Jaid Black (5 page)

She smiled as she pulled up
submissivegrrrl
’s inbox, the account she had created before responding to the personal ads. She was pleased that all five potential candidates had written her back. She took her time reading through the correspondence, mentally noting which ones she had the most in common with.

In the end it came down to two men, both of them living and working in the Cleveland area. Bachelor #1 was Paul, a thirty-eight-year-old accountant living on the east side. A divorcé, he was a single father of two kids and, understandably, didn’t want his young sons to know about this part of his life.

Discretion was Paul’s middle name. Perfect.

But it was Bachelor #2 who really snagged her attention. Perhaps because she liked his photo more, perhaps because his writing had a poetic flavor. It was fluid and graceful, masterful and certain. It felt like the writing of a Dominant, if such a style of writing existed.

Nikki savored the entire email, her mind already wondering what he would be like in the flesh. If he looked anything at all like his photo, then he was as handsome and well-built as he was dominant. She smiled.

An added bonus. She was more interested in the dominance.

Bachelor #2 was a thirty-six-year-old schoolteacher named Richard. A divorcé like Bachelor #1, he had a daughter who lived with him full time.

Nikki smiled as she clicked the “Reply” button in her email program. She typed up a five-paragraph response, indicating her interest and expounding upon their commonalities. Before clicking “Send,” she attached a photograph of her body in profile, her face turned away from the camera. She wasn’t comfortable enough yet to show him more.

But this was a start, she thought, feeling equal parts excitement and nervousness. If he liked what he saw and wrote back, maybe she’d work up the courage to send him a photograph of her face.

She bit her lip, her heart racing. Maybe, one day, she’d even meet him.

“Black leather.” Thomas grumbled those words to
himself as he plunked down into his office chair and ran agitated hands through his hair. “Shit.”

By itself, a black leather fiber wasn’t much to go on. All kinds of people wore black leather jackets. Damn—he didn’t even know if the fiber had come from a jacket. It could have come from gloves, a pair of pants, or even a pair of underwear from a novelty store.

The hell of it was, black leather could be found on anyone. From Hells Angels sporting black leather jackets to sixty-year-old grandmas carrying black leather purses, it was a common material. Apparently too common, he thought on a frown.

Thomas yawned as he stretched his muscles. His body was tired from a lack of sleep, but his mind kept refusing to rest. There was a correlation here somewhere, he knew. A correlation he was missing.

He stood up and trudged to the back of his office, and then into an adjoining planning room where he had photographs of Lucifer’s victims pinned up in a straight line across two walls. He took his time studying the death-scene photographs, looking once again for that small lead he knew was there if only he could find it.

He frowned. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Lots of killers tied up victims before they whacked them. It made torturing and killing them easier because they were defenseless to fight back.

There was also the bondage aspect inherent in tying a victim up. Most serial killers who also fit the profile for sexual sadists, which Lucifer definitely did, were aficionados when it came to collecting bondage porn. That this killer in particular had reenacted bondage death scenes with the victims wasn’t exactly noteworthy as far as an investigation goes. Still, it was something. Information to file away in the corner of his brain, to be retrieved at a later date.

Thomas’s eyes flicked from the photograph of Linda Hughes to the photograph of Carrie Stoddard. From Carrie to Marsha Graham. From Marsha to Lisa Pinoza. From Lisa to Genevieve—

His gaze flew back to Lisa Pinoza. Lisa was the only victim they’d found who had still been alive when police had arrived on the scene. She’d been badly injured, left for dead. She’d died of her injuries less than ten minutes later, unable to tell them anything about her attacker before she’d taken her last breath.

She had also been the only victim not missing her heart.

That was important. Why?

Thomas tried, for the hundredth time since police had found Lisa four years ago, to analyze that question from a psychotic thinker’s point of view. Why would Lucifer take the heart of every victim except for this one? What set Lisa apart from the others?

His gaze flicked down to the stats below her death-scene photograph.

Thomas stilled, thinking about the other discrepancy between Lisa and the rest of Lucifer’s victims. She was also, the stats reminded him, one of only two victims who wasn’t a white-collar professional. A victim who did not, for lack of a better description, wield a lot of power in life.

Black leather. Tied up.

He scratched his jaw. His partner, James Merdino, had spoken with Lisa’s husband after the murder. He’d said it was a dead end, that there was no new information to be gleaned from the spouse.

Thomas narrowed his eyes as he considered that. Moments later, he turned off the light in the planning room and made his way out the door and toward his vehicle.

