Telling Tales

Chapter Six

A week of uneasy silence passed. Bryce’s messy apartment had shown them nothing but that he was definitely a bachelor, with empty pizza boxes cluttering the kitchen, empty beer cans and a stash of uppers. With a wry twist of his lips, Kellan studied the small assortment of pills and wondered why he hadn’t figured Bryce as a user.

Of course, he hadn’t really seen Bryce as somebody who would be involved in bondage games either. But the porn mags in his house were all of the darker variety, and the box under the bed had revealed an assortment of chains, handcuffs, and ball gags.

And videos…the videos sent a surge of excitement rushing through him. This was personal. Very personal. And there was nothing in the world as personal and intimate as sex.

Would those videos show anything?

Licking his lips, he counted them and recorded them on the inventory list. Well, he had been planning on a movie tonight, but he had hoped to get Darci to meet him in Columbus and maybe catch one together. Then maybe find some secluded area to park and fuck her brains out.

They couldn’t risk being seen together right now. Not with this investigation going on, but he wanted her so badly that he couldn’t breathe.

“Better this way,” he told himself, plowing a hand through his hair before gathering up the videos. I’ll spend the night watching a bunch of videos and then I’ll go jack off in the shower and get some rest.

And hopefully, these videos would yield a clue. Some sort of clue.

Darci moved through the gallery in a daze. Her mind didn’t want to realign with her body. All she could remember was that night. He’d left sometime before ten o’clock.

“I wish I could stay,” he had whispered, brushing her hair back.

“Me, too.”

“This damned case…damn it. When I get this thing solved…” then his voice had trailed off as he’d jerked her against him, pressing a ravenous kiss against her lips, his hand fisting in her hair. Before she could start to kiss him back though, Kellan had pulled away and left without another word.

Her lips buzzed now, just thinking about that kiss. Pressing her fingers to her lips, closing her eyes in memory, she was caught by surprise when the door opened.

Turning, she found herself staring into Tricia Casey’s bland green eyes. Arching a brow at the older woman, she said, “Well, I usually don’t get to see you in here.”

Tricia laughed, her eyes twinkling as though she knew what sort of things were running through Darci’s mind. With a shrug of her shoulders, she said, “I don’t have much time for visiting. Not with running the gallery, hunting down new artists…and it’s terrible, but we are busier now than we ever have been. Violent death has done wonders for Carrie and Beth’s sales. Peggy and I can hardly keep up.”

“People are a macabre bunch.” Folding her arms across her middle, Darci asked, “What can I do for you, Tricia?”

She smiled, causing the few lines in her face to deepen. One wasn’t likely to guess her age. For a woman of sixty-two, she looked remarkable. Reaching into her purse, she drew out a small stack of envelopes. “We keep receiving your mail,” she murmured, holding it out to Darci.

Darci arched a brow. “I’ll have to complain again. Tiresome, never knowing where your mail is going. Especially since one or two times the letters looked like somebody had tried to open them. Not the bills, of course, but the ones that come from customers.”

A cool smile curved Tricia’s lips and she shrugged. “Bryce was always terribly nosy, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear he was reading other people’s mail.”

Folding her hand around the envelopes, Darci took them and sauntered back behind the counter. Calmly, she said, “Well, that being the case, I assume I don’t need to worry about people looking at my mail anymore. Seeing as how he’s gone.”

Tricia sighed, a sad look crossing her face. “Indeed. Such a tragedy. He was so young. I just don’t understand what is going on,” she murmured.

Darci lifted a shoulder. “Probably the only person who does understand is the one behind it,” she finally said, idly flipping through the envelopes. No sense…Beth…Carrie…Bryce… Hell, Bryce wasn’t connected to her at all. Hadn’t ever done more than check out her ass when he thought she wasn’t looking.

The only thing they had in common was Dark Destinies.

Kellan had reached the same conclusion, although he would have disagreed with Darci’s thoughts on Bryce.

He was connected to her. Because the man had wanted her. A near obsessive want, judging by how many times he had fucked a woman and told her she’d answer to Darci’s name if that was what he felt like calling her.

Dark Destinies…and Darci… Well, there was one other thing they had in common.

Kim.

