Becoming His Slave (11 page)

The nurse glanced at another seated next to her who only shrugged, “Hell if the man wants to pay, let him.”  She shook her head wryly then turned back to the paper work she was busy on. They didn’t have a policy that prevented someone from paying.

The first nurse shrugged as well deciding to give in, “Just give me a minute and I’ll see how she’s doing.”

Satisfied with the response for the moment he turned to Harper, “So what have you found out so far?” He leaned back on the nurses’ station, refusing to budge or step aside till he had what he came for.

Harper grimaced, “Sorry not much yet. He got away for one, nobody saw anything… the usual response for New York—” he gave an outward wave of his hands.

“How about giving me something that isn’t going to piss me off.”

“You gotta give me time, this just happened. It’s not like I make a fucking habit of running a file on all your little fuck friends prior to them being attacked.”

“Watch your mouth, Harper. I said don’t piss me off.”

Harper turned, leaning back on the partition as Trenton did, letting the snap from his brother slide. Trenton had asked him before if he’d look into the woman’s where-a-bouts, but he’d refused, accusing Trenton of obsessing. Secretively he was willing to just find where she lived because he knew Trenton never obsessed over a woman. He would bring it up only if there was need for concern, but the girl had never surfaced again—till now. And until Tate finished up his investigation he didn’t have much to offer, not even the location yet.

Tate had learned not to give up intel until his men were finished with a scene. Harper had a habit of showing up and working off a scene for evidence faster than Tate’s own men. So now they kept him on hiatus till they were done.

“Have you been to her place?”

Harper shook his head, “Tate said he’ll call once they were ready to release the scene.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Figured as much.”

Trenton’s eyes shifted at the sight of the young doctor approaching, “Which one of you is—” he glanced at the paper work on the clip board he was carrying, “Mr. Leos.”

“That’s me.” Trenton straightened.

“I’m Dr. Wheeler.” He shook Trenton’s hand, then returned it to the pocket of his white lab coat, “Well for the most part she looks like she’ll be okay. She went for a hell of a ride—”

“Ride?” Trenton interrupted him.

“Well, yeah, she was riding a motorcycle when she wrecked?” He shrugged.

“She was chased out into the fucking streets by a serial killer you fucking moron!” Trenton had the doctor up by his white coat and shirt lifting his feet from the floor thrusting him across the corridor until they slammed against the painted cinder block wall. “The least you could do is have your facts straight before you go playing doctor on them!”

Harper was tugging on Trenton to get him off the doctor; a foot planted heavily on the wall seemed to be his only means to establish enough countering force to budge him.

The doctor was near panic, and pleaded for his release. “Okay okay—I’m sorry.” Wheeler held his hands out in submission, a pose Trenton knew well and he lowered the doctor back to his feet, “Look, we get a hundred people a day coming through here, and the paramedics just make brief notes leaving us to guess the rest.”

“So how is she?” Harper pushed to get the subject back on track. He pushed Trenton back a step; just to be sure he wasn’t going to make another lunge for the doctor just for being ignorant.

“She suffered a slight concussion. She has a broken jaw; we’ve reset the bone and wired it for now. Teeth look okay, but sometimes they fracture and you don’t find out till later so she’ll have to go in for regular dental checks—” he nodded debating a time frame for a moment, “Usually two years. Left shoulder was dislocated, she’s lucky the collar bone didn’t break, but it’s been braced as a precaution. Multiple fractures to the left ulna and outer three metacarpals and phalanges. We had to set pins and an exo-skeleton on her hand for that.” Wheeler stopped glancing back at his notes and took a long deep breath.

“What is it? Was there something else?” Harper pushed for what the doctor wasn’t wanting to say.

“The odd shape of the rearview mirrors on the bike made it a weapon on impact and when it pierced through the side of her lower abdomen it severed both ovaries, her uterus will heal fine, but she’s not likely to be having any babies.”

“Miracles could happen.” Harper suggested trying to find better news.

But the doctor quickly shook his head, “I wouldn’t advice it.” He glanced at his watch, “They’re bringing her out now. It’ll be another couple of hours before she comes out of recovery. But you can see her afterwards.”

