Chase (24 page)

‘Hi, babe. You gotta date?’ The voice from under the hood closest to me could be friendly.
Then again
…

I’m the only customer in here now apart from them. I smile vaguely, suddenly glad Bullen’s only seconds away.

‘Check out the hardware, man. See anything like that in here before?’

They’ve spotted the bracelets.
I step past them to reach the counter and pay for my purchase. As I do it the stillness around me makes me nervous. Just then the woman jogs my elbow and my coins clatter all over the floor. I spin round to see the ring closing in.

‘You pickin’ that up, sister?’

Past them, through the window, I can see the car still parked on the opposite kerb. Now it seems a long way away. Bullen must have taken the hint.

All at once one of them makes a grab for my phone where it leans out of my gaping purse and makes a dash for the door.

Outraged, I slam a note on the counter and race out after him. ‘Wait. Give that back.’

Out on the sidewalk I can see him just a few yards away. Without thinking I head off in pursuit. My heels are a problem and in seconds I’ve crashed onto the sidewalk.

Shit
. What was I thinking? And slowly it dawns on me that I’m staring at four pairs of grimy trainers, closing me in.

I’m in big trouble.

‘Got her cell? Now git her wrists.’

They’re after the bracelets
… But my bling is firmly locked. The only key is in Darnley’s pocket, somewhere in the glitz of Manhattan.

And now to add insult to injury, I can feel it, the slow trickle.
I must be staining already …

They wrench at my wrists but the bracelets are clamped in place.

I writhe, I shout. I hardly know what I’m doing.

I think I bite somebody’s hand.

I can hear a police siren. Closer still I hear the slam of a car door and pounding footsteps.

All at once the gang are racing off up the street.

‘Ella?’ Darnley leans over me, still panting. He sweeps me with a look and his face contracts. ‘Christ. You’re bleeding.’

‘I’m fine.’ I stare up at him, uncomfortably aware a crowd has gathered.

I touch his sleeve. ‘Can I whisper?’

When I do it he looks taken aback and then grins. ‘Ah. We’ll go back then. Here, let me.’

Despite my protests he lifts me up and carries me to the car. Soon we’re heading back to the hotel.

Twenty minutes later he’s peeling away my dress, his eyes gleaming. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this for a while.’

We’re standing in the bathroom, surrounded by scented candles. The air is warm, steamy and perfumed. We’re already on our second glass of champagne.

I smile, a little doubtful. ‘
Tonight?
With me like this?’

His expression veils as he removes the last of my lingerie and flicks it away with his foot. ‘Don’t be shy,’ he murmurs, folding his arms round me. He brushes his lips to mine. ‘It’s perfectly normal. It’s what women do. Get in the bath. Then I’ll show you what men do.’

Soon I’m lying back in his arms as he massages my shoulders. Snowy foam billows around us, sparkling in the light from the candles.

He laughs softly as his erection juts into my back. ‘This is just for tonight,’ he murmurs, as he lifts me under the armpits and edges me up into position over him.

‘What does that mean?’ I moan with pleasure as he surges into me from behind, aligning me perfectly with his rising hips and filling me full of warmth as he moves gently in the suds.

‘It means a raincheck on the bracelets,’ he murmurs, as he reaches round to part my legs with his fingers and starts to take possession. ‘Agreed?’

I shiver among the hills of warm foam and now all our wickedness takes place below the innocent, pristine suds. When I finally come, the thought of what awaits when the raincheck’s called in makes my climb to a climax all the sweeter.

‘Yes, sir,’ I murmur. ‘Agreed.’

‘I’ve told you before. Bullen does your shopping. Especially late at night. Even more especially when you’re in a million bucks’ worth of hardware.’

It’s late now, really late. After my mugging the adrenalin’s kicked in. I’m still hyper so we’re hitting the clubs. We’re in the car and cruising to the first of our planned nightspots.

I feel like a real city-dweller.

I’m in a fresh outfit – slinky black pants and something eye-catching from Oscar de la Renta.

Darnley’s in a mood.

The bracelets are off, but the heat’s still rising. He’s angry.

I’m exasperated. ‘How many times do I have to say sorry? I just didn’t think. Now can we drop it?’

His jaw clenches. ‘When you wear the bracelets you should always think. That’s what they’re for.’

‘I mean – I forgot about them.’

