Page 12 of Tell Me Your Desires

Chapter Seven

“I don’t care, Frank. You lied to me. Money was more important to you than a human life. My friend’s life. I’m taking some time off.”

“Come on, A. I have a business to run here. The ladies count on me to keep them busy. Some of these chicks need this. I’m just looking out for my girls.”

From ladies to chicks to girls. Next, Frank would probably degrade to bitches. His hero complex only served to piss Anya off even more. “You do what you have to do, Frank. So will I. I’m taking a few days.”

“Two,” Frank negotiated.

“Three or more. And if you keep arguing with me, I won’t come back at all,” Anya said firmly before Frank could respond. “Don’t push me, Frank. Let me mourn Maisie.”

She hung up and leaned on the counter. Her call to Frank was for more than just taking time.

She wanted to know if Maisie had a family.

Someone she could send flowers to or a donation to.

Anything to help during this devastating time.

But Frank was useless. ‘We don’t take that kind of information here. ’

“Guess I’ll have to find the info myself, hmm?” Anya said to Derek as he licked himself. She shook her head. “You’re about as useful as Frank.”

“Meow.”

“Yeah, meow yourself.” Anya picked up her laptop and took it to the couch.

She opened it up, poising her fingers on the keyboard.

Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall every conversation she had had with Maisie.

The most personal they’d got—besides having sex—was discussing what Maisie wanted to do.

Why she was there at the club. She never spoke of family or her life outside the club.

Hell, Anya hadn’t even known Maisie’s last name until the detectives had told her.

She contemplated calling Frank again. He would at least have that information. But the thought of hearing his voice again made Anya’s skin crawl.

“Would she be on social media? How many Maisies could there be in this area?” Anya typed in the search bar. To her surprise, there weren’t many, and none of them were her Maisie. “Shit. Aren’t the kids these days into all this social media stuff?”

“Meow.” Derek nudged his way into Anya’s lap, effectively moving her computer out of his way.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“Meow.”

Anya sighed and scratched his head. She tried searching the other social sites with the bit of info she had.

Nothing popped for her. What if Maisie wasn’t her real name?

People were constantly changing things about themselves.

Especially in this profession. A new name, new boobs, new fake tan, new veneers to help their smile.

Anything to ramp up the intrigue or keep the anonymity.

Isn’t that what Anya did with the moniker Lady A?

“I’ll keep an eye on the news. Maybe I’ll learn something new about the young woman who worked with me the past couple of years.”

“Meowww.”

Anya closed her laptop and tossed it on the couch beside her. “I feel awful about Maisie, bud, but I can’t find anything on her. And I’m not going down that road and asking for any favors.”

Anya yawned. After her terrible sleep last night, she hadn’t gotten out of bed until well past noon.

It was now five o’clock, and she had yet to get out of her pajamas.

What was the point? She wasn’t going anywhere, and Derek didn’t judge.

She glanced at Derek, who was staring at her.

Okay, Derek did judge, but at least he did it silently.

“Ready for dinner?”

“Mew, meow, mew!” He got up and trotted toward the kitchen, meowing the entire way.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Anya made her way to the kitchen, pressing the feed button on Derek’s bowl. “There. You’re taken care of. Now, what do I want?”

She opened her fridge, eyeing the takeout and leftovers with a critical eye. Nothing looked appetizing. Her stomach hadn’t felt right since she pulled into the club’s parking lot the night before and saw the police tape.

God, she should have listened to her gut.

Jaime glanced at the clock in the corner of her computer screen, grabbing her car keys from her desk.

It was seven in the evening, and she was ready to get out of here.

At least, that’s what she was telling herself.

Max and Jackson stood at the board, going over the bare minimum of what they had so far, but Jaime wanted to be out on the street where she could think.

Where she could go over everything in her head.

Standing around looking at a board wasn’t going to give her any new answers. There was nothing there for them.

“I’m headed home,” she said as she got to her feet. “You two find anything on there, let me know. I won’t expect a call, though.”

“Hey, Baros. You wanna grab some dinner and go over things?” Max reached for his suit jacket, slipping one arm through. “Burger?”

“Nah. I’m good. I wanna get home. Work out, you know.” Jaime shrugged, throwing her coffee cup into the trash. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”

“Sure.” Max gave her a suspicious look. Jaime rarely turned down a burger and a beer. “You good?”

She nodded, and then she regarded him with a genuine smile. He always worried about her. Always checked in with her. But Jaime’s dream had been playing on her mind, and Max wasn’t the person she should have been discussing it with. No way. “I am. Thanks.”

“Alright, well, you know where I am if you wanna talk.”

Jaime was done talking. Taylor’s anniversary had come and gone, and it was time to work and put her mind to the serious stuff.

And this was. This was her expertise and where she could apply her knowledge.

Taylor… There was nothing she could do about that.

But this? Jaime was determined to catch the fucker who was terrorizing women.

“You had any more thoughts on this yet?”

Max scratched at his jawline, looking as deflated as Jaime felt. “No. Nothing new. But I think you’re right about Frank. Something isn’t right with that guy.”

“You want to take another run at him?”

