Jaid Black (6 page)

Thomas ascended the cement steps leading to Vincent Pinoza’s modest home. The tiny postage-stamp-shaped house was small but well manicured on the outside, he absently noted.

He lifted his hand to the doorbell and rang it, tugging on his tie as he did so. Goddamn, he hated suits.

A minute later, and wearing nothing but a towel around his middle, Lisa’s widower showed him into the living room.

 

 

“We were young when we got hitched. Young and
stupid.” Vincent sighed and lit a cigarette. He ran his hands through his wet, shoulder-length brown hair, the bottom strands falling to rest on the Harley-Davidson T-shirt he’d thrown on after escorting Thomas inside the house. “But I loved Lisa a lot, always had. We’d been going out since high school, didn’t you know?”

Thomas shook his head.

“I did drugs back then,” Vincent admitted. “Heavy shit. Coke. Heroin. You name it and I did it.” He took a long drag from the cigarette. “Been clean since the day she died,” he murmured in a faraway voice.

“Did Lisa start looking for a way to escape?” Thomas asked softly.

Vincent’s eyebrows rose. “You mean did she fuck someone else? Yeah, she did.”

The detective’s body stilled.

“Hell,” Vincent said. “Looking back I can hardly blame her. Here she was stuck with a deadbeat husband and two kids, supporting all four of us
and
my drug habit on a waitress’s salary. Shit, I’d have looked for an escape, too.”

Thomas said nothing. He didn’t want to interrupt Vincent’s train of thought.

“Lisa was good people,” Vincent said reflectively. “Had a lot of aspirations in life—aspirations I never had. She wanted to go to college, didn’t you know?”

Thomas shook his head.

“Yeah, well, she did.” Vincent took another long drag from the cigarette. “When we got married the deal was I’d work to put her through school. She wanted more out of life than this neighborhood. Can’t say I blame her.”

“But you started using drugs and she never got that chance. Did she?”

Vincent blew out a long puff of smoke. “That’s about the size of it.” He frowned. “I can’t tell you how many times I tried to quit. I knew Lisa’d leave me if I didn’t. But I couldn’t stop. Not until I had to. Not until Lisa was dead and the only thing the kids had left in life was me.”

Thomas nodded. He absently yanked at his tie, wanting to pull the damn thing off. “For the kids’ sake I’m glad you did,” he muttered. His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Do you know who she was having an affair with, by chance?”

“Not a clue.”

“Are you certain she was having an affair?”

“Positive.”

“How?”

Vincent sighed as he ran a hand through his damp hair again. “Lisa was depressed the last three years of our marriage. Ever since the second baby came along. But then, a month or so before she got killed, all of a sudden she was real happy. Know what I mean?”

Thomas thought that over. He inclined his head.

“It was like she had a reason to smile again.” He frowned. “I hated her for it back then because I knew the reason wasn’t me.”

Thomas waited for Vincent to make eye contact. “Did you have anything to do with her death?” he bluntly inquired.

“No.” Vincent’s nostrils flared.

“You knew I was going to ask,” Thomas said unapologetically, believing him. Vincent wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to have his wife murdered while he was in the slammer, his alibi airtight. That took a cunning that the detective’s experience told him this man lacked.

Vincent frowned. “You know something? I thought about it a time or two when I was flying high. Killing her, I mean. She was my wife and she was fucking someone else. But could I kill Lisa? No way, man. I loved that woman. I’d have probably killed the guy she was screwing if I’d got my hands on him, but not Lisa.”

“How do you know the reason was another man? It could have been any number of things that made her feel less depressed.”

“It was definitely another man.” Vincent shook his head. “She flat-out admitted she was in love with someone else.”

One of Thomas’s eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly. “Did you tell the police that?” he asked softly.

Vincent waved that away. “Yeah. Of course. This is all old news, man.” He took a final drag from the cigarette before snuffing it out into an ashtray. “Damn, I still miss her. I know she fucked around toward the end, but if I’d gotten my act together, we’d be married thirteen years next month.” He straightened in his chair. “Anyway, as I told you when you first got here, I don’t have any new information. I wish I did. I’d like to tear the bastard who raped her and killed her apart with my bare hands.”

Thomas inclined his head as he rose to his feet. That he could understand. More than Lisa’s husband would ever guess. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Pinoza.” He held out his hand to shake it. “I appreciate it.”

Vincent returned his firm handshake. “Any time,” he said as he led him to the front door. “Let me know if you find anything.”

“Will do.”

Thomas traipsed back to his car, the wheels in his head racing. Why would James have neglected to mention in the reports he’d filed on Vincent Pinoza the possibility that Lisa had had a lover? He scratched his five-o’clock shadow, wondering if a mistake had been made somewhere down the line in the paperwork.

Thomas had been down in Savannah visiting his mother when Lisa’s body had turned up. James had hurriedly faxed the paperwork to him to look over, to bring him up to speed. He hadn’t thought to question his partner about Vincent upon his return because the paperwork had made it seem like a dead end.

He frowned as he revved up the Cadillac’s engine. There must have been a careless mistake in the paperwork.

