Untied Read online

  “I walked in and the room was dark, which was odd. I flipped on the light, and I noticed a strange smell in the air. When I walked farther in—” She choked on the sob and the bile, and put a hand over her mouth to keep from throwing up her guts. It took a moment and Killian’s gentle hand on her back to collect herself and start again. “I walked farther in, and all I saw was blood. There was blood splattered everywhere, and Everett was lying in the middle of it. He was naked, and I swear I thought I saw him move, so I ran over and grabbed him, thinking I could still save him. I was screaming and screaming. As soon as I touched him, I knew I was too late. He was cool to the touch, and I was covered in his blood, screaming. Someone murdered him. They murdered him…”

  The full force of her sobs hit her again, and she covered her face, trying not to let the ugly cry out. She sobbed so hard she was having trouble breathing. “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him! Why would someone do this to him? Why?”

  “Doctor Wainwright,” Killian began. “When have you scheduled the autopsy?”

  “Noon,” Paul answered. “I’ll have to leave in a few minutes.”

  “What’s the evidence here?” Morgan asked. “What did they book Cece on?”

  “She was there, covered in his blood, screaming that he couldn’t be dead,” Garabaldi answered. “There’s also the matter of the four hours before, which now makes sense if she had an appointment.”

  “What was the time of death?” Emmy asked.

  “Approximately six-fifteen.”

  “There! See! I couldn’t have killed him!” Cece yelped. “They have no evidence. I walked into that room at quarter after nine and not a moment before! I swear. I would never kill him. I would never kill anyone!”

  “The circumstances are suspicious,” Garabaldi stated. Every head turned to him, whipping around in anger. “I’m not saying she did it! I’m saying that it’s suspicious, and they are going to use that against her. Coupled with the so-called deviant lifestyle, they’ll take this as homicide two.”

  “I didn’t kill him!”

  He folded his arms. “I believe you.”

  Cece stared at Garabaldi. “You do? The fact that I was fucking some other guy just hours before I was supposed to have a liaison with Everett doesn’t put me in the sick, pervert category?”

  “Not at all.” Garabaldi folded his arms. “I’ve been around you Club-types too long to believe the hype. I know you’re just as human as anyone else, if not more compassionate and understanding than the average bear.”

  Morgan held up her hand. “Okay, so we know where you were when Everett was killed. Franz, do you have this guy’s real name?”

  Franz cleared his throat. “No. I don’t.”

  Garabaldi slowly turned his head to stare at him. “What?”

  “Well, he paid cash. He had all the ID in John Smith’s name. He and Dust—Cece had a verbal agreement beforehand, and no one had any problems with that arrangement. It’s the measure of trust that the lifestyle provides.”

  Garabaldi’s face was blank. “You don’t know his real name?”

  Franz shook his head, and Garabaldi turned to look at Cece. She shook her head as well.

  “That’s going to be a huge problem. Do you have an address? You said he texted you?”

  “A burner phone,” Cece said. “Because of his desire for privacy.”

  Morgan took a deep breath and shook her head. “Damn it, Franz. We’re in seriously deep shit if they find anything that can hang Cece.”

  Emmy cleared her throat. “The policy is already being changed. He and I spoke about that after an incident involving Vanity two weeks ago.”

  “That does not help us now.”

  “I realize that.” Emmy’s voice was neutral. “We’ll figure it out. I’m confident that they won’t find any evidence against Cece on the body.”

  “There’s one other matter we have to be aware of,” Killian said. “Paul is the coroner. He’s engaged to Cece. There’s a good chance that he may be dismissed from the case.”

  “I’m the city medical examiner.” Paul folded his arms. “It would take an act of God to get me dismissed from any case.”

  Cece looked up at him. “We could call it off.”

  “Because no one is going to suspect you when Paul calls it off,” Emmy said. “Realize it doesn’t matter who it comes from, if you call it off, it’s as good as a conviction. Paul does have that kind of power. Believe me.”

