A Touch Of Heat (H.E.A.T. Book 2) Read online

  “Eagle,” Damon murmured, his back to the screen and Cawfield who stood guard there. A few other members had moved closer, but not close enough to listen in.

  Damon kept his voice low, only loud enough for us to hear over the sensitive listening equipment Nick had sewn into the cloak.

  “Eagle,” he said again, leaning closer to the swaying boy. “Are you all right?”

  Eagle’s face lolled to the side, dilated pupils looked up at Damon. He nodded his head. Once.

  “Are you here by choice?” Damon pressed.

  Another single nod of his head.

  “Do you understand what will happen if I step away?’

  “Yes,” my young friend murmured.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Eagle,” Damon whispered back.

  “Then why… are… yous… ‘ere?”

  Damon’s cloak shifted with his agitation. “I’m sorry. You’re on your own.” He moved to turn away.

  “Want… yous,” Eagle said so softly even we had difficulty hearing. “Please.”

  The camera lenses on Damon’s cloak fluctuated with his sudden movement. It took a second for the images on the screens to settle.

  “I won’t give you what you want,” Damon said, voice low. “This isn’t what I do.”

  I closed my eyes, relief a rush of emotion I could barely process.

  Eagle was smiling when I looked back. A beautiful stretch of lush lips.

  “Keen likes yous,” he managed, swinging slightly. “I like yous,” he added, and it sounded salacious, even if his head drooped. “Just do it.”

  “You’d rather me than someone more…” Damon hesitated. “More accomplished.”

  Eagle chuckled, it sounded weak. “Turned on… just seein’… y’in that… hood.”

  Damon let a long breath of air out.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked, slapping the crop against his thigh, I think. We could see it move in one of the cameras, but it didn’t land on Eagle.

  Damon must have sensed his time running out. And one look at the camera angle that showed behind him towards the screen, indicated he’d amassed quite an audience.

  “Few days.”

  “Have you seen a woman? Dark curly hair, dark eyes. Might be drugged.”

  “Are you going to chat him up all night,” a voice said over Damon’s shoulder. “Or give in to your obsessions.”

  A harsh breath of air escaped Damon, but he didn’t spin around to face the heckler.

  “Others are keen to try this one out,” the same voice added.

  “Eagle?” Damon pressed.

  Eagle’s head rose a half inch, his eyes stared unfocused past Damon.

  “Make it hurts,” he whispered. “You gots… to make it.. hurts.”

  A low growl came from Damon’s throat.

  “Please,” Eagle begged.

  Fuck. I breathed heavily through the hand covering my mouth. Pierce looked pale and wouldn’t glance at me. Nick Anscombe had his lips pressed in a thin line. Neither man was comfortable with how this was going.

  Neither man had a solution to the disaster we were witnessing up on the screen.

  “God help me,” Damon murmured and we watched as he swept the crop down Eagle’s side like Cawfield had done before.

  Eagle moaned loud. Loader than I would have thought the act would warrant.

  “He’s helping Michaels out,” Pierce said. “Making it easier.”

  “This is easier?” I demanded, voice a little too high pitched.

  “Putting on a show for those watching. Selling Damon as best as he can.”

  That was Eagle. A showman. Even drugged, strung up, and bared.

  A sob escaped my lips before I could stop it. There were things in this job that made me question the world. Dark, devious, disgusting things. Eagle was not an innocent. Far from it. He stretched the prostitution laws pretty thin. But he was sweet and young, and someone I considered mine to protect.

  I couldn’t watch. Maybe I was a coward. Maybe I was just too weary of it all. I should have stayed. I should have borne witness to Damon’s discomfort. To Eagle’s sacrifice to make it easier on my boyfriend. But a part of me also knew Damon would not welcome me seeing this.

  I stood up from the chair I’d been glued to and crossed to the door.

  “Open it up,” I said, not taking my eyes off the door handle as loud moans were interspersed with the thwacking sounds of a riding crop hitting flesh.

