Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Corvus…
She was out, and I sighed with relief. This would be much easier with her compliant. I called Requiem first.
“Yeah?” he answered, and he was out of breath.
I gave him the rundown.
“Jag is hers, she’s missing her shoes, and her keys. He had hold of them, playing with ‘em in one of the second-floor bedrooms when he ambushed her with a sucker punch to the gut.”
He muttered, “Son of a bitch.” I heard something hard hit something soft and could only assume he’d kicked the corpse.
“Said his name was Hal Lindstrom. He’s a foreign national. Eventually, they’re gonna come looking,” I said.
“Security system is a basic one,” Requiem replied. “Won’t take much to erase what’s here and make it look like a glitch in the system.”
“Nothing taken,” I told him. “This wasn’t a robbery. They come looking, I’m going to tell them they parted ways. He wanted to put in an offer on the house, and the next morning, she couldn’t get a hold of him. Just make the motherfucker disappear.”
“She trustworthy?” he demanded.
“I have her right where I want her,” I said, looking down at her, prone on my living room floor.
“Shit,” he muttered. “You fucking better. Syn’ll have your balls if you go rogue on this and it fouls up the club.”
“Requiem…” his name held a thread of warning.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said unhappily. “Make sure the canary doesn’t sing. Where you at? The Manse?”
“My place,” I said.
“Bring her Jag to the carriage house?”
“Yeah. Burn the shoes. I’ll take care of what she’s wearing. Find her place, and bring some clothes.”
“You don’t ask much,” he said.
“Divide and conquer. You have the dream team there.”
“Yeah, that I do,” he said. “See you by morning.”
“She’ll be out until at least then,” I said.
“TGIF,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.
“Friday doesn’t always mean a fucking thing in the world of real estate,” I reminded him.
“Guess you better check her calendar.”
“Guess I’d better.”
I hung up and checked her laptop, which was still open and conveniently logged into.
While her phone’s screen was indeed fucked, I texted her assistant, Fabian, from her phone link on the laptop and pretended to be her, saying the showing went well, and he bit.
I also told him I dropped my phone and would be offline until midday the next day, when I could get a new one.
It’d only taken scanning through their texts that afternoon to find her “voice” and Fabian, likely already into his cocktails on a Friday night, just told her goodnight and to not let the bedbugs bite.
Ridiculous.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” I murmured, looking down at her, thinking just the hunter and his prey.
I made sure she was in the recovery position, so that when I went back and forth to tend to things – namely, building a fire to dispose of our clothing- she would be safe in her unconscious state.
I fired up the fireplace and stripped her down, scowling at the dark shadowing under her skin, starting to ripen into a putrid hematoma where he’d sucker punched her.
I burned what she was wearing and spent an extraordinary amount of time untangling the decorative combs from her hair to set them aside.
I took off all her jewelry, including that gold vintage watch I never saw her without, noting the inscription under its face. Never Enough.
Curious.
She was beautiful, her form perfect. I appreciated that she was a woman down there, and didn’t shave herself to resemble a little girl’s pussy, or give herself a landing strip like some sort of porn star. I hated that shit.
It was awkward, picking her up, but there was a bath waiting upstairs. I wanted to make sure she was scrubbed free of makeup and get a look at her fresh-faced, as much as I wanted to destroy any potential evidence she bore from our newly minted crime scene.
She’d been right. It’d been self-defense, or defense of others, and no court in the country would convict. But I wasn’t about to waste time on all of that, nor was I itching to be under any kind of scrutiny by the pigs.
She stirred as I lowered her into the warm water, and I shushed her as she whimpered and fussed, trying to climb me like a kitten to avoid the bath.
She settled with some careful and quiet cajoling, and she was out of it to the point that I didn’t suspect she would remember.
But I was curious, so I tried to engage her in conversation to see if she could and would make sense.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
She muttered, “Warm, and tired.”
“Warm is good, tired isn’t bad either.”
“Have you killed many people before? Because I sure haven’t,” she mumbled.
“Yes,” I told her simply. “Having never been a party to murder before, I can understand how it might make you tired.”
I dipped a washcloth into the gently steaming water, soaked it, wrung it out, and covered my hand before working it into her face as though she were a toddler after a birthday party.
She sputtered and batted at my hands ineffectually. It was adorable, really.
“What are you doing?” she demanded sharply, and I chuckled.
“Getting you ready to sleep,” I told her.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to sit up before it seemed to dawn on her… “Did you get me naked?”
I laughed, and nodding, said, “I did.”
“I don’t want to be naked,” she said aghast, and I laughed again.
“You won’t be for long,” I promised her.
“What are you doing to me?” she demanded, struggling through her drug-addled confusion.
“Giving you a bath,” I said gently. I didn’t want her to get too riled up.
“I don’t know you,” she whispered, and twisted away, her face flaming. I thought to myself, GHB is supposed to lower inhibitions… and found that her reluctance, even under the influence, was both adorable and intriguing.
“You will,” I promised her. “This is only the beginning.”
She turned to me then, and asked, “What if I don’t want to know you, Corbett Prescott?”
“That’s a good question, Savannah Davenport,” I murmured.
“Kittridge,” she said, and sounded confused. “My name is Savannah Marie Kittridge.”
“Kittridge,” I repeated, rolling the sound of her name across my tongue. “I like that better than Davenport.”
She covered her face with her hands, and her voice, muffled from behind them, said, “Ohhh nooo, why did I tell you that? I wasn’t supposed to tell you that!”
“Your secret is safe with me, Savannah Kittridge. Now tip your head back for me.” It took my hand at the back of her head to get her to trust enough to lie back into it.
