Reckoning Read online

  This wasn’t about to be a normal case—that much was already certain—but the thing that had me baffled was how she knew me. I could understand if she knew Ramesses, but she didn’t ask for him. “You will excuse me, but you have me at a bit of a disadvantage, Ms. Ashton. It’s not like we run in the same circles or anything like that, so, at the risk of sounding tremendously blunt, how do you know me?”

  “No, detective, we don’t, but my half-sister, however, is a different story.” Serena’s voice sounded disturbed, almost like she didn’t want to have the rest of the conversation. “You see, she also partakes in the proclivities of the lifestyle that you and Mr. Alexander enjoy. To put it more bluntly, Mr. Law, and to use your vernacular: she’s a submissive. I also know she’s been a regular at the place you run; I believe it’s called NEBU, right?”

  “And what is your half-sister’s name, Serena?” I took out a pen and pad to write some information down. I had a feeling once I worked through the NEBU membership roster, I would find her name immediately. However, the minute she stressed the half-blood relationship to the woman in question, I realized that the search in the membership database wouldn’t be as easy as I thought. “For that matter, what makes you think that she runs in those circles?”

  “Her name is Kendyl Ashton, and I don’t think she does; I know she does.” Her tone suggested that I’d insulted her intelligence, but I wasn’t about to apologize for my line of questioning, either. “I found your business card while going through her things in her condo. It says you guys specialize in cases of a sensitive nature when it comes to your lifestyle, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right, Ms. Ashton.” Now I really needed to know what in the world was going on. Finding my business card was not a coincidence. “So, now that you have my attention, Ms. Ashton, what do you plan to do with it? Where is your sister?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping you will be able to help me with, detective,” she acknowledged.

  “Can we meet somewhere so that I can relay that information in person?”

  “My office is secure and private enough for your needs, Ms. Ashton. Can you be here within the hour?”

  She hesitated for a few moments before she spoke again. “It’s a little past one right now, shall we say, two thirty? I have a few things in my schedule that I need to rearrange to make this happen.”

  “Two thirty it is. I will see you then.” I hung up the phone, turning the recorder off with the intent of working through the information later tonight. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take on this case, especially with the affluent status of the families involved. The Ashtons had a habit of burying secrets when it suited them. I remembered dealing with a case when I was on the force regarding the Ashtons that got the police chief and the mayor involved every step of the way.

  I could only hope the same thing didn’t happen this time around.

  “So, shall we get to the matter at hand?”

  “I see that you don’t like wasting time, detective.”

  “Hate me or love me, I get results, Ms. Ashton. I don’t like having my time wasted, to be perfectly blunt with you.”

  “Fair enough, Detective Law, I’ll get to the point.” Serena shifted in the seat in my office, trying to find a way to develop a comfort level. I had designed my office for my comfort levels, not anyone else’s. Even Ayanna had been able to adjust to the unique flavor of the space. “I think my sister is in trouble. She’s been missing for the past twenty-four hours.”

  Who was she trying to fool? I needed to know the angle, so I pressed further for details. “That’s hardly a problem that requires our services. Why haven’t you alerted the authorities?”

  “I need this handled with a degree of discretion that, quite frankly, would be difficult for APD to handle, considering our family’s standing within the community.” Serena began to fidget in her seat, a tell-tale sign that she was hiding something. I continued to observe, taking notes down to freestyle over later. Something was amiss; I could feel it. “I’m scared for her, detective. She said some things that I couldn’t understand, and when I went to her apartment to check on her, the place was a mess. She was normally messy to begin with, but ever since she submitted to her Dominant, she had been meticulous in her duties, including the upkeep of her condo.”

  I stopped scribbling when she mentioned that clue. “You said she had a Dominant, yes? Do you know, or do you remember, his name?”

  Serena closed her eyes, presumably to try and access her memories of whatever conversations she’d had with her sister. “She was in service to someone; I think that’s what you call it. I think his name was Kraven or some crazy name like that.”

