Out of Sight (19 page)

W
ard Bienville wore a white terry robe and sat in a black wingback chair facing away from the door.

He had been here twice before and sworn never to return.

Anything capable of enslaving a man could make him weak.

Need could change a man’s mind.

Now he needed—badly—to give in to his lust for violence.

The room wasn’t large. Black and purple with a small soaking pool on one side, he considered it all a joke, designed to look as some fool thought a room of its kind should. They didn’t know it could have been empty and served just as well—as long as there was no question of interruption.

He was an inventive, imaginative man.

A rap sounded at the door and he smiled. “Come, Ilsa.”

The door opened, closed and the lock snapped shut. “You’ve disappointed me, Craig.” He wasn’t Craig
and she probably wasn’t Ilsa but it didn’t matter, anonymity did.

He didn’t answer her.

“I don’t like to be ignored,” she said. “And I don’t like sulking.”

Anger had swelled in him for hours and, just as he had planned, it boiled now.

Her hands settled on the sides of his neck and she ran her fingers under the robe. She worked the muscles in his shoulders firmly, then, in one vicious move she dug into the tendons, drove her nails down and pinched with her thumbs.

He let his head fall back and absorbed the pain, the numbing sensation that weakened his arms. And the anger grew. It simmered.

“Mmm,” Ilsa said. “I think you’re ready to tell me how sorry you are for staying away so long. You hurt my feelings. I thought perhaps you weren’t pleased with what Ilsa can do for you. I can make you feel like no one else can. And when I have, you will stop sulking.”

She posed as a masseuse. She
was
a masseuse but with a unique flair. She was massage fusion.

“Where do you ache, my friend? Tell me where you have pain and Ilsa will use it.”

He knew what she meant by
use it.
She wanted instructions and if she didn’t get them, she would decide what would happen. Tonight he would let her decide—or think she was deciding.

“I am in your hands, bitch.”

“Mmm-mmm, I think we shall have a spirited time. But my hands will do what needs to be done. Stand up.”

He did so.

“Face me.”

Again he did as she asked. Her black hair streamed over her shoulders almost to her waist. Knowing exactly what she looked like was impossible given her theatrical makeup and the black-leather mask she wore. Her lips were the red of blood.

Ward studied her from head to foot. And his cock responded to every inch. A leather bustier trimmed with lace pushed up overflowing and ample breasts. Her waist was small. The leather chaps she wore over a transparent thong disappeared inside boots with unbelievably high, thin heels. She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, ran her pointed tongue around her lips. Her ass was naked, high and hard but her hips flared in a way that was all female.

She approached him and undid the belt of the robe, she pushed it from his shoulders and let it fall. Her eyes settled on the abbreviated triangle of his black thong underwear, tenuously clinging to the end of his hard-on.

Ward swung his hips and Ilsa pushed her mouth out in a pout. “Off,” she said, pointing to the thong.

“Anything for you,” he said and stripped it away.

“In the hammock.”

Steps were provided and he climbed up, expertly stretching out in the string contraption.

He saw Ilsa go to a wall where equipment hung. She chose a whip, a long whip and backed away from him.

Ward heard the whip snap on the floor, saw it wave sinuously like a snake. Then without pause she changed her aim and the braided leather wrapped around and around his body, effectively tying him to the hammock. It hurt like hell but she knew just how hard to hit without breaking the skin.

“Ilsa, you are a wonderful witch,” he said, knowing it would please her. “I’ve changed my mind.”

The whip unwound from his body and she cracked it across the floor. “Whatever you want.”

He hopped from the hammock and reached the floor. The mask didn’t matter. He didn’t care what she looked like. He walked around her, sizing up the outfit.

The chaps closed at the back. He slid down the zipper, spun her around and whipped them off. They came free of her boots and he grinned.

“Cute,” he said.

Her belly, slightly rounded, her pubic hair just visible above the thong, she swung her hips then strutted in her bustier and boots.

Ward ran his eyes over the “toys” on the wall. He liked a short cat-o’-nine-tails. An efficient tool that meted out punishment fast.

Another zip disposed of the bustier and a tug tore off the thong. He grinned at her. “I like the boots.”

She tossed back her hair and he thought he saw an unfamiliar gleam in her eyes through the slits in her mask. Perhaps she was brighter than he thought. Perhaps she could feel danger.

