Sympathy For The Devil (15 page)

Frowning, she leaned forward to grasp it. She didn’t leave trash in Malone’s car, kept it impeccably clean. It could’ve rolled out from under the seat, maybe—

Tash unfolded the paper gently, smoothing out the creasing, and grasped her phone to shine over the words written.

BURN IN HELL WITH HIM YOU WHORE.

Her stomach bottomed out, hands began to tremble. The paper drifted down, leaving her fingers, as she swiveled in her seat, checking the back. Empty, no one crouched behind her. She slammed her finger down on the locks, all car doors clicking immediately, but none of it did anything to ease her fear or shaking. Around the vehicle, grass swished softly, and she saw nothing beyond it. Anyone could be out there.

And whoever it was had been in her car.

Chapter Fourteen

“I love that your new house has central air,” Tash said. She and Dani sat in the middle of the nursery floor, attempting to put together a mobile. The damn thing was crooked and she swore missing a few pieces, despite a call to the manufacturer claiming otherwise.

“It was like my one and only condition.” Danyiah frowned down at the mobile arm she’d been working on and tossed it into the pile. “This is so stupid. It’s not like the damn kid is gonna notice. A hanger, some string, and some toys. That’ll do it.”

Tash was starting to agree with her. She set down the piece she’d been working on and reached back, propping her hands on the hardwood and leaning to give her spine a stretch. The nursery was a sunny yellow with pale green and white, gender neutral as they didn’t know what they were having yet. Most of it was in place, as Adam had already put together the bigger things, but Dani insisted she wanted to “nest” and kept a few small items to put together on her own.

“Do I get to know yet what you’re working on for Adam?” Dani asked.

Tash sat straight and looked at her friend. She was glowing, her hands settled on her large baby bump. She’d never looked happier and the last thing Tash wanted to do was stress her out more.

“No,” Tash said. “Not specifically but there are a few things you could maybe help me out with tangentially.” She’d decided against bringing up the
I am attracted to your boyfriend’s sister’s widowed husband/killer
as there didn’t seem a way to fit it into the conversation naturally.

“Sure thing. Shoot.” Dani grasped the banana milkshake sitting off to the side, got comfortable leaning against the pillows she’d propped by the wall, and waited.

Here we go.
“What do you know about sex clubs?”

Dani froze, the straw pressed between her lips as she blinked, wide-eyed. “What??”

Tash cringed. “Seriously. Did you know there’s one in town? Called The Box?”

“No! Oh my God, that’s awesome!” When she caught Tash’s expression, she explained. “I mean, I don’t want to go there to have sex, but it’s kinda cool there’s a kinky subculture around here.”

“There’s also a private BDSM club in Hastings County.”

“Did you go during open hours?”

“No, I found it accidentally. It’s run by a hippy.”

“Weird.” Dani’s cell phone rang and a grin lit her face as she checked the number. She put it on speakerphone. “Hey, honey. Can I go to a sex club with Tash?”

Adam paused, then sighed loudly on the other end of the line. “I’ll call back later.” And he hung up.

“Okay, tell me more about the club. See anyone we know?”

A few she recognized, a few she thought she did, but for the moment Tash decided not to go into a lot of detail. “It was surprisingly clean. Like a regular looking nightclub, except for a lot of partially dressed white people having sex everywhere.”

“They’re a repressed bunch around here, it’s bound to come out somewhere.”

“So last time I snuck in with liquor delivery.”

“Because you’re badass.”

“Yep. But if there’s a next time, that way might not be available to me. I saw one guy turned away at the door and the hippy dungeon-owner told me they have a membership fee.”

“Oh, I interviewed a dominatrix from the city for my blog a few months ago. Let’s ask her.” Dani lifted her phone again, tapped through to her email, and typed in a message. “Okay, sent. She’s pretty open and she might know the places in the area—” Immediately the phone rang and Dani answered, her eyes meeting Tash’s. “Hello, Dame Velvet. Yes, I’d
love
if you could help us out.”

