Damn, this sanctimonious bastard really pissed him off. Today was not a good day to step on his last nerve.
“And he’s got the press with him.” Luc cursed. “What the hell does he want?”
“Besides to shut down your wife’s club?” Jack stated the obvious.
“Attention,” Hunter drawled. “Pricks like him crawl on others’ backs with their ‘look at me, look at me’ mentality. He’s a boy in a man’s body who wants to be God when he grows up.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, the morality police. Fucker.”
As soon as the car stopped, Luc jumped out. He’d have gone around back to avoid Primpton, but he didn’t have a key to the back door. Alyssa had given him one to the front, in case of emergencies. This qualified.
As he approached the club, Primpton blocked this path, his curly gray hair frizzing in the humid afternoon. His jowls shook as he stepped in front of Luc and wagged a finger in his face.
“Stop! Think about your immortal soul before you enter this place where the devil is at work. Where sin is king.”
Luc had to clench his teeth and restrain himself to keep from pounding the jerk into the pavement. “Think about the fact you’re loitering, and if you take another step, you’ll be on private property, and I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
Primpton’s rheumy blue eyes went wide. “That’s devil’s whore has swayed you to the side of sin and fornication!”
“It’s not fornication since we’re married.”
“A pathetic mask! A secular union like yours doesn’t change what she is.”
“Don’t you dare talk about my wife that way. She’s a taxpaying business member of this community who has never lifted a finger against you. What gives you the right to judge her?”
The councilman puffed up his narrow chest. “It’s the job of all of God’s true believers to lead others to the path of righteousness.”
Vomit. Luc didn’t have the time for narrow-minded asses, and today especially, he lacked the patience.
“Then you should be pleased to know that Alyssa is retiring from the stage. She won’t be performing again.”
Primpton perked up. “She’s closing the club?”
“Did your marriage have any impact on your wife’s decision to stop performing?” a reporter shouted.
The press. God, didn’t these leeches ever get tired of hounding people for nonexistent stories?
No. But in this case, he could give them a real one. “Yes. She’s devoting more of herself to the restaurant business, with my blessing. We’re excited about the next chapter of our life. But last night, someone broke into our house and vandalized it. Terrorized my wife. She’s now missing, and I need your help to find her.”
“You suspect foul play?” shouted another reporter.
“It’s a very real possibility.” As Luc said the words, he tried not to think about what he’d do if they were true, if some maniac had actually killed her. It was all he could do now to keep his composure and not panic.
The press asked a few more questions, and Luc provided details about when and where Alyssa was last seen.
Satisfied he’d made the best of a bad situation, Luc turned and stalked toward the door. Again, the councilman blocked his way.
Primpton sniffed and whispered for Luc only, “If someone returned her to her maker, it’s no more than she deserves.”
Luc fisted his hands. It was all he could do not to strangle the shithead. The fact he felt that way made Luc wonder if Primpton’s involvement was more than judgmental gloating.
“If I find out you had anything to do with the break-in at our house and my wife’s disappearance—”
“Me?” The older man had a shocked look on his face, yes. But he looked eerily excited, too.
Luc’s skin crawled.
“If you thought hurting Alyssa would further your narrow agenda, I know you wouldn’t hesitate. You’d say God told you to do it or some such crap. If I find out you’ve been responsible for harming or terrorizing her in any way, I’ll—”
“What?” Primpton barked smugly. “What will you do to me?”
The asshole wanted Luc to threaten him. Luc refused to rise to the bait, no matter how badly he wanted to tell the bastard he’d love to rip him limb from limb and describe it in agonizingly gory detail. But he refused to give the bastard ammunition, especially because he might have Alyssa.
“I’ll make sure you’re prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if I can prove you were involved, you will need God’s help to save you.”
The reporters out front left, and Jack called one of his buddies to follow Primpton and see if he knew anything about Alyssa’s whereabouts. The guy was on it . . . but who knew how long before he had any answers?
Luc tried not to be disheartened, but worry was an ever-constant drag, gnawing at his stomach, hollow and knotted. What if . . . he didn’t find her alive?
Shortly after they left, Remy called to say they’d released the crime scene. Analysis was under way, and Luc could enter the house. Jack made a phone call and arranged for the cleaning service he knew well to meet them at the house in thirty minutes.
Then Deke called. He’d found a contact who might be able to help them locate Tyler. He refused to say much since he needed a few hours to work it.
Fidgeting in the passenger’s seat, Luc felt ready to explode.
“I know what you’re going through,” Jack said quietly.
Luc snapped his gaze around. “Because you fucked my wife once upon a time?”