“You need something special,” she said and spread her legs, bent her knees. She massaged herself and showed him how damp her hands were. She beckoned him.

It would be so easy, but it was a risk he couldn’t take. Today his pleasure would find a different release. He pointed to the ladder and the hammock. “Your turn.”

He heard her swallow and took pleasure in her fear. Women came in two groups. A man used them both—one to look good on his arm, have the requisite children and even to love. He flinched. The other type were to be used only for sex and anything else that made a man feel good.

Ilsa climbed slowly up to the hammock and climbed in.

“Legs over the sides,” he told her.

She hung her legs, displaying her sex. They were good legs and the boots turned him on until he hurt.

Before she realized what he intended, the vicious tool was in his hand and the first strike made. Weighted at the ends, the pieces of twined leather curled rapidly around her thigh.

Ilsa screamed, full-throated and pained.

He expanded his lungs. Another benefit of this place was that no human sound caught the interest of passing ears. He had heard more than one of the rooms vibrate with shouts and wails, of all kinds.

In the hammock, Ilsa lay with her arms crossed over her waist. She kept her face turned up to the ceiling.

Ward checked his watch. “I have ten minutes,” he said, “so I must work fast. Ten minutes can seem a lifetime. Enjoy yourself.”

The next stroke landed on her belly, wrapped over her hip.

The next striped her arms and hands where they gripped her middle.

The next ripped into the collarbones and upper chest.

The next…

Exposed concrete on the floor was deliberate. Carpet would have muffled sounds, the cracks, the smacks. Noise was important in Ilsa’s business.

She lay on that cold concrete in a curled ball.

Her eyes opened as the door closed firmly behind Craig, the man with maddened eyes. When he had come before he had liked his time with her rough, but nothing like the nightmare she had just been through.

The lights were on and she struggled to sit up, her arms around her calves to stop her from tipping over. Her flesh bled through the wounds he had made. Not once had he touched her with his hands or any part of his body, only with the tails.

She felt her swollen mouth and looked at more blood on her fingers. The mask felt as if it would cut her, too, and she tore it off.

Craig?

He would suffer for this and not in any way he would be expecting, not from a woman he considered less than human.

When the door opened again, she cringed and tried to lie down again so he would think she was unconscious.

There wasn’t time.

But it wasn’t Craig.

A woman stared at her for an instant before shutting the door behind her and hurrying to kneel beside Ilsa. “My God,” she said. “What has he done to you?”

Ilsa didn’t answer.

“You must soak the wounds.” She looked at the sunken pool on one side of the room where water bubbled constantly.

Some clients could only perform in the water.

“Take these off.” The woman unzipped the boots and eased them from Ilsa’s feet.

At least she had managed to take a gouge out of Craig’s back with one of the heels. The thought made her shudder with pleasure.

“I saw that beast leave,” the woman said. Her perfectly arranged dark hair was pulled back with a tortoiseshell comb on either side and her makeup had been carefully applied. “He must be caught and punished.”

“He will be,” Ilsa said, starting to smile then sucking in a breath as cuts in the corners of her mouth stung.

“Let me help you. Are there salts? Not with perfume—that would hurt.”

“We avoid perfumes for that reason,” Ilsa said. “On the side, see? The white jug.”

The salts poured in an easy stream from the lip of the jug into the water. They didn’t turn to suds but whirled in opaque white circles.

“Come on. I’ll steady you.”

Ilsa took her hand and stepped down into the warm water with difficulty. She closed her eyes as the warm softness enveloped her. Even the sudden smarting pain of the salts felt good.

“We should not let too much time go by. I’m Jacqueline, by the way. I will get you clothes and we’ll go to the police.”

“What are you doing in this place?”

“I heard screams,” Jacqueline said.

Ilsa laughed a little but doubled over, coughing. “I never thought I would go to the police but I’m finished with all this now and I have a score to settle.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I know who that man is and I’m going to make sure everyone knows what he is.”

Jacqueline nodded. “I know how it feels to be abused by a man. That’s why I never go anywhere without this.”

From the large purse she had dropped to the floor she took what looked like a squared-off metal tube folded into three with a handle at one end. She snapped it open
and laughed, looking it over. “This can do so much harm.”

