Slowly, I push it up to his neck. Then I wrap the stain length around my fingers and yank his mouth down to mine. His breath skitters across my lips, and I smile.
“Don’t fuck with me, Detective. I have lingerie on my side.”
He grabs my ass and tugs me against him. His cock is hard and straining against his pants, and I draw in a deep breath.
“You’re right,” he murmurs. “You do have lingerie on your side. But I have my cock on mine. You wanna play, then we’ll play.”
“Play what?” I tilt my head back, a smile teasing my lips. “We have to go to work. You have a darling woman to question and I have a staff meeting to attend. Looks like you’re gonna have to wait for me to cash in on that IOU.” I tap his nose and pick my bag up. Then I drop my heels to the floor in front of us and slide my feet in before walking to the door.
Shit.
I don’t have my car.
I peer back over my shoulder, and he’s grinning.
Dammit.
I dip my finger into the champagne frosting on top of the cupcake. Turns out both Bek and Dean went to Gigi’s and got a box of six cupcakes in light of yesterday’s news.
Telling them I’m working with HWPD again went down about as well as I suspected. I was met with stunned silence for a long moment, and then Bek cussed the mayor out. The only good thing that came out of my having to give a reason was that Mike vaguely remembered a case he’d worked on when he was in the FBI that had a connection with a satanic cult. He promised to put in a couple calls and see if he could get me the case files or, at the very least, enough details soI could find it on Google.
I’m not entirely sure I want to read it. Information on Satanists and rituals and the like is ridiculously hard to find. There isn’t even much to go by on Wikipedia or on any of the websites that give me a rundown of the most brutal murders linked to Satanism.
More importantly, I can’t find anything on any of the marks that were engraved into Toni’s body.
They’re significant. I know they are. You don’t just carve shit into someone’s skin because you feel like it. People aren’t tree trunks.
I sigh and dip my finger into the frosting again.
God, I miss adulterers. Give me a rogue penis or an overactive vagina any day.
Bekah pokes her head around my door. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to wash off the mental grime from reading about stabbings and rapes.”
She pauses, her hand holding her auburn bangs away from her eyes. “Well, aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine this morning?”
I drop my head back, groan, and flop it forward again. “I know.” I glance at the clock in the bottom right corner of my laptop. “One of my guys has a lunch break in forty-five minutes and he’s in Austin. I’m gonna go to my actual job before the autopsy results for Toni come in this afternoon.”
“Want some company?” she offers. “I have nothing to do until five except wait for Carlton.”
Hmm… Carlton.
No. I can’t bring his pure, innocent mind into this case.
Not that I believe his twenty-something-year-old mind is pure and innocent, I should add. Just that his mind should be dirty in the way every other guy’s should be. Not murder-grime dirty.
Oy. “Jesus. I need a drink,” I mutter, giving Bek a thumbs-up and grabbing my purse. Then I lock my door behind me and wait for her to grab her things.
Grecia waves when I tell her to take my messages and only call if it’s from the police, and we head out to my car.
“Who are we tailing?”
I pull the manila envelope from my purse before throwing it in the backseat and hand it to her. “Daniel Young. His wife is concerned that he’s blown off several lunches and sports events for their son lately.” I put the car into gear and pull out of the parking lot. “She works as an English literature professor at UTA, and he’s a lawyer at some big-shot firm. Live in a nice house in the suburbs. He just took on a big murder case—you know the shooting that happened a few weeks ago?”
Bek nods. “That hippie musician guy, right? Didn’t his ex shoot him?”
“Yeah. Well, Daniel was hired as the defense for the ex. Apparently, her daddy is filthy rich. Daniel’s been putting in extra hours, so Tracey never suspected anything until one of her coworkers was sure she saw him having lunch with another woman. Tracey assumed it was his client, but when she asked him, he dismissed it. So she hired me over the phone.”
“Found anything?”
“Not a thing. This is the first time I’ve followed him.” I laugh and make the turn for Austin.
“Did you find anything? Earlier? The Satan stuff.” She shivers.
“No.” I tell her what I found—that it’s hard to find. “I have no idea where to look. The rest of the squad are interviewing all the travelers and stall owners right now in case any of them saw or heard anything. The fields are close to where the travelers have set up camp, after all.”
Bek bites her thumbnail but quickly drops it and checks to see if she’s chipped the polish. “Hey, have you thought about going to Dina White?”
“The crazy mystic woman?”
“She’s not crazy. Not compared to your family.”
True that. I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who is, if I’m honest.
“I think she’s Wiccan. Or is it Pagan?” she frowns. “I’m not sure. It’s one of those.”
“What do either of those have to do with Satan?”
She shoots me a sideways glance. “What does Catholicism?”
“I don’t know. I never bothered to learn because it pissed off Nonna.”
“Oh, Jesus. We’re gonna be here a while.”
I roll my eyes. My religion is cupcakes and shoes. We all have our beliefs, and I believe that cupcakes and shoes could run the world.
“Every religion has good and bad. Most essentially believe that there is a devil in some form. Whether you call it Satan, Lucifer—”
“Nonna.”
“Or Nonna.” Bek smirks. “I don’t know the differences. I do know that Dina has a bunch of stuff from different beliefs in her store. I think I even saw some voodoo stuff there last time. You know those little doll things?”
When I nod, she continues.
“So she may know something about it. At the very least, she’ll know where you can find information.”
Yeah… If the woman is selling voodoo dolls, I’d rather use the library.
“How popular is Satanism?” I muse out loud. “It’s a recognized religion, so it must have a pretty big following.”
“Bit risky in Texas,” she points out.
Well, yeah. “Still, between Austin, Dallas, and Houston, there has to be at least one group, right?”
Bek shrugs. “I’ve never thought about it, to be honest. There’s probably a way to find out. Would they have a church or something?”
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, grazing my teeth over it as I slowly release it. Would they? Isn’t that just asking for trouble? Mind you, it’d make for some fun over family dinner. Can you imagine that conversation?
“Wait!” Bek shrieks.
I just about stop myself from swerving. “What?”
“Aren’t Satanists those guys in the long, white robes? With the pointy hats?”
I park across the road from London Law, where Daniel Young works. “Uh, no. That’s the Ku Klux Klan, and they’re white supremacists. Not Satanists.”
“Ohhh,” Bek breathes. “Then I don’t know.”
“There has to be a record somewhere of satanic congregations, doesn’t there? If you can Google and get a list of every Catholic church in the country, surely there’s one for every religion in every state?”
“Probably. If there is, Carlton will find it.”
I tap her thigh with two fingers as Daniel Young exits the building, a young, black-haired woman beside him. “Text him and go into that coffee shop down the street,” I tell her, flicking my phone onto camera mode and snapping pictures. “If he sees us, we’re suspicious.”