Ben could understand that. The idea of walking into a club and seeing his father in fet wear made him a little nauseous.
“Yeah, me, too,” Chase said, obviously picking up on Ben’s line of thought. “But the point is, she was looking for a Dom. Maybe not seriously since she was so young, but all of her relationships prior to the kidnapping were based in D/s.”
Chase was right. “She won’t be really happy until she can truly submit again.”
“She needs it so badly. Ben, I don’t think she’s really cried yet. I think cutting herself was her way of crying.”
“You spanked her last night, right?”
“A little. And she cried. A little. Not what she needed. She did let me hold her though. She sat in my lap. And I got her clothes off earlier. Then I fucked everything up. Why am I being so fucking possessive? I’ve never been possessive. I don’t know that I like the feeling.” Chase frowned, turning to Ben. “It’s fucking with my head. I need to be thinking about this case and all I can think about is Natalie. We shouldn’t have left her with Logan. One of us should have stayed behind.”
Beyond monumental progress. Ben had to stop himself from actually tearing up. This was it. They both cared about the same woman. This was his shot. Chase would fall once and then never again. “I think you need me on this one. I know you’re the brains here, Chase, but I’ve been doing this for a while, too. Natalie is fine. Logan is used to being in charge of a large group of crying females.”
Logan had actually sent him a pitiful look as he and Chase had left him behind with a frantic Gretchen, a weepy Kitten, a somber Natalie, and a surprisingly selfless Georgia. Georgia had been calling for room service, ordering tea and coffee, and asking what she could do to help. For once, she hadn’t been forcing her way to the center of attention.
“Still. Something about this whole thing doesn’t feel right,” Chase said. “Hurry it up. I want to get back to her.”
Ben started the cart again, making quick work of the little road that ran from the main resort to the employee quarters. Chris Linwood was waiting for them. “Try not to piss this guy off again.”
“He’s way too invested in thread count. I don’t get that.” Chase hopped out as soon as Ben stopped the cart. “Where are the CCTV cameras?”
Linwood stopped. He’d been walking toward them, a hand out, but now he pulled back. Yep, Chase had that effect on people. “We don’t tape our employees.”
Chase looked around. “Do you have any security at all?”
Ben nearly groaned. This was why he hadn’t sent Logan with Chase. Someone had to make sure his brother didn’t get them thrown out of the resort. “What my brother is trying to ask is what is the security like? We both understand that this is a place that prides itself on discretion.”
It was a freaking sex resort. Did Chase honestly think they routinely taped the powerful people who came here?
Chris turned to Ben, ignoring the way Chase was studying the building. “We have several well-trained dungeon monitors. Michael is our veteran. He’s been working as a Dom for fifteen years. Tate is our newest addition. The staff includes a bunch of former Special Forces and some ex-cops. They know what they’re doing.”
“How do people get in and out of the resort? Do you use key cards?” Ben asked. The night before he’d had to show ID to get past the front gates.
“Yes. We have one road coming into the resort and it’s guarded twenty-four-seven. New guests are on a list and must show picture identification to get in. However, we have some members of the club who are local, and they have tags on their cars that open the gates.”
“I’ll need a list of those members,” Chase said, pacing up and down the front walk, taking everything in. “And I want the whereabouts of everyone with one of those tags on their cars.”
Chris went a little pale. “Yeah, it should be interesting to see you interrogate Jack Barnes.”
Jack Barnes. The king of Willow Fork. The only man in the world who gave Julian Lodge a run for his money in sheer ruthlessness. “I think we can all agree that Barnes didn’t do this.”
The last thing Ben planned to do was sit Jack Barnes down and force him to answer questions. Ben liked to keep his balls attached to his body.
Chase just kept on. “Barnes wouldn’t trash a girl’s place. He would just kill her. No. But Abigail might. What if sweet Abigail was having an affair with Stan the Furniture King and took exception to losing her lover?”
The look on Linwood’s face was priceless. He actually turned a little green. “You can’t accuse Abby Barnes of having an affair.”
Ben stared at Chase while the grin crossed his face. His brother loved to make people squirm. “He’s joking.”
“I am about Abby,” Chase admitted. “But this smacks of jealous woman. Stan was married, right?”
“Oh, yes. And Juliet didn’t like what went on here. She’s threatened to protest the resort a couple of times. She calls it a whorehouse.”
Ah, the uninformed and intolerant. “Is there any way she could have gotten in here?”
Chris started to lead them into the complex. The staff quarters were as lovely as the resort itself. Though set away from the resort, it boasted the same elegant lines. Chris led them through the Spanish-style arches and onto the patio. A swimming pool dominated the courtyard. “We decided that it might be hard to attract really good staff since we’re so isolated. So Danielle and Julian decided to make the staff quarters seriously posh. There are twenty-five apartments. Most of our staff lives around the area. These are the people we had to import. Our massage therapists, the Doms, the subs who work the dungeon. The specialized workers. Gaby and I both live out here. We have two of the family suites. There’s a pool, a huge media center, a gym, basketball court, everything else you would need to live out here. The parking facilities are in the back. Nat’s apartment is on the second floor.”
Chris pushed the button for the elevator and they got in.
“You don’t need a card to access the elevator?” Chase asked.
“We have ten kids living out here. They range from six months to sixteen years old. If we required key cards, they would never leave their rooms. Seriously, those kids can’t keep up with them. This is a family facility. A ‘no kink’ zone. The third floor is a school. We brought in private teachers and just got our accreditation. Barnes paid for that. Seems his daughter had some trouble with the local kids so he just built a school for her. There’s another entrance for the third floor and that is accessible only by the school employees and students.”
The elevator doors opened and there was no way to miss the yellow police tape that draped Nat’s doorway. The door stood open and the khaki-suited form of the sheriff walked by. Chase immediately ducked under the tape.
Ben followed, his heart seizing just a bit. Natalie’s place was in complete ruins. Her little couch had been torn to pieces, the stuffing pulled out and scattered across the room. It was easy to see that Natalie didn’t have much. A small TV, a couch built maybe for two, no more. A round dining room table with two chairs had deep, jagged scratches covering the surface. Both chairs were broken as were all her dishes.
“How the hell did no one call this in?” Ben couldn’t imagine that whoever had done this hadn’t made a ton of noise. This kind of destruction would have taken a single person a long time and created a ruckus.
The sheriff turned, a tired look in his eyes. “Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. It looks like someone doesn’t like this girl. We’re sure she didn’t do this herself? You know some women might try to throw suspicion off themselves.”