Lash marks decorate her taut stomach. They’re red, raw, and totally fresh. Tiny spots of blood bead along some of the marks, and the ones across her breasts are even worse. Looking closer, I can see some lighter marks, too—ones that are obviously older.
But it’s her face and neck.
I cover my mouth with my hand.
Her face is purple, her eyes so bloodshot that they’rebulging and almost red. Her mouth is open, her lips swollen, as if she was crying for help in her last moments. A chill fills the air as I focus on the deep-purple tie knotted around her neck, cutting into her pale skin.
I swallow hard. Hours ago, I was talking to her in her home. Albeit a very shaken-up Natalie, but oh, hell. Shit. Fuck.
“Noelle,” Drake says softly. “Is this Natalie?”
I nod and turn, walking into the hall. I lean against the wall next to the doorway and put my hands on my knees. Was this her important appointment? In the hotel where the debate was being held? And if so, who was she meeting? Who did this? Who knew this information?
Drake stops in front of me and cups my face. The palms of his hands are hot against my cheeks, and I breathe in again as he tilts my face up. His eyes, despite their hardness for the situation, are full of concern for me.
“If you want to go, no one will hold it against you.”
“No,” I whisper. “I just need…a minute. That’s all.”
“Are you okay?”
“I will be if you do your hot-cop thing and start demanding things of the people you work with.”
His short laugh is weak. “Okay.” He presses his lips to my forehead, the warmth lingering from his gentle touch even after he’s stepped away and his phone is attached to his ear.
He does what I said so flippantly. Within five minutes, he’s ordered the floor to be evacuated and cordoned off, called in almost every officer in the HWPD to get started on questioning everyone in the building, called Tim, the town coroner, for him to come in, and confirmed that the sheriff is on his way up with a bottle of cold water for me. And my father.
Excellent.
Trent and Brody are the first to arrive, closely followed by my dad and Sheriff Bates. Sheriff Bates is the sweetest gentleman I know, and he rarely wears anything other than a button-down shirt pressed to perfection. Today is no different, and as he approaches me with his pure-white hair slicked back from his face, a water bottle in his hand, I’m thankful for his calming presence.
“Drink,” he orders. The word is soft, but the authority in it has me automatically unscrewing the cap and sipping. He’s commanding in a grandfather kind of way, something I know we’ve all welcomed in the years since Nonno passed.
That’s the thought I hold on to now as the hall is filled with security guards emptying rooms with little explanation, allowing everyone ten minutes to pack their belongings to be transferred to another The forensics team arrives, and they disappear into the room with Drake, Trent, and Brody before closing the door to preserve as much dignity as Natalie has left.
She could have exposed herself to as many people in life as she wanted to, but in death, she’ll be respected in a way she perhaps never respected herself.
I can’t wipe the images of her tied up, that tie around her neck. Was the tie deliberate? A spur-of-the-moment act? It’s clear to see that that’s the way she died. She was strangled. Her appearance could tell even a CSI-loving amateur that.
I take another sip of the water as Drake reappears, closing the door behind him.
“We found identification inside her wallet,” he tells Sheriff Bates, shoving him a white, leather wallet with his gloved hand. With his other, clad in the same type of latex glove, he removes her driver’s license and holds it up for him to see. “Confirmed as Natalie Owens.”
I knew it, but shit.
Drake puts the wallet into a sealable plastic bag and briefly opens the door to hand it to someone inside the room.
“What else is there immediately?” Sheriff Bates asks as the lock clicks.
Drake snaps his gloves off and shoves them into his pocket. “Marks on the body indicate an affinity for bondage. There are numerous burn marks across her wrists and ankles. Tim will need to spend more time with her body, but his initial thought is that it’s beyond a dom-slash-sub relationship. Perhaps a serious sadomasochistic relationship wherein the dominant acts as her rapist and she struggles as such.”
I frown. How could that be enjoyable for her at all? “Who would get pleasure from pretending to be that brutally attacked?”
“You’d be surprised,” Dad answers. “Holly Woods isn’t necessarily the town everyone thinks it is. Sure, it’s real quaint and cute, but beneath, there are some dark secrets. This is, unfortunately, one of them.”
“BDSM? Why would it be?”
“Because Holly Woods prides itself on being a ‘clean’ town. Meaning we have little crime, no controversy, and the bar that’s exclusive, invite-only for the rich living within a fifty-mile radius.”
“Are you telling me that D.O.M. is a sex club and not a…? Wait.” I pause, rolling the water bottle across my lips. “Of course. The name itself…”
“Is obvious without being brash,” Drake answers. “Put it this way: If you need to know about it, you do. The police department know because they need our services. I can count on one hand the amount of calls we’ve had to there in the last two years, but I’d bet anything that Natalie was a member, at least once upon a time.”
“Would they condone that kind of thing though? The…pretend rape.”
“Absolutely not,” Sheriff Bates says sharply. “The rules are very clear. Even if it’s consensual and both parties have signed the necessary contracts the club demands. There’s no way for them to know if the participants are genuinely wanting it or being forced into it.”
“Will they release any information about Natalie though? Surely a club like that would be reluctant.”
Drake shakes his head. “I already have Brody preparing for a warrant for it, just in case, but here’s the thing: BDSM is about safety, first and foremost. That’s the whole reason for the contracts. You can’t walk into D.O.M. and pick up some random person the way you can in a bar. You have to have met them before and whittled out every detail of your relationship. We’ve seen their contracts. They’re tighter than anything I’ve ever read before.”
“You think they’ll hand the info over?” Dad asks him.
He shrugs. “Who knows? If she is, or was, a member, it won’t look good when it’s revealed that she was murdered in a sexual situation. Plus, if there’s the risk of a murderer on their client list, they’ll hand everything over to us. Thankfully, they stick to a select clientele of no more than fifty or sixty people, so it should be relatively easy to contact everyone.”
Only fifty or sixty. Oh, yeah—that can be done by lunchtime. If you get up at four a.m. What the hell?
“So, what killed her?” Sheriff Bates asks. “I’m going to have to personally deliver a report to Mayor McDougall before sunset.”
“Asphyxiation,” Drake answers. “Given her…situation…Tim thinks it was erotic asphyxiation, but he’ll know more when he’s had a chance to carry out her autopsy in two to three days.”
Erotic asphyxiation. The art of restricting oxygen flow to the brain during sex to heighten pleasure.
Risky.
Obviously.
“But that’s consensual, isn’t it?” I ask, looking between the three men. “He wouldn’t have been able to do that to her without her agreement.”
“She was bound to the bed and unable to move,” Drake points out.
“But there had to be respect there. If she said no and he valued it, he wouldn’t have done it, surely.”
“Unless he didn’t respect her at all.”
“Then this…” I swallow and glance at this door.
“Then this isn’t a sex game gone wrong.” His eyes bore into mine. “This is murder.”
Eight p.m.
I finally sit in my car after hours of being inside that hotel, waiting to be officially released by the HWPD. I’ve seen several breakdowns, a few anxiety attacks, more ambulances than I ever thought I’d see in one day, and more than one or two women preparing to sue the hotel for the disruption of their stay.