Chapter Ten
One Year Later
The night began much the same as many other nights as a homicide detective. They'd recently closed a case, and Alexis' day had been a mind numbing montage of paperwork and coffee refills, her eyes burning from starting at her screen and her neck aching from poor posture.
She'd hurried home and showered, ate a quick dinner of cereal, and went to bed early. From there, she tossed and turned in her bed, unable to get comfortable. Restlessness pulsed in her bloodstream; she could have used more time at the sparring gym that morning. Maybe she should have gone after work. It could have helped tire her out.
It had been one year since the breakup, since Kevin disappeared off her radar. And Alexis was doing just fine. Her case-closure rate had skyrocketed in the last twelve months, due in no small part to the sheer amount of time she spent working.
The number of visits to the afterhours clinic had increased as well, but Alexis didn't mind a few sprains and bruises. They were the natural result of her nighttime hobby—hours spent prowling for information on her suspects, working her cases alone while tiptoeing down the line that separated lawful investigating and vigilante justice.
As long as she had a case, she didn't mind anything at all. Her career had never been better, she'd never been more physically fit, and if her routine was a bit obsessive, it at least helped make her city a safer place. Yes, Alexis was doing just fine.
She rolled over again, her mind overwrought. Desperate for something to occupy it and coming up empty. Maybe some tea would help her sleep.
She padded out to her small kitchen, pulling out a box of chamomile tea and a mostly empty bottle of whiskey. As she set the kettle to boil, her phone rang from inside her bedroom. Alexis almost tripped over herself in her haste to answer.
"This is Detective Castle." Almost instantly a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I'll be right there." Alexis wasted no time changing and pulling her damp hair back into a tight braid. The world settled back into equilibrium.
She had a new case.
Thirty minutes later, Alexis met Javi just outside the scene. He led her behind a row of buildings to a dimly lit alley. The body of a young woman was stretched out on the concrete. The girl's short skirt and corset top were torn and askew, her tights were shredded, and a thick iron choker cut into her neck. The cause of death was clear: she'd been asphyxiated.
Alexis kneeled next to the body, melancholy slipping through her mind. She stroked a strand of the girl's long blonde hair away from her face, then lifted her hair to see a small padlock keeping the collar secured shut. "Any ID?"
"Not yet. Unis are canvassing the nearby clubs to see if anyone knows her."
"Time of death?" She asked Lanie, who was working on the other side of the body, holding up the dead girl's hand. Her fingernails were chipped, torn and bloody. Likely from trying to pull at the collar.
"A few hours ago. I can tell you more once we get her back to the lab." Lanie turned the corpse's hand over, revealing something scrawled in blue pen on the inside of the girl's wrist.
"Is that an address?" Javier asked from behind Alexis.
"Seems that way," the M.E. responded.
Alexis snapped a picture of the address on her phone, then looked back down at the girl's body. Guilt curdled her stomach even as that twisted feeling of euphoria slipped through her veins. She'd been glad to get a new case.
She shook her head. This wasn't her fault, but it was her injustice to correct. She had a new murderer to catch.
"Call me as soon as you find something." Alexis left Lanie to continue her work. She nudged Javier on the way back to her car. "I'll see you at the precinct."
Some hours later, Alexis found herself hunched in front of her computer once more, her eyes wide and bloodshot from the several hours of research she'd been conducting.
"How's it coming?" Javier asked, setting a fresh cup of coffee beside her. He looked over her shoulder at the computer screen and then did a double-take. "What the hell are you looking at?"
She sat back, allowing him full view of the screen, and the website she was clicking through. "Umbra."
"Am I supposed to know what that—"
"The letters on the vic's arm are an address. An address to this fetish club in the city: Umbra. This is their website." She let her eyes skim over the homepage, which advertised things like private and public play spaces, and featured images of scantily dressed men and women tied down for their leather-clad partner's amusement. Alexis' stomach flip-flopped at the sight. On the one hand, it was disturbing to see human bondage on display for entertainment after the body that had been found earlier. And on the other, Alexis' skin heated when she recalled the similar way Kevin had occasionally tied her down. She'd loved it.
"You think this club is connected to the murder? Her body wasn't found anywhere near it."
"Think about the cause of death. It can't be a coincidence. And it's a lead, if nothing else."
He nodded. "We'll go check it out. See if anyone there knows her."
Alexis hesitated. "You go. I'll stay here. Lanie and CSU should be reporting soon."
"You okay?"