At that moment the car slows at the carpeted entrance to our first port of call. Burly bouncers look up hoping for some late arrivals, especially in a limo.

Darnley snaps at the intercom. ‘Keep driving.’

Slowly we pull away again. He turns to me, his face like thunder. ‘You
forgot
? Don’t they
mean
anything any more?’

Whoa
. All at once I’m in deep waters here. ‘Yes,’ I say slowly as I search for the right way to put this.

His anger scares me. Hyper or not, I sense a hint of pain in here somewhere. ‘Of course they do. It’s just – I meant sometimes I forget they’re ornaments.’

He frowns. ‘What? You forget you’re
wearing
them?’

I search for a way to say this. The thought that’s forming is new to me, and scary. ‘I think of them more as – bonds.’

His eyelids lower, not fast enough to hide a glimmer of satisfaction. ‘
Really?
’

He finds my wrist and folds his finger and thumb around the place where the bracelet sat earlier. He keeps his eyes on mine, but I feel his fingers circling gently on my slim bones, measuring, testing. Something flickers in his eyes – heat? Triumph? And then the car slows again.

This time we get out and start our round of fun. But now, when we chink glasses and sip, or when we laugh, or even when we dance, there’s a new intensity in his look, a new awareness in his touch.

Something I said? Or something he’s thought?

At one point he grins. ‘From now on, no late-night escape bids. Promise me. Or I’ll have to fit Bullen with a pacemaker.’

Back in Boston I decide to talk to Freda. She has to be the last piece in the Kraik puzzle. And if not, maybe she has another take on it.

On the phone she sounds sulky but she agrees to see me next evening. Luckily Darnley’s got business in Washington and he’ll be back late.

When I arrive she meets me at the door, slim and mean in black leather thigh boots and purple lipstick. A woman slips past her and hurries down the steps, pushing up her collar and pulling a cap down over her eyes.

Freda eyes me with an air of defiance. ‘Ah, the doe-eyed poet. Glad you could make it.’

‘Does Darnley know you entertain in his house?’ I say stiffly.

‘Does he know you’re here?’ Her lip curls. ‘Thought not. How’s Lydia?’

I tell her, leaving out some of the detail, while she leads me into a small sitting room and motions me to a sofa.

‘So, how can I help you? Want some hints on technique? Or is this about Ryan? Drink?’

I accept white wine and she pours herself a scotch.

‘Don’t tell me you’re
gay, Freda?’ I’m kidding. After her affair with my ex it seems unlikely. Her answer surprises me.

‘Sometimes. Let’s say I take what comes.’

She seems uneasy so I cut to the chase. ‘Tell me about Fletcher Kraik. Lydia said you were a victim too.’

All at once she looks wary.

I hold her gaze. ‘I want to help Darnley. So I have to find out more. What did Kraik do to you, Freda?’

‘Do to
me
?’ She sits down, crossing her legs with a soft hiss of leather. ‘Actually, that’s quite funny.’ Her grin fades as she seems to come to a decision. ‘OK, I’ll tell you. But I want to make one thing absolutely clear. If you blab to the police – or anybody else – I’ll simply deny it. Got that?’

‘Got it,’ I say quietly. ‘Go on.’

‘Korn Kraik? I only met him a couple of times. I was twenty when I first met him. We got along. I could see he was an asshole, had some hold on the family. But when you’re twenty you don’t think much about other people.

‘I was already into bondage and he noticed. Said I could be a fetish model, he had contacts. I didn’t know about him and Lydia back then. I found out about her later. But I could see he was bad news. Treated them all like dirt. Darnley especially.’

She pauses for a sip of her drink. ‘I was there the night he died.’

Bingo.
‘That’s why I came,’ I say carefully. ‘Darnley’s starting to remember.’

I’m stretching the truth here but she eyes me thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, well. He thinks he’s a killer. So does the family. That’s why they’re all so scared of him. Poor kid. I guess I can tell you, but I never told this to anybody else. It wasn’t Darnley who killed him. I’m not even sure it was Lydia, though she’s always claimed it was. I think it was me.’ She gives me a sideways glance, checking my reaction.

I steel myself not to give one, or to betray my instant surge of excitement. ‘How come?’