Though she didn’t hear the other half of the call itself, Tash was treated to a bunch of “mmhmms” and “okays” from Dani, and supplied the name of the club when asked. A few minutes later, she hung up again, and Natasha sat at attention, waiting.

“Okay, she’s heard of the place.” Dani went back to sipping her milkshake as she spoke. “Hefty membership fee,
however
, since she likes me, she will make a call and get you basically a visitor’s pass. You still have to pay a cover fee at the door, which is fifty bucks for a single woman on Fridays and Saturdays. They don’t let in single guys who are non-members, which would be why you saw someone turned away. Drinks are included, though, as well as all use of the...uh, facilities.”

Damn it, she hoped Archer didn’t make club visits a regular thing now or she’d be broke in no time.

“And there’s a dress code.”

“Could’ve fooled me by the nudity,” Tash said dryly.

“You have to dress sexy. Do you
have
sexy clothes, Natasha?” Dani raised her brow skeptically.

“If by sexy you mean latex, no.”

“No, like a short skirt, nice shoes?”

Somewhere, maybe in the back of her closet.

“I’ve got
great
shoes I can’t wear because my feet are now so swollen I’m stuck in men’s Birkenstocks. I’ll find them for you before you leave.
But
I want details. You can be anonymous but this is totally going on my blog.”

Oh, there were a whole lot of things that would make for funny blog stories for Dani, though Tash didn’t intend to tell her a single one of them. “Sure. But let’s get this baby mobile up and working first.”

****

Natasha strolled down the street with a bag in her hand, containing an admittedly cute pair of black shoes. They had four inch heels, open toes and straps that went up her ankles. She wouldn’t be climbing trees or running in them—in fact, she wouldn’t be
driving
in them—but from a purely aesthetic and not practical sense, they were nice. The rest of the ensemble, she’d put together and stow in her duffel bag in the car.

The car that was making her altogether nervous to even be in.

She’d gotten her fingerprints all over it, so there was no sense in asking anyone to dust it. But the scrawled note was sealed in a Ziploc bag in her purse. Touching that had been fairly minimum, and it was worth looking into...as long as she didn’t go into detail about where she was when she found it and or what it referred to.

When she jogged up the steps to the police station, she withdrew her sunglasses and smiled brightly at the receptionist, requesting Keisha and Leo. Both were in the break room and led her into an office to chat.

It wasn’t an interrogation room, at least, though she didn’t feel any less like she was in trouble. Tash sat while the other two stood, waiting.

“So I have a confession to make,” she said, shifting her purse onto her lap.

Neither of them looked surprised.

“I’ve been following Devin Archer.”

Still no surprise.

“I was poking around his house and when I came back to my car, I found this.” She retrieved the plastic bag with the note. Even in the bright light of the police station, it chilled her—the sharp, jagged edge of the writing in black. She practically felt violence leaping from the paper. “Someone had been
in
my vehicle. Which means I’m not the only one watching him.” She left it flat on the table and Keisha picked it up, Leo leaning over her shoulder.

“Did anyone else touch it?” Keish asked.

“Just me, and I was careful after I had unfolded it. The car would be a total bust, I’d been in there for a few minutes before I noticed the paper.” She hoped like hell they didn’t see the color briefly flare on her cheeks. “I don’t know if you’ll get anything from the paper, but there you go. Then there’s this...” She pulled out her cell phone, went through the photos, and stopped what she’d snapped of the side of Archer’s house. “More ‘BURN IN HELL’—sound familiar?”

They both looked over the photo, frowning. “You think...” Keisha began.

“Whoever put that in my car could be the one defacing his house. He’s also received threatening calls. Your Deputy Chief is ignoring his requests for help. I get it, he’s a suspect, and you don’t care how miserable he is, however someone basically just threatened
me
.”

“We’ll see where—
if
anywhere—Perry got with it and go from there,” Leo promised. “Who’s been calling him and who might’ve graffitied the house.”

She felt a little better knowing that. They might not take Archer seriously on their own, but would for her sake. “Thank you. Did you get anywhere with the BDSM hippy, if I may ask?”

“Meredith Freeman,” Leo said. “And no. She and the others checked out. And we’re not supposed to be telling you this.”

