Page 70 of Bad Enough

She whirled on him, her emerald eyes flaming with rage. “This is not a BDSM scene, TB. Don’t start trying to rack up punishments that neither of us has any intention of following through on.”

The room was so quiet all he could hear was the hum of the digital clock on the wall.

They stared at each other. She didn’t back down, and he certainly wouldn’t.

Without looking away from her, TB spoke out, “Midas, put the photos of the girls on the screen.”

TB hated this, but rattling her was the best possible option right now.

The five girls who had disappeared over the past seven months blinked into existence on the telescreen behind Waters. She looked at them blankly.

He leaned back in his chair, leaning on his hand, his index finger and thumb forming the arch to keep him in place.

“Do you know who any of them are?”

She shook her head and turned to TB in confusion. “No. Should I?”

Definitely not a lie. A little curiosity but no recognition.

“These five girls have all gone missing over the past seven months.”

“That’s terrible,” she exclaimed. “Are you looking for them?”

“Yes, we are,” Waters said. “But we’ve run out of leads.”

“I don’t understand. Why would you ask me about them?”

“Look at them again, Flame,” TB ordered.

She studied them.

“What do you notice?”

She looked at TB, more confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Look at them. Really look at them. What do you notice?”

Exasperated, she turned her head back to the screen and looked over the women. He watched her eyes, her mouth, her facial muscles. He watched her hands and her posture.

Her eyes went from jumping from woman to woman to moving more smoothly from one to the next. Her fingertips gripped the edge of the table, and she leaned slightly forward in her seat. She inhaled slowly.

There it is.

No one in the room said a word as they watched her.

“They all look similar.”

Waters spoke up. “Describe them to me, Flame. If you had to give someone a description of them as if they were one person, what would you say?”

“I’d say they were all young women, in their early twenties, I’m guessing. They have pale skin. They look… rounder? I don’t know what word I’d use. They’re not skinny, that’s for sure, but not overweight. They all have red hair, sort of auburn, like…” She trailed off. She swallowed, then looked at TB. “The color of mine. And long.”

“Yes, princess,” he confirmed. “They all look similar to you.”

“But I don’t understand. I don’t know them. I mean, it’s a little creepy looking at them, but what do they have to do with me? You don’t think I had something to do with them being missing?”

“No, Flame,” Waters assured her. “But it does concern us that they look similar to you, given the circumstances.”

“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but there are lots of missing women in the world, including L.A. Millions of them are probably redheaded and built a little curvy. Why do they connect to me?”

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