  “Master Kraven?” My senses were piqued, and not in a good way. Why in the hell do these new submissives always end up finding the ones that have a sketchy past? If it wasn’t the sketchy, “bad boy” Dominants, it’s the newbies that thought they knew it all. Kraven was a combination of both, which was saddening, but considering who he was away from the kink community…

  Serena picked up on my sudden irritation and used the opening to pry. “So, you know him? Is there any way that you could find out from him where my sister is? Don’t tell me, he’s a bad boy, isn’t he?”

  I did what I could to calm myself, but the mere mention of Kraven was enough to get Ramesses’s blood pressure up, and he rarely ever got irritated. “To answer your question, Ms. Ashton, yes, he is a bad boy, but he’s harmless; trust me. He’s not like your garden-variety thug on the streets, but he’s nowhere near a saint, either.”

  “I understand, detective. What do you require to get started?”

  She kept giving away mixed signals that continued to throw me off. One moment, she was uncomfortable, barely making eye contact with me, and in the next moment, she’s ready to get down to business, her stare nearly piercing through me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she was a switch within the kink community, but there was no real way to be sure. Twenty-first century kink these days didn’t require being out and about as much.

  Nevertheless, something’s up; there were no two ways about it.

  I was already worried that she waited twenty-four hours and hadn’t contacted the proper authorities to report her sister missing, so I needed to get with my girls and try to find a way to slip that under the radar to keep things above board. I needed to at least take the case, if for nothing else than to find this woman before she turned up harmed beyond recognition or worse. Missing person’s cases hardly ever turned up positive, although there was a glimmer of hope if I reacted in enough time.

  “Standard fees apply, a half-grand a day for surveillance; I’ll be able to find out everything you need to know,” I explained. A few clicks of the mouse sent the contract from the printer, and the virtual payment through Ayanna sealed the deal. “I should be able to give you an idea in the next forty-eight hours maximum. Our world is small by comparison, so it shouldn’t take much to find her. I’ll start with Kraven and work from there.”

  “Thank you, detective, and I can count on your discretion, yes?”

  “You won’t see anything in the public eye, unless there becomes reason to,” I cautioned. “After that, all bets are off.”

  FIVE

  “So, what was the vanilla client about?”

  “I’m not sure she was completely vanilla, Sir.”

  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there were things about her that seemed different from the average woman that I encountered these days. Her demeanor wouldn’t give her away on either edge of the paradigm, and that might have been what confused me. She wasn’t submissive, but she wasn’t dominant, either. One thing was for certain, she wasn’t strictly vanilla; she was a bit more versed in the vernacular than she might have wanted to let on.

  I observed her as she walked to her car, keeping eye contact the entire time, something that I knew a submissive didn’t do, even in public where things were a bit more discreet. Now that I thought about it, she might have
been what Ramesses liked to call a “French vanilla” type: not quite vanilla, but not quite fully immersed in the real-time community.

  Ramesses recognized something was up, too, raising an eyebrow at the boldness of her eye contact with me. He shook his head, stroking his beard as he pondered the origin of the mysterious-but-not-so-mysterious woman. “And she specifically mentioned Kraven by name, you say?”

  “I made sure to make her repeat the information, to be clear about who we were dealing with.” I shook my head, trying to figure out how in the world a woman the stature of Kendyl Ashton ended up dealing with the likes of Kraven. “I know he’s not your favorite person to deal with, but this time you don’t have to deal with him; I do.”

  “Yeah, but considering the clout he has in the professional circles that I run in now, especially when it comes to dealing with NEBU, I might have to deal with him, regardless of my personal feelings.” Ramesses was cool, trying to calculate the next move. I couldn’t blame him for measuring his moves now. He had things to consider, and his relationship with Kraven was tenuous at best, with one wrong move meaning the difference between Kraven feeling some kind of way and trying to undermine everything we’d built at NEBU. It was his political connections that got NEBU opened as a private membership entity in the first place, a move that was questionable, but necessary.