“And you’ll put her in a private room?” Trenton had already insisted on it.

“No we’ll be keeping her in ICU for at least one night, we’ll run some CAT scans in the morning and see how she's doing then. We’ll keep her sedated for now, but she should come out of this okay.” And he turned and walked off without further comment or suggestions.

“Sir?” A voice calling their attention from behind them.

Trenton turned to find the nurse holding his credit card out for him; he took it returning it to his wallet. He felt sluggish, almost numb. He barely knew Katianna and yet he felt the hit in his chest all the same.

Harper’s cell phone buzzed and he quickly answered it. “Yeah Tate, whatcha got for me?” He listened to the other end for a moment, “Yeah just send it to me, will ya? We’re on our way.”

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

“Where we going?” Trenton sat in the passenger side of his own vehicle. He glanced at the nav screen noticing Harper hadn’t entered an address into it.

“Bushwick.” Harper answered solemnly. She couldn’t have lived in a worse area. New York had lots of bad spots, but Bushwick was tied for first place right along with nine others. A list that included Crown Heights, Inwood, Brownsville, Battery Park and Brooklyn.

“Fuckin' A.” Trenton dropped his head in his hands, wiping across his lips almost in a tugging manor, his mind wrecked over the details coming in and was grateful Harper offered to drive. He’d known from the time he dropped Katianna off at the Golden Yves and watched her dart off for the subway station, he wasn’t going to like it when he found out where she’d be hiding all this time.

The computer screens flickered as the intel Tate was sending came in. “Twenty-eight years old, Katianna Aeryn Dumas born in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Father was a shrimp boat fisherman lost at sea when she was five, mother remained single till she died from Lupus four years ago.” Harper was reading out from the laptop on the console as he drove Trenton out to her apartment where the attack had taken place.

“Katianna graduated honors, went to college here in New York for Creative Arts and Lit and stayed. No priors, no habits, no property, no driver’s license—”

“No insurance,” Trenton sighed, “She’s just a victim waiting to be consumed by this city and no one will take notice if she’s gone.” He starred out the window. Pissed him off how some people were so easily targeted and preyed upon. Some taken away and sold on black markets and such. And New York was a haven for such vulgar practices.

“You noticed.” Harper reminded him, knowing well enough where his brother’s thoughts were heading. He’d seen enough evil and ugliness himself, his job detail was full of battered or missing women and children. It ate at him till he was no longer able to separate it from his own sexual habits and had withdrawn from the flavors of the BD world.

Harper spotted the unmarked car parked in front of the apartment building and pulled up behind it, then got out where they were greeted by Detective Marshals.

“Good thing you came in the Knight, this is rough territory.” He shook Trenton’s hand as he stepped up, “How’s it going Trent?”

“Wasn’t expecting you to still be here.” Harper cut in.

“Yeah well, like I said rough neighborhood, figured I’d just wait on you, let you snoop around before I pull the tape. Cause once I do, you know how the local savages will rampart through and take everything.”

“Thanks.” Trenton tried to show some appreciation, but it wasn’t in him to feel good about this.

The three men went in led by Tate taking the stairs to the second floor and to the last door on the hall.

Yellow tape crisscrossed the door identifying the place as a crime scene. A few neighbors poking their heads out to watch.

“Funny how they never see anything when the crime happens, but they always know when a cops around.” Tate muttered, to lighten the mood in the air. Trenton seemed far more intense than he’d ever known the man to be. Wasn’t like him, course it wasn’t like him to be scoping out a crime scene either unless it happened to be one of his clients that was being shot at. Come to think about it that happened often, but he couldn’t recall a time when he’d ever lost one though. Usually a crime scene involving Trenton was a crime scene when he was calling in the coroners to clean up the bad guys. Trenton was good about that part—never leave a talking prisoner.

Tate pushed the key in the lock and opened the door swinging it open then held back while the two went inside and closed the door behind them.

