Tickle His Fancy: Trident Security Book 6 (Trident Security Series) (12 page)

Crossing his arms over his chest, his fists clenched in
anger, Ian asked, “Has Scott Harrison been notified?”

“Not yet. That’s my next stop.” The detective glanced at his
watch, which caused Brody and a few others to look at their own—it was just
after 7:00 a.m. “The good doctor is about to get a very depressing wake-up
call.”

“If you want, I’ll go with you. I’ve known Scott a few years
and already reached out to him after we heard she was missing.”

Again, Webb nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Give me a few
minutes to finish up here and we’ll go.”

“Take your time.” As the detective walked away, leaving them
on the other side of the crime scene tape, Ian turned to his team. “I. . .fuck!”
He kicked a discarded soda can in disgust.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what they all felt right now.

Striding into the Trident offices, Brody left the box of
pastries on Colleen’s desk; he’d completely lost his appetite. Entering his
war-room, he stopped short when he saw a pair of legs sticking out from under
the newly installed secondary work area. “Hey!”

The person startled and a smack resounded in the room.
“Fuck!”

Sliding out from under the desk, holding his hand to the
swelling knot on his forehead, the new computer whiz, Nathan Cook, glared at
him. Brody gave it right back. He’d totally forgotten the kid was starting
today. “What the fuck are you doing under there?”

“Making a few adjustments—”

“I already hooked up everything you fucking need.”

The twenty-seven-year-old, über-skinny geek stood, then
flopped into his desk chair. A former NSA—National Security Agency—computer
tech, Nathan had high government clearance—Ian and Dev wouldn’t have hired him
otherwise. The NSA had signed off on Nathan coming to work for Trident, and due
to the classified missions the team did for multiple U.S. government agencies,
they’d allowed Nathan to keep his security clearance.

The guy was about five eleven, with unruly, curly, brown
hair, matching brown eyes, and wearing a vintage, Pac-Man T-shirt, jeans, and
high-top, Converse sneakers. He pushed his wire-rimmed eyeglasses back up the
bridge of his nose—yup, they didn’t make ’em any geekier than this—all that was
missing was a button-down shirt and a damn pocket protector. “Maybe everything
you need, but I brought a few toys of my own.”

Brody was not happy, which was putting it mildly. He wasn’t
used to anyone messing around in his war-room and wanted to know what other
“toys” were being connected to his setup. “Like what?”

Nathan smirked. “Isn’t the saying around here, if I tell you,
I’d have to shoot you?”

Taking a threatening step closer, he snarled. “No, it’s the
other way around—tell
me
or I fucking shoot
you
.”

“Chill, Evans. It’s just an interface for the mainframe at
NSA. Remember? That was in the contract the Sawyer brothers signed with the agency
when everyone agreed I could come work here.” When Brody just glared at him,
the guy held up his hands in surrender and added, “Jeez, who pissed in your
Wheaties this morning?”

Letting out a deep sigh, he finally relented. “Not you.” He
ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. It’s just been a really shitty morning so
far. Do what you have to do. Just make a list so there are no surprises for me
later.”

Taking the seat in front of his own computer setup, he pulled
out the keyboard shelf and booted up the hard drive. When it was up and
running, he logged into the FBI’s secure NCIC—National Crime Information
Center. He had access to it through special permission from the FBI. Almost
every police department in the United States used it and entered major crimes
into it; the exceptions tending to be small departments with few employees and
minimal budgets. As each year passed, though, there were fewer and fewer on
that short list. The system was also used for statistics, but he wanted to run
a search for homicides similar to what they’d witnessed this morning. He was
sure Webb and the rest of Tampa PD would be doing the same, but he still
entered keywords to be searched for in the vast database.
Homicide. Female.
Submissive. BDSM. Bullwhip. Whip. Torture.
If any results came close, he
could add more parameters and narrow it down further.

As he hit send, Boomer strolled in and spotted the newcomer.
“Hey! Nathan, right? Nice to finally meet you. Name’s Ben Michaelson, but
everyone calls me Boomer. Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you too.”

The two men shook hands, then Brody’s teammate sat on a
rolling stool next to him. He nodded at the computer monitor that had a
scrolling “Searching” message on it. “You running a check on the homicide?”

“Yeah,” he answered. If their new coworker was interested in
the conversation, he didn’t show it as he continued to move things around to
his own liking on his side of the room. Most geeks were very particular about
their setups, so Brody had expected it. “I’ve never heard of anything like it,
have you?”

