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“You could get shot,” Drummond said.
“If I do, you’ll be the first to know,” I said, getting out of the car.
“How’re you getting in?” asked Johnson.
“The straightforward way,” I said, and I shut the door.
It was pouring when I ran across the boulevard, which was lightly traveled at that hour. There was no one in the western lane at all when I accelerated at the gate and then jumped up like I was going for a rebound.
Both my hands found the top of the gate and hung on. I kicked and shimmied and pulled until I’d gotten my belly over it. I straddled the gate, pivoted, and then hung down off it and let go. I landed and moved fast into the shadows.
The driveway was done in some kind of mosaic tile and was slick and puddled everywhere as I moved past the vegetation that blocked the house from the road. There were lights on in the inner yard, revealing a lawn that looked like a putting green at Augusta; beds of blooming annuals ringed the house.
There were lights on at every corner. Tinier lights lit an arched trellis that framed the main entrance. But unless the Strikers were using blackout curtains, there were no lights on in the lower part of the house.
I could see at least three rooms on the second story that were lit up, however. And the drumming rain made hearing anything impossible. I wondered whether this had been another impetuous act, the kind of all-in move Bree had been concerned about.
But more often than not, I’ve found it pays to be all-in. I ran across the lawn to the walkway and up under the trellis to the door. For a moment I stood there, trying to hear inside. Figuring my scouting trip was likely about to be over, I nevertheless reached for the door handle, because, well, you never know.
The handle moved down, and the locking mechanism gave. The door swung open. You never know.
I was torn at that point, because even though the door had been left unlocked, I was still breaking and entering. I hesitated, and then decided to just step inside and listen. If I heard nothing of alarm, I’d be gone.
I stepped into a dark, air-conditioned foyer, eased the front door shut behind me, and strained to hear. The distant hum of a refrigerator compressor. The closer ticking of a clock. A drip, drip that I realized was me leaving puddles on the entryway floor.
Then I heard a woman’s muffled voice somewhere in the house above me. I couldn’t tell what was being said, but I caught the odd rhythm of her speech. Was that what Johnson had been talking about?
A smacking noise. A cry. A whimper.
I locked in on the sounds, not sure what to do. What if Mize or Coco was torturing her? But what if the Strikers and Mize and Coco were into bondage or something, and this was all between consenting adults?
The cop in me told me to get the hell out. But when I heard another smack and more crying, the mystery lover in me drove me toward a spiral staircase that rose off the foyer.
I climbed the stairs quietly, moving as fast as I dared. On the landing, I heard the woman’s voice again, clearer but still not intelligible. After kicking off my shoes, I drew the Ruger from my ankle holster and snuck down the hall, where I saw a wafer of light coming through a door at the far end; thankfully, no floorboards creaked or—
“What did you expect, Miranda?” a woman said cruelly. “You dress a little boy in silk and lace all the time, this is what you get.”
Smack. A moan.
A moan of pain? Or pleasure?
“You did teach me a classic sense of style, though, I’ll give you that,” the woman went on in that odd rhythmic voice. “But you denied yourself nothing.” There was a pause before she shouted, “Nothing!”
Smack.
“Anything you wanted, when you wanted it, Mother!”
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Each blow sounded louder and more furious than the previous one. If this was some kind of sex act, it was full-on S&M. Whatever it was, home invasion or not, I was going to see who was doing the hitting and who was being hit.
“How will it go for you this time, Miranda? Shall we stick with the tried? The true? The erotic? You know what asphyxia does to your orgasm.”
That stopped me right outside the door, and I didn’t know what to do. If I burst in and it was something consensual, I could kiss a lot of things good-bye.
The woman said, “Once it’s over, I’ll put a toy in you, complete your method, your scenario.”
Then the whimpering turned to whining amplified by what sounded to me like terror, and I didn’t care about anything but stopping it.