  “Keen. Where are you going?” Pierce asked.

  “Open it up,” I repeated, my voice about to break apart.

  “You can’t drive over there. You can’t ruin the sting.”

  Something about those words struck me, making my whole body jolt as I gasped a breath.

  This was wrong. All so fucking wrong. And it had nothing to do with the sting.

  “We’re being played,” I said to the door as panting and moaning and murmurs of fervent appreciation came out of the speakers, pounding against my ears. Sharp pinpricks of pain against my skin, as though an icicle struck flesh and not the soft leather of a crop.

  “What do you mean?”

  I turned around and looked at Pierce, thankfully he blocked the screens.

  “Can’t you see it? Damon was set-up. Cawfield singling him out. Taking him to Eagle, of all people. Making him have no choice but to do what needed to be done to protect my friend from greater harm. It’s a set-up.”

  “Why would Joe Cawfield want to set-up Damon?” Pierce asked slowly, but he had that contemplative look on his face that meant he was listening.

  “To get at me.”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “He’s had it in for me since I started in CIB,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, he has,” Pierce surprised me by agreeing. “But this is different. This is malicious in a way he’s never been with you before.”

  “He gets off on it.”

  “Possibly, but there’s more.”

  Pierce was pushing me. Forcing me to go where I didn’t want to go. Knowing I was onto something. And only I could get the answer out of the depths of my jumbled mind.

  Only I could join the dots correctly.

  I stared at the floor. The sounds of Eagle orgasming reverberating off the walls, on the inside of my head. Clouding my thoughts. Stealing my resolve. Shattering the line of dots as soon as they formed.

  Damon. How the hell would Damon get over this?

  I hated this job. I hated this room. Right then I hated Ryan Pierce for standing there patiently and waiting for me to work this out.

  Joe Cawfield was a misogynistic bastard. But he was, I’d thought, a damn fine cop. Was he the CIB traitor? Did he have a secret life?

  Hell, my father had one, couldn’t Cawfield too?

  “I don’t know,” I said at last. Ryan’s shoulders slumped. “I just don’t know.”

  “Well,” Pierce said softly. “That makes two of us. Because I think you’re right.”

  He looked back at the screen. I forced myself to follow his line of vision. Cawfield, I was guessing, approached Damon, and slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Knew you had it in you, Initiate,” he said in that same digital tone of voice from before. “You like the kink, don’t you? You like the control. This place is right up your alley. Just what else are you capable of, I wonder? Just how far are you prepared to go?”

  “He’s setting us up,” Pierce said into the stunned silence. “And I don’t know why either.”

  Chapter 22

  “I hear things. See things. I know things.”

  He wasn’t setting us up. He was setting Damon up. And I only realised that when I walked into my house. An envelope lay on the wooden floor, obviously pushed through the gap at the bottom of the front door. It was several feet inside, so had been delivered with a hard thrust.

  I stared at it for a long moment, after I’d turned the alarm off, making sure it hadn’t been activated, or deactivated, by Carl. Somehow the sens
ors had missed the envelope, though, but then there is always a grey area of insensitivity to these things.

  I leaned down and picked the envelope up, then turned it over to see if it was addressed. There was nothing written on the yellow packet, so I slipped a finger under the seal and broke it. Tipping out the contents onto the hall table. I used a pen to push the different pieces about, until I had a clear view of the four enlarged photos it had revealed.

  Someone, and I could just guess who, had used similar technology to Nick Anscombe. Enabling identification under the cloaked hoods that were worn at the Irreverent Inferno. We’d managed to get seven clear pictures of hooded attendees at the event tonight. Nick and Pierce were working on identifying them.

  But I didn’t need to use sophisticated computer equipment to identify the hooded figure in these shots. They were all of Damon.

  I stared down at photographic evidence of what had transpired tonight. Cawfield hadn’t spared me any consideration. They were graphic. Eagle mid release. Damon striking hard enough to raise a welt on the young man’s smooth flesh. Anger shining in his dark hooded eyes.

