Graveyard Bay Page 12

  “I’ve been tapping into their emails.”

  “They aren’t encrypting them?”

  John took a sip of his scotch. “If they’re seriously going legit, they’re not worried about someone looking over their shoulder.”

  I wasn’t convinced the Tolbonovs would ever go straight. “Is it possible that’s what they want you to think?”

  John answered. “It’s possible. But I’m also seeing an increase in Aryan Brotherhood activity. They’re filling the void that the Russians are leaving behind.”

  “Do you think the Tolbonovs already know that Finn has the notebook?”

  Nathaniel popped a forkful of fish into his mouth, chewed quickly, and swallowed. “Bad news travels fast, Genie.”

  I was gripped by an immediate attack of fear. “Is Betsy Caviness safe?”

  Shana looked serious. “I hope so. I hope the Tolbonovs understand that it wasn’t her fault that the notebook fell into Finn’s hands.”

  Then I realized that I might be their target. “How about me?”

  John reached over and put his hand on mine. I liked the feel of his skin on mine. He said, “With your permission, I’d like to be your insurance policy.”

  “What’s that mean?” The feel of his warm hand was soothing.

  “For the next week or two, I’m going to be your personal bodyguard.”

  Nathaniel frowned at John. “And the project you’re working on for me?”

  John grinned at him. “I’ll have my laptop and my phone with me. Have I ever let you down?”

  Nathaniel focused on me. “There’s a very large corporation that, for tonight, will remain nameless. They want to hire a well-known businessman for their CEO, but there have been rumors that he might have a history of sexual impropriety. They’d like us to find out one way or another if those rumors are true.”

  I took another sip of wine. “Is that what Lodestar is all about? Finding out if old rich guys are groping the help?”

  He didn’t appear to take offense. “It’s about saving this company millions of dollars in potential litigation as well as saving its employees pain and humiliation. And that’s not all that we do, Genie. We don’t just do work for corporations, governments, and political parties. We do plenty of pro bono work.” He pointed a fork toward Shana. “Such as the Friends of Lydia.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Nathaniel.”

  He continued, now singling out John. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll not worry about the project if you persuade Genie to come work for me.”

  My heart began to race.

  Did I just get a job offer?

  I stammered. “I’m sorry? What did you say?”

  He grinned. “Come work for me, Geneva Chase. It’ll be the best move you’ll ever make.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible. I’m sure you’ll want to give your ungrateful new employers some time to replace you. Although replacing you will be next to impossible. How about for the sake of propriety, we give Galley Media three weeks? Is it a deal?”

  Wow, moving fast.

  “Why, yes. Three weeks sounds right.”

  Slow it down, Genie.

  I added, “I’d like to talk with my ward before I give my notice. I’ll be talking with her tonight.”

  He sat back in his chair and held up his wineglass. “Of course. Welcome to Lodestar Analytics.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  After dinner and a small portion of the sinfully delicious cheesecake, John and Nathaniel left for their own apartments. “I’m your bodyguard tonight, Genie,” Shana had whispered. “Nobody will hurt you while you’re staying here at the Tower.”

  When she said it, her shoulder grazed mine.

  I suddenly felt a weird vibe. Once, when I was in college, I had a bedtime romp with another woman, more as a drunken experiment than a conscious lifestyle decision. It was fun, strange, and deliciously taboo all at the same time. Even so, it wasn’t something I’d considered doing again.

  But I just got a quiver of sexual adrenaline.

  I know that if I’d been a guy, I would be incredibly attracted to Shana Neese. She was a cocktail of poised sophistication, classic beauty, and raw power.

  I’d watched carefully through dinner as her manservant Gerald had efficiently served us plates of food and kept our glasses filled with wine. As soon as we were done with one course, he’d whisk the dishes off the table and disappear into the kitchen, only to reappear with another course.

  I’d wondered about him.

  Is he eating dinner by himself in the kitchen?

  After the boys left, Shana and I sat in the overstuffed chairs in front of the fire, sipping white wine. It was so pleasant that if I’d been a cat, I would have been purring. “So tell me about Gerald. Is he live-in help? Does he do windows? Can you clone him for me?”

  She smiled slightly. “Gerald was a client of mine for years. He used to be an investment banker and a very successful one at that. Then about six months ago, he tossed it all and begged me for a position here at the Tower.”

  “Begged you?”

  “Literally on his knees. It was adorable.”

  I gazed at the crackling fire. “So you pay him. He’s not like a slave or something?”

  Shana laughed. “Oh, he’s exactly like a slave, although I do give him an allowance and time off for good behavior.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “And do you punish him for bad behavior?”

  “Bet your ass, I do.” She leaned forward. “Sometimes I punish him just because I feel like it. Are you ready to see what I do for a living?”

  I put my glass on the coaster on the end table next to my chair. “Please.”

  She stood up. “Bring your wine.”

  I smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Oh, yeah, she likes to be in charge.

  * * *

  Inside one of her dungeons, I couldn’t help but draw parallels and differences between where I stood and the chamber of horrors that belonged to Merlin Finn. His was dimly lit and dirty.

