Page 35 of A Dead Man's Pulse
Hopefully, so they wouldn’t have to deal with him for more than a minute. They had to get back on the road to Heat.
Ducking her head, Dakota took a peek in her side mirror and groaned. “Yup.” She rolled down her window as the officer approached her side, his dominant hand resting on his gun.
“Is there a problem—Swift? Hey, what’s up?” He eyed her and then whistled loudly. “Damn, sweetheart, I think you should wear short skirts and low cleavage at work—you’ll have the criminals drooling and frozen in place—easy arrests.”
Beside her, Logan, growled a warning, and she rolled her eyes. “Stop being an ass, Ric. Logan, this is Ric Hernandez, my longtime friend and partner. Ric, this is Logan Reese, my temp partner.”
Yeah, she wasn’t getting away with that “temp partner” shit. Despite her piss-poor attitude this morning, they had something special growing between them, and the last thing he wanted was to be a “temp” anything with her. “Actually, I’m more than that—I’m also her boyfriend.”
He’d almost blurted out that he was her Dom too but didn’t want to out her lifestyle if this idiot didn’t know about it.
It was her turn to growl. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. Case closed until we have this out later.” His stern expression dared her to challenge him again. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he addressed her pain-in-the-ass friend who had placed his hands on the door frame, leaning on it. “You need anything, Hernandez, because we’ve got somewhere to be.”
Grinning as his gaze ping-ponged back and forth between the two, the uniformed cop chuckled. “About time you’re getting laid on a regular basis, Swift. Reese, we’ll be having a discussion later to convince me you’re good enough for her, but in the meantime, do me a favor and don’t slam on the brakes like that and make me stop to see if there’s a problem. Swift, I’ll call you later.”
Logan’s opinion of the other man jumped up a few notches. It was clear Hernandez was just looking out for someone he cared about and nothing more.
Dakota’s jaw dropped as she glared at Ric who just laughed, slapped his hand on the door frame, and then headed back to his vehicle. Putting the SUV in drive, Logan hit the button that dropped his window automatically, then waved as the cop climbed back into his patrol car before pulling back out into traffic. “I meant what I said, Koko, we’re continuing this discussion later, and if you can’t be open and honest with me, then my hand and your ass are going to get to know each other very, very well.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dakota gnawed on the inside of her cheek as she tried to focus on the real reason they were at Heat and not on Logan’s hand he insisted on keeping glued to her left hip as he stood on the opposite side of her, guiding her around the room. While the club was much nicer than most of the ones she’d been in over the years, it had nothing on the elegance of The Covenant. It was like sitting in Coach after experiencing First Class for a few trips. The warmth of his hand permeated the thin material of her floor-length skirt which exposed her legs up to her mid-thigh through a slit in the lacy material. A red and black corset gave her a little more coverage up top and allowed her to carry several weapons undetected.
The place was pretty packed tonight, which was a help and a hindrance at the same time. It gave them the cover to blend in, while also making the search for a killer, who might be selecting his next target, more difficult. There hadn’t been any evidence at the utility shed where Georgia Branneth had been held that could give them the killer’s identity, but with multiple samples of blood belonging to different people, it was a sure bet they’d come back as DNA matches to his victims. It might help them identify any victims they weren’t aware of yet when compared to missing persons.
She was still pissed as hell at Logan, but now wasn’t the time to show it. Scanning the crowd, she looked for anyone who seemed out of place or was too focused on a female submissive. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. If only Georgia would wake up and tell them she’d recognized her kidnapper, because no one knew how this bastard would respond to losing her. Would he step up his game? Or would they get lucky, and he’d make a mistake . . . one that would cost him instead of someone else?
It was difficult to tell in this crowd who belonged and who didn’t.
“Eight o’clock, black vest, silver buttons,” Logan whispered in Dakota’s ear, and she silently cursed the shiver she felt run down her spine to her core.
Turning into his arm, she glanced in the direction he’d indicated, which had originally been over her left shoulder. In this position, it appeared she was hugging her Dom while giving her a direct line of sight at the person he’d wanted her to check out. A male, about twenty-five years old, was standing alone while staring at a group of three female submissives. Tucked into his waistband was a bullwhip, which in itself wasn’t unusual in this setting. What had sent Logan’s hackles up, and then hers, was the way he was practically drooling over the scantily dressed women. While he was younger than the profile Dr. Suki Ralston had come up with for their killer, they still had to rule him out. Pivoting a little further, she pointed her chest at the man, which gave the agents in a van outside a good look at him through the camera hidden among the silver adornments on her corset. She didn’t need to repeat who they were singling out since the microphones they were both wearing had picked up Logan’s earlier description. They had a club staff member with them, identifying anyone they needed information on.
A male voice came through her earpiece she was wearing. “Got it. Hang on.”
Seconds passed and Dakota stiffened as the target approached the group of women, clearly having made his selection—a dark-haired submissive wearing a royal blue corset, matching panties, and nothing else. “C’mon, Davis,” Dakota murmured into her microphone. “Hurry up.”
“Cool your engines, Swift. The manager just ID’d him as Joe Kowalski—a new Dom, but not our guy. He was in the county lock-up for three of the murders. Larceny with no violent priors.”
“Shit. What the fuck is he doing with a whip if he’s a newbie?”
“He carries it for show, apparently, nothing else.”
Dakota rolled her eyes. It was assholes like that who helped give the lifestyle a bad name.
The rest of the evening was more of the same. They’d spot someone who sent their radar blasting, before their backup agents shot down any possibles. By the time their shift was over, eight men had been eliminated as their killer, including another one who’d been hanging out in a vehicle in the parking lot. That one had been a private investigator on a divorce case, waiting to get pictures of the cheating wife when she came out of the club with her new Dom.
Logan drove her to the condo in silence. Now that they were alone again, she couldn’t stop her anger from boiling over once more. If he thought he could talk his way back into her bed tonight, he was sorely mistaken.
When he parked the SUV, she didn’t wait for him to climb out and come around to open her door. She was out and halfway to her unit before he’d turned the engine off. The driver’s door slammed shut, and she heard him muttering under his breath as he followed her. Keys in hand, she unlocked the door and stepped inside the condo, but his hand and foot prevented her from closing it again. “Damn it, Koko. Enough of this bullshit. What the fuck is up your ass tonight?”
He pushed his way into the condo, then shut the door. Turning on her heel, she tossed the keys and her small purse on the couch. A glance in the direction of the bedrooms told her that her roommate wasn’t home yet. Perfect, because otherwise the woman would have gotten an earful.
Spinning around, she pinned Logan with a glare that had made many a criminal worry about getting their ass kicked. “Fine! You want to know what my problem is? It’s you and your wandering eyes and dick.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
