“Eve isn’t going anywhere,” McKay said immediately. “She can profile the fucker for you, but if he’s killing subs, you can’t expect me to send her in.”
Watts stepped up. “Look, we don’t need a sub. We’ve got a good line on a sub to send in. I haven’t talked to her myself, but we’ve identified her as a potential victim. We found her name on a grain of rice the unsub left on Officer King.”
“We?” Harris said, his eyes wide.
Clayton pointed a finger Harris’s way. “Just explain the findings. We don’t need a ton of attitude.”
Harris straightened his tie and smirked for all he was worth. “They didn’t even realize it was there. I didn’t work the first couple of cases. The other guy is an idiot. I found it this morning. It was very small, a little trace. He’s looking to lead us down a rabbit hole and no one had found the way yet.”
Oh, Derek was so glad he didn’t have to work with this asshole on a regular basis. “Are you going to explain or just give us a lot of literary references?”
“But they’re good references. You have to admit I have style.” He sighed a little. “Fine. Besides the obvious bondage, I found something odd in her hair. I’ve got a very specific routine. I check every inch of the victim. I don’t miss a damn thing. I found something weird in her hair. A grain of rice. A lesser tech would have missed it or thought it was a coincidence. Maybe she’d been cooking earlier. But it didn’t get past me. That was a clue and I had a feeling about it.”
Hill huffed a little. “I want to murder him myself half the time, but he’s got uncanny instincts.”
“What does rice have to do with this?” Liam asked.
Harris rubbed his hands together in obvious delight. “So much. It’s the little things that truly make a crime a work of art. I bagged that grain of rice and it was the first thing I studied. I knew it was meaningful. I got it under my scope and that was when I found it. A name was written right fucking there. We’ve gone back through the other victims and in each case there was a single grain of rice with the next victim’s name on it. Who the flying fuck does that?”
Alex frowned. “How the hell did he get it on there?”
It was the kind of thing he’d seen at amusement parks and festivals. Your Name on a Grain of Rice. He’d seen booths offering the keepsake a couple of times. He’d never heard of it being left on a victim.
“You know the name of the submissive you think is going to be the unsub’s next victim?” Eve asked. “I would love to talk to her. I know a bit about Amanda. If you would give me information on the other victims and let me talk to this woman, it would help me with a profile. I assume that’s why I’m here.”
Hill nodded. “I need you, Eve. You’ve done amazing work for us in the past. I’ve been given the go-ahead to pay your usual rate and double if you have to work overtime.”
She shook her head. “No. This is pro bono, Clay.”
Alex agreed. “McKay-Taggart is at your service. This is personal. Just tell us what you need.”
“I think he needs one of us to act as the next victim’s Dom,” Sean said.
Hill nodded. “We need one of you to make contact with the potential victim. We’re bringing her in to talk, but we thought a friendly face might help to sway her to work with us. She should be here in a few hours. I’m going to brief you and then you can help explain it all to her. We need her. If she decides to run, we might lose him and he’ll kill another girl.”
A cold feeling hit his stomach. He’d always had an uncanny sense of when the shit was about to hit the fan, and it threatened to take him over now. Someone he knew?
“What’s her name?” The question was tight, forced from his throat.
“Karina. Karina Mills. She’s a private detective from what I understand. I was told you know her quite well. It’s why I actually think we might have caught a break. She should be good undercover, right?”
She wasn’t working undercover. They wanted bait. Pretty, sweet bait with spectacular tits and an ass he’d been dying to spank.
“I’ll do it. I’ll be her Dom.” He was startled to hear the words coming out of his mouth, but he wouldn’t take them back.
“Damn straight you will,” Alex said. “You’re the only one of us who can, Derek. Simon and Jesse are in England. Tag will kick our asses if Karina gets murdered. She’s practically on the payroll.”
One of us. That was what McKay was talking about. Amanda might have gone to Sanctum, but Karina was truly one of them. Karina was a fixture at both Sanctum and McKay-Taggart. She was also a pain in his ass.