Chains (2 page)

It also meant her best friend, Eliza, could ship her any mail she had sitting there at her and Rusty’s house in Sarasota. Most everything Rebecca did was online, including paying her bills, but there were things, like renewing her license plates and her insurance, that required a permanent address.

She’d known Eliza and Rusty for years, meeting them through their participation in Ren fairs and the SCA in Florida back when Rebecca was in college. Any time she was in Sarasota—which wasn’t often, unfortunately—she parked at their house and she and Chewi stayed with them for a few days. Normally she saw them a few times a year up in Tampa, or Orlando, or at other events around the state, where they came to see her.

Sarasota, unfortunately, was an area Rebecca tended to avoid.

Too many bad memories, and as unrealistic a fear as she knew it was, she didn’t want to run into her ex.

And with her luck, she likely would.

* * * *

Rebecca had arrived at the RV park late Wednesday night, and Thursday had been spent checking in with the fair officials, finding her vendor space, and getting her tent and display tables set up. So she hadn’t even had a chance to settle in to her temporary home yet.

After nearly ten years of existing like this, she had it down to a science. Living in an RV suited her, allowing her the freedom to vend at different events without worrying about a home left behind.

It also meant no way for Sam to be able to track her down.

She knew she was being paranoid. It’d been four years since the last time she’d received word from someone that Sam had asked about her or mentioned her.

Not one to take chances, she preferred the anonymity of a roving life to being a sitting duck.

This RV was her second, and at thirty-two feet it was ten feet larger than her last one. She’d saved up for it, buying it used, but it’d been only two years old and had less than ten thousand miles on it when she got it.

So far, it was holding up well. One day she’d like to upgrade to a slightly larger one, but that was future thinking. And the Toad, as she’d dubbed her green CRV, was in great shape even though it was ten years old. Most of its road miles were earned while being towed on the car dolly behind the RV.

Tonight she got Chewi and her stuff unloaded and inside the RV before locking herself in and taking a long, hot shower.

That was another reason she didn’t want to boondock. After years of doing this, she knew some of these Ren fairs were dusty, dirty events. She wanted the luxury of a long, hot shower without worrying about water supplies or how full her grey-water tank was getting. Being hooked directly into the sewer line, and with an incoming fresh-water supply, meant she could take as long a shower as she wanted. Her tankless water heater kept up with it, no problem.

Finally, she emerged, wearing a T-shirt and with her long, curly brown hair wrapped in a towel. She sank down onto the couch and stared at where Chewi had taken up residence in his bed on the passenger seat, which she’d turned around backward so he could see the interior.

“Ready for dinner?”

He sniffed at her.

“Of course you are.” She scooped him out a bowl of kibble and set it down for him next to his water bowl.

He stared at her, not moving from his bed.

“I told you last night, no more pawside service. Not when you keep trying to bury it in your bed.”

Slowly, he stood, stretched, then jumped down and walked over to his bowl, staring up at her.

Bitch.

Well, that’s what his expression read, anyway.

“Deal with it,” she told him as she tried to decide what she wanted for dinner. First, though, she flipped on the TV and scrolled through the channels until she found something interesting. She’d invested in a satellite package that meant no matter where she was, she could usually get reception.

Worth every penny, and then some.

She settled on nuking a bowl of leftover macaroni casserole, a mix of ham and cheese and broccoli, instead of cooking something else. Then she settled back on the couch to watch TV and eat before her next part of her routine would begin.

Paperwork.

Logging in what she’d sold, bookkeeping, and checking for new online orders. She also specialized in custom BDSM collars for people, collars that looked like chainmaille jewelry and could be worn every day without causing suspicion. Three quarters of her online income was that demographic.

Unfortunately, it was also how she’d met Sam, in a local BDSM community in the Sarasota area.

When she’d divorced him and taken off for a roving RV life, she’d unfortunately left that part of herself behind. She missed having a Dom, and she wouldn’t deny it.

But not
that
Dom. And maybe after being independent for so many years, she knew she might not even be fit for a relationship, much less be a submissive in a D/s one.

Didn’t mean she didn’t miss
being
in one.

* * * *

By the time she was ready to collapse for the night a little after ten, she’d caught up with her bookkeeping and made two bracelets to replace ones she’d sold that day. She’d e-mailed Eliza the RV park’s address, too, something she’d meant to do the day before and had forgotten.

With Chewi curled along her back, she settled in, the RV’s AC unit humming and helping to drown out the various sounds outside.

Overall, other than the occasional loneliness, she didn’t have many complaints about her life. Her parents lived in California, a state Rebecca didn’t like driving the RV through. Not the southern part of the state, at least. Too much traffic, and gas prices were too damn expensive. They usually flew out and met her somewhere every Christmas, usually somewhere warm, and they’d spend a week with her in whatever locale Rebecca had picked for the holiday.

She had plenty of friends online, via Facebook and FetLife, as well as friends she regularly saw at events where she vended.

She could pay her bills, had a decent savings account built up, owned her home—technically—and had a fairly low-stress existence.

So what if she didn’t have a guy?

She had Chewi, at least.

I’m pitiful.

How long are we going to keep going on like this?

Toby Sorto stared out the kitchen window at their large backyard garden. Herbs, vegetables, even some fruit, with a manicured tropical ornamental border around it. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and Logan was still asleep, meaning Toby had peace until his partner awoke and they started what passed for their routine now.

He loved this house, loved what they’d done to it, loved that they’d put their heart and soul into it. But it felt like every day, more and more, that everything was slipping through his fingers.

Ever since Julie had left, it was like part of them had left with her.