"Tired," she confessed, then shook her head. "And this place," she tapped on the screen. "I don't know. It just freaks me out, I guess."
Javier smirked. "Don't knock it till you try it."
She suppressed her own response. She had tried it, sort of. Had loved it, too. And the thought of opening that box of memories was a little too much for her.
Javier nodded. "But yeah, that's fine."
"Thanks, Javi. Let me know if you find anything."
Speaking with their victims' loved ones was the worst part of the job. Alexis did her best to make sure they were well taken care of as she gently pressed them for answers, but it was still hard. More emotional Russian roulette than a delicate balance.
She sat across from a young woman name Nicole, the roommate of their most recent victim. Days had passed, reports from CSU had come in, Lanie had shared all the information she had to give, and a narrative was taking shape.
The girl they'd found a few nights prior was named Amelia Parry. She was twenty-four years old and worked as a lab technician at a blood bank. Her tox report was clean, she didn't seem to have any enemies, and when Alexis had spoken with her parents, they'd been beside themselves and at a loss for why their daughter had been brutally murdered. That part wasn't so surprising. Parents rarely saw their children objectively, and posthumous parenting tended to be summed up by grief and placing their dead children on pedestals. Unless the suspect was fairly obvious, parents were typically not much help.
Alexis hoped that Nicole could be a little more forthcoming.
"It was her new boyfriend," Nicole insisted through tears.
"New boyfriend?
"Yeah. She's been really into him for the last few weeks." Nicole dabbed at her eyes as her face twisted into a teary grimace. "I've had such a bad feeling about him, the way she's been acting lately—"
"What do you mean?" Alexis pressed. Amelia's parents and coworkers hadn't indicated any change in her behavior.
"The kind of things she's been reading, the things she said about this guy, the things he asked her to do. I-I borrowed her laptop a week ago to work on my thesis, and the websites she had up… it was like something out of Fifty Shades of Grey." Heat spread over the girl's cheeks. "We've been best friends for years. We live together, and I didn't know she was into any of that before she met this guy."
Alexis nodded, her mind spinning a million miles a minute. The lead to the club had been a bust, according to Javi. None of the staff recognized Amelia, and the club's surveillance footage didn't show her at all, either. The manager, Luis Salvadore, had promised to quickly notify the NYPD if he'd found anything, but neither Javi nor Alexis expected to hear from anyone there.
"What has she told you about this guy?"
Nicole blinked rapidly, then shook her head. "Not much. She's been pretty secretive about it, but she's mentioned that he's been showing her a whole new lifestyle, and that he's really opened her mind." Nicole frowned at this. "Before their dates, he'd call her and tell her what to wear. It was really strange."
"And did you ever learn his name? Did she show you a picture of him?"
Nicole shook her head sadly.
Alexis patted her hand. "This is helpful, Nicole. Thank you."
After seeing the young woman to the elevator, Alexis rejoined with Javier, who had been listening silently to the whole interview. "What do you think?" she asked him.
"Just confirms what we already suspected. I don't see it bearing fruit."
"I disagree." Despite the lack of evidence, Alexis' gut told her the club was tied into this girl's murder. At minimum, it was a lead they hadn't finished investigating. "We have the boyfriend—"
"Whose identity we have no way to determine."
"We have her phone records. We'll have Torie search her laptop. Maybe then you'll get your fruit." Alexis rubbed her face. "A young girl ends up murdered with some lethal version of a submissive's collar with the address of a fetish club on her arm and a new, mysterious dominant boyfriend who's showing her a new way of life. What are the odds all of that isn't connected?"
Javier's eyebrows rose. "Submissive collar, huh? That's some fancy lingo."
Alexis didn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her blush. "I've been researching. You know, to solve this case."
He sighed. "This isn't about odds, Alexis. We're not making bets. We're running a homicide investigation. We need proof. Hell, even a name would be fantastic at this point."
"Why does it feel like you're giving up on this?"
"I'm not," he assured her. "I just don't want to see you crashing and burning from all these giant leaps you're making."
"Occam's razor, Espo. The simplest conclusion is usually the correct one."
He smirked. "Simple doesn't exist in our line of work, Alexis. You know that. You wanna keep pushing with this kinky boyfriend angle, we're going to need proof."
She sighed. He was right, and she hated it. "I'll get proof." It was a promise to Javier, to herself, to Amelia.
"During work hours, right?"
She paused, keeping her face as neutral as she could, though a new tension was coiling between her shoulders. "Obviously."