Boomer shook his head. “Nope, and I hope I never do again.”

When Nathan took a sip from his coffee cup, he must have
found it empty. He grumbled to himself as he walked out, heading for the break
room and the Keurig machine that was always kept well-stocked. Day one and the
guy already knew where to get his caffeine fix. He’d be gone for a few minutes,
at least, so Brody took advantage of the privacy they now had. “Boom. . .got
a question for you. How did you tell Kat you’re a Dom? I know Ian, Dev, and
Marco never had a chance—it came out before they could say anything—but you
told Kat before she found out. How?”

This was the first time he was nervous about telling a woman
he was a Dom since the initial few months of being in the lifestyle over a
decade ago. No matter what way he worded it in his head, it just wasn’t right.
The last thing he wanted to do was scare Fancy or run her off in disgust if she
didn’t understand it.

Boomer grinned at him. “So, what Ian said about Tahira
calling Fancy your soul mate is true,
huh
?” He didn’t wait for an
answer, and Brody didn’t offer one because it wasn’t necessary. “Awesome.
Um
,
let see. I just kind of blurted out I was a Dominant and asked her if she knew
what that meant. But I knew she had to have some idea because she was reading
one of Kristen’s books before that. She just had no idea the lifestyle actually
existed outside of fiction, and I thank God every day that she trusted me
enough to explore it. Is Fancy a natural submissive?”

“Yeah. But she’s so much more than that. I don’t want to get
into it here, but she’s one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Hell, she
ranks right up there with Kat, Kristen, Angie, Harper, and even Shelby. She’s
been through so much, I’m not sure how she’s going to take it when I tell her.”

Colleen appeared in the doorway and rapped her knuckles on
the jamb. “Boomer, your nine o’clock appointment is here.”

“Thanks.” When she left them alone again, Boomer tilted his
head toward the reception area. “Talk about kick-ass women. Colleen’s come a
long way, too. Must be something in the water around here.” Standing, Boomer
slapped him on the shoulder. “Anyway, you’ll never know until you talk to her,
bro. If she’s ‘the one,’ then I’m sure things will work out just fine. Catch
you later.”

“Yup. Thanks.”

As Boomer walked out, Nathan came back in with a freshly
brewed cup of coffee, and the aroma curled Brody’s stomach once again, bringing
back the gruesome images of Heather’s brutalized corpse. The NCIC search would
take a bit, so he grabbed his cell phone and left the building, needing some
fresh air. Beau came running over to him with his favorite, hard rubber ball
for a game of fetch. Brody took the offering and flung it far across the lot,
then strolled over to
Ian’s Oasis
. He took a seat by the unlit fire pit
and hit a speed dial number on his phone as the dog returned and laid down at
his feet, gnawing on his toy.

The call connected. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Brody! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice, honey. I was
just thinking about you.”

Elise Evans’s Texas twang soothed him, and suddenly he was a
teenager again, sitting on the back porch with her, sharing a glass of sweet
tea. “Yeah, why’s that?”

“Are you coming for the hoedown?”

He smiled. “That’s the plan. Ian’s got it penciled in, as
usual.”

“Well, you just let everyone know the invitation is always
open to all of them.”

There had been a few times in the past one or more of his teammates
had made the annual trip with him, but each year it tended to be a toss-up for
who was on an assignment or had something else on the calendar. “They know
that, but things have been busy lately. Listen, I was wondering if you’d mind
if I brought someone else.”

His mom paused. “It wouldn’t happen to be a woman, would it?”

Rolling his eyes, his grin got wider. He and his younger
brother were the only two not married or engaged, and his mother was dying to
make sure all her little ducks were in a row and happily wed. “Yes. Her name is
Francine, but everyone calls her Fancy. I haven’t asked her yet, not sure if
she can take the time away from her business, but wanted to check in with you
first.”

“Brody, you know this house is open to anyone you want to
bring. It always has been and always will be. I hope Fancy can come so I can
meet the woman who suddenly put my son in knots.”

His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Please. The last time you asked permission to bring a date
to a hoedown was Jo Ellen Tremont, back in high school.”

Had it seriously been that long?
“Jeez, Mom. Either
your memory is freakish, or you’re keeping a record of everyone’s dates
somewhere.”

She chuckled. “It’s a little bit of both. Now, tell me all
about Fancy. How did you meet her?”