A distinct possibility. And one he’d have to look into.

Chapter 5

Monday, June 30 7:52 P·M·

Nikki paused from her reading as she glanced up from the computer screen. She turned around in the swivel chair at her desk in the den, her gaze seeking out the report she hadn’t yet read.

She sighed as she stood up to retrieve it, feeling bad that she’d gone so far as to hire a firm to check Richard out. But a woman can’t be too careful these days, she reminded herself. It never hurts to make certain you’ve checked—and double checked—your facts.

Opening up the large manila envelope, she tugged at the sheaf of papers inside until they were firmly in hand. There was a photograph of Richard—the same photograph he’d emailed to her three weeks ago—along with a bunch of reports. She read the cover letter first.

She smiled as she read the rest of the cover letter, elated that her suppositions about Richard had turned out to be true. He hadn’t lied about who he was. Richard was the real deal.

Nikki took a deep breath as she clutched the report to her chest. Now that she knew he was legit, all she had to do was work up the nerve to meet him.

 

 

Over the course of the month they spent in devoted
email exchange, Nikki grew ever fonder of Richard. She felt as though she knew him, as if their email exchanges were bonding them together before they’d even met face-to-face.

Perhaps it was because she was allowing herself to open up her soul to him, to bare parts of her psyche to Richard that she had never before permitted a man to glimpse. The Internet offered a sort of safe haven to express oneself in, a way to get to know another person without masks or façades.

She was baring her true self to Richard, telling him of her hopes and dreams, of her vulnerabilities as well as the things in which she had self-confidence. She took comfort in the knowledge that he was just as open with her.

She would sense it if he were lying, she told herself. No man was
that
good an actor. The two of them were definitely bonding.

She had shown him photographs of her face and he had liked them. She had even sent him a photo of her bared breasts late one evening when she’d had a bit too much wine to drink. He had liked that photo, too, telling her he’d always treasure the spontaneous webcam photo she had snapped solely for him to view.

Surprisingly enough, Nikki hadn’t felt dirty or bad about sending Richard that photograph. She told herself she should have, but everything just felt so . . . right. She had been nervous and giggly, surprised by her own audacity, but she had enjoyed sending him the risqué picture.

Perhaps because the photograph symbolized a letting go of the old Nikki, an ability to be a sexual being where before she had been too shy and lacking the self-esteem to do so. She had gotten rid of the thick glasses and uncoordinated outfits ages ago, but until she’d “met” Richard she had still felt like that insecure plain Jane of a bookworm she’d been at eighteen. Now she was beginning to feel like a caterpillar who, at long last, was ready to emerge from her cocoon and become a beautiful butterfly.

And yet, despite their growing closeness, a part of Nikki still shied away from meeting the man she had come to idealize as the perfect D/s lover. She chalked it up to nerves, to cowardliness. To a fear of failure. And perhaps, if she was honest, to a fear of success.

By the time their month-long anniversary arrived, she realized that Richard was growing more and more desperate for a physical meeting. She had known from the beginning that his patience would endure but so long, and she sensed that his limits were about to be reached.

Could she blame him? she asked herself as she sat down in front of the computer and hit the power button. If their roles were reversed, she knew she would have begun to doubt that he was serious about ever meeting her.

Just coffee,
he’d said in his last email.
Coffee and conversation. *smiles*

Nikki smiled at the memory. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask of her, she mentally conceded as she logged on to her
submissivegrrrl
account. Coffee and conversation. A well-lit, public meeting place. A café in the Flats, perhaps?

Her smile faded when she signed on to find no new email. This was the first day that Richard had neglected to write to her.

She sighed, realizing that she couldn’t blame him. A cyber relationship could last but so long. Apparently one month was near enough to that limit.

Slightly down in spirits, yet still uncertain as to whether or not she was ready to take the next step and meet him, Nikki pulled up Richard’s last email and reread it.

Her body became involuntarily aroused as she continued reading.

She believed him, she thought, blowing out a breath. Her nipples hardened against the T-shirt she wore.

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Did he realize how profoundly his words affected her? She had confided in him before about how emotionally neglected she’d always felt growing up. To have someone use such strong emotion against her now just to get her into the sack would be beyond cruel.

She bit her lip. Richard wouldn’t do that—no, not Richard. He had no reason to. A man who looked like that, and who was intelligent and witty to boot, could get any number of willing women into his bed. He didn’t need to prey on her.

“Always the cynic,” Nikki murmured.

She took a deep breath and blew it out. She had already hired a detective agency to check him out, and the report had come back clean. No arrests. No history of mental illness. Nothing that could give her pause. “What would a cup of coffee and some intelligent conversation hurt?” she asked the walls of her apartment.

And maybe, just maybe, things would be as wonderful in real life as they had been online. If that was the case, they could move into the next phase.

And Dr. Nicole Adenike would finally know what it meant to submit her body to an alpha male.

Nikki sighed as she stood up. She turned away from the computer, leaving it on while she went into the kitchen to make herself some dinner.

She wasn’t going to make a potentially life-altering decision on an empty stomach. She’d ponder her choices while she peeled the potatoes.