Dungeon Games (Masters and Mercenaries #6.5)(7)

Karina was the one holding on to Eve now. Amanda had been a sub at Sanctum. She’d been the troublesome one, attempting to be a Queen Bee. She’d had a hard outer shell Karina had never been able to crack, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the loss. She’d known the woman.

“You could have been a little gentler, Alex,” Derek complained.

But Karina knew there was no gentle way to deal with death. And she had a sudden suspicion of why she’d really been called in. How did he know? How the hell had the detective figured out she was working a case that involved a dead sub? Tanya Wilson’s mother had begged her to find her baby girl. Unfortunately, Karina had found the police report that led her to Jane Doe, who turned out to be Tanya. Sweet kid. Twenty-f*cking-two years old. She’d been beaten and raped and her body had been dumped in an alley like she didn’t matter. Like she’d never mattered. Like she hadn’t hugged her momma before she went to sleep and led her high school debate team to a regional championship. Her life had been taken and pared down to nothing.

And Karina couldn’t accept that. Tanya Wilson’s great crime seemed to have been experimenting sexually in the D/s arts. A monster had lured her in and then made perverse something that should have been sacred. Karina had a five hundred dollar retainer with the promise of absolutely nothing else and she was on the case. She would find whoever had left Tanya Wilson’s mother in perpetual mourning for the child she’d lost.

She’d been very quiet about it, not wanting to tip anyone off. It had occurred to her to ask Simon Weston to work with her, but he’d been called away to London on another case and she’d lost her shot. She couldn’t ask the others. They were all married and she loved their wives. She couldn’t pull the husbands away. And she sure as hell wouldn’t ask the lieutenant. He would just as likely toss her ass in jail as work with her.

Was he going to do that now?

A man she’d never met before walked into the room, and Karina’s eyes widened. Stetson hat. Pressed blue jeans. Bolo tie over a dress shirt.

Damn. The Rangers were involved. If they were involved, it meant she’d been on the right track all along.

“It’s a serial case. Shit.” She flushed a little, stepping to Eve’s side. “I’m sorry to have cursed, sir.”

Derek Brighton’s eyes flared. “You’ve never been sorry before.”

Had he thought she was talking to him? She hadn’t meant Sir, but rather had simply meant to be polite to the baddest ass in the room. If there was one thing she’d learned since she’d moved to Texas, it was to respect the highest authority in law enforcement. “I was talking to the Ranger.”

The big guy tipped his head her way. He was a glorious specimen of masculinity. She put his age at forty and it looked good on him. “Ma’am. I’m Clayton Hill with the Texas Rangers. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Mills. I’m sorry it’s under such tragic circumstances. You knew the victim?”

She hated the fact that Amanda was being referred to as the victim, but she understood the need to distance. She knew what it meant to be a cop’s wife. They dealt with the worst things a human could see. They had to have distance to do their jobs and maintain some sanity. “Yes.”

His blue eyes held a wealth of sympathy and he reached out for her hand, grasping it between his. “Then I’m especially sorry for your loss.”

Derek was right there, grasping her elbow and pulling her away from the lovely Ranger. “We need to move on. We have very little time. According to everything we know about this guy, he’ll strike again in the next two weeks.”

Her head was whirling a bit as Derek hauled her toward the conference table and pulled out a chair for her. If she’d had a minute to think about it, she would have found another chair out of sheer stubbornness, but he moved so fast, she found herself settled in next to him in an instant. “We know something about this guy?”

She didn’t even know there was a guy on their radar. The last time she’d talked to the local police, they were checking out Tanya’s ex-boyfriend as the main suspect. She seriously doubted the college kid had been running around killing subs.

Derek frowned her way, but then that was his usual expression when it came to her. “Why did you ask if this was a serial case? Do you know something?”

She bit her bottom lip, a nervous habit. So they didn’t know? “I’m kind of working a case.”

His frown deepened. “A case? What kind of a case?”

“I started working a missing persons case a few weeks ago. The girl was playing in some clubs. Tanya Wilson. My missing person became a murder investigation.”

There it went again. If he frowned any more, she was pretty sure his face would turn in on itself. “The second victim?”

She felt her eyes widen. She’d known there was more to this. It just felt wrong to her. “How many vics have we got so far?”

Holy shit. She’d been hunting a serial. She’d had that feeling in the pit of her gut. It was why she hadn’t been to Sanctum for weeks. She’d been busy letting herself be seen at the more dangerous clubs, the ones Tanya had frequented.

Alex sat down in front of her, Eve sliding in on his side. “Four that we’ve found. Karina, there’s something you should know.”

“What?” Yes, something was so wrong because Alex put a hand over hers as though giving her comfort for the horror to come.