"I'm not stupid, Alexis. I know how you've been boosting our closure rates. And I'm asking you to stop. I don't want to find out that you've been working this case after hours. Do you understand?"
"You won't."
"Because you won't be working off the books? Or because you'll just keep it a secret?"
"Whichever answer helps you sleep at night."
Javier swore. "Listen, I know things have been hard for you since the breakup, but—"
"It's not about that!" She took a breath, keeping her eyes locked on her partner's. "I close cases because I've been taught by great detectives. And last I checked, you weren't complaining when the mayor gave us a raise for our good work."
"Your work," he snapped. "And I'm gonna need that money to afford a therapist after things go sideways on you one night and you end up in a bodybag. So you can go ahead and chalk that up as a wash."
"I have work to do." She shoved past him and returned to her desk, taking several deep breaths to calm herself. When she opened her eyes, Javier was heading across the bullpen to the elevator, and Amelia's picture was still smiling up at her from her desk. Alexis stared at the photo for a moment longer, then set it aside.
She had a murderer to catch. How she caught him was irrelevant.
Kevin remembered with startling clarity the last time he'd seen Alexis Castle.
He recalled the pallor of her skin, the haunted look in her eyes, the heartbroken anger that churned in his stomach. It never got easier, not since he'd watched the door close on the Alexis Castle part of his life, and he knew, logically, that sooner or later he'd run into her again.
What he never expected was to see his ex-girlfriend fawning over a drug dealer in the middle of a fetish club.
Kevin had been making his rounds through the club, secure in his undercover role, when his eyes caught on a familiar redhead.
Alexis was perched next to the man, leaning so far over that she was practically in his lap, her ruby lips stretched in a saccharine smile. The man's eyes were glued to her chest, which seemed on the verge of falling out of her corset.
Nothing but his years of undercover work kept him standing in place, his face resembling something like nonchalance. His gut reaction was caught between wanting to cross the room and drag the redhead out of the club, or to hide in the back room until she left so his cover wouldn't be blown.
Why the hell was she here? Of all the people to stumble into his undercover op, why did it have to be her? Was she into kink now? Things had started moving into a more colorful side of vanilla—Alexis had called it vanilla with sprinkles—before they'd broken up. Had she developed a stronger taste for that kind of thing? It had been a year, after all. Who knew what kind of things or people she was into now.
Still, there were safer clubs than this one. And sure as shit there were safer men to hook up with than the one she was practically on top of. He watched as Alexis leaned forward and whispered something in the dealer's ear with a sly grin. A tiny tendril of envy twisted his stomach, and Kevin looked away. After a year, she still affected him.
With a concentrated effort, Kevin took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders. Cold calculation, one of his best undercover tools, started filling the gaps in his brain. She was an adult and, as far as he knew, she was single. On top of that, she was a brilliant detective with a formidable set of self-defense skills. She could look after herself. It was no longer his job to worry about her.
Plus, it was unlikely for her to recognize him. It was possible, of course, but unlikely. A year of distance had worn at her memories, and Kevin had gone to great length to look different for the job. His own sister, Gwen, hadn't recognized him when he'd tested the new look. Sure, there were similarities, but Alexis wouldn't expect to find him here in the first place. No, hiding wouldn't help. If anything, he needed to establish his cover and be confident in his persona.
The dealer's eyes locked with Kevin's, and they nodded a greeting at each other. The dealer wouldn't be too happy for Fenton to interrupt his scene, so he kept his distance. Alexis' eyes followed her partner's just briefly over to Kevin, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her do a double-take. Kevin was grateful for the dim lighting of the club, and pretended not to notice the redhead as he sauntered over to another member of the operation, a woman named Tessa who tended the bar in the club. She was dressed as a wicked dominatrix, all patent black leather and heavy makeup as she served drinks to their patrons and acted as the gatekeeper for those looking for something stronger than alcohol. Presently, she was pouring tequila into a shotglass, which she subtly downed a few moments later.
"Slow night?" Fenton asked, leaning against the bar. A few patrons were clustered in couples or small groups around the club, but it wasn't overly populated that evening.
"In more ways than one," she pouted.
Fenton fought back a smirk. "It's still early. Prince Charming could walk through that door any second."
"I'll believe it when I see it," she snorted. Fenton knew that while plenty of people, men especially, frequented the club, few of them were comfortable or naturally inclined to bottom. "Don't suppose you're feeling adventurous?"
"When I'm feeling that kind of adventurous, you'll be the first to know."