I held her up and dipped the pitcher I kept under the sink up here to rinse the deep cast-iron tub, into her bathwater, then gently poured it over her head, carefully slicking her hair back from her makeup-free face.
“There you go.” I worked some of my shampoo through her long locks, shifting so I could kneel between the end of the tub and the wall to work the lather through her hair.
She whimpered faintly, and I asked, “Too hard?”
“No, that’s nice,” she whispered, and I wondered if a man had ever washed her hair for her.
I asked, “Anyone ever take care of you like this?”
“Not since my mom, when I was little,” she confessed.
I thought to myself, that was a shame… and then thought, it was a shame she likely wouldn’t remember this at all.
I mean, she could, but GHB could be unpredictable in that arena.
I’d tried to tell her to take it slow. The bourbon I had laced was some expensive shit that was meant to be sipped, not downed like a shot.
You’ll just have to do it again, I thought. When she’s properly conquered.
I liked the idea of her loose and easy, pliable in my hands and bending to my will while I fucked her.
At this point, I had her trapped, for sure, but it would be awhile before I could break her. She didn’t seem to be the kind of woman to easily break. I wondered what it would take.
After witnessing how hard she’d fought her assailant, I was beginning to think there was more to her. Her confession that Davenport may be some sort of alias led me to believe there was a lot more there that I’d perhaps misjudged about her.
I wasn’t in a hurry to find all her secrets. I was curious now. Could I dig online and do some searches? Sure… but I’d rather she tell me. Running her to ground and capturing her, bending her will to mine sounded like so much more fun, didn’t it?
It did to me.
I had always been into a sort of primal sport with women in the past. I liked the thrill of the hunt. The chase. I’d yet to be satisfied into complacency by any of them. I doubted she would wind up being any different, but I could enjoy things while they lasted until I grew bored.
I helped her rinse, made sure that she was warm, and kept her compliant.
It was a trick getting her up out of the bath, but she did manage to stand on her own enough so I could dry her off and pull one of my shirts around her.
She slid her arms through, and I buttoned around three buttons in the middle to keep her remotely modest, before I led her to my bed.
I folded back the blankets while she leaned on me as though drunk, and she crawled into bed willingly for me, scooting to the edge and promptly passing right the fuck out.
I let her sleep, and showered myself, pulling on a pair of lounge pants in time to my phone vibrating off the edge of the black marble counter and into my sink. I picked it up and answered Requiem’s call.
“Jag drives nice, but open up, fucker.”
“Be right down,” I said, looking in on my guest and deciding she was out and secure for now. I padded down the stairs and went out through the kitchen, across the courtyard, and hit the switch through the arch of the carriage house.
While the garage door worked its way up, I pushed my bike through and out into the courtyard so he could squeeze her Jaguar in beside my Porsche.
He barely made it out and around to me as I leaned the bike onto its kickstand as the door wound shut, sealing us into my little compound.
“We got a problem,” he said, and held out the rectangle of her license to me.
I looked at it. It was a South Carolina license, and sure enough, it read Savannah Kittridge on it, but the address was clearly old.
“Where is this at?” I asked, tipping it toward Requiem.
“College dorm,” he said with a shrug.
“Shit’s that old?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a sniff.
“So, no clothes?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes and went back to the open door of the Jag and pulled out her purse, and a black paper bag from one of the designer boutiques around here.
“She’s taller than Mini-Syn, but she’s skinny as hell and damn near flat as a board where Mini-Syn is not, so they might be the same size… ish?”
“Madisyn for the win.” I sighed.
“Now for the big question on everybody’s mind…” he trailed off and gave me a flat look.
“She’ll keep her mouth shut,” I said.
“She’d better,” he said.
“She’s not stupid. She will,” I told him.
“She got a golden pussy?” he demanded.
“Don’t know yet.” I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest, the bag dangling from my fingertips.
“Fuckin’ A, Corvus. You’re not one to take risks,” he said and shoved her purse into my chest. I grabbed it to keep it from falling, and he dropped her keys in the top.
“New phone with all the tracking software is in the bag. You can activate it for her tomorrow,” he said.
“I’ve got this,” I told him, and tried to sound reassuring.
“Aliases, and old addresses… how we know she ain’t running?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I said. “But I do know her, sort of. I’ve been working across from her for over a year.” I shrugged. “I’ll find out.”
“Yeah, well, you better. This is way off the fucking reservation as far as you’re considered, and I, for one, don’t like it. Syn’s not worried – yet – but the big dawg is distracted these days.”
“Questioning Syn’s ability to lead?” I asked.
He scowled at me. “Fuck no! But after this? I’m starting to question yours. Don’t make me doubt you, bro.”
“When have I ever before?” I demanded.
“First time for everything,” he said.
“The foreigner?” I asked.
“Handled,” he shot back. He slid through my side gate and out onto the night-darkened street, whistling as he made his way down the block, turning to go back behind my carriage house on a brisk walk back toward the Manse.
I wasn’t one hundred percent that I was the one who shit in his Wheaties. Requiem always had several things to be irritated about at once – my little dust-up and slightly left-of-center behavior may just be a straw too many for his camel’s back.
Still, I would be sure to handle little miss thing in my bed, and then get back with him to touch base.
I was usually the dependable one to keep myself out of any drama, so yeah, tonight had been impulsive and out of character.
As I reentered my house and returned to my room, I couldn’t help but think that Little Miss Savannah Kittridge had gotten under my skin, and I hadn’t even noticed when it’d happened.