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“Sure thing.” Feigning a smile, he wandered away, though his disappointment was obvious.
I knew how the poor lad felt. I’d been unsettled ever since my run-in with Walker and knowing I could hardly start tailing him again immediately, but having zero other leads, had found myself hours later in this roadside café.
He was on to me. That much was clear. Walker didn’t know I was the D.S. who’d investigated his grievous violation of Noble’s privacy, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. The way he’d approached me told me he suspected I was more than only an innocuous passerby, and that presented a problem. Not only did he now know my car, but he would recognize my face if I turned up outside Noble’s Chambers.
In fact, given that he was the kind of man who thought it was acceptable to break in and hide in someone else’s property before taking them hostage in their own home, he would likely be looking over his shoulder for a while. That would mean making progress increasingly difficult with the few days I had away from work.
“Bugger,” I muttered, slamming the cup down on the table.
Looking around the café, I realized that several other patrons had noticed my outburst, and heart racing, I met their perplexed stares. For a cop, I didn’t seem to be good at staying inconspicuous. It was fast becoming an issue.
“There has to be something,” I murmured, wrapping my palms around the coffee cup. “Something I’m missing. Come on, Carol. Think…”
Walker was the key to this case. He’d initiated the crime with his perverse desires, and I was sure he was still pulling the strings. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on everything I knew about him. He had no prior convictions, no doubt because he was the type of slimy bastard who had either escaped justice or eased himself through the gaps in reasonable doubt.
What kind of man could achieve that?
In all my years working for the service, I’d met them all, every variety of guy—from the callous low-life to the privileged prick whose money bought them impunity. Which one was Walker?
The question sparked an idea in my head, and opening my eyes, I reached into my bag for my laptop and powered up the device. My ability to access confidential police records was limited outside of work, but I could still use basic searches. So, Walker didn’t have a police record, but he was a citizen—there must be some information about him out there. Kade was hardly a common name. I bet if I explored outside of his probable criminality, I’d discover something and maybe—if I was lucky—an address.
Pulse quickening, I moved my coffee out of the way and searched for his name. The results were depressingly sketchy. There were limited accounts of anyone with his identity, save for government records. Brow furrowing, I considered my options. Technically, I shouldn’t explore any further without a reasonable cause, ideally evidence which placed him in a new crime, but I couldn’t fight the nagging feeling that needed closer scrutiny. Even if Noble had somehow fallen in love with the devil, it didn’t excuse his misconduct or remove the possibility that he’d dabbled in wrongdoing in the past.
“Fuck it,” I whispered, clicking on his national insurance number and searching his details. “I have to know.”
Baron wouldn’t like it, but accessing a private network meant he’d never be able to trace the search. What the D.C.I. didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. My exploration revealed a little more data—a picture of a person who appeared to have grown up with good fortune. Educated at Oxford, with a list of prep schools beforehand, he’d either been the top one per cent of his class who’d earned a scholarship, or his parents had been able to buy him a place at the institutions. A quick scan of his childhood address gave me the likely answer.
“Barrington House?” I snorted, shaking my head in disdain.
For fuck’s sake, it sounded like some fictional country manor! But as I looked closer, my heart sped up again. The aforementioned childhood home wasn’t far from the café where I was sitting and was even closer to the rest area where he’d approached me. If there was one thing my career as a cop had taught me, it was coincidences rarely existed. If this country house was local, it was meaningful.
Perhaps, it was the place Walker had returned to, and—if I was super fortunate—the same one he’d taken Noble to?
If I could find the elusive Barrington House, I had a new target. Somewhere I could watch and wait. Reaching for my phone, I took a photo of the address. It had to be worth a shot. I had no other leads and frankly, nowhere else to be. I’d take a trip to Barrington and see what I found.
An hour later, with dusk falling, I crawled along the country road that my sat nav insisted was the right direction. Looking around, though, I was inclined to disagree. I was in the middle of nowhere, about to drive into a bloody lake in the half-light. Maneuvering the car to perform a U-turn, I was just about to give up when lights appeared on the horizon. Straining to see through the impending darkness, I drove on, looking closer. It took another minute of driving at five miles an hour before the outline of an enormous house came into view, the lights I’d seen illuminating from various huge windows through the property.
“Jesus.” Sitting back in my seat, I assessed the size of the building. “Barrington House.”
If this was the wealth that Walker had come from, no wonder he had the ability to disappear, combined no doubt with an arrogance only the rich emanated. However depressing the reality was, it was still true that money bought you more than just material possessions in the United Kingdom. Even in this day and age, it was well known it also delivered power and influence. If Walker had the cash along with the country house, he could have purchased enough of both to protect him from prosecution.
Anxious not to draw any unwelcome attention, I turned off my headlights and parked the car beneath the canopy of an aging oak. Grabbing my taser from the glove compartment, I locked the car and ensured the keys were tucked safely away. Whatever the next chapter in the Barrington adventure brought, I would go the rest of the way on foot.
Chapter Ten
Tiffany
“Oh f—” Biting my lip, I stopped myself from swearing as his crop finally relented, ebbing away the precipice that had loomed.
“That good, eh?” Kade smirked, lifting the tongue to inspect it for himself, but there was no need. I already knew what he would discover. I was soaking with need, and every tap of the crop only exacerbated my desperation.
“Yes, Master,” I moaned, glancing left and right as I pulled against my ropes. “I’m so close.”
“Excellent,” he purred, pressing himself against me before his free hand rose to my throat. “That is exactly how you will stay until I say otherwise.”
“Yes, Master.”
I understood this game of old. Kade owned my orgasms, and it would take more than God to help me if I disobeyed him by coming without permission. I knew it and loved it, but that didn’t make the sweet excruciation of play any easier to tolerate.
