AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rising from his crouch, he nearly knocked his head on the sex swing attached to the ceiling with steel anchor bolts. Bottles of various lubricants covered the top of the nightstand, forming a cityscape of unguency.
He’d searched the two-bedroom place meticulously, finding nothing. Being here elicited an intense disgust reaction in him, not because of the paraphernalia per se but because it felt not like a home but a venue. The habitat was operationalized, bringing to mind human-trafficking operations he’d torn apart.
The single-mindedness, too, added to his aversion—there wasprecious little decor aside from the mirrored ceiling. White porcelain dinnerware set and a pack of stainless-steel flatware in the kitchen. Soap, shampoo, conditioner, bathroom spray. Big-and-tall suits hanging in the closet above a set of black Tumi luggage. He’d used a padded stool to hoist himself through the hatch into the crawl space, which was crowded with HVAC ducting and little else.
The second bedroom, a makeshift study, was sparse: desk, computer, no paperwork to speak of. Empty drawers, empty closet, and the ensuite bathroom looked to be unused. There was no password on the computer and no documents whatsoever. The search history on the browser had been set to autowipe every day; the log of the past twenty-four hours showed porn sites and nothing else.
Everything was bare-bones functional; all the extravagance had gone into the pursuit of erotic exploits. It was odd to inhabit the space of a man given over to one part of himself, a solitary primal drive.
No useful evidence, no damning documents, no flash drive with purloined Labor Day footage.
Frustrated, Evan scanned the master bedroom once more. It smelled of fabric softener and lemon-scented Lysol, but the stench of cigarette smoke lingered. Afternoon light filtered through the fabric Roman shades. The air conditioner blew air down his collar. He closed his eyes, imagined being in this space as Derek Tenpenny.
For starters he’d be nearly a foot taller, giving him a different view.
And different opportunities.
Evan opened his eyes. The honeycomb brass vent above, inset horizontally in the side of the ceiling soffit, dried his eyes. He studied the knurled screws, one on each side.
Then he moved into the kitchen, searching the bulkhead. Similar brass wall registers blew steady currents of air.
Keeping his eyes on the soffits, he drifted into the study. A matching honeycomb brass vent above the desk. One of its screws was loose.
Going on his tiptoes, Evan reached up his palm. The airflow was meager.
Interesting.
Back to the master closet to grab the padded stool. He required it; Tenpenny would not. The knurled screws were easy to twist free by hand. Balancing on the stool, Evan removed the vent. He peered inside.
Nothing. Just a black maw.
He was about to replace the vent when a glistening thread at the side caught his eye. Fishing line, tied in a loop at the end.
A handle.
He pulled at it. Whatever was on the other end was heavy. It came grudgingly.
A large item the size of a board game but heavier, wrapped in a gun cloth.
Evan pulled it down and unwrapped it.
An old-fashioned ledger with page edges that threw a golden glow up into his face when he cracked it open.
Sitting on the floor, he paged through.
Women’s names. Dates. Descriptions. It was like reading a catalog of wine or spirit reviews, everything rendered dispassionately, aesthetically, the subjects reduced to physical matter and little more. Scrawled marginalia documented encounters:held her down, both wrists with one hand; cried a bit but made no noise; quite loud, lots of dirty talk.
Evan flipped the substantial pages, running a finger along the date column.
There it was. Labor Day, one year ago.
Angela Buford.
Beyond the listing of her approximate height, weight, dimensions, and sensory characteristics, there was a list of several sexual positions, ending with:“coitus interruptus.”
Evan recalled Tenpenny looking down at him in the spitting rain outside Tartarus:Angela Buford? Never heard of her.
He leafed through the other pages. All those encounters, many of them violations of differing degrees. Something dropped from the back cover, literally falling into Evan’s lap.