  Paul agreed. “Calling it off isn’t going to happen right now. Honestly, eventually, it will, whether it’s called off or a divorce. But, and I’m cautioning you from a place of understanding”—his finger wagged between Killian and Cece—“be careful that no one sees you two together. No one.”

  Morgan chimed in, “I’ll say it again.” She pointed at Killian and Cece as well. “No one. Nothing. No touching, no kissing, no ogling, no longing stares. Nuh.thing.”

  “Are we that obvious?” Cece was mortified.

  “Only when Killian grabbed you when you walked in and started chewing on your face,” Morgan said. “We can agree that’s a bad idea?”

  Cece nodded and turned to Garabaldi once more. “Hannah?”

  “We have an APB out on her,” he said. “We were able to push her to missing because of her medical condition and what happens when she doesn’t have the medicine.”

  Emmy looked at her sharply. “What’s wrong with your sister?”

  “She has myasthenia gravis,” Cece answered. “She has to be on medicine or she can stop breathing at any time.”

  Morgan’s eyes popped. “And she’s missing?”

  “Yes.” Cece felt her eyes welling with tears. “Please find her, Detective. Please?”

  He nodded and flipped his notebook closed. “We’re doing everything we can to find her. A few of her friends had seen her yesterday, so we’re hopeful this is just a random moment in time where she doesn’t realize she needs to be seen.”

  “Please. This whole thing, everything you see here, is because I need to protect her from my family. They don’t care about her; they care about what money she can marry into. I need to know she’s safe.”

  Garabaldi nodded. “We’re doing what we can.” He looked at Paul and Franz. “Get her home safe. Doctor McInnis, stay the hell away. I’m going to go find your sister.” He turned to Paul one more. “Back door. Take them all out the back door. You don’t want to see the mess out front with the media.” He was out the door in the next moment.

  Cece was terrified. “Oh, God…” She looked at Emmy and Nathaniel. “The media?”

  Emmy nodded. “Everett was on the board at the WPGH. There’s not much we can do to stop them from coming after you.”

  Cece’s heart plunged into her stomach. Franz snorted. “They were already at the club last night when the news broke. You know I don’t take kindly to that shit, and I had a restraining order on all of them by two in the morning. There are too many people in there who don’t want to be exposed to let that cat out of the bag.” He knelt down next to Cece. “I have done my best to keep them away from your house, but they are going to come after you at your place. You just have to make sure you don’t let them see you, don’t talk to them. Most of the reporters understand that no means no. There won’t be many paparazzi because Everett’s family and Saundra’s family will pay them off to go away. But you are going to have to face this. Eventually.”

  Cece sobbed into her hands. “I’m going to lose my job, aren’t I? Hannah’s missing. My mother has denied me, and now this…”

  “Stop it.” Emmy sat down on the table in front of her. “Stop it. I made it through this. You’re going to make it through this. Franz and I will make sure of that.”

  “You believe me, right?” Cece looked at the people remaining in the room. “You believe that I didn’t kill him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  It was impossible to tell who said it first: Emmy, Killian, Franz, Morgan, Paul or Nathaniel.

  Cece
burst into sobs again.

  Chapter Two

  Killian ran a hand down his face as he paced in front of the bar. Darien had his tie unlaced and shirt unbuttoned, and had his ever-present scotch on the rocks next to him on the bar. It was, Killian noted, the first time he’d ever seen his friend ruffled, nearly as bad as he was.

  “Framed,” Darien said.

  “Framed,” Killian repeated. “I one hundred percent know she’s innocent.”

  “I believe her too,” Darien answered. “But who? Why?”

  Killian stopped pacing for a moment. “I can’t help thinking that this is somehow related to my father.”

  “Why do think that?”

  Killian leaned against the wall. “It’s the scene. The pictures Paul showed me, compared to the ones I had seen for my father’s. The scenes are messy, spattered with blood. They’re disheveled and almost hasty looking, but at the same time the evidence shows that they suffered for a while.” He ran a hand down his face. “I don’t want to think about this. Everett didn’t deserve this. My father didn’t deserve it.”