* * *

With Boomer and Tiny on his heels carrying a bouquet of blue
and white flowers and helium balloons, respectively, Brody entered the hospital
room with a bakery box from Fancy’s. He grinned at the new parents cooing over
their firstborn son. Little JD Sawyer had decided to wake up his mother-to-be
at 1:00 a.m. with active labor pains and had burst into the world a little more
than five hours later. Apparently, Kristen had been in labor since earlier in
the day, but the pains had felt like the ones she’d had during the false
alarms, and she figured that it was happening again. The team had all gotten
the birth announcements via text from Devon after JD had been taken to the
nursery so Kristen could rest.

Ian, Angie, and Jenn had come to the hospital after getting
the text, and not wanting to overwhelm Kristen, Brody and Boomer had waited
until after lunch. Kat was working and would swing by in the early evening with
Marco and Harper. And without a doubt, there would be visits from Shelby,
Parker, Kayla, Roxy, Mitch, Colleen, Reggie, and Kristen’s cousin, Will, at
some point during the day.

It had been a great way to start the day after yesterday’s
horrific wake-up call. There were still no suspects in Heather’s death. Brody’s
search in the NCIC database had been a bust. The only case that had popped up
had been solved, and the suspect had been killed during the rescue of his last
victim. In addition to that, the suspect’s preferred victims had been of Asian descent,
and none of them had been in the BDSM lifestyle. There had been a few other
differences, and no other case had come close. Whipping a person to death,
while popular back in early Rome and a few other ancient and more modern
cultures, apparently was very rare in this day and age across North America.
He’d extended the search into Canada and Mexico with no further hits. This
morning he’d accessed the Interpol crime database and a few others worldwide
that he’d hacked into. He wanted to make sure the killer hadn’t worked his way
into the United States from somewhere else.

Shaking his head, Brody pushed aside the thoughts of the
missing submissives and the murdered Heather. Today they were celebrating a new
life. While Tiny let go of the balloons so they settled on the ceiling, Brody
set the box on the window shelf which already had several bouquets of flowers
perched on it. “Fancy sent over a bunch of blue and white cupcakes.”

Kristen was sitting up in bed, glowing with motherhood and
cradling JD in her arms. With almost a full head of soft, black hair, the
little guy had weighed in at eight pounds two ounces. From the chair he’d
pulled next to the bed, Devon looked more exhausted than his wife did. After
shaking hands with the proud father, Brody leaned over and gave Kristen a peck
on the cheek. “You did good, Ninja-mama.”

She giggled at the new variation of the call-sign Devon had
given her on their first date. He’d dubbed her Ninja-girl when she’d kicked
Heather and another sub’s ass in the club’s locker room after finding them
bullying Colleen. “Thanks. And thank Fancy for sending the cupcakes.”

“I will. Can I hold him?”

Out of all of Kristen’s Sexy Six-Pack, as she called the
original Trident team, Brody had the most experience with infants and toddlers,
being an uncle to eleven of them in Texas and Marco’s daughter, Mara. Kristen
lifted JD and gently placed him in Brody’s arms. The little chubster was like a
big football with limbs. Brody grinned when the baby opened his blue eyes,
which matched his father’s, and stared at him. “Hey, JD. I’m your Uncle Brody.
I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about computers and women.
This big guy here is your Uncle Tiny.” The six-foot-eight, two-hundred-seventy-five-pound
man was the only person who had ever made Brody feel small since he’d hit his
adult height of six foot two. “He’s going to teach you how to play football.
And over there is your Uncle Boomer, and his job is to show you how to blow
things up without getting hurt.”

The men all laughed, but Kristen rolled her eyes. “Oh jeez,
Brody. He’s not even a day old. Please don’t make me think of him blowing
things up someday.”

“Don’t worry, Ninja-mama. I have it on good authority, JD is
going to grow up to be a great man someday. In the meantime, just make sure he
eats all his vegetables.”

“Yes, sir.” There was no mistaking her sarcasm.

“Brat.” When the baby kicked his little legs in the swaddling
blanket, Brody added, “Not you, JD—you’re not a brat, your mama is. But that’s
your daddy’s problem.”

He handed off the little tyke to Tiny. It was funny seeing
the huge guy cooing over such a small baby. “Hey there, JD. How’s my thousand
dollar jackpot doing?”

Kristen grinned. “So you won the baby pool. I’d forgotten all
about it.”