“Nor that we can’t account for where Walker went after she left the shop, which we
also
didn’t tell you,” Keisha added.

Whether or not The Box was a viable possibility, Tash couldn’t say. She had no proof Walker went there that night, no proof that she’d even left Hastings County. And offering it as a tip to the cops when she had absolutely no proof it was connected to the victim, just Devin, would possibly waste their time entirely.

“Anything you’re not telling us?” Leo asked.

Natasha blinked up at them innocently. “That’s it, officers.”

Neither believed her, but at least they let her go, giving her plenty of time to get sorted for the evening and then head to Archer’s to keep an eye on him.

Chapter Fifteen

When Archer pulled out of his driveway around eleven that night, Tash guessed where he was going. Rather than rush after him, she stole a few minutes to change in her car. The borrowed shoes of Dani’s, she left sitting on the seat—once she was parked at the club, she’d put them on.

She caught up to Archer’s truck outside of town, followed him from a distance, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to pass the landmarks she’d seen Wednesday night. When he pulled into The Box’s parking lot, she followed, parking well on the other side of the club. She took her time, slipping on her borrowed shoes, watching Archer cross the parking lot. Perhaps the “sexy” dress code didn’t entirely apply to men; once again he wore a black T-shirt and dark blue jeans. Not that it wasn’t sexy, but it seemed more casual than it had been implied was allowed.

Tash gave it five minutes, then checked her makeup and reapplied her lipstick. Rich, bold red, which matched her nails, which she’d painted
just
for this occasion. She gathered her purse—her Beretta zipped into a hidden pocket, just in case—and climbed out of the car.

She felt a little unsteady in her heels. They did seem to lengthen her legs and spine, forced her to stand straight. Though she didn’t do miniskirts, she had a narrow black skirt that ended just above her knee with a rather generous slit up the back. Her top was a black camisole, lacy and suggestive. Her hair was loose, black curls springy around her shoulders and framing her face.

Despite feeling as though she should look confident, her stomach did flipflops as she walked through the parking lot, winding around cars. There were double the vehicles she’d seen on Wednesday, and she expected the place to be packed. At least then she might blend in, or at least until most of the patrons were naked.

With an entirely faked smile, she strolled up to the bouncer, withdrawing the cash and her ID. He checked her off the list, took the cash, and nodded her inside.

That was
much
easier than I expected
, she thought as she stepped inside. Looking at the club after coming through the front door rather than the back was a much different experience. Just inside the door, women in bustiers with perky, probably-fake exposed breasts waited on either side, drink trays in hand. The one on the left passed her a rum and coke, which Tash knocked back rather gracelessly as she walked down the carpeted stairs.

Music thrummed as it had the other night, only the voices were louder this time. She reached the end of the steps, found a place to tuck her empty glass, and crept around the edge of the lower level of the club. Peering between two columns, she glimpsed the main part she’d overlooked on Wednesday. More lights shone around the bar, red and white shifting to the beat of the music. The tables, booths, and barstools were all packed. More conversations than last time were underway, and naked women danced in cages that flanked the bar.

Tash kept to the shadows, picking through the patrons for Archer. She expected him at the bar, but it was completely packed and no one there looked like him.

For the moment, then, she figured she could explore the areas she hadn’t last time. A few of the couches against the far walls below the mezzanine level were occupied again, couples oblivious to her presence and stripping off one another’s clothing. She tried to avert her eyes, knew that if she blushed, she’d look out of place for sure. Instead she kept her chin lifted and her eyes alert, focusing on the curtained rooms tucked between the couches.

Whereas all the curtains had been drawn before, this time she found many open. A bedroom waiting in the first one, walls and ceiling all made of mirrors with a plush, heart-shaped bed in the center. The next reminded her of the dungeon, a swing made of black leather straps hanging from the ceiling with chains and an array of crops and whips on the wall.

Ahead, a man with a woman on either arm headed toward a room, but didn’t bother with the curtain. Once she reached it, she understood why—there were already couples engaged in sex there, wall to wall mattresses.