Page 282 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

I slap the thick envelope against my thigh to discourage the tentpole starting there. “Perfect. How do you feel about putting our pony girls through their paces?”

Logan grins as he pulls on his shoes. “I can’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon than breeding two, horny, little mares.”

I can’t either, which does nothing to help with the tentpole.

We make a long loop up to East Eleventh Street with the flyers so I can check out the guy who can’t spell respect. Shameless Studios is a tiny shop in a walk-down off the street, dark and dingy despite the bright, fall day. There’s no sign of Mad Bob, just a bored teenaged girl sitting at the counter, cracking her gum and flipping through a magazine with a lot of pictures of very tall, very skinny women wearing animal prints. “Go Primal!” screams the article’s headline in dripping red letters, and while I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment, I’m fairly sure my definition of primal is very different from the magazine’s.

I look around the shop, pretending to be interested in the designs taped haphazardly to the walls. Compared to what’s on the walls of Bren’s shop, Mad Bob’s designs look crude and half-finished. Maybe that’s why the wolf catches my eye. It’s head and shoulders above any of the other designs. The wolf’s face dissolves into a full moon over a landscape of pine trees. The fur is richly detailed and fades into artistically swirled shadows at the edges the same way the fins and water of my mermaid do. Instead of the usual man on the moon, there’s a woman’s face in the moon’s subtle shading. It’s when I see the feathers trailing off the moon and realize it’s a dreamcatcher as well that I’m sure. That would scream Brenna to me, even if I hadn’t seen a similar moon dreamcatcher in her sample book.

I lean in, pretending to examine it closely, and pull away the edge of another design that’s overlapping the bottom of the sketch. All of the designs in Bren’s book are signed, and, sure enough, worked into the wolf’s ruff are her initials: BT.

I fold down the overlapping paper, take out my phone, and snap a picture of the pilfered sketch. It has to be stolen. I can’t see Brenna donating a design to Mad Bob.

Once I tuck my phone away in my pocket, I smooth out the sketches and approach the desk. “Mad Bob not around today?” I ask the gum-cracking girl.

She shakes her head. “Not until this afternoon. He had a meeting this morning. Wanna make an appointment?”

“Not right now. Mind if I take a card and give him a call later?”

She looks around aimlessly as though a box of cards will materialize on the cluttered desk. “Don’t think we have any.”

I wait to see if she’ll offer any other way to contact the shop, but she doesn’t, so I tell her goodbye before escaping back up to the street where Logan’s waiting for me. I show him the picture of the stolen sketch and his mouth tightens.

“Not the kind of proof a cop would want,” he says. “But I don’t like that he’s got one of her designs right up on his wall. Anything else? I’m guessing there’s no skinhead with ‘Move On’ tattooed on his knuckles in there?”

“No, just a girl with no sales skills. Mad Bob’s out until this afternoon. I didn’t see any swastikas, but there were a couple of those spread-winged eagles and a bulldog wearing a spiked helmet. Pops would be rolling in his grave.”

“Mmm. I think it’s time Max started keeping an eye on Mad Bob.” Logan pulls out his phone as we walk back towards his place.Ourplace.

“No argument from me. Tell him I’ll cover the cost.”

Logan shoots me a look that would cow a lesser man. “You’re not paying for us to help you protect her, sir.”

“Try and stop me, son. There are things you can control and things you can’t. This is one of those you can’t. Make your peace with it.”

Logan blows out a breath and goes back to texting Max. “Did I say I missed you, sir?”

“Every day, son. Every day.”

Brenna always looks beautiful to me, even when she’s puffy from crying or mussed from fucking. But when the girls meet us in the club’s restaurant for lunch, I have to appreciate the buffed and polished, glowing gold of her skin. With many, many kisses.

Grinning and pink-cheeked, she finally bats me away and escapes into the buffet line. I gather the restaurant doesn’t do table-service during festival weekends, and without having done more than walked through the entrance hall, I can understand why. The club’s packed. The usually quiet halls are filled with kinksters. Every pedestal in the hallway has a submissive mounted on display. There’s a line of ponies and their trainers waiting to go through the door into the Stables. There are three furries in full costume going at it on the central staircase. And this is only Thursday. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like by Saturday when Logan says the festival will be in full roar.

The restaurant itself is busy, with tables having been moved to make way for a double-sided buffet down the center of the main dining room. Despite the crowd, Logan manages to get his favorite table in the big glass greenhouse addition to the restaurant. I suspect the pretty maître d’ has a thing for Emily’s daddy, although she’s not obvious about it.

The table’s set for six. Shortly after I make a few selections from the overwhelming cornucopia on the buffet and take my seat next to Bren, Harry and the pretty, black-haired submissive who was manning the upstairs desk the night I was an ass to Bren join us. While the sub hugs everyone around the table, Harry claps a hand on my shoulder and pulls me a step away.

“Glad I caught up with you,” he says. “I figured you’d be here at some point today after I saw DirtyGurl and Emily at the spa.”

He combs his hand over his beard, which looks freshly trimmed and waxed, so I’m guessing he bumped into the girlsinthe spa.

“Things didn’t work out with Rolling Blue,” I offer. “You’ve probably heard.”

He nods. “Walt called me. I’m sorry, Mac, and for the record, I think they’re making a mistake.”

“I wasn’t happy about having to move to Jersey, either. I didn’t realize you live there.”

“I rent one of the rooms at the clubhouse so I can keep my place in the City. They’re pretty relaxed about it as long as I’m there for meetings and events. I’m sorry I missed the charity ride, but it couldn’t be helped.” Harry shrugs a burly shoulder. “That’s not why I wanted to catch up with you. I’ve got a guest coming this afternoon. He organizes the thing upstate we talked about. He’d like to meet you.”