Page 12 of Such a Good Girl

We were happy to provide the service.

And we were even happier to benefit from those services personally. Especially when we took the darkness downstairs to the next level with our secret parties.

My time spent at Profane, and what went on below, had become my main source of relief. The burdens of being a famous actor, the pressure of Hollywood, the stress of the endless hustling necessary even at my level, not to mention the bullshit torture of the very public divorce I’d just been dragged through, had left me searching for that relief in a lot of unhealthy ways. The drugs and drinking did nothing to provide that.

Only our club delivered the high and the release that I truly needed.

The carved wooden door to Profane was guarded by Johnny, a man I’d hand-picked. He was heavily armed, even though none of his weapons were visible.

He handed me my mask and robe with a silent bow.

With a deep breath, I brought the silver mask to my eyes, secured the velvet strap behind my head and draped the robe over my shoulders. Pulling the heavy hood over my head, I anxiously anticipated the moment I knew would soon come.

The stress would roll off my shoulders.

The worries would melt away.

Into the darkness of my desires, I would disappear.

Johnny stepped to the side, pulling the door open and allowing me to pass through it with reverent silence.

Rian and Theo waited just inside, their identities concealed by their own masks and cloaks, the darkness blanketing us in its anonymity and its promise of our primal release.

“Ready?” Theo asked.

“Ready,” I replied.

We stepped into the darkness together.

The anger Danika had stirred up still lingered, but with every second, with every step towards the forbidden pleasures offered by Profane, it lost the strength to control me.

Every cell in my body became focused on the fulfillment of my most taboo desires.

With a heavy thud, the door closed behind us, the promise of the evening laid out before us like a shimmering offering of our most decadent desires to the gods of passion themselves.

ChapterFour

KAYLEE

If she wasn’t dead, she would have been a spectacular sight, I thought. I tilted my head and took in her mussed red hair, her once-elegant clothing, the curves that made her body.

Her wide eyes still held the chilling look of fear that I’d seen in countless victims over the years. You never quite got used to it. I hoped I never did.

I shuddered, tucking my feet under me and pulling my green velvet blanket tighter over my body. Beside me, the flickering flames of the fire in my fireplace blazed merrily. But it failed to throw off enough heat to combat the deep cold I felt in my bones as I looked at the photographs in the file the Lieutenant had told me to study.

The murders had taken place exactly three weeks apart. Each dead woman was found within the hour of her death. The murderer stalked his prey into the alleys just behind streets that were full of partiers and people working in the midnight hour. Whoever he was, he was comfortable in L.A.’s famous late night scene.

The idea that someone could do that to another person, and then just leave their lifeless, tied-up body lying in a dirty back alley to rot, was an evil beyond comprehension.

The longer I looked at the photos, the stronger my anger grew. By the time my roommate, Violet, walked into the room, I was determined to find the monster responsible for this. In the meantime, I tucked the photos behind the police reports, because the last thing I wanted to do was traumatize my dear friend.

I don’t know what I’d do without Violet in my life. We lived together in the cozy little bungalow in Elysian Heights that she bought with the earnings from her first Vogue shoot for Calvin Klein. Since then, she’s been in high demand as one of the most sought-after plus-sized models in the world. She could buy ten of these bungalows now, if she wanted to, but she insists she loves living here with me and doesn’t want to change a thing. That’s a huge benefit for me, because my measly cop salary pales in comparison to her supermodel earnings.

She held a plate with a half-eaten slice of cheesecake in her hand as she passed me, her fork waving in the air, her famous curves covered in baggy sweatpants that she managed to make look chic.

“I don’t know if it’s morning or night,” she complained. “The jet lag is catching up to me.”

“How was the shoot in Italy?” I asked. She’d just returned late last night from working on a campaign for Alexander McQueen and we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.

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