Well, part of them, and a chunk of their bank account. They’d never expected her to betray them sexually or financially. They could have pressed charges, but unfortunately, they had nothing in writing and her name was on the account, too.

Thank god it was only money in checking and she didn’t have access to our savings account.

She could have wiped them out if she had. It was only because Logan had received text alerts about the withdrawals that he’d been able to immediately stop her from taking any more money out of the account.

At least the house hadn’t been in her name, and she hadn’t changed her driver’s license or car registration to their address. That meant when they dumped all her shit in the front yard for her to come get it, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

And they had thrown a tarp over everything when it started raining. They could have been dicks about it and let it get soaked.

Now, six months later, they both still stung and had drawn apart, and he didn’t know how to get “them” back.

Or if they even could.

Toby had tried coaxing Logan into seeing a counselor with him, but his typically closemouthed partner had shut down even more, like some hermetically sealed vault with no way in.

He didn’t know if it was the loss of Julie, or her multifaceted betrayal of them, or the fact that it had been Logan who’d met Julie and then pressed Toby to open their relationship to a poly triad that weighed on Logan’s mind heaviest.

Hell, he didn’t
know
what was weighing on Logan’s mind since the man didn’t want to talk.

He loved Logan, but if this was the kind of relationship they’d have for the rest of their lives, Toby knew he’d have to give serious consideration to thinking about moving on if Logan refused to deal with this. With him.

With
them
.

He was forty-two and Logan was forty-four. Long past the playing games phases of their lives.

Turning from the view, via the front windows he caught sight of the mailman heading their way. He walked outside and down their long driveway to meet him and say hi. Their expansive front yard was mostly lawn, with azaleas surrounding the four oak trees scattered around. Easy to maintain, unlike the high-maintenance backyard. They had nearly two acres total. They’d purchased it together seven years earlier and enjoyed working on it. They both worked in downtown Sarasota—him in the county’s zoning department and Logan at the Clerk of the Court’s office—and drove in together every day.

It meant the weekends were theirs to do with as they wished.

Except lately, those weekends had felt pretty empty, indeed.

He was waiting across the street at the mailbox when the carrier drove up. “Hey, Toby.” The carrier handed a bundle of mail out the window to him. “Thank god it’s Saturday, right?”

“You can say that again.”

“Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Is your neighbor okay?”

“Who, the Smiths?”

“No.” He hooked a finger over his shoulder at the property next door and directly to the west of them. This rural area in northeastern Sarasota County, east of I-75, had been a mix of agricultural and residential properties. As developers bought some of them, they were divided. But there were still larger properties scattered throughout the neighborhood. Theirs was one of them, as was their neighbor’s.

Only the neighbor owned a much older house, one story, maybe built in the 1950s, and had nearly ten acres.

“Jackson Hames?” Toby asked.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. We don’t talk to him a whole lot, but come to think of it, I haven’t seen him coming or going the past few days. Why?”

“His mailbox is overflowing, and I can’t fit anything else in there. No mail hold, like he went out of town or something. I know he lives alone. At least, he never gets any mail for anyone but him.”

A bad feeling settled in Toby’s gut. “I’ll take it up to the house.”

The carrier handed it to him. “Better empty his box, too.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

The carrier drove off while Toby walked over to Jackson Hames’ mailbox. Sure enough, it was filled to capacity.

His dread only increased as he realized some of the junk mailers were nearly two weeks old, based on ones they’d received.

With his arms full of mail, he crossed their rural road and headed up the man’s dirt drive. It looked like he hadn’t mowed in nearly two weeks, either, which also wasn’t like the man. He had a tractor with a mowing deck that he used. And his truck sat in the same spot it’d been parked in for a while, which also wasn’t like their neighbor. He remembered the man once counseling him and Logan not to park in the same spot every day so they didn’t get bare patches in their grass. To alter their pattern.

As he approached the house, the breeze shifted, coming to him from the north, from behind the house. On the wind a foul stench flowed over him, and Toby knew.

Still, he moved forward, hoping he was wrong.

He knocked on the front door as well as rang the bell. “Mr. Hames? It’s Toby, from next door. I have your mail.”

Nothing.

Fighting the tight, sickly feeling that grew thicker with every second, he did it again, and again.

The front curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see inside. But he walked around the house and found curtains that were open on two of the back windows. One was a bedroom, he guessed. It looked like there was a bed in there, somewhere.

Maybe.

Although there were some flies inside the window, ineffectively beating themselves against it, a pile of them dead on the windowsill.

He’d never been inside the man’s house, although the few times they’d chatted, he was friendly. Didn’t seem to be an asshole about them being gay. He’d had no clue the man was a hoarder.

The next window opened on an equally cluttered dining room. This time, there were more flies, and he saw a bare foot, and the lower cuff of a pair of jeans, on the floor and disappearing out of sight behind a couch.

Dammit.

Between the flies, and the fact that the foot was a blackish blue color, he knew.

Turning, he pulled his cell phone out and called 911.

Twenty minutes later, Logan, who he’d called and woke up, was standing in the front yard with Toby, comforting him as he talked to the deputy who’d initially responded. The man had obviously been dead for a while.

A deputy from the county’s forensics team, who wore a full hazmat bunny suit, emerged from the house. He held an envelope in a plastic evidence bag pinched in his fingers as he walked over to them.

“Do you know a Rebecca Hames?” he asked them through his respirator and protective face mask. The smell of decomposition washed off the man.

“His last name was Hames,” Toby said, “but I don’t know a Rebecca.”

He showed them the envelope. In black marker in a spidery hand was also written
Emergency Stuff
in large letters. “It’s got her name on it, and the name and phone number of an attorney in Sarasota. It was stuck to the front of his fridge by a magnet.”