Page 57 of Dominion’s Collar

I stay curled against him. Tomorrow I'll build the case Andy described. Documented incidents. A witness who is willing to be the first to go on the record.

Tonight, my back bears the evidence of what I willingly gave Sebastien in front of a room full of people. The cover story requires distance. That distance died on the St. Andrew's Cross.

I close my eyes. Claire is back at the apartment, frozen in time in a picture on the shelf. I'm beginning to understand what she found in this world, and in accepting this part of myself, the distance between us shrinks a little more. And that frightens me more than being flogged in front of a room of people.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sebastien

Luc arrives at the townhouse for the second time this week with the expression of a man whose questions have multiplied since the first visit. The night I called him, he came in twenty minutes, read the legal pad, and left with more concerns than answers. He's been digging ever since.

I open the door. He's in jeans and a fitted tee, the training from his past visible only in the economy of how he moves through a doorframe. Scans the hall behind him without turning his head.

"You still look like hell," he says.

"I poured you bourbon. Again."

"Then I'll wait to judge. Again." He steps past me and heads for the study like he owns the route. Remy holds the record for time spent in this townhouse. Luc is catching up fast.

In the study a drafting table sits against the far wall, the kind with a tilt mechanism and an adjustable height, for the occasions when I need to think standing up. The antique partners desk I found in a shop on Magazine Street is wide enough to spread documents across the full surface. The lamp throws warm light across the legal pad sitting open between two glasses. I've added to the notes since his first visit.

Luc picks up the bourbon. Takes a sip. Nods once and settles into the chair across the desk from me. His eyes find the new entries immediately.

"That's what you couldn't say on the phone."

"That's the list you read last time. Plus what I've added since."

Luc reads. The new entries first. Then back to the originals for comparison. He's quiet while he does it, which is unusual.

Luc's default mode is commentary delivered at a pace that suggests he's been waiting his entire life for someone to stop talking so he can start. The silence tells me the additions made it worse. He finishes, reads the new observations again.

"Gaudet chaired the safety review," he says. "The same review that cleared the incident."

"Yes."

"And you didn't find that interesting at the time."

"I found it consistent. Gaudet chaired most things. He was a trusted senior member. He was available. He volunteered."

"People who volunteer for oversight are either dedicated or positioning themselves. You're telling me you couldn't tell which."

"I'm telling you I didn't look hard enough to ask."

Luc taps the pad with one finger. "The submissive who left. No forwarding information. Nobody followed up."

"That's standard."

"It's standard because it's convenient. A club that prides itself on community lets a member vanish and calls it respecting her privacy." He lifts the glass. "You wrote 'people leave' on this pad. You know that's insufficient."

I do. I've known it for five years. The difference between knowing and acting is the distance Luc has been closing since I finally called him.

"The woman who died," he says. "You told her unease was normal."

"I told her it was common."

"And that distinction is eating you alive because you think you should've heard what she was actually saying."

I don't confirm it. He doesn't need me to.