  “So, what do you want to do?” I inquired.

  “I know I always say the words, ‘by the book,’ but this time around, I think I’m gonna let you freestyle a bit, but in order for you to do that, you’re gonna have to follow my lead.”

  Master Kraven, away from the kink community, was a heavily connected businessman by the name of Neil Stegal. He had his hands in everything from real estate to transit, and was a member of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. He and Ramesses had hooked up a few years ago when Ramesses wanted to take NEBU public and, for a few questionable perks, Kraven convinced the Fulton County zoning board to approve the permits to classify NEBU as a bed and breakfast.

  I’d heard of politics making strange bedfellows, but this had “bad idea” written all over it. I wasn’t the only one who thought so; Neferterri made her thoughts explicitly clear before her husband squeezed the trigger on the arrangement.

  Over that time, he had mildly abused his perks, bringing in some of his political friends to sample the grounds and some of the slaves, much to the chagrin of the owners of the establishment. It took a lot to upset Ramesses, though Kraven nearly had him at his breaking point. Rather than trigger the termination clause, Ramesses waged a campaign to leverage some of the influence that Kraven had in his favor, pulling the majority of those friends into his camp. Before long, the perks slowly began to fade to black, and despite his complaints to his former political connections, they fell on deaf ears, as those same friends began enjoying even better perks provided by Ramesses. Kraven never really got over the power play, and ever since, he’d been trying to find ways to regain some leverage and possibly get back into NEBU, whether Ramesses liked it or not.

  Driving up to his palatial estate in Duluth out in north Gwinnett County, my senses were already tilted higher than normal. I had a feeling Kraven would be combative if he thought we were there to confront him about Kendyl’s whereabouts. I resolved to let my business partner take the lead and see if this would spin into the usual game of “good cop, bad cop.”

  “Ramesses, Dominic, this is an unexpected visit. What can I do for you two?” Kraven opened the door, a quizzical look on his face. I kept my face expressionless to keep him from figuring out anything yet. Ramesses was as stoic as I was, not intending to tip his hand, either. Since we weren’t exactly law enforcement, his fight-or-flight mechanism wouldn’t need to be sensitive. “I hope it isn’t anything that we need to be concerned about?”

  Ramesses raised his eyebrow, trying to figure out where that question came from. “Anything that we need to be concerned about?”

  “Yes, of course, with regard to NEBU.” Kraven’s smile made me uneasy. I silently wondered if someone had tipped him off to our arrival. He looked at Ramesses, trying to figure out if the information he’d dropped would get a response. “I heard about the murder the other night. I would hope there is nothing that should be of any concern.”

  “There’s nothing that is needed to sweat about in that case, Sir,” Ramesses replied. His eyes narrowed for a moment before he focused on the original purpose of our visit. “There’s a submissive that has gone missing who has been attached to you. We were wondering if you had any idea of where she might be.”

  Before Kraven could react to the question, a woman sauntered from around the corner, slipping her hands around his waist. She was a stunning blonde, nearly six feet tall, leggy and slender, with a sex appeal that couldn’t be denied despite the maturity in her eyes. “Who are these handsome gentlemen, sweetie? As delicious as they look, I would love to believe they were here for me. At least, I hope they are here for me.”

  I smiled slightly at her dry wit, obviously meant to mask her discomfort. Her body language gave her away, and her lack of eye contact tipped off my senses. I wasn’t about to say anything to her just yet, but I had a feeling I needed to before she lawyered up. “No, we’re not here for you, as beautiful as you look, Mrs. Stegal, but we needed to speak with your husband about something of a sensitive nature.”

  She kept her eyes on me the entire time I spoke, and I tried to figure out what exactly she was trying to do: keep my attention or figure out if I liked, and wanted, what I saw. She tried so hard to be pouty and demure that she accomplished the exact opposite. It was a bit of a turnoff, to be serious.