  The anger was for the situation, not Eagle. The anger was his frustration at not having found out anything more about where his sister was.

  But Cawfield wanted me to think otherwise. The black block lettering that spread across a picture of Damon landing his crop across Eagle’s buttocks was clear enough.

  Is this what he does to you, too?

  Cawfield had just played his trump card. Assuming I wouldn’t know where and when this had been taken. Assuming I wasn’t aware of the role he’d played in setting this up.

  I was moving before I’d finished that thought. Checking my dining table to ensure Carl hadn’t visited, and pulling the whisky bottle down off its shelf as I dialled my phone.

  Pierce answered on the second ring.

  “Everything all right?” he said in way of greeting.

  “Cawfield’s been to my house.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  I explained further, detailing the photos, while I poured whisky into a glass.

  “If you go after him,” Pierce said, “we could blow this thing wide open and have nothing to show for it.”

  “If I go after him as a cop, we could blow this thing wide open and have nothing to show for it.”

  “How else are you going to go after him?”

  “As a woman scorned,” I said, as I dipped my fingers in the glass of whisky and dabbed them on my neck like perfume.

  I shrugged my shoulders as Pierce thought about that and then sloshed the drink over my shirt for good measure.

  “I’ll back you up,” Pierce finally said.

  “If you’re spotted he’ll know.”

  “Then at least come back to ASI and we’ll bug you.”

  “No. Joe Cawfield and I have a few things to get off our respective chests. This is personal.”

  “For you or for him, Keen?”

  I paused in my screwing of the cap back on the bottle of booze.

  “He’s just made it personal for me.”

  “And him?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.” Cawfield hated me. But he also wanted in my pants. And neither of those facts meshed with what was happening here.

  “Jesus,” Pierce breathed. “I don’t like this.”

  “It’s just a fishing expedition,” I said steadily. “I’ll have more to go on if I do this alone.”

  Silence.

  “Trust me,” I added, unsure if those words would mean a damn thing to Ryan Pierce.

  But they must have. Or he had a better capacity to trust than I did, because he just let out a long breath of air and finally said, “OK.”

  Nothing was OK. Joe Cawfield was after Damon and prepared to use me to get him. We still had nothing solid on Samantha Hayes’ murder or the Boardman Lane assault. Sweet Hell was skirting the law, but not enough to warrant moving on it. And the Irreverent Inferno was in the middle of it all.

  What the hell it all meant, I didn’t know. But as I grabbed my keys off the hall table, shoved the photos back inside the envelope uncaring of fingerprints now, I knew I’d fucking find out.

  I was sick of being in the dark. Tired of chasing ghosts. It was time I proved my worth.

  My phoned rang as I approached Cawfield’s street in Point Chevalier. I didn’t look at the screen when I answered it.

  “Keen,” I said into the Bluetooth device.

  Silence.

  I closed my eyes briefly and pulled the car over to the side of the road. Enough already. I shook my head. Just enough!

  “I’m not in the mood for this, Carl,” I growled down the line. “If you’ve got something on Cawfield, now would be the time to fucking give it.”

  A light gasp sounded out. More noise than I’d heard from my silent caller in all of the calls over the past week. I stared down at the phone, sitting in its holder beside me, and frowned.

  That hadn’t sounded at all like Carl.

  “Who is this?” I said, voice soft.

  Nothing.

  And then the phone went dead and I couldn’t devote any more attention to the high pitch of that sound as Cawfield stood in front of his door.

  Watching. Me in the car. Possibly me on the phone. His eyes were knowing. And in that moment, to my mind, evil.

  Cawfield the evil CIB traitor? Or Cawfield the evil Damon crucifier?

  Maybe both.

  I opened the door and stumbled out of the car. My foot caught on a rough bit of pavement, and I staggered, one hand holding tight to the door frame, the other letting the envelope I’d picked up off the passenger seat fall to the ground. The photos spread out in a lazy arc, taunting me.

  I sucked in a sobbed breath.