Bryce had his own little harem, and Kellan was a bit surprised over some of the faces he had seen. Married women, dumpy women, women he would have pegged as being too smart to want anything to do with Bryce.

But he knew what it was like to have a need for something dark. He had dark, obsessive fantasies of his own, all centered around Darci. These women who had been with Bryce wanted the pain and the humiliation and the sex he doled out with a fair amount of skill.

He liked to spank them, cane them, tie them down.

Often he would gag them, or pull a hood over their heads before applying the whip.

The blonde who was currently chained to the floor and giving Bryce a blowjob was one who took him by surprise.

Another link between the dead people.

She’d been Beth’s fetching girl. Carrie’s whipping girl…

“Say it, Kim, say you’re my fuck slut,” came Bryce’s voice from the TV as he pulled his wet dick from the woman’s mouth.

She stared up at Bryce with rapt hunger, whispering obediently, “I’m your fuck slut.”

And she had been the lover of one of the murder victims. Well, Kellan had to amend that as Bryce backhanded her across the face before jerking her by the hair and forcing his dick halfway down her throat. Maybe lover wasn’t the right term.

Casting a glance at his watch, he vacillated. Did he really want to go and question Kim about this? At seven p.m. on a Saturday?

No. He didn’t.

But that didn’t keep him from climbing into his car and flipping through his notebook to find her address.

As he pulled out of the drive, he tried to turn it over in his head.

Could she have done it?

Damn it, he just didn’t know.

She was so quiet, so timid. Had she just been pushed too far?

Kim screamed, throwing her hands up over her face as the poker came crashing down toward her. With desperation, she kicked out and knocked her attacker’s feet out from under her.

She hit the floor with a crash and Kim scuttled backward on her hands and feet, grabbing hold of the coffee table and shoving herself up. Had to run…had to get out, get away…

The pain in her ribs and in her chest was ungodly. Breathing was torture.

“Damn it, you bitch.” The words were rough, ugly with hatred. And getting closer.

Kim grabbed the door to the balcony and jerked it open, stumbling through and slamming it on the arm that came through behind her. A furious howl lit the air and she could have sobbed with relief as a voice from above called out, “Damn it, what’s going on down there? Kim? Is that you?”

“Going to fucking beat the shit out of you, bitch.”

She flinched away from that voice, backing away as the door slid open. The poker raised and she screamed.

“Damn it, what the fuck? I’m calling the cops, damn it…”

Lights glared in the front of the apartment parking lot. Kim turned her head, time slowing down to a crawl as she saw the familiar car pass under the lights, then the door flew open…the blue of the swimming pool just below her…

Turning, she blinked, waiting for the poker to fall one more time. But her attacker had frozen, eyes locked on the car pulling into the lot. With a whispered prayer, Kim gripped the railing and swung one leg over. As she moved the other, those malevolent eyes swung her way.

Taking a deep breath, she leaped just as the poker started to come swinging down.

The cold water closed over her and then oblivion.

Kellan nodded as Grady finished reading off the witness reports.

Somebody wearing black. A hood.

But nobody had seen the attacker’s face. Nobody could tell if it was a woman, a man, or a seven-foot Martian with green skin. Pressing his fingers to his eyes, he tried to tune out the antiseptic smell of the hospital, tried to forget about the blood on his hands.

Pulling that broken, battered body from the swimming pool had filled him with shame and anger.

He had gone there planning to question Kim, but he had all but laughed at himself halfway there. Too weak. Too timid. Too stupid.

And her plunge off the balcony had probably saved her life. While he’d pulled her still body out of the pool, the assailant had gotten away. Only moments later, deputies had arrived on the scene in response to the calls from several of Kim’s neighbors, but their search hadn’t turned up anything.

“Damn it, what in the hell is going on?” he muttered.

The waiting room doors swung open and the doctor stepped out, her face weary but satisfied. “She’s going to be fine, I think… I was worried about head trauma or possible spinal injury, jumping into six feet of water, but God was smiling on her,” Dr. Winter said. “The MRI looks okay.”

