial picture, even though she was at the scene of the crime.
Four different women…
Four different motives…
Now it was starting to come together.
At least a little bit, because I wasn’t totally convinced that Veronica was the one completely responsible for Aris’ murder. If what Jenna said was correct, then peaches wasn’t completely off the hook, either.
By now, I would have been in someone’s interrogation room in another life, questioning suspects again, trying to figure out what I missed.
I don’t have that luxury now, even with the immense capital that I had at my disposal.
Why?
Because peaches was dead, Selena had self-defense on her side, Jenna was on her way to God-knows-where because she wanted revenge as badly as the others, but Ramesses decided it was in her best interest to disappear. Her hands weren’t completely dirty, but they weren’t completely clean, either.
Finally, Veronica, who very well may have convinced the other women into getting that vengeance against Aris, which effectively closed her own loophole, until she realized that she couldn’t find the evidence that could incriminate her to her husband, which would stop the gravy train from rolling.
A knock at the door disrupted my chain of thought and I quickly shuffled the photos and letters back into the manila envelopes. They, and the CDs, went into the briefcase and into the closet.
I took a look through the peephole and saw Niki waiting impatiently. I opened the door and she walked in, slamming the briefcase on the desk.
“What a day! The friggin’ defense attorney...” she broke off as she looked at me and I realized I was still wearing my disguise. “What are you wearing that get-up for? Halloween isn’t for six months.”
“I did something illegal today. Want to hear about it?” I asked as I headed back for the bathroom to remove the disguise.
“I don’t think so. I wanted you to put handcuffs on me, not the other way around. Was it immoral?” she asked as she followed me.
I waived my hand. “That’s debatable. I think a good citizen will be mailing some interesting evidence to the DeKalb Police Department soon… speaking purely hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed. “Can we stop talking about this, please? You’re making my ethics itch.”
Spoken like a soon-to-be assistant district attorney.
“Show me where your ethics are and I’ll give them a good scratching,” I told her.
She laughed.
“Take your clothing off, Niki,” I ordered.
I watched, in the mirror, as she stripped out of her clothing. She was naked before me and stood there quietly, legs spread, arms behind her back, as I finished putting the makeup away.
When I was done I turned around and walked over to her.
She was blushing furiously and the reason why was immediately apparent to me; she’d shaved. The skin between her thighs was gloriously bare and I smiled when I saw it.
“That’s My good girl,” I praised her. “Such a lovely flower shouldn’t be choked by weeds.”
“Thank You, Sir. i’d hoped that You’d approve,” she whispered.
“Follow Me,” I said as I walked back into the bedroom and pulled out the toy bag. Then I walked over and quickly restrained her hands behind her back with the handcuffs. As I’ve said, there’s nothing quite like the feel of metal. Niki sighed when I tightened them down on her wrists.
I took her by the hair and pulled her back until her weight was resting against me. If I moved, she’d fall. It’s a simple trust exercise adapted for bondage. I ran my hands over her flanks, mid rift, breasts, and lips. We just stood there for several minutes while I enjoyed her body and she enjoyed her position and my attention.
I broke the moment by pushing her forward, hard, and tumbling her to the bed. With her arms restrained she couldn’t do anything to break the fall. Going from a back-leaning position to a front-leaning position, forcefully and unexpectedly... it’s disorienting. I didn’t give her a chance to re-orient, either. I followed her to the bed and flipped her over onto her belly, legs spread wide as I knelt between them. She was flustered and breathing hard and looked at me with anticipation.
“Yes, yes, yes, oh please yes, Sir,” she whimpered.
She wasn’t completely wet when I entered her, but a couple of thrusts later she was. It would be a lie to say I simply took her hard, because I was also trying to ensure that she was getting some enjoyment out of this, but I did take her hard and fast. And at the end, when her pussy was squeezing the last drops of semen out of my dick and we were both gasping for air, she thanked me.
Now, your hardcore Dominant would have berated her a little at that point, torn her down a tad and
built her up to another screaming orgasm. I probably will do that later on in the journey, when the trust is
a little stronger, but for now, I just reveled in the afterglow of a good hard fuck.
She wanted to lick me clean but I didn’t let her. Not at first. I made her get on top and ride me for a little while. None of this pelvic rocking either, I made her squat over me and move herself up and down on my cock while I played with her breasts. That was exhausting work, for her, and a lot of fun for me. While she panted from the exertion I started to play with her clit and her orgasm followed soon thereafter. I held her for a little while before turning her loose on my shaft to clean me.
After, we simply lay on the bed with her head nestled in the crook of my arm. We weren’t talking; we were just... being together. My mind wandered a little bit and an interesting idea took root, especially when I was going to be expecting Natasha tomorrow as well. So when Niki rolled over, looked deeply into my eyes and asked if she could stay the night I told her no.
“I’ve got work to do tonight; I might even be able to close this case. I’m going to want you later, though. Be outside My door at 6pm tomorrow in a skirt, tank top blouse, no underwear. Do you understand?”
She looked both excited and disappointed when she nodded her head. “Yes, Sir, i understand.”
“you will address me as Master, from here on; both you and your sister,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she breathed.
I unlocked the handcuffs and watched her get dressed and leave. Then I went to the closet and took out the briefcase. The pictures and letters were easy to scan and then burn onto CDs. The DVDs took a little more work since I had to watch them in fast forward and cherry pick the scenes I wanted.
I’ll go ahead and offer my justification for what I did right now. Simply put, I decided how I wanted this case to end. I’d been engaged by three separate people to accomplish three sep
arate tasks:
First, find the Dominant.
Second, find the video recordings.
Third, make the case go away.
In addition to all that, I wanted the people who had killed peaches and kidnapped seven women into prostitution to be brought to justice. The problem was, I thought I knew what had happened with Terrance’s death, and exposing that would have caused more harm to more people. So rather than expose the truth, I decided to create a new one.
That’s a crime. But at the time that I conceived it I thought I could get away with it.
When I finished cherry picking the DVDs I created a second copy of the entire set. The original set, along with the original letters and incriminating photographs, I put into a cardboard box.
The edited DVDs, after a quick bleach wipe, went into a zip lock bag. The copy of the DVDs, and a CD with the digital images of the letters, the photos, and Aris’ other documents went back into the briefcase.
I ran through an anonymous website to access the Postal Service website and printed out some postage. Mailing something to yourself was an old, old trick for keeping something safe. I modified it a little bit and mailed my evidence package to myself at my bank, another copy went to Ramesses as well at the ‘special’ safety deposit box, used for extraordinary circumstances.
I texted him: ‘spcl dlvr to sfbx’ in the message, so that he would know what’s going on.
I put on some gloves and assembled a package for the edited DVDs, tipping them into the mailer and sealing it. I put the mailer into a large zip lock and left the house.
I got a text back from Ramesses: ‘message received, happy hunting… and tell Roni that her membership has been revoked.’
Happy hunting…
Yeah, that was definitely the appropriate statement.
But what the fuck was he talking about on the membership? Veronica, nor her husband, is a member of the Palace. This would have been an open and shut case all day long if that were true. I shook that off and began to run down my to-do list.
My first stop was a random mailbox. I tipped the edited DVD mailer out of the zip lock and into the mailbox.
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