‘Not on purpose. That’s just how it happened. That night Darnley brought Eldon into the house crying. It was late, well after Eldon’s bedtime. Something had scared him but Darnley refused to say what. He was upset about something, kept telling Eldon to shut up but the kid just kept on crying. They gave Darnley something to calm him down and put them both to bed.

‘Later, Lydia wondered where Kraik was. She thought he might still be fishing down by the lake so I offered to go look for him. And when I found him …’

She tails off and then glances up, her eyes narrow. ‘He was in the garage, cuffed to his own car. The engine was running. The garage doors were still partly open so he was OK. Pretty mad, though. Said he’d been yelling for a while. They had guests that night so it was noisy. Nobody heard.

‘While I was in there the engine stalled. I switched it back on, just fooling around. I was just leaning over to unlock the cuffs when Darnley burst in. He looked awful, half crazy. I guess it was the sedative taking effect. Or maybe he’d spat it out and he was hallucinating. He looked weird. He grabbed me and told me to get the hell out of there. I tried to fight him off but he was too strong. He was what – fourteen? But he was already a big, strong kid. They’d toughened him up …’

She pauses as she sees my expression. ‘Yeah, well, I guess you know all about that. He was still pulling me up the driveway when Lydia met us.

‘I was going to tell her where Kraik was but suddenly I thought, that guy’s an asshole, and he’s always picked on Darnley. And there was this upright, decent kid he’d tormented for years with the guy completely at his mercy – and all he could think about was saving me.’

She looks away for a moment. ‘Can you beat that? It got to me. I said we hadn’t seen him. I meant to go back later, but there were too many people around. It was nearly dawn when I went back but the doors were closed. I couldn’t open them so I went back to bed. I thought maybe somebody else had let him out.

‘They found him soon after, before many people were about. They got a friend of theirs to say he’d had a heart attack and the whole thing was hushed up. Next day Darnley was still freaking out. He sat with me the whole time they were talking about it. He was going crazy about Eldon. Said he mustn’t ever find out. I kept digging him in the ribs and telling him everything would be fine just as long as he shut up. So he did. We all did.’

She downs the rest of her drink in a single gulp, her only sign of emotion. When she looks up the sneer’s back in place. ‘So what’s brought this on? Spooked by the family skeletons? Or just Lydia’s overblown catering?’

I frown. ‘But you never
told
him this? You let him – all of them – go on thinking he was a killer?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘What else could I do? I thought he’d remember after a while. I thought it would be better if it came back naturally, you know? Like sleepwalking. Anyway, it’s not the kind of thing you tell people. I’m only telling you because I guess you should know. Even if you never tell him. He’s a nice guy, the real deal. And you know him better than any of us.’

I frown. ‘So Lydia was telling the truth. I thought she was just acting badly.’

Freda snorts. ‘Lydia always acts badly. But maybe for her that’s easier than telling the truth.’

She pauses a moment, and her eyes flicker. For an instant I glimpse a softer Freda behind the shell, a bold woman tired of building barriers.

She leans forward, her gaze anxious, and touches my knee. ‘Ella, be careful how you tell him. He and Eldon – they’re both, you know – fragile. With Eldon it’s all on the surface. But Darnley …’ She tails off, troubled. ‘He runs deep.’

For a split second we’re eye to eye. Seconds later there’s a crash as the front door slams.

Freda springs to her feet as Darnley walks slowly into the room.

But he’s not looking at Freda. He’s looking at me.

‘
What’s going on
?’

She steps between us, looking scared, but he moves her aside, his gaze still locked on mine. ‘You came here without my permission?’

‘Yes,’ I say quietly. ‘I came to see Freda. To tell her about Lydia. There’s a problem?’

‘With you being here? Yes. There is.’ He glances across at Freda and when he turns back to me I see a new gleam in his eyes. Worse, in hers I see fear.

Darnley ignores her. ‘What else did you talk about?’

Freda tries to speak but he signals her to silence, still looking at me.

‘You,’ I say quietly. ‘We were talking about you.’

His eyes narrow. ‘If you want to talk to a Dom, you talk to me, not Freda. Is that clear?’

Startled, I glance at Freda. He thinks I came to talk about
that
? I see the ghost of a smile in her eyes and I see she’s thinking the same thing –
escape card
.

Now Darnley’s gaze locks on mine. ‘What you said in the car,’ he says quietly. ‘About –
bonds
. Did you mean that? Or were you just saying it to please me?’