On one end was a pincer that opened and closed when Jacqueline squeezed and released the handle.

Ilsa laughed despite the pain. “I can think of a number of things to do with that.”

“So can I.”

Jacqueline rammed the pincer end of her contraption over Ilsa’s throat and squeezed it shut. On her knees, she held Ilsa under the water until her flailing grew weaker.

Then she pushed her to the bottom of the little pool and held her down by the pincer around her neck.

Little bubbles rose from the nose and mouth. The eyes stared.

Ilsa’s arms and legs went still.

Her eyes remained open.

The little bubbles ceased.

W
hen Poppy opened the door to her apartment Sykes leaned his elbow on the jamb and looked down into her face. He drove his fingers into the front of his hair. After this bizarre day he needed to be around her.

“Sykes?” she said in a puzzled tone.

“I think I just want to stand here and look at you,” he said. “It’s been a long day without you.”

She blushed. He had never seen her blush before and it made him happy. Poppy’s was the only face he wanted to see.

“I just came from the morgue. Blades needed me or I would have been here a lot earlier.” He wasn’t ready to overload her with what was there, or talk about one of the bodies in particular.

“You’re here now.” She took him by the hand and pulled him inside, shutting the door behind him. “I need you,” she said, taking him to the couch and pulling him down beside her.

“Pascal had to know every detail of what happened last night—several times. He’s convinced the reason I
was the one to find the pages was because I’m supposed to take over his position with the family. He wouldn’t give it up. Marley backed him up, and Gray.”

Poppy watched his mouth while he talked. She rubbed his forearm and threaded her fingers in his. “What will you do?”

“I don’t know. Ask me again when everything becomes clear.”

“When you find the Harmony?”

“Maybe then.”

She turned the ring Pascal had given her around and around on the middle finger of her right hand. “I don’t think I should keep this,” she said.

He kissed her, holding back, keeping it soft. Then he said, “If you want to break his heart, try to give it back. I think he’s already got the two of us together forever. That looks like a hint to me. He sees you as a member of the family.”

Poppy withdrew her hand and slid to sit against the back of the couch. She continued to play with the ring. “I’m looking for a way to tell you something. But I don’t want you to get mad at me.”

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “I made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“The wrong choice, Sykes. I should have said no.”

He took her chin between finger and thumb and turned her face toward him. She kept her eyes lowered.

“Poppy, what is it?”

“I sort of wondered if Pascal would want David to take over eventually,” she said, her voice so small it was hard to hear. “They seem as if they’ll be close, and—”

“Poppy, please don’t do this to me. Don’t change the subject. What’s wrong?”

“Ward sent Bart over here. When I got back he was in the club looking for me.”

Sykes figured they would get further, faster, if he let her do the talking.

“Bart persuaded me to go and see Ward. He’d been away and his family gave him a hard time.”

“My heart bleeds for Ward Bienville,” Sykes said. He knew sarcasm wasn’t what Poppy wanted to hear. “Sorry. Families get into it sometimes. I know that too well.”

“They told him he’s embarrassed them. I felt sorry for him. I…”

“Yes, you would, honey.” He didn’t like the way he felt. There was much more she wasn’t telling him. “You know I don’t like the idea of you being on your own with Ward.”

She nodded her head yes. “I told Otis I was going.”

“Did you tell Liam and Ethan? How about calling me?”

“I couldn’t face all the arguments. I decided to go and get back quickly—I felt guilty for ignoring him, Sykes.”

He stood up because he couldn’t sit still. “Ward Bienville knows what he wants and intends to get it.
You don’t have the kind of ambition he does, if you’re not single-minded. He intends to get you. You haven’t encouraged him and the more you try to turn him off the more he comes after you. I hate his guts.”

Sykes ran a hand around his neck and paced.

“It was awful,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?” He stopped in front of her. “Tell me what that means, now.”

“Don’t shout at me. Regardless of what we may feel for each other, I don’t belong to you. I had to do what I thought was right.”

“But you were wrong.”

Her jaw worked before she said, “You’re making this so easy on me, aren’t you? Okay, let me get this out.”

“What’s that?” Sykes said. He bent over her to look at a diamond pin at the neck of her dress. “Are those real diamonds?”

“I’m sure they are.” She touched it as if she had forgotten it was there. “He gave it to me.”

“And you accepted it?”