It wouldn’t hurt for Cavanah to speak with Lisa’s husband himself. Nothing might come of it, but then again, there was always the small chance that something would.

 

 

Waiting for the computer to boot up, Nikki threw the
towel she’d been wearing since her bath into a nearby hamper, then pulled on a T-shirt and sweats. Today had been a grueling day at work. She had lost a five-year-old boy who’d been playing with his father’s gun. The gun had gone off, and the bullet had lodged in the child’s chest.

She was more glad than she could say that she wasn’t on call tonight or tomorrow. She needed the time to recuperate, to forget.

She always aimed to leave work at work. But every once in a while a particular patient would get through the carefully constructed emotional walls she had placed around her heart. Today had been such a day. She’d never forget the sweet innocence of that five-year-old’s face. Or the look of unadulterated guilt and anguish on the father’s.

Nikki sighed as she plopped down in front of the computer and pulled up her Internet account. She checked her primary account first, the one at which friends and professional acquaintances emailed her. After answering those emails, she switched over to her D/s account, grinning when
submissivegrrrl
’s inbox revealed another message from Richard.

She smiled. She felt the same way. Nikki was too well trained and controlled to let her mind wander during an operation, but as soon as the procedure was finished, her thoughts would invariably turn to Richard. She was growing to like this D/s fantasy lover of hers. A lot. She wasn’t quite ready to meet him, but she knew the day would be upon them soon.

Nikki smiled back to the screen. There was nothing lowly about being an underpaid schoolteacher. To her way of thinking, it was one of the noblest professions in existence.

She continued reading.

She blushed, recalling that email. Divulging her most secret yearnings hadn’t been easy, but telling them to Richard had felt right.

At Richard’s gentle prodding, she had revealed her most intimate fantasy to him—the very one she daydreamed about at least twice a week.

The fantasy involved being handcuffed to her Dominant’s bed while being “made” to perform for his pleasure. She would suck his penis first, opening her mouth like a good little girl (she loved to be called that in her fantasies!) at the Master’s request. When his cock was stiff with need for her, he would settle himself between her thighs and thrust inside, then ride her body into wave after wave of delicious, submissive orgasm.

In her fantasies, her Dominant was in love with her and would tell her how much that was true over and over again as he thrust in and out of her welcoming body. She had neglected to mention that part to Richard, not wanting to appear pathetic, as though she expected him to love her before they truly knew each other.

Still, they were her fantasies. She could dream about whatever she wished, love included.

Nikki took a deep breath and blew it out. Richard was right. As insane as it sounded, she too felt the connection growing between them. It became more and more pronounced with every email they sent off to each other.

And it wasn’t just sexual compatibility, either. They seemed well-suited as friends, too—and as lovers in a general sense. They shared the same political and religious beliefs, the same . . . everything! He was almost too good to be true.

A little unnerved by how fast her feelings were developing, but smiling contentedly nonetheless, she hit the “Reply” button.

 

 

The Cleveland PD wasn’t even sure Lisa Pinoza had
been one of Lucifer’s victims. The fact that her heart had been intact when she’d been found had set her apart from the other women enough to warrant suspicion that she’d been done in by someone other than Lucifer—an altogether new perpetrator. Perhaps even her husband, Vincent. But Vincent’s alibi had been squeaky clean—it was kind of hard to fake being in jail.

The CPD had then tried to ferret out possible lovers Lisa had taken up with, even though James Merdino had reported back that Lisa’s husband had believed her to be faithful. They’d never come up with anything solid, so perhaps Vincent Pinoza had been right.

Thomas, however, doubted it. All signs pointed to Lisa having willingly met the man who’d murdered her that fateful night, for reasons other than friendship. Unlike his partner James, Thomas held no doubts but that Lisa had planned to dally with this man on the night of her death. He was also certain he knew precisely who that man was:

The devil himself.

The manner in which Lisa had been tied up was eerily similar to Lucifer’s other victims. Same knots, same type of hemp rope. Even some of the stab wounds she had sustained had been, although not as well thought out, proficiently clean.

Not everyone at the CPD considered Lisa Pinoza one of Lucifer’s victims. Thomas did. What he needed to understand now was why Lisa’s murderer hadn’t put the same amount of effort into killing her as he had into the others, which would include why he hadn’t taken the heart.

The stabs Lisa sustained had been brutal, angry. Not the clean, precise, orderly cuts found on the other victims’ bodies.