  “Are we sure this was an act against Everett?”

  Killian wrinkled his brow. “What?”

  “How do we know this wasn’t an action against Cece?” Darien gestured aimlessly. “I can’t be one hundred percent convinced that just because most of Pittsburgh didn’t know she was Domme, there wasn’t one person who knew and wanted to shame her. I mean, Saundra is a vindictive bitch.”

  “Enough to kill her soon to be ex-husband who wasn’t really a terrible guy, just too kinky for her?” Killian leveled his gaze at Darien. “I can’t believe that Saundra is horrible enough to deprive her daughter of a father.”

  Darien picked up the glass and stared at the liquid inside. “Right. You’re right. I don’t like her, and clearly, neither did Everett. But to take away a father who clearly adored his daughter and never did a thing to make a person think otherwise…”

  “That poor girl,” Killian said.

  “One of the two very real victims here.” Darien sipped and made a face. “I’m so messed up about this whole thing; even my Laphroaig doesn’t taste good.”

  “You’re messed up?” Killian snorted.

  “You’re too close to see why this is bothering me, Kay,” Darien said. “Everett was always rumored to be a submissive into the lifestyle. No one knew that Cece was. Now, we have a submissive who has been murdered, and the finger is pointing squarely at the woman who was his Domme. She is being exposed to the nastiest media coverage of a lifestyle case that there is. I know you and Paul, and Franz and the crew at Imperial are trying to protect her. But the plain truth is, she’s now a known target. She’s kinky. She likes to tie men up and fuck them. And while that gets the both of us hard as stone, the rest of the world just doesn’t know what to do with that.”

  “Leave it alone.”

  “If only it were that simple.”

  Killian ran a hand down his face. “I know. I just…” He stared at the wall pensively. “Do you know how glorious it was to hold her and kiss her in front of her friends? Do you know what it felt like to show her unbridled love when she needed it? Even Paul wasn’t upset. Her fiancé wasn’t upset when I did that. Standing there with my arm around her chair, I felt like I could beat the world away and make her safe.”

  “Don’t you dare try to hide her from this,” Darien cautioned.

  “No, we have to face it straight on, of course.” Killian spun and slumped back against the wall. “I just wish it were me standing there with her instead of Paul and Franz.”

  “Love has turned you into a sap, Doctor.” Darien ran a thumb over the edge of his glass. “But I do understand. In my own way. You’re an alpha male, and you want to protect what’s yours. You want to protect what has agreed to your protection. It’s that simple. It’s also that complicated because now we see she’s a Domme, and that should be a fun power struggle between the two of you.”

  “That struggle goes all the way to sheets.” Killian smirked. “It’s a detail in my much larger picture, really. I want her. I will do what I have to do to keep her. She’s what I want.”

  “Then we have to figure out if this is someone who wanted Everett gone, who wants Cece destroyed, a random act of violence, or part of the serial spree that your father was a victim of.” Darien pressed a button on the phone. “Pet.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Send them in now please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Them?” Killian asked.

  Before Darien could answer, two very stoic men walked into the room, dressed to the nines in suits and ties. They weren’t quite government level suits because they still had personality to them, but Killian could clearly see they took their jobs seriously.

  “I’ve borrowed these gentlemen from Dorn,” Darien explained. “Bradley Albright and Tracey Dunham, employees at Club Imperial and private detectives. Also, both participants of the lifestyle, so they know how to handle this situation with kid gloves. Gentlemen, Doctor Killian McInnis, object of Cece’s actual affections.”

  Handshakes were exchanged, and they all settled into positions around the study where Killian and Darien had been chatting.

  “We’re going to be working with Dr. Wainwright on this,” Albright stated, opening the discussion. “He also asked for our help as dedicated investigators on behalf of his fiancée. So we’re grouping all of you together as one big happy family that wants to get to the bottom of all of this.”

