“His victim lost her life,” Cassie snapped, losing patience with his “poor pitiful me” routine. “Think about that next time you hire some psychopath just because he has a big dick!”
Then she followed Stone out the door, hopefully leaving the porn producer in a cold sweat. The asshole.
Eleven
“Stone…” Cassie stopped, not knowing what to say. They had been driving for fifteen minutes already, back towards their end of town, and she still hadn’t found a way to broach the conversation about how her partner had acted during their visit to Frank Yarrow’s house.
She had never seen Stone that out of control—that scary. Her partner had always been so cool and calm—so logical. It had been frightening to see him go after Frank Yarrow with such single-minded ferocity. It made her think there was another side to her best friend that even she didn’t know about.
“Before you say anything, I would like to apologize for my behavior. I know that I crossed a line.” Her partner spoke in a low voice, shooting her a remorseful look as he drove. Clearly he wanted her to drop the subject now that he had apologized, but Cassie just couldn’t.
“I’ve just…never seen you act like that. Never seen you lose control like that before.” She shook her head. “You put both of us in danger. When I saw his bodyguard pointing a gun at your head…”
She broke off, her stomach knotting up all over again with the sick feeling of wondering if she was about to watch her partner’s brains splattered all over the wall.
“It will not happen again,” Stone said, his fingers tightening noticeably on the wheel. His tone was more than a little defensive, Cassie noted.
“Oh no? What if we find The Beast?” she demanded. “What then?”
“Then we will make certain he gets the justice that is coming to him,” Stone growled.
“Stone! That’s not an answer.” She blew out a breath in frustration. “We have to bring him in. You have to promise me that’s what we’re going to do if we run him down. You can’t start dishing out vigilante justice or you’re the one who ends up behind bars.”
“Since we are asking questions and making demands, I would like to know how you know so much about the kinds of sick scenes The Beast was filming.” Stone shot her another look, his pale blue eyes narrowed.
“What?” Cassie looked at him blankly. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that you knew the name of the device the victim was hanging from—that Saint Anthony’s Cross.”
“Saint Andrew’s Cross,” Cassie corrected automatically.
“Exactly!” Stone thumped the steering wheel for emphasis. “And the letters—MBDS—”
“Do you mean BDSM?” Cassie lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Yes—that. You knew what all that stood for—what it was about. How?”
Cassie took a deep breath and blew it out. This was awkward—they were getting into territory they carefully avoided, both as partners and as friends.
“I suppose I could tell you I spent some time in Vice before we became partners, but that’s not the whole truth and you and I don’t lie to each other,” she said to Stone, who was still watching her from the corner of his eye as he drove.
“No,” he said shortly. “We do not.”
“All right, well…” Cassie cleared her throat. “All of that has to do with the Kink community—the Lifestyle. And for a little while—about six months or so near the end of our marriage—Keith and I tried it out.”
“You tried what exactly?” Stone demanded. He suddenly pulled the shuttle-car over into the deserted parking lot of a bank and turned to face her. “Did you let your ex-mate tie you to the cross? Did he beat you? Cut you?”
“God, no!” Cassie exclaimed. “It was nothing like that with us—those kinds of practices are hard-core and we were barely dipping our toes in the water.”
“What then?” Stone asked again.
“That’s kind of personal, don’t you think?” Cassie snapped. Now it was her turn to sound defensive. “You’re basically asking about my sex life, Stone. We don’t usually talk about things like that.”
“We never talk about it but please, Cassandra…” He reached out and brushed her flushed cheek with his fingertips, very lightly. “Please, I need to know. If he hurt you…”
“He didn’t—honestly.” Cassie took another deep breath, wondering why this was so hard to talk about. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Lots of people dabbled in kink to try and spice up their relationships—especially after the 50 Shades movies had come out. But the way Stone was looking at her made her feel like she’d done something really deviant.
“It was nothing, really,” she said, as lightly as she could. “We took a few lessons from a dominatrix and did a little role playing—that’s all.”
“Role playing?” Stone frowned, clearly not understanding.
“Pretending—playing parts.”
Cassie shifted uncomfortably in her oversized seat. The Kindred shuttles were built for the large-framed Kindred warriors and she always felt like a kid when she was riding in the shuttle-car. When she drove, she had to pull the seat all the way forward to reach the pedals.