I lift my head, brows arched. “A pacifier?”
March shrugs. “That’s what Brad says.”
“That goes on the list of kinks I’ll never understand.”
“So now it’s a list of one?”
“Funny. We’ve got a more important list to worry about.” I bring each name up as a slide and flip through one at a time. Name. Picture. Possible motive. “Let’s keep the tail on Kriss. There’s just something about him.”
Marchant nods, punching something into his iPhone.
Since the evening Sarabelle vanished from my room, almost two months ago, we’ve paid a couple of Vegas private investigators to track people of interest. So far all we’ve learned is Vegas has a grand total of three decent PIs, and there’s no limit to the number of affairs a determined man of means can have. That, and one of Priscilla Heat’s screenwriters looks at kiddie porn. Dave, a Vegas local and ex-FBI dude, is our lead guy, and he’s the one who provided us with this list.
I flip through a few more slides. “Are we still on the ex-boyfriend and the stepbrother?”
“Sarabelle’s ex-boyfriend doesn’t do anything but a waitress,” Marchant says blandly. “And her stepbrother doesn’t do anything but Oxy.”
“Tell Dave to keep tracking them. I’ll add Michael Lockwood onto my dude’s list, you add Caleb Zeuss to yours.”
Michael Lockwood was one of Priscilla’s film crew; he quit his job just a few days after that night at the ranch. He’s come up clean so far, but something about him smells off. Caleb Zeuss is one of the cooks Marchant employs. He was on the clock that night, but no one seems to have seen him.
The cameras are useless, because while March was fucking Priscilla for Pimps and Princesses, someone turned them off. The woman watching the monitors assumed the system had glitched. Naturally, when she tried to convey this fact to Marchant, he did not want to be interrupted.
I hand March his iPad and pull out my phone, blinking at a new text.
“Cumming to your place tonight. Bringing a surprise. ~P”
I squeeze my eyes shut, opening them some seconds later to find Marchant out of his leather chair and standing in front of my desk. He leans over, pressing his palm against the sleek oak. “You alright, dude? You look amped.”
I glower. “Thanks.” I’m not doing coke, which March should know, but I’m sure as shit not justifying anything to him.
“You sleeping okay?”
I snicker. Marchant drains his glass and rolls his brown eyes. He slinks back to his arm chair, reminding me momentarily of the Pink Panther. “You gotten any more calls from Smith?” he asks me. Josh Smith is the LVPD’s lead detective on the disappearance, and he’s been on me like white on rice since the morning we called to report Sarabelle missing.
I toss back the remainder of liquor in my glass and stand, stretching my sore legs. “I think he’s finally gotten the hang of calling Lehland,” my attorney.
“What about your old man?” Marchant asks.
“His people have stopped calling, too. I guess they’ve got all their fires put out.” No one but Josh Smith and a few others from Love Inc. and Priscilla’s company, Heat Enterprises, knows Sarabelle disappeared from my particular room. Given the political sensitivities, it needs to stay that way.
Marchant, on the other hand, has been all over the news. His business hasn’t suffered at all. In fact, he says it’s picked up. Bunch of sick fucks out there.
His phone buzzes, and I feel a jab of guilt. He should be at work. He’s busy, weeknight or not. I should have met him there instead of being such an avoidant fuck.
Now I have to get him out of here before Priscilla shows up. He has no idea I’m being blackmailed, and I’d like to keep it that way for a little longer.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I’m on the balcony attached to my bedroom, looking at fucking Facebook of all damn things. Since that night in my bedroom at the vineyard house, I’ve taken to prepping for Priscilla’s mandated visits by browsing the albums Libby DeVille unwisely has set to “public.” I feel like a freak as I rub my palm over my boner, but it’s better than popping a blue pill.
My life has been fucked up this way ever since that night with Sarabelle. I woke up the next morning stark naked, sprawled out on my back with a splitting headache, a killer case of dry-mouth, and a lipstick heart drawn around my left nipple. When I sat up, the room tilting around me, I spotted a yellow note stuck to the nightstand by the king-sized bed. I recognized the large, loopy handwriting from the note that came with my bourbon night before.
“Last night, the Hunter was hunted. Do you remember how hard I made you cum? xo, P”
I didn’t remember, but I’d been roofied before, and I knew what the hangover felt like. Not sure what I’d done with Priscilla Heat and hoping to hell and back that the answer was nothing, I slung my clothes on and left without giving Sarabelle a second thought.