Regan stood staring at him, trying to take in his words and have them mean something other than what they did. It was no use. She backed away from him, unable to hide her upset. His expression changed as he looked at her.
“What?” he demanded. “What’s the matter?”
“Didn’t you hear yourself?” Disgust rang in her voice. “You want me to beat you for your disobedience.”
“Yeah, right. Jesus, Regan, that’s what we’ve been doing for the last little while. Why are you shying away from it now?”
“You don’t see the difference.” Her stomach was churning. Things had spun out of control. Perhaps it wasn’t a game to him, after all, but the kind of sick need she had feared from the start. She turned away and headed quickly for the front door. She had to get out of here.
Kyle was on her before she got there. Reaching out, he grabbed her arm and brought her up short. “Talk to me, for God’s sake. What did I do wrong?”
Regan wrenched free but didn’t race for the door. He genuinely looked confused, so it was up to her to explain and cut this awful relationship off for his sake as much as her own. She spoke in measured tones. “I’m angry with you, Kyle. Furious, and you want me to hit you, hurt you, under these conditions. That’s not a sex game. That’s abuse. If I let loose on your now, that’s abuse, and I arrest people for that kind of thing.”
“You’d never hurt me,” he protested. “I trust you.”
She shook her head and stepped to the door again. This time, he didn’t try to stop her. “Letting someone hit you when they’re mad isn’t trust. It’s unhealthy, and I can’t be part of that kind of relationship, Kyle.”
He took a step forward, hand outstretched. “Regan, please, I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” She turned and shut the door behind her.
****
Regan sat at her desk chewing over her fight with Kyle, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Had she done the right thing? Was breaking off with Kyle the right choice? Given how he’d assumed her beating him was a way to resolve a fight, she had to believe it was the right decision.
She was miserable, though, and had been since leaving him that morning. The devastated look on his face as he’d pleaded for her to reconsider ate away at her. He’d said he loved her. In the heat of the moment, she’d glossed over that declaration. It was insane to love someone you barely knew. Still, she believed him, because she felt it, too.
What had started out as a disturbing new chapter in her sex life had become an emotional upheaval she could not ignore. Could she really be in love with Kyle? It seemed crazy to think she could feel something so deep and long-lasting for someone she’d known for such a short time. It had been an intense time, though, and maybe that explained the depth of her feeling. Or, maybe it was the sexual intensity masquerading in her mind as something more important. Love.
Christ, Jesus, how could she be in love with a man who said he respected her yet went behind her back on the investigation as if he didn’t trust her judgment or competency? She was in love with a man who let her tie him up and strap his ass as foreplay and still didn’t understand that she could only play that way as long as it didn’t tip into an abusive relationship. There was a fundamental disconnect in their interactions and had been from the start. Of course, she’d done the right thing breaking it off. So why did she want to run to him and take it all back? Take him back.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it further when Fuller approached.
“Tell me you have something,” the lieutenant commanded in a weary voice as he sat down on the edge of Regan’s desk.
“City Hall biting your ass?” Regan ventured in way of an answer.
The lieutenant gave her a hard stare. “That’s right, and here I am ready to chomp on yours.”
Regan scrunched up her face. “Get out the salt, LT, because we have nothing.”
JoJo joined them by rolling her chair over. “Zip.”
Fuller grimaced. “What about the woman from the club?”
“The Queen of the Nile has solid alibis for the first two murders,” Regan replied. “She had no connection to those vics, either, that we could see.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I’m sure we have one woman at work here, so even with the decent link between Cleo and Foster, she’s cleared.”
“Crap.” Fuller’s direct manner was one of the things Regan admired about him. “So, you’re saying we have no other viable leads.” It was more a statement than a question.
Regan nodded her assent and then elaborated. “The only other possible clue here is the Nebraska case. It’s a long-shot, though. We haven’t placed anyone we have here to there, have we?” She looked at JoJo.
The other woman shook her head. “The best I can give you is that Veronica Pugh was born Veronica Beals.”
“Wait a minute,” Regan interrupted. “You mean she changed her name to Pugh?”
“Her ex-husband’s name. I guess she kept it because she has a couple of kids. Anyway, the Beals are a family from Lincoln, Nebraska, although Veronica, herself, never lived there.”
