She’d never feel that again. But it was his fault. Damn it, his fault.
“You got distracted,” she muttered, digging her keys out of her pocket. “Distracted. And see what it did? Remember the plan. Keep the plan in mind.”
Chapter Six
A week of uneasy silence passed. Bryce’s messy apartment had shown them nothing but that he was definitely a bachelor, with empty pizza boxes cluttering the kitchen, empty beer cans and a stash of uppers. With a wry twist of his lips, Kellan studied the small assortment of pills and wondered why he hadn’t figured Bryce as a user.
Of course, he hadn’t really seen Bryce as somebody who would be involved in bondage games either. But the porn mags in his house were all of the darker variety, and the box under the bed had revealed an assortment of chains, handcuffs, and ball gags.
And videos…the videos sent a surge of excitement rushing through him. This was personal. Very personal. And there was nothing in the world as personal and intimate as sex.
Would those videos show anything?
Licking his lips, he counted them and recorded them on the inventory list. Well, he had been planning on a movie tonight, but he had hoped to get Darci to meet him in Columbus and maybe catch one together. Then maybe find some secluded area to park and fuck her brains out.
They couldn’t risk being seen together right now. Not with this investigation going on, but he wanted her so badly that he couldn’t breathe.
“Better this way,” he told himself, plowing a hand through his hair before gathering up the videos.
And hopefully, these videos would yield a clue. Some sort of clue.
Darci moved through the gallery in a daze. Her mind didn’t want to realign with her body. All she could remember was
“I wish I could stay,” he had whispered, brushing her hair back.
“Me, too.”
“This damned case…damn it. When I get this thing solved…” then his voice had trailed off as he’d jerked her against him, pressing a ravenous kiss against her lips, his hand fisting in her hair. Before she could start to kiss him back though, Kellan had pulled away and left without another word.
Her lips buzzed now, just thinking about that kiss. Pressing her fingers to her lips, closing her eyes in memory, she was caught by surprise when the door opened.
Turning, she found herself staring into Tricia Casey’s bland green eyes. Arching a brow at the older woman, she said, “Well, I usually don’t get to see you in here.”
Tricia laughed, her eyes twinkling as though she knew what sort of things were running through Darci’s mind. With a shrug of her shoulders, she said, “I don’t have much time for visiting. Not with running the gallery, hunting down new artists…and it’s terrible, but we are busier now than we ever have been. Violent death has done wonders for Carrie and Beth’s sales. Peggy and I can hardly keep up.”
“People are a macabre bunch.” Folding her arms across her middle, Darci asked, “What can I do for you, Tricia?”
She smiled, causing the few lines in her face to deepen. One wasn’t likely to guess her age. For a woman of sixty-two, she looked remarkable. Reaching into her purse, she drew out a small stack of envelopes. “We keep receiving your mail,” she murmured, holding it out to Darci.
Darci arched a brow. “I’ll have to complain again. Tiresome, never knowing where your mail is going. Especially since one or two times the letters looked like somebody had tried to open them. Not the bills, of course, but the ones that come from customers.”
A cool smile curved Tricia’s lips and she shrugged. “Bryce was always terribly nosy, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear he was reading other people’s mail.”
Folding her hand around the envelopes, Darci took them and sauntered back behind the counter. Calmly, she said, “Well, that being the case, I assume I don’t need to worry about people looking at my mail anymore. Seeing as how he’s gone.”
Tricia sighed, a sad look crossing her face. “Indeed. Such a tragedy. He was so young. I just don’t understand what is going on,” she murmured.
Darci lifted a shoulder. “Probably the only person who does understand is the one behind it,” she finally said, idly flipping through the envelopes.
The only thing they had in common was Dark Destinies.
Kellan had reached the same conclusion, although he would have disagreed with Darci’s thoughts on Bryce.
He was connected to her. Because the man had wanted her. A near obsessive want, judging by how many times he had fucked a woman and told her she’d answer to Darci’s name if that was what he felt like calling her.
Kim.
Bryce had his own little harem, and Kellan was a bit surprised over some of the faces he had seen. Married women, dumpy women, women he would have pegged as being too smart to want anything to do with Bryce.
But he knew what it was like to have a need for something dark. He had dark, obsessive fantasies of his own, all centered around Darci. These women who had been with Bryce wanted the pain and the humiliation and the sex he doled out with a fair amount of skill.
He liked to spank them, cane them, tie them down.
Often he would gag them, or pull a hood over their heads before applying the whip.
The blonde who was currently chained to the floor and giving Bryce a blowjob was one who took him by surprise.
Another link between the dead people.
She’d been Beth’s fetching girl. Carrie’s whipping girl…
“Say it, Kim, say you’re my fuck slut,” came Bryce’s voice from the TV as he pulled his wet dick from the woman’s mouth.
She stared up at Bryce with rapt hunger, whispering obediently, “I’m your fuck slut.”
And she had been the lover of one of the murder victims. Well, Kellan had to amend that as Bryce backhanded her across the face before jerking her by the hair and forcing his dick halfway down her throat. Maybe
Casting a glance at his watch, he vacillated. Did he really want to go and question Kim about this? At seven p.m. on a Saturday?
No. He didn’t.
But that didn’t keep him from climbing into his car and flipping through his notebook to find her address.
As he pulled out of the drive, he tried to turn it over in his head.
Could she have done it?
Damn it, he just didn’t know.
She was so quiet, so timid. Had she just been pushed too far?