Max nodded slowly. “Maybe. If he’s up to something, he’ll lay low for a while.”

“Could always have him under surveillance.” Jaime jammed her hands in the pockets of her pants. “Did we ever get any footage from the club?”

“None. No cameras inside. There were two in the parking lot. One was busted, the other doesn’t face the way we needed it to.”

“So, either the killer got lucky with that, or they knew the area and what could potentially be caught on camera.”

“Mm.”

“We need something soon, Max. If we don’t come up with a lead by the end of the week, I’m going to start tearing the place apart. I don’t give a fuck if Frank doesn’t like it. It’s time to come down hard on this case.”

“Let’s dig into this more, Jaime. We’re not even sure this place is anything more than wrong place/wrong time.

Unless we find a link, I don’t think we can get a search warrant for the club.

I also don’t think Cap will give us permission to do a stakeout.

We need something, Baros. Some kind of connection between the victims. And so far, we have nothing.

Not to each other or Frank.” He scrubbed his face tiredly.

“Go on home. I’ll meet you back here in the morning, and we’ll go over everything again.

You bring the coffee and I’ll bring the breakfast burritos. ”

Damn it. Max was right. These attacks appeared to be random, but Jaime didn’t believe they were.

Max didn’t either, she knew it, but he was right about the club.

They’d never get a warrant for that place.

Still, Jaime had to go with her gut. And right now, her gut was telling her the club was involved in some way.

Now, she just had to find the god damn connection. “Yeah, you got it! Night, Max.”

Jaime waited for the elevator, tapping her foot incessantly.

She had no plans to go home and work out.

Not really. No, she was going straight to the club to wait for the star attraction to arrive.

This was business, or so she would tell herself.

But Jaime knew exactly what this was deep down.

It was her… craving the eyes of that damn woman.

But then she had to consider what she would actually say when she arrived at the club.

Would she pull out the detective badge, or would she slip that away in her pocket, purely there for pleasure?

Jaime shuddered at the thought. She couldn’t possibly take herself into that room as anything other than a detective. Could she?

Jaime’s heart pounded at the thought. Her hands grew clammy. Fuck, what would she say? Or do? Maybe this was a mistake. Someone would find out she’d been there eventually. Those nights always came back to bite you on the ass.

Anya clicked another link, bringing up yet another news article about the murder at the club.

Young Woman Slain at Popular Brothel. The articles were of no help to Anya.

They spoke briefly of the “young woman,” focusing more on the location because brothels were salacious.

Like Maisie brought it on herself by just being there.

This poor woman had lost her life, and it garnered nothing more than a quarter-page article that gave no real information about the victim.

“No suspect,” Anya said aloud. “Sounds about right. When sex workers are involved, it’s not a priority.”

“Meow.”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know Maisie wasn’t a sex worker! But given where she was found, the police probably think she was. The only reason that detective was so aggressive was because I am a sex worker. Of course I must be guilty.”

“Mew. meow.” Derek jumped on the table and walked across the laptop’s keyboard. In an instant, the article was gone.

“Excuse me, I was reading that.”

“Meow.”

Derek sat his happy ass down right in front of Anya’s face. She had been at this futile research for a good two hours. That’s two hours she hadn’t given Derek the attention he required. So she scratched him under his chin.

“I know I should be using this time off to do something more productive, but what am I supposed to do? I feel so helpless, Derek. And selfish. How could I not know more about Maisie? Am I that self-absorbed?”

“Purr.”

“Right. I have no social life, and my best friend is a cat. Of course I’m self-absorbed.

” Anya sat back in her chair and sighed.

She had ways to find out information, but she was reluctant to visit her past. And she certainly didn’t want another interrogation from Detective Baros by going to her for information.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Scooch, please.”

She shooed an annoyed Derek off the keyboard and typed “Detective Baros Reno” into the search bar.

“This is such a stupid idea,” Anya muttered to herself.

Even so, she scrolled through, trying to find any articles dedicated to the beautiful detective.

Stop calling her beautiful! There was one article with a photo of…

Detective Jaime Baros. Jaime. “Detective Jaime Baros wins the Lifesaving award.” Anya looked at Derek.

“I guess she’s not always vigorously accusing innocent people of murder. ”

“Meow.” Derek jumped off the table and onto the counter. A series of ‘hunger meows’ followed as he paced the length of the counter.

Anya looked at her watch, surprised to see it was past seven o’clock. “Oops.” She took one last look at the detective in her uniform. Nice. With that thought, she slammed the laptop shut and pushed it away. “I swear if I have dreams about this woman again….”

“Meooooowwww!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Anya puffed out a breath and pushed the feed button on Derek’s bowl. “There. So demanding. You know, it’s behavior like this that drives me to be a dominatrix. At least I can be in control of the humans that come into my chambers.”

She opened the fridge and grabbed some leftover takeout she had delivered for lunch.

A little food, a long soak in the bathtub, and some TV while curled up in bed.

That sounded like an excellent night to Anya.

She chuckled to herself. If only the detective could see how Anya spent her time off.

Surely, Detective Baros would change her mind about Anya being a cold-blooded killer if she could see the fluffy socks and obsessive need for every door and window to be locked at all times.