The lieutenant perked up instantly. “Now there’s something.” Regan and JoJo had filled him in on the Johnstone murder.
“I don’t know, LT,” Regan replied. “Lincoln and Omaha are pretty far apart.”
“The Nebraska vic’s kid, the son, went to college there,” JoJo reminded her.
“Yeah, but it’s a good school and the state university. Virtually every native Nebraskan must want to attend it. Can we place Veronica in the state at the time of the murder?”
“Not yet. We could bring her in for questioning,” her partner suggested.
Regan slumped back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. She pictured the woman who had transformed her into a Domme. “I can’t see it. She doesn’t give me the right vibes.”
“Are we solving murders based on your vibes now?” Fuller’s tone was biting.
Regan sighed. “No, but if I had to pick a favorite at this moment, it would be Molvado. She gives off the right vibes,” she added, looking at her superior.
JoJo nodded in agreement. “She does.”
“Fine.” Fuller stood up. “Keep digging into both women and every other line of inquiry you have. I don’t have to tell you time is short. Odds are that, in the next couple of days, another man is going to be tortured to death. It would be nice if we could stop it. The mayor and the governor are talking about taking this case out of our hands entirely and handing over to the FBI.”
“Shit!” Regan sat up straighter. “It’s a purely local case. They have no jurisdiction.”
“They do if it’s related to a Nebraska case. Besides, the governor has the power to ask them to step in if he wants to. And frankly, if we can’t find the killer before we have another victim, who are we to say it’s a bad idea?”
Regan watched as the lieutenant left. The guy had a good point, damn it all, except she was sure the FBI would work under their profiler’s assumption about the killer being a man, and she still didn’t believe that for a moment. They were all scared of another murder, yet they were doing what they could. It wasn’t going to be enough. She could feel it deep down in her gut.
Later that afternoon, JoJo stopped by Regan’s desk, nursing her undoubtedly umpteenth Coke. She sat heavily in the guest chair and stared at her partner. “It may be that I’ve had too little sleep and too much caffeine today.”
“We both have, but I’m not certain why you’re bringing it up.”
“I’m anticipating you’re telling me that I’ve lost it and giving you an excuse in advance.”
“Okay,” Regan nodded in confirmation. “So?”
JoJo put her Coke down on the desk and tapped a manila file she had in her other hand. “I’ve been trying to track Thomas Johnstone, Jr.”
“The son.”
“The son. After the murder, he went back to the university and finished up his degree in psychology.”
Regan grabbed the Coke and took a long pull. “The major of the undecided. So what, he then went into criminology?”
“No, he went into the Peace Corps.”
“Altruistic.”
“Weird because he disappeared right after his stint.”
Regan’s heart sped up with the news. This was something, she was sure of it.
JoJo continued. “I spoke with someone in the organization and according to their records, he was stationed in Haiti and called to let them know he wasn’t coming back to the States. That was the last they heard of him.”
“Okay,” Regan said, her eyes unfocused as she thought. “It could be something, or it could be he was so traumatized by his father’s murder he tried to escape the whole thing the best way he knew how. We can’t read too much into this yet.”
JoJo shook her head. “I think we can. See, it just so happens that Mindy Fortensky was also with the Peace Corps at the same time.”
Regan frowned. “Mindy? You mean Little Mouse on the Prairie?”
“She’s from Oregon. I don’t think they have prairies out there.”
“But she was stationed with the son of our murder victim?”
“Not exactly. She was assigned to an African nation. They may have met during orientation, that’s all, and what that says, I can’t imagine. We don’t even know if there’s a connection between that murder and ours.”
“It’s our best lead, though. Dig deeper into Miss Mindy. She may have learned the details of the Johnstone murder from the son.”
“And what? Do you think she’s replaying what she heard? She doesn’t seem the type.”
“I know, she doesn’t give out the vibe, but as Fuller pointed out, we can’t solve a murder based on vibes. Besides, it may not be her doing anything. Maybe she’s hooked up with the son, and he’s acting out some weird catharsis using her. Better yet, maybe she told the story to Molvado, and the good doctor is putting the idea into action. It would explain why it’s been so long since the original murder.”