“I didn’t accept or not accept.” She was on her feet now. “He put the thing on me and I was too surprised to react. I can’t just throw it away but I’ll send it back.”

“W.W.?”

“It’s his motto or something.” Her eyes avoided his.

“Is it?”

She didn’t answer.

“What else? There’s more, isn’t there?”

“I had to run away from him.”

Muscles in his back hardened. He shrugged his shoulders and waited.

“He asked me to marry him.” She looked horrified. “He had this extraordinary ring and the wedding bands and everything. He wanted me to marry him right away and, when I said I couldn’t, he kind of went a bit crazy.”

Sykes’s heart beat faster. He visualized Ward’s face and came close to sending an unpleasant message in the man’s direction. The last time he had sent a dart into someone’s face at a distance, he had been a teenager dealing with a bully. He was too mature for games like that now.

“Did he put a hand on you?”

“No. I ran away.”

Sykes boiled. “Does that mean he would have done something to you if you hadn’t run away? And how come he didn’t catch you—he’s got to be faster.”

“I made it to the house and locked him outside in the garden. Then I got away.”

“You went to his house alone. My God, Poppy, what were you thinking?”

“I still thought I owed him a break. He had never been anything but nice to me. Sykes, there’s something about him I don’t understand.”

“Big surprise.”

“Please go with me on this. He’s not used to being turned down. But I saw something. In his brain waves.
I’ve been thinking about it ever since and I think I know what it was. He could be mad, Sykes, as in crazy. Just for an instant, he wasn’t—he wasn’t in any control of himself.”

He held her face and brought his own very close. “I don’t own you, but will you promise never to go to him again? And don’t think he won’t keep trying to see you. I know a persistent man when I see him.”

The doorbell buzzed and Poppy went to look through the peephole, happy for the reprieve. She threw open the door. “Gray and Marley. Wow, you’re the last people I expected to see, and the people I’m happiest to see. Come on in, please.”

Gray ushered Marley in front of him and she promptly sat down on the nearest chair. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired. Boy, I thought Pascal was never going to wind down today.”

“Yeah,” Sykes said.

“Can I leave Marley with you?” Gray said.

“Oh, Gray,” Marley said, looking embarrassed.

He rubbed her shoulder. “Pascal and Anthony went out and Nat called me in. I don’t want Marley alone, not now.”

Sykes stared at Gray. “
Now?
What is there about now?”

“Nat will tell you all about it,” Gray said. “Let me get going.”

“What do you know?” Sykes said. He automatically requested to enter Gray’s mind but got a
muddled reaction. Gray was still a neophyte with his psi skills.

“You need to tell them,” Marley said. “And stay calm, Gray. I’m just fine and all of this will work out.”

“I should let Nat decide who knows or doesn’t,” Gray said. “Okay. Ward Bienville’s been arrested again and he isn’t likely to get out in a hurry this time.”

Sykes watched Poppy’s reaction. She took a step toward Gray, stopped and wound her hands together. “Why? I saw him this afternoon,” she said. “He wasn’t happy, but there was nothing wrong. You’ve seen that tape. You saw the man who killed Sonia. Have you found him yet?”

Gray hesitated, looking at Sykes. “Maybe. Look, take care of Marley for me. I’ve got to get going.”

“Finish what you started to tell me,” Poppy said. “Why has Ward been arrested?”

Gray looked uncomfortable.

“Tell me,” she said. “Please.”

“He’s staying in a house next to his primary home,” Gray said. He rubbed his face and looked tired.

“He owns three properties in a row there,” Poppy said distractedly.

“Well, he’s running out of places to live, at least on St. Louis Street. That or he’d better stop waking up to find dead bodies in his house.”

Poppy paled.

From the way Marley kept her eyes on her hands, Poppy could tell she already knew all of this.

“A woman’s body was found in Bienville’s conservatory. They think she was drowned—that would be after she was horribly beaten.

“Bienville says he was upstairs sleeping. Sound familiar? He reckoned he was tired from traveling.”

“He has been traveling,” Poppy said, but her voice broke. “Did they pick up anything on the cameras?”

“There aren’t any in that house,” Gray said.

“This is horrible,” Poppy said. “Who is the woman?”

“Tentative identification suggests she was Ilsa Semmers. She worked as a dominatrix.”