"Ah, well, can't blame a girl for trying." She took another shot. "Want some?"
He shook his head.
"You don't want a drink, you won't take a hit… I haven't even seen you play in forever. Have you forgotten how to have fun?"
Fenton shrugged, his gaze tracking the club and mentally noting that the dealer and Alexis were no longer in the lounge. His heart skipped a few beats, and he clenched and unclenched his fists. They were probably in a private room by now. The thought shook him more than he wanted it to. As far as he knew, that dealer wasn't unkind to those he scened with, but the idea of Alexis cavorting with that kind of man, a man who was in the business of wrecking lives, made Kevin's skin crawl. For a few moments, he considered checking the surveillance footage to make sure nothing untoward was happening, but he knew better. He had a job to do, Alexis or not, and he'd come too far and worked too damn hard over the last year to set it all aside now.
"Fine. I'll take that drink," Fenton said suddenly, shrugging again. Tessa grinned at him, and it was almost too easy to fall deeper into the act, to let that carefree smirk pull at his lips. The alcohol burned on the way down, but something about the act was soothing. This was who he was now. This was his role to play. He had a job to do, a kingpin to take down, and Fenton wouldn't let anything, not even some redhead from another life, stand in his way.
If Alexis was being honest with herself, she was getting a little tired of this song and dance.
The dom/suspect frowned down at her. "Do you want to use a safe word?"
Alexis shook her head. "I-I don't think so. I just…" her voice was just this side of sticky sweet with a carefully practiced hitch that made her sound extra vulnerable. "I mean… can we talk about it for a minute?"
Her suspect nodded, though she could tell he was confused. It was understandable, really. Not three minutes earlier she'd practically been purring in his lap. He sat down on the edge of the bench, next to her. "What are you worried about?"
Alexis chewed her lip, keeping her gaze low. Most of the doms she'd met reacted to the physical signs of submission, and putting on that act tended to get her more information than anything else. Much as she would have been more comfortable in a position of obvious control, a domme wasn't the kind of partner her suspects would be looking for. Thus, Alexis found herself spending several evenings dressed brazenly and manipulating power-hungry men into talking to her. "That you'll hurt me."
"You have a safe word. If you use it, I'll stop. I won't do anything you don't want me to." His words seemed as measured as her own mincing concerns, but unlike her pseudo-fears, she believed him. This man may associate with dealers and at least one murderer, but he seemed like a good, respectful dom, which meant he probably wasn't the murderer she'd been seeking.
Still, there was only one way to know for sure. The tip from Amelia's roommate had proven useful and with Torie's help, Alexis had gotten access to a private blog that Amelia had been using to chronicle her life and her relationship with her mystery boyfriend, who she only ever referred to with strangely reverent and masculine pronouns: He and Him.
Clearly, Amelia had planned to keep her private life private, but that hadn't stopped the young woman from describing their encounters in great detail. The reports had every hallmark of the erotic romance novels that Alexis pretended not to enjoy, but they were absent of useful information: no names, no physical descriptions of her boyfriend's appearance. The time stamps weren't particularly useful, either. Especially since nowhere in the blog entries did Amelia specifically mention a location. And though Alexis was certain it was no coincidence that Amelia's body had been found with the address to Umbra scribbled on it, that was hardly enough evidence to justify a warrant.
But there had been one detail that she could use: Amelia's boyfriend had a tattoo on his chest. And if the description in her blog was accurate, Alexis knew she was looking for a very specific design.
"Do you want to do this, or not?" The man asked, drawing her out of her thoughts. Alexis sized him up, trying to decide if he was the one who had hurt that girl.
She wrapped her arms around herself, then let her gaze drift back down to the floor, keeping her voice small. "What if we start and I change my mind?"
"That's what your safe word is for."
"You won't… I won't have to…."
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to." He looked tired of the mental gymnastics, but he remained polite. And unlike the a few of the other doms she'd "questioned," he didn't try to persuade her or touch her outside of their negotiated exchange.
She leaned closer, resting her hands on his chest, her fingers separated from his skin by a single layer of leather. "Can we just take it slow for a minute?" Her mouth was mere inches away from his own, and she batted her eyelashes at him, never quite making eye contact.
When his mouth pressed against hers, she knew he bought her submissive act, hook, line, and sinker.
She let the kiss grow more heated, counting seconds until an appropriate amount of time had passed for her to make her move.