  This was well illuminated and spotless.

  Finn had an entire wall devoted to cutting instruments and drilling tools. His torture chamber featured a blowtorch.

  Shana had nothing like that. She did, however, have an enormous collection of S&M equipment.

  Finn had a drain in the center of the concrete floor.

  For a place for the body fluids and the blood to go.

  There was no such drain in Shana’s dungeon.

  Shana told me about the Tower. “We have nine different playrooms. Three of them are dungeons like this one. We have a cross-dressing room complete with wardrobe, wigs, shoes, stockings, maid uniforms, lingerie, outerwear, and, of course, a lot of cosmetics.” She smiled. “Does that shock you?”

  “The only contact I’ve ever had with this sort of thing was when someone had a fatal heart attack in the dungeon of a professional dominatrix in Boston about five years ago. Up until then, I had no clue that cross-dressing might be part of your world.”

  She nodded. “We also have two medical rooms for clients with nurse or doctor fetishes. We have one school room and one prison room. Each space has a bathroom with a floor large enough for a submissive to lie down on just in case that’s part of the scene.”

  What?

  Shana continued, “After a session, a client can wash up in a thermostatic jet shower with six multifaceted jet nozzles. The bathrooms are stocked with all the amenities like mouthwash, sterilized combs, prepasted toothbrushes, hand sanitizer, and extra towels. All the playrooms have a fully stocked mini fridge with sodas and water. There is no alcohol allowed in the Tower.”

  I glanced down at the wine in my hand. “Except after hours?”

  She took a sip of hers. “Exactly, but then again, I’m the bo
ss. I have a dozen women who work for me and two men who act as dominants, if that’s what’s required.”

  “How much do you charge?”

  “Five hundred dollars an hour. But as you can see, we have absolutely everything.” She gestured toward the padded leather furniture and BDSM appliances hanging on the walls. “We have bondage tables, spanking horses, vertical bondage racks, cages, floggers, whips, canes, paddles, shackles, spreader bars, blindfolds, gags, nipple clamps, electro, and hoods.”

  I stopped her. “Hoods, tell me about hoods. Merlin Finn was wearing one the night he killed the judge and Abby Tillis.”

  “They can be worn by either the submissive or the dominant or both. When it’s worn by the dominant, it’s reminiscent of the torturers during the Inquisition. If Finn wore one, he did it to terrorize his victims.”

  Scared the hell out of me.

  “How well did you know Abby Tillis? John told me she was his ex-wife. He didn’t say anything more than that.”

  Her eyes gazed at something on the wall as if visualizing her face. “Abby and John met while they were on the NYPD together. When she quit, she went on to create her own private investigation company. When John left the force, he went to work for Lodestar. They’re both Friends of Lydia. Or Abby was when she was alive.”

  “How long were they married?” It was a question I liked using rather than the obvious one about why they split up.

  “Seven years.” She frowned. “She must have gotten the seven-year itch, because she met someone else. It broke John’s heart.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I like John.”

  She glanced at me, trying to discern just what I felt about John Stillwater. Shana smiled. “They were able to put it all behind them and occasionally worked on projects together for the Friends. Abby was a big believer in the cause.”

  “The man Abby left John for, did it work out for her?”

  Shana slowly shook her head. “No, and privately, she told me that she knew she’d made a mistake with John. She wished she could go back in time and make it right.”

  “John wasn’t interested in reconciling?”

  “He’d already moved on.”

  “Is he married? He doesn’t wear a ring.”

  Her grin grew, and she cocked her head as she studied me. “He is currently unburdened with a partner. As far as I know. But he doesn’t tell me everything.”

  “So tell me about what Abby was doing in Connecticut.”

  Shana sipped her wine. “We had high hopes for Judge Niles Preston. We’d always suspected that he was on the Wolfline payroll. Getting him to flip on the Tolbonovs would have been huge.”

  I said, “When I talked with Eva Preston, the judge’s wife, she told me she suspected that the judge was going out that night to meet his lover. She thought her husband was having an affair. John said that Eva Preston was lying.”

  Shana shook her head angrily. “The deal was that Preston and his wife would meet up with Abby and she’d escort them to Hartford. They’d vanish off the face of the earth, live happily ever after with different identities.”

  “Eva Preston flipped on her husband?”

  “Somehow, Merlin Finn got to her. I don’t know how. But she betrayed her husband.” She was silent for a moment, then continued in a bitter voice. “She killed him, and she killed an associate of the Friends, someone I liked very much.”

  Did she and Abby have a relationship?

  I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed silent.

  Her next statement was no more than a bitter whisper. “Abby was in the wrong place at the wrong fucking time.”

  “Eva Preston is a looker. How did she end up with the judge? Granted, he wasn’t bad looking, and he had some money, but let’s face it, he was old.” I already knew this story but wanted to hear it from her.

  Shana looked at me like I was an idiot. “She was payment for services rendered. Before she married the judge, she was working the hotel and convention circuit for the Wolfline crew.”

  “A hooker? Not a model?”

  “She did some modeling, mostly for a swimsuit line. But her real money came from the Russians.”