Trenton glanced around, he’d already stepped over a number of items in his path from the street all the way to the door, some trash—a tricycle—a newspaper—a bum—but once inside Katianna’s apartment, the view was far cleaner despite the tossed bag of Chinese food on the kitchen floor and a few things being turned over. For one it was clean. With a fresh coat of paint on the walls, top half of the walls were yellow, the bottom half in broad stripes of green and white. They weren’t the ideal shades of color, but color none the less. The attempt rendered the space a clean look and a little more cheery against the harsh reality outside. Short yellow curtains that didn’t quite match the paint framed the one window with lace curtains hand stitched on to extend them down so they hung passed the sill.

The living space consisted of a second hand sofa with a new cover and one of those furry snuggling blankets, a coffee table and one floor lamp that at the moment was on its side.

In the kitchen, Trenton opened the frig, finding a Tupperware filled with rabbit food and cheese fixings, another with dip and a bag of Fritos, and a variety of fruit and a few other non essentials. One pot and one fry pan. Under the sink some cleaning supplies, a couple of old paint cans with second hand retail stickers and a cookie jar—with a few dollars still inside. He straightened taking in a hard breath and let it out, taking a full sweep and that’s when he realized what was missing—all the extras a person usually had with them.

There were no pictures on the walls. No knick-knacks on a shelf. No décor, not even a tv. A calendar hung on the wall next to the hall, a few abbreviated notations; two weeks ago—‘
Bug Man’
. Earlier today— ‘
Amelia’
; five days from now— ‘
Depo due
, day after that ‘
Manu- Due’
.

Trenton went to the bedroom next and at least there it looked like the place might have belonged to a woman rather than a transient.

Ultra soft sheets tucked under a white down comforter and a pile of king size pillows on the bed. The sight of them raised a fond memory and he smiled—at least he wanted to. Two lamps, one over the bed, the other with a scarf that would of given off a kaleidoscope of color when turned on sat on the small make shift desk she had set up facing out the window where she could watch people go by as she wrote her stories.

Not nearly as many clothes as a woman should have and a tell tale sign that nothing she had was new or had been for some time. He opened the nightstand to find her treasured pieces, lacy panties, a couple of fancy balconette bras and a vibrator. At least she was normal in that department. Even if it was nothing more than the ten dollar model. The second drawer was where she hid the two pairs of designer shoes she had worn at the expo.

The bathroom had even less; a medicine cabinet containing little more than liquid gel Advils, her tooth brush, all natural baking soda toothpaste and a package of cheap razors— not even a box of tampons was present. On the shower shelf a bottle of expensive shampoo and conditioner both running near empty next to the cheap brands—both full. He recalled the night he met her just over a month ago he’d caught a whiff of her hair when he was sitting next to her, he picked up the pricy stuff and sniffed. She was definitely saving the good stuff for special occasions.

Tate had stepped in just as Trenton was coming back from the bedroom and watched as the troubled man walked over to the window, inspecting the frame. “That’s where he came in, came straight up the fire escape and popped the lock ledge, climbed in.”

“I’d like to go ahead and pack up her personals and take them with me. Nothings gonna last in here while she’s gone.” Trenton spoke as he faced his own reflection in the glass.

“Doubt she’d want to come back, she was pretty messed up. EMTs said she was coherent for a few minutes, all she cared about was her computer and her notebooks.”

“Where are they?”

“Precinct.”

“I’d like those too.”

“Sure. Come down any time tomorrow I’ll have them released by then, just be sure to sign for them.” He glanced around the room one last time then back at Trenton, “Whatever you’re planning on taking better take it tonight, vandals won’t leave a dime come this time tomorrow. I gotta head out—for what it’s worth lock it up when you go. I’ll be sure to give you a call if we find anything else.”

“Thanks Tate.” Harper shook his hand and watched the detective leave then turned to glance at Trenton who was starring out the window calculating the fire escape and the surrounding roof tops.

“What is this Trenton?”

Trenton's eyes came inside the apartment, but he didn’t look at Harper, “What’s what?”

“This?” He waved his hand around the apartment “What’s got you so fixated on this girl?”

“Just got this feeling.”

“What feeling? Trenton this isn’t like you. You don’t get fixated on women. You pick them out play with them awhile—lead them around on silk leashes, pamper them with a cane for a night then send them out into the world to find another Dom. Hell you haven’t even fucked this one—what makes her so special?” And he knew no one was ever considered special as far as Trenton was concerned.