  Kraven popped his wife’s ass, causing her to jump for a minute. He obviously was not enthused about the open flirting his wife was doing in front of him. Considering that he had a few pieces on the side, I found that quite hypocritical. “Honey, let me speak with these gentlemen for a moment, please? I promise I’ll be back to put you to sleep properly.”

  “Okay, Big Daddy. I need to get out of these clothes anyway.” She winked at Ramesses before she walked away, her heels barely touching the marble floor. “It is a shame that you weren’t here for other purposes. It would have been nice to be a little sore before going in to work.”

  I wanted to turn to laugh for a moment, but I was here for business, not entertainment, despite his wife’s apparent willingness to provide the latter. “May we come in, or do you want to do this here at the door while your neighbors wonder what two gentlemen in dark suits want with you?”

  He rubbed his chin, contemplating his next move. I wasn’t in the mood to figure out what was going through his mind, but I had every intention of making sure he made the right decision. I noticed a nosy neighbor peeking out of her window, and I saw my chance to step up the pressure. I began walking toward her, a smile spreading across my face, waiting for the precise moment for Kraven to realize what was about to happen to him.

  “Okay, you can come in!” Kraven yelled loud enough for me to hear.

  I stopped in the midst of his neatly manicured lawn, only acknowledging that I heard him. I purposely stood in place, insistent upon forcing him to repeat himself. It must have worked; I felt a hand on my shoulder and a steadier tone in my ear. “Well played, young’un, well played. Let’s see if the old man can tap dance inside.”

  Once inside, Kraven tried his best to keep his composure, though his glare in my direction was evident. It might have had something to do with the smirk on my face. “So, gentlemen, what is this about? As I told you, I’m not exactly at a point to where I need to discuss anything lifestyle related.”

  I rubbed my hand over my face, realizing we would be pulling teeth to make any headway. Patience was never one of my strong suits. “Kendyl Ashton. Wanna talk now?”

  Ramesses and I noticed the flicker of recognition flash in his eyes before he tried to reset his poker face. The green-eyed monster reared its ugly head with the next words out of his mouth. “What do you want with my gir
l? The last I remembered, you both had more than you could handle.”

  “Let’s be more specific, shall we? Kendyl was found dead, your DNA was found on her and inside of her…do we really need to paint this picture for you?” Ramesses snapped, actually catching me off guard with his more direct approach. I was a bit curious as to why he would lie like that; we hadn’t even found Kendyl yet, and he was playing this like she was already dead.

  His tactic worked, though; Kraven looked like he’d been punched in the gut.

  I continued to observe as he grabbed for his couch, struggling to breathe, repeating his name for her over and over. “Oh my God, my heaven. You can’t be gone, you can’t be.”

  Ramesses met my gaze, mirroring the disbelief with the theatrics on display. Call us both jaded, but nothing—and no one—was ever what they seemed. Innocent until proven guilty was not as easy as the untrained eye would believe. Besides, we couldn’t function that way; we left that up to the courts.

  After waiting a few more moments to allow Kraven to calm down so he could answer some questions, Ramesses took over the “good cop” role. “We’re sorry for your loss, Sir. I can see from your reaction that she meant a lot to you. Do you think someone wanted to harm her?”

  “Ramesses, I’m not sure…I’m still in shock right now.” Kraven shook his head, leaning back into the cushions of the seating. “She had no enemies.”

  “Maybe you did, Sir,” I interjected, insistent on getting a rise out of him. “Your business dealings haven’t exactly been, shall we say, above board.”

  Kraven didn’t disappoint. “I’ll be damned if you presume to pin this on me! My dealings have nothing to do with what happened to her!”

  “But you have to admit, Master Kraven, your submissive had no enemies, to your point. Degrees of separation led us to you, since there are no other persons to connect you to her…well, at least not yet, anyway.”