  Dunham spoke, “We are all of the opinion, knowing Frances and her friends and family, that she is innocent. What we want to determine is how this is actually related to her and to Everett Millhouse. Whether this was done to frame her or just expose her or Everett as a part of the lifestyle.”

  “Darien and I are of the opinion that while Saundra didn’t particularly enjoy the company of her soon-to-be-ex, she wasn’t the type to have him murdered.”

  Dunham and Albright exchanged glances, and Albright spoke, “We know that to be the case. After Saundra had been given the news, she broke down. She handed Imogene over to her former in-laws so she could deal with everything.”

  “I was there to facilitate everything with her,” Dunham said. “She was a mess, screaming and hysterical about her daughter and how she didn’t hate him, she just couldn’t stand that he was freaky in bed. She didn’t want to keep the girl away from her other grandparents anymore. And I have to say, the Millhouses were the portrait of gracious calm as they got the news that their oldest son was found dead.”

  “That poor little girl,” Killian said.

  “You realize that if these are all part of the serial killings, we’ve found another common thread. A child left behind that would suffer from the loss of a parent.” Darien looked at him pointedly.

  “But it’s not all of them.”

  “Every pattern has a glitch.”

  “Serial killings?” Dunham sat forward. “What is this?”

  Killian drooped a little where he stood. “There has been a series of high society murders in the past four years that follow a pattern. Of sorts. These last two have been—”

  “Last two?” Albright asked.

  “Well, what we think are the last two,” Darien corrected him. “Everett and Dina Argerolous. She was found strangled, her hyoid bone cracked.”

  Dunham and Albright looked at each other, and there was clearly something that passed between them. “We’re going to need the names of any other victims you might have. There’s a chance that there was an attempted murder that follows the pattern, loosely,” Albright said. “How did we find out about this? Most serial murders are kept under wraps.”

  “My father was one of the victims,” Killian said.

  “Oh. My.” Dunham sat back. “I knew your father was killed…”

  Killian swallowed hard. “The details have always been kept quiet because the case is still open, but if you’re going to be helping us, I think that you should know. He and his m
istress-slash-fiancée were shot to death in a hotel room… The shotgun was shoved up his rectum, and Patricia died with him because she was tied to him. Actually physically tied.” Killian reached in his back pocket. “Paul gave me this after we talked about everything that went on. I know that I’m not supposed to have it, so you all need to pretend you never saw this.”

  Unfolding it, he placed it on the table. It was an unpleasant color photo with red throughout. He didn’t want to look at it, but it was important the others see it. Dunham, Albright, and Darien leaned forward to see what he had.

  The photo was of Everett’s murder scene. There was blood everywhere; up the walls, onto the ceiling. Spatters on everything. But on the corner of the ceiling and the wall, there seemed to be letters.

  “Shit,” Dunham said and traced the letters on the picture. “Sinner sodomite cheater.”

  “In blood.” Albright made a face.

  “The same words that were found at my father’s murder scene.”

  They all turned and looked at him, and Darien spoke, “They shot your father in the rectum, killed his girlfriend at the same time, and splattered those words on the ceiling.”

  Killian nodded. “They are fucked up.”

  “We have to talk to people,” Durham said, standing up. “This is bigger than I even thought it could be.”

  Chapter Three

  Cece hadn’t slept in a week.

  All of the blinds in her house were drawn tight to keep reporters and paparazzi out. She could barely leave her house. She had to push through the reporters at work.

  She’d had to clean out the drawers of all of her kink supplies. She’d cried the entire time just thinking about Everett and how he would never find the perfect Domme—perfect woman for him. He would never have the chance to explore his true kinks.

  Cece had sat on the floor, weeping for over an hour with the box toys in front of her, tightly lidded. She just couldn’t get the tears under control—her friend, her bedroom partner, someone she loved had been brutally murdered. She’d never sit at the breakfast table with him and have chorizo and eggs again. She’d never book another room with him, or fall asleep next to him sated and happy. She’d never text him again, never have to check out what color tie he had on, never speak to him again.