  Cawfield appeared beside me, his nose wrinkling when he smelled the alcohol.

  “You drove here like this?”

  “How the hell else would I get here to do this?” I yelled as I took a wild swing at him, promptly losing my balance and landing on my arse.

  I shook my head, as if to clear it, and stared at the pavement, looking stunned.

  “Jesus! You’re a wreck, Keen. Does he know he’s done this to you?”

  It was hard, perhaps the hardest thing I’d done in days, to not bite his fucking head off.

  “Why’d you send them to me, Cawfield?” I moaned.

  “Because you have no idea who you’re sleeping with.” He shook his head, bent down and snatched the photos up, and then gripped me under the arm and hauled me to my feet.

  I couldn’t help it. I kneed him in the balls. It felt good. Too good. So when he doubled over, I took two steps away and swiftly swerved, landing on my side in a pathetic looking weed strewn garden. If I’d watched him writhe around on the ground any longer he would have realised I wasn’t drunk.

  “Fuck, you’re a bitch!” he gasped.

  “Arsehole,” I shot back.

  “Crazy fucking woman.”

  “Sexist bastard.” This was more cathartic than I thought it would be.

  Cawfield climbed to his feet, bending over slightly, which forced me to hide a smile.

  “Do you want to pay him back?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “I’m not fucking you.”

  “Nice thought, but that’s not what I meant.”

  And this was where it would get interesting. And dangerous. Because Joe Cawfield could spot a trap a mile off, that’s why he was so fucking good at setting them.

  “I’m not listening to you, fucktard.”

  “You’re cute when you’re pissed. But I didn’t do this to you. He did.”

  “What the fuck do you want from me, Cawfield?” I cried, throwing my hands up in the air for good effect. I looked him dead in the eye. Hoping all he’d see was an inebriated, heartbroken woman.

  But he could just as easily have been seeing the seething, vengeful detective instead.

  He crouched down in front of me, then lifted up the picture showin
g Eagle finding his release with Damon standing behind him, riding crop in hand, sweat glistening on his wide eyed face. I didn’t need to fake closing my eyes.

  A rough hand landed on my chin, gripping my jaw tightly.

  “Look at it!” he growled. “This is your man.”

  “You’re wrong,” I choked out. “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not what you think.”

  “Fuck!” he exclaimed, showing me a close-up version of that anger management problem of his. “What the fuck has this prick got that keeps you coming back to him?”

  He moved to within an inch of my face. I held my breath, scared he’d pick up on the lack of alcohol fumes if I breathed.

  “He’s into something, Keen,” he murmured softly, his thumb stroking along the bottom of my jaw. I clenched my teeth. “I’ve got more photos. Of him beating the crap outta some guy. He did that assault in Boardman Lane, I’m sure,” he added, eyes searching mine.

  Oh, fuck. This was new. And unexpected. What evidence did he have?

  “I think he killed Samantha Hayes, too.”

  “Impossible,” I breathed. “He was with me.”

  “Was he?”

  I thought back to that night. To the phone call from Pierce to attend the murder scene. To the fact that the bed had been empty beside me when I woke up.

  “He had the Sky Tower climb. He was with the boys from Pitt Street.”

  “Which is it, Keen? Which excuse will you use next?”

  “Check!” I shouted, uncaring now if he picked up my non-alcoholic breath. “He would have been at Pitt Street.”

  “I did check,” Cawfield said softly, leaning back and landing on his own butt in the dirt. “He didn’t arrive at Pitt Street until after five a.m.”

  Samantha Hayes was murdered at approximately four-thirty. I was called out at seven. I didn’t hear what time Damon left my bed.

  “He fits the description taken from the video surveillance at Sweet Hell.”

  “That was doctored,” I pointed out.

  “Just blurry, not doctored,” he countered. “It could have been him.”

  I shook my head. Not believing a word of this.

  “He doesn’t know the woman,” I murmured.

  “She attended Sweet Hell on the same nights he did.”

  “How do you know all of this?”