create a mess in the master bathroom. Since it was right near the back door it would be easier for cleanup.
Gingerly, he stripped off his jersey and shorts, wincing with pain and ready for a hot shower where he could just stand there and let the water pour over him and he could just…think.
He did. But the water pounded him like needles, and he couldn’t stand to remain under the spray very long. Just get the dirt and dried blood off, pick out a little of the gravel and twigs.
He’d been unable to think too well up to now. But now he was at DeKoven Central, his power base. A man’s home was his castle, and this place
He patted himself dry and thought about what he could wear—a silk robe would probably be the best. As he walked into the bedroom he glanced in the large mirror and saw two things. How pale and scared his face looked —
And Martin, on his stomach, sprawled on the bed behind him. Tanned and beautiful.
Asleep.
When he first came into the room it had scared him to see someone here. The first thing he’d felt was fear.
As if fear had been sown into him. He could almost smell it on himself. He looked at Martin, felt the usual appreciation for his lover’s beauty.
He felt it despite the stinging road rash, the bruises. He was raw to the air. Knew that he’d be stiff and in terrible pain tomorrow, his muscles torqued around in all sorts of ways.
If he was going to do anything of a sexual nature, it had to be now.
And there lay Martin. So perfect.
Just what the doctor ordered.
He padded quietly to the walk-in closet. The birchwood dowel, four feet long and a quarter inch in diameter, stood in the corner of the closet, the price sticker still affixed. On the floor beneath was a nylon cord in a loop. Already cut.
He’d stashed it all here for a moment just like this.
The fucker in the truck ran him off the
He left that note. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
“The fuck you don’t,” Michael muttered. “You don’t know the
Martin squeaked.
Bucked.
Cried out.
“It’s okay, Martin,” Michael said, gently running his hand down Martin’s gleaming flank as if quieting a horse. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay, not yet.
“Michael, please!”
“I’m feeling my dark side,” Michael said in way of explanation.
“Please!”
“You have a choice.”
“No!”
“A choice, Martin.” He reached under the bed and groped around for the book. He’d marked the pages with Post-it Notes.
He held up the first page. The Chelsea grin.
“Oh, God, Michael, don’t even joke about that—”
Michael felt the dark tide rising in his chest. It all but obliterated the terror he’d felt as the truck bore down on him. But the dread remained.
That fueled his anger. His anger was always silent, but effective. He said, “You don’t like the Chelsea grin? I admit, it would ruin you for acting jobs. Or modeling. Look at the picture.”
Obediently, Martin craned his neck to look again. He’d seen it before. The Chelsea grin was what happened when someone took a knife to the corners of a man’s mouth and cut to make the grin wider.
“Michael, you wouldn’t—”
“Martin, you don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Martin stared at him.
“You have a choice. Like last time.” Michael reached out and touched a black curl of Martin’s hair, hooked it behind his lover’s ear. “You know you’ll be all right. A little bit of pain, and then pleasure beyond your wildest dreams. You just have to choose. The Chelsea grin or—”
“Please!
“Shhhhhhhh.” Michael put his finger to his lover’s lips. Martin was shaking uncontrollably. It reminded him of his wife’s worthless Chihuahua, always trembling. “You don’t want that, it’s okay,” Michael crooned. “There’s always another option.”
“What?
“The bastinado. Some pain, but on the good side, no marks. No
“Michael, I
“Shhhhhhh. A couple of whacks, that’s all. No more than two to each foot.”
“No! Please, Michael! Let’s make love! Please, I want you so much—”
“The Chelsea grin or the bastinado? You have to choose.”
Martin was crying now. Sobbing. His fear kited up out of his soul and Michael felt that if he opened his mouth right now he could swallow it whole. “You have to say it, Martin.”
Martin whimpered, “The bas—the bastinado.”
“Legs in the air. Soles of the feet facing me.”
Martin raised them slowly.
“Keep them up. No fair cheating. I want my two whacks. I won’t be cheated.”
Martin’s legs were trembling. His beautiful, muscular, tanned legs. He would keep them up. He was completely in submission mode.
Michael took a couple of practice swings. The dowel whipped back and forth, making a satisfying
“You know something, Martin?” Michael said as he stood at the foot of the bed and assumed the stance of a Samurai.
“I’m feeling better already.”
CHAPTER 44
By the time Tess reached Phoenix, it was getting late. She’d called ahead and the cold case detective, a tall rawboned woman named Jenny Searles, came out to greet her. She led the way down the hallway to the office she shared with two other detectives, both immersed in their own cases at their desks.
Searles had a file on her desk, marked Karen Poole.
Karen Poole’s murder book.
Searles said, “Couple of things, so you won’t get pissed off at me. This is a cold case, and as often happens, it looks like a few things are either missing or incomplete. There was a big reorganization of the file room seven or eight years ago, and a lot of stuff ended up being misplaced.”
Tess nodded. She’d worked in a cold case unit years ago in Albuquerque, and sometimes a cold case was like a piece of paper torn to bits. You had to paste together the story as best you could. “Thanks for the warning.”