Her blue scrubs had blood smeared on them and her shoulders were slumped with weariness. “She’s got some internal bleeding. Broken ribs. But she’s responding, at the moment, and right now just needs to rest.” She glanced down at herself before flicking Kellan a look. “And so do I. I need a shower, a new change of clothes and a nap. I usually don’t have trauma cases like this show up in my hospital, Sheriff. But I figured you wouldn’t leave until you heard something.”

He nodded, and forced himself to smile slightly. “I’m putting a deputy on her door.”

Dr. Winter said shortly, “Good.”

He left soon after talking to Grady, reassuring himself that Kim was still alive.

Grady was a good cop. He’d do his damnedest to make sure the girl stayed that way.

Which meant allowing nobody in that room. She had been the best suspect, even if she was the most unlikely. And she’d almost died.

So he still had a killer out there. Somebody who was striking out in an irrational manner. No sense. Damn it, it made no sense.

None of it. He stalked outside, jerking open the door to his car and dropping into the seat. He left the door open, leaving the dome light on as he stared at his hands. Blood stained his clothes, and he couldn’t get it out from under his nails. The bastard had caught her across the chest with the business end of the poker. Not all of her injuries were from blunt force trauma. The pointed end had torn open a nasty gash diagonally across her torso.

“Damn it,” he muttered. Closing his hand into a fist, he slammed it against the steering wheel and rasped out, “Who the fuck are you?”

Kim slept through the day.

Everywhere he went, Kellan heard the same damn thing. “Who could have done that? Kim is harmless.” A hundred different variations of the same question.

In the county hospital cafeteria, Kellan poured himself another cup of bitter, overly strong coffee.

“That stuff will eat the lining out of your stomach.”

Turning around, he stared into Darci’s wide green eyes. “Hey,” he murmured.

She smiled slightly, arching a brow at him. “Hey,” she whispered. Heat flooded her eyes and Kellan felt that look as solidly as if she’d reached out and touched him. Her eyes looked bruised, sleepless. And the sigh that shuddered out of her sounded terribly defeated. “I heard about Kim. Came by, but Grady says he can’t let anybody in.”

He sipped at the coffee, his eyes widening as the caffeine started to sing in his system from the first sip. The minute it hit his empty belly, he winced. “Damn. Probably will eat the lining away,” he muttered before taking another sip. “Kim can’t tell me who it was. Nobody can give me a description, other than dark clothes and a hood. And since we don’t know…Kim is in a lot of danger.”

“I don’t get it.” She moved away from him, dropping into one of the chairs, resting her elbows on the round table as she massaged her temples. “Maybe this is why I’m not a cop, but I don’t see much connection between any of these people. The only thing they have in common is they all worked for the gallery.”

Kellan took the seat across from her, arching a brow. “I imagine Tricia is getting pretty desperate. Peggy spends more time working in her studio than in the gallery, her two employees are gone, and two of her artists.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “Apparently, Beth and Carrie are more popular now than they ever were. Talked to Tricia recently-she says she’s never been so busy.”

In the act of lifting his coffee to his lips for another stomach-searing drink, Kellan froze, lowering the cup back to the table. “People love a scandal. And the bloodier, the more notorious, the better,” he murmured. “Three murders… I imagine her gallery is hopping.”

He kept his voice level, but his mind was buzzing as the pieces finally fell together. Stupid…stupid…stupid, he said to himself silently. Money. Not Darci… But Bryce…that didn’t make any sense.

The videos from the past night flashed through his mind. Yes, Kim had been there, but then so had a number of other women. Jealousy. Somehow, that was how Bryce played into it, and the fact that he worked for the gallery, increasing the already notorious reputation.

Three murders. Would have been four, except Kim had gotten away. Had it all been about money? Had the scene just been staged so that it looked personal? He felt eyes on him and he looked up, seeing Darci staring at him with a confused, curious look.

“What?” she asked softly.

He shrugged. “Nothing.” He pushed his cup away and forced a grin. “You’re right. That coffee will tear up a belly. I’ve got to get back to the station, go over a few things,” he said. Leaning forward, he put his mouth by her ear and said, “Go home. Stay there. Don’t talk to anybody.”

Arching a brow at him, she opened her lips to ask a question and he reached out and pressed his finger to her lips. “Don’t ask questions. I can’t answer them. But do this for me. I’m going to advise the deputies to be extra careful, but you do not go anywhere.”