  “So you’re telling me the Tolbonovs gave Eva to Preston?”

  “To them, humans are something to be owned, nothing more than property.”

  A horrible realization washed over me as I stood in that dungeon. “You don’t think that she got cold feet about going to Hartford and she told the Tolbonovs about what the judge was up to? Then they handed it all off to Merlin Finn?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “It’s crossed my mind. The judge was a loose end that needed to be tied up. By handing him to Finn, they could have it taken care of without dirtying their own hands.”

  I shook my head. “Eva Preston had me completely convinced that she was heartbroken with grief. She had me completely convinced that she was totally in love with her husband.”

  She frowned. “She’s had a lot of practice at pretending.”

  I drained my wineglass. “Any thoughts on how Finn broke out of prison?”

  Shana shrugged. “There was an investigation that concluded the Brotherhood somehow managed to get him the tools he needed. He had help, that’s obvious. We don’t know for sure who that was. Not yet.”

  * * *

  When we got back to Shana’s apartment, Gerald was waiting patiently, standing next to the kitchen door, ready for any command that Shana might utter. He was striking in appearance, with his military bearing, wide shoulders, and trim waist. He wore black slacks and a black, long-sleeved shirt, buttoned at the wrist. He stood at parade rest, eyes ahead, hands behind his back.

  We sat down in front of the fire again, and I’d had enough wine and was relaxed enough to ask a sex question or two. I leaned over and whispered into Shana’s ear. “What does Gerald get out of this relationship?”

  “You don’t have to whisper, Genie. Feel free to say or ask anything you like. Gerald doesn’t mind, do you?” She’d turned toward him.

  His face was expressionless. “No, ma’am.”

  Shana tapped her chin with her finger in contemplation. “So, Gerald, what do you get out of our relationship?”

  Clearly flustered, his face colored scarlet. He wrestled with a tiny smile until it turned into a full-on grin. His eyes turned to me. “I’m not sure I can explain it, Miss Chase. I guess the closest way to describe it is that I have a need, and the only way to fulfill that need is to be Miss Shana’s submissive. Serving her brings me great joy.”

  I cocked my head and studied his face. He was pretty in a manly way. “Have you always been a submissive?”

  He thought for a moment. “I think I have. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt the need to submit to women somehow. I’ve felt the need to do anything and everything to please them.”

  I wanted to ask what kind of relationship he had with his mother but resisted. Instead, I turned to Shana. “If you ever decide you don’t want him anymore, I’ll take him. Are all your clients like Gerald?”

  “To one degree or another. Trying to explain why one person is submissive and another is dominant is exhausting. It’s how some people are wired. I’m just happy it is what it is.”

  Self-destructive.

  I’m not sure why that word popped into my head right at that time, but it did.

  Is that how I’m wired?

  Alcoholic? Married three times? Making bad life decisions?

  Dear God, I’m raising a fifteen-year-old daughter now. I need to get my life on track. Taking the job with Lodestar certainly seemed to me to be the right direction to take.

  I glanced at my watch.

  I’ve still got to call Caroline.

  Shana continued. “I didn’t even know I was a dominant until I was in my early twenties and I was sitting in a restaurant with a boy I was seeing at the
time. Seated at a table next to us was a middle-aged couple. I listened in on their conversation. The woman spent the evening telling the man what to do. Pour her more water, order another glass of wine, telling him what he was going to have for dinner. Then when I heard her clearly say that once they got home, she was going to punish him, that’s when I felt it kick in. I wanted to be her, the one with the power. Always be the one in control.”

  Her eyes were gleaming as she gazed at Gerald. “I dumped the boyfriend, moved to New York, and got my first job with a pro domme until I learned the ropes.”

  I smiled. “So to speak.”

  “Pun intended. The rest is history.”

  “And your work with the Friends of Lydia?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Part of that is to honor my sister, of course. But part of it is that it’s empowering, almost as much as what I do here at the Tower. Something you should know about me, Genie…” She gave me an appraising look. “I don’t do anything unless I enjoy it.”

  Whoa, there’s that sexual tension again.

  * * *

  Gerald had already deposited my overnight bag in the small guest room that was nearly overwhelmed by a queen-size four-poster bed that, knowing Shana, would have been perfect for tying someone to. It was covered with a thick, down comforter that had already been pulled down for me. Clean towels and a fluffy bathrobe were neatly folded at the foot of the bed.

  I squeezed by the bed and gazed out my window onto Sixth Avenue four stories below. I missed living in New York. The lights, the skyscrapers, the constant movement twenty-four hours a day—it was hard not to be swept away by the thrumming energy.

  I unpacked my toothbrush and cosmetics and put them in the guest bathroom, studying myself in the mirror. I didn’t look as spooked as I did that afternoon at my own house when I’d discovered that Merlin Finn had violated my house, my space, and my panty drawer.

  I’m going to make you model these for me.

  Stomach queasy with the thought, I reached for the bottle of vodka in my overnight bag. Then I checked the time. It was ten o’clock there in New York, making it eight in Aspen.

  You’ve already got a little buzz on from the wine. Call Caroline before you have any Absolut.