“You’re right.” JoJo stood up. “The minute I saw the overlap, I sensed it was a good lead. I’ll dig deeper.”
“Good.” Regan looked at her watch. “With the time difference, there should be no problem contacting people out in Oregon. See if you can find members of her family or friends, classmates, anyone who might shed some light on her background. Who knows, maybe she liked to torture animals or something when she was a kid.”
“On it.” JoJo hesitated and stepped back again. “You know this is a one person job at the moment. Why don’t you go fix whatever it is that’s been eating at you all day.”
“That obvious, huh?”
“You’ve got man trouble written all over your face.”
“Shit,” Regan muttered under her breath. Her partner was right. She couldn’t work as effectively with the Kyle issue occupying her thoughts. Might as well see if she could set things straight with him, although it didn’t seem possible that they could solve fundamental problems with a simple short discussion. On the other hand, with her anger over his Molvado visit dissipated, maybe they could have a rational discussion. Yeah, right. With a sigh, she grabbed her jacket and headed out the door.
With the end of September looming, the days were getting darker earlier. By the time she reached Kyle’s condo, the evening commute was thinning out, but dusk had set in. There were no spots open near his building, so she double-parked, figuring it was worth a ticket. She wasn’t the only one, either. A Mercedes was doing the same thing just ahead of her. She left her car and tried, as she had multiple times on the ride over, to come up with what she wanted to say to Kyle. Words still failed her. Oh well, she’d just have to wing it.
As she trotted up the stairs, a woman already stood in front of the intercom to the building, muttering under her breath. Regan saw tall, sleek, and stylish before she hit the top step of the stoop.
“Come on Kyle, you have to be home, damn you.”
Regan’s step faltered as the woman’s words sunk in. She pulled out her badge and held it up. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you looking for Kyle Ramsey?”
The woman whipped her head around. Her eyes went wide when she saw the badge. “Oh, my God, has something happened to Kyle? Was there an accident?”
“No.” Regan was quick to a reassure her, although alarm shot through her at the question. “I’m here to ask him a few questions about an investigation.” Which was almost the truth.
“Oh, you mean Jazz’s murder, I suppose. Such a horrible thing.” The woman shuddered theatrically. “But he doesn’t have time tonight for questioning, I’m afraid. We have to go to our daughter’s back to school night.”
Regan slipped the badge back into her pocket. “I see. Is he home? He doesn’t seem to be answering.”
The woman blew out a frustrated breath. “No, he’s not. Not the buzzer here, not his cell phone. The night receptionist at his firm swears he’s gone. I’d think the woman was just covering for him, except that isn’t like him. He never misses things for the kids.” She crossed her arms and snuck a peek down at the street. Her gaze seemed fixed on the double-parked Mercedes.
“I have Emma in the car. Kyle was supposed to pick us both up. I just don’t understand what’s going on.” She turned and jabbed at the intercom again.
Please answer. Please.
Regan stared at the door, as if wishing alone would make the man appear. She gave it a full minute before accepting that he simply wasn’t home. Or, maybe he was and couldn’t respond. Something was wrong, and her imagination went into overdrive even as the more rational part of her brain told her she was overreacting. He was running late, that was all.
“Do you have a key to his place?” she asked the woman who was clearly Kyle’s ex.
“Yes, I do. For emergencies. It’s on my key chain.” She motioned toward the car.
“Please go get it.”
The former Mrs. Ramsey blinked back at Regan for a second before hurrying down the steps. She was back quickly, a fancy key ring in her hand. She showed Regan two keys. “This one opens the front door, and this one is for the condo unit itself.”
Regan took them. “Thanks. Please wait in the car.”
“You think he’s in there and is hurt or something?” The woman bit at her lower lip.”
Regan tried to give her a reassuring smile. “No, but it’s best to be sure.”
She wasted no time in opening the front door and shutting it carefully behind her. Once she was out of sight of Kyle’s wife, she pulled out her revolver and put the key in the condo’s lock. She went in expecting trouble, gun at the ready, eyes scanning the room quickly. There was no one in the kitchen/living room area. She paused, straining to hear if anyone was in the bedroom. All she heard was the pounding of her own heart and the rasping of her labored breath.