She pushed the heavy leather vest over his shoulders, exposing his chest as the vest thumped to the floor. The dom didn't seem to mind. In fact, he took her wrists in his hands, and nibbled at her neck, murmuring that she was being a naughty girl.
Alexis' stomach sank when her eyes locked on his bare chest. No tattoo. He wasn't her guy. She'd have to do this all over again—again.
"I don't want to do this," she said softly, pushing at his chest. "I'm sorry."
The dom looked confused. "You don't?"
"No."
"You want to use your safe word?" He clarified.
She nodded. "Red."
"Cold feet?" His smile was humorless, and she couldn't really blame him for feeling cheated, not after how she'd thrown herself at him.
"I'm sorry for wasting your time."
His feet carried him to the door before he stopped. "You should be more careful, little sub. Not everyone is as respectful as me." The door closed quietly behind him, and Alexis let out a breath. Another suspect crossed off the list, another disgruntled dom, another night of ending up alone in a private room. Hopefully they didn't talk to each other. It would ruin her plans if she were to be flagged as some kind of tease.
Her eyes landed on the wall, which was lined with instruments for impact play. She shuddered, remembering the bruises on the corpse.
In all her encounters with strange men, she hadn't yet been on receiving end of those tools, for which she was grateful. Alexis hadn't felt an ounce of desire during her time in that club, despite its promise of all kinds of sins. No doms, and certainly no elaborate torture apparatuses, was enough to tempt her into sticking around for more than just work.
Alexis hadn't forgotten the last time she'd felt anything resembling lust, but the memory was too painful to conjure, so instead she took a deep breath, affected her posture into something submissive and delicate, and headed back to the lounge. The night wasn't over yet.
Alexis knocked another dom off her list that night. He had seemed disappointed, but got over it quickly—several minutes later, Alexis saw him in conversation with a pretty blonde sub. She'd watched the two of them for a little longer than was normal, noting the way the dom seemed to cage his body around the sub through the subtlest of gestures, and the way the woman's body softened to accommodate him.
The chemistry was palpable, and Alexis knew the jilted dom had managed to turn the night around. With a sigh, she decided to call it a night. She'd need to be at the precinct in just a few hours.
She felt a sudden tingling on the back of her neck. The feeling had followed her around like a phantom all night long. She glanced around, her eyes landing, once again, on nothing in particular. With a sigh, she headed to the changing rooms to get back into her street clothes.
Outside in the hallway, her corset, skirt, and stockings traded for dark jeans and a blue henley shirt, she stumbled upon a man and a woman speaking in low voices.
"Please, Mr. O'Connell, I'm out," the tired-looking sub said. "I just need—"
"To pay back what you owe from last time. You shouldn't even be here."
The girl scratched at her arms, looking devastated. From her hidden spot further down the hallway, Alexis noticed the scars trailing up the inside of each elbow. Dark red scabs glaring out against the girl's skin. Drugs. The girl was a user.
"Please, Mr. O'Connell," she whined, reaching for him. "I'll pay it all back, I just need a little more—"
"Come back with the money, and you can get your fix." The man's voice lilted in an accent Alexis couldn't quite place. A New York cadence mixed smoothly with something exotic.
"I'll bring the money… I just don't…" The girl dropped to her knees in front of him, reaching for his belt. "I can pay in other ways."
Alexis stepped back in shock, the heel of her boot scuffing loudly on the hardwood floor. The man and woman both turned to her then, and the image was frozen into her mind. The young, emaciated woman kneeling in front of the man, her hands on the front of his suit pants. The man had her wrists in a tight grip, and before he'd realized they were being watched, his face had been etched in disgust.
She recognized the man, of course. She'd seen him earlier that evening, and the striking similarities to her ex-boyfriend had momentarily knocked the wind out of her. It had taken no small amount of mental gymnastics to assure herself that it wasn't Kevin she'd seen. And now, standing mere feet away from the man, she was sure it wasn't him. There were similarities, certainly, but the man in front of her, this Mr. O'Connell, watched her with brown eyes, not blue, from behind thick-framed black glasses. Stubble hugged his mouth and jawline, and the expensive looking suit held thicker muscles and broader shoulders than Kevin had. His hair was closer to auburn than brown, grown a little longer and wild than Kevin liked. No, this man wasn't Kevin. He was dangerous, likely some sort of drug dealer, and right now his features were twisted into a snarl as he watched Alexis like she'd be his next meal.
"Excuse me," she said quietly, stepping back once before pivoting on her heel and walking at a brisk pace toward the exit.