As soon as the words were out, Luc wished he could take them back. Whatever was between them was ancient history, and Jack had been nothing but helpful today.
“Don’t be a dumb ass,” Hunter drawled from the backseat of the SUV. “Jack is totally devoted to Morgan.”
“It’s okay.” Jack gripped the steering wheel, then visibly relaxed. “Alyssa was mostly for show on cases.”
Mostly, but not completely. Luc didn’t miss that distinction.
“It didn’t occur to me that you’d worry for a second about shit that went down years ago. Sorry,” Jack said. “I’m totally married, man. Shooting straight? You know about me.”
The fact Jack Cole was a well-known Dominant, who had bondage down to a fine art? “Yeah.”
“Alyssa and I weren’t . . . compatible. We figured out very quickly that we were better friends than lovers.”
Jack couldn’t be any more honest, and Luc knew he needed to get over whatever Alyssa had done with the other man before he’d met her. Hell, Luc himself had fucked Kimber after spending an incredible night with Alyssa, so if anyone had done wrong, it was him.
“Thanks. Sorry.”
“I understand.” Jack smiled ruefully. “I always want to rip the balls off of any man who even looks at my wife. I meant that I understood your concern about her safety. After Morgan was shot, I thought I was going to die. Literally, like someone had opened up a hole in my chest and torn out my guts.”
That described Luc’s state well. He rubbed a hand across his face. Closing in on three in the afternoon, and he feared information would start to dry up. Now what?
They arrived at the house, and Luc vaulted up the stairs, despite Jack’s renewed warnings. The destruction he saw in the master bedroom made him see more red than the paint covering the walls and floors. Alyssa had walked into this?
Slowly, he wandered around the room, blinking, hardly able to take it all in. His clothes and the bedsheets were negligible, easily replaced. The damage to the walls and carpet was also fixable. But the rest . . . Alyssa’s lacy, racy underthings all piled on the bed with some scumbag’s come on them sent a fresh blade of panic through Luc. His wedding gift to her destroyed. The beautiful picture of her in her wedding dress, looking elegant and wearing a Mona Lisa smile, desecrated with the bright red threat was another punch to the stomach.
Whoever had done this was serious. And he might have Alyssa in his clutches.
Luc didn’t know if this bastard had also written her the WHORE notes with the knives weeks ago. Possible, though this felt far more angry and serious. Either way, whenever Luc found his wife and whoever was responsible for the violation of their home, he hoped he got ten minutes of quality time with this asshole.
“I didn’t think you should see this. You look somewhere between ready to puke and ready to commit murder.”
“Bingo.”
“We’ll find Alyssa and get this motherfucker.”
Not trusting himself to speak, he sent Jack a hard nod.
A moment later, the doorbell rang. Within a few minutes, they’d escorted the cleanup crew to the master bedroom and instructed them to toss everything. Luc didn’t want any trace of the crime to remind Alyssa in case he got to bring her home safely.
“In two hours, you’ll have no idea this happened,” a salty older woman with peroxided hair assured. “If you’ve got some touch-up paint, we’ll be in business. Fresh sheets, a little bit of treatment on the carpets . . . good as new.”
After showing the crew where to find what they needed, Luc followed Jack downstairs. Hunter awaited them, pacing the kitchen.
“I made a few phone calls to some friends,” Kimber’s brother said. “They’re working on a psych profile of the perp. But at a glance, I’d say you’re dealing with someone who’s obsessed with your wife. Your wedding seems to have infuriated him, since he stepped up his game shortly thereafter.”
Someone like Primpton? Or Tyler, who had a real reason to be jealous?
“If it’s the same guy as before.”
Hunter raised a tawny brow. “How many stalkers can she have?”
“You ever seen my wife onstage?”
Hunter hesitated, then grimaced. “Good point.”
Pushing aside the thought that yet another male had seen his wife close to naked, he focused instead on what to do next. “I can’t sit here. I need to exhaust all possibilities, and that means finding Tyler.”
But where was the bastard?
Into the pensive silence, his phone rang. Deke. “Find something?”
“I’ve got a buddy who knows a guy who works for the electric company there in Lafayette. He’s done a cross-reference of the name Tyler Murphy to coincide with an initial service date between May and July. We have three possibilities. There’s a Murphy Taylor, a T. Patrick Murphy, and a T. S. Murphy. I’m e-mailing a list of their addresses to your BlackBerry right now.”
Thank God. Maybe they were getting somewhere. Luc prayed to God he’d find his wife soon. He hoped she’d simply been scared and gone to the closest person who made her feel safe. That, he understood. Reluctantly, yes, but . . . If she had simply been shaken, why hadn’t she called in all these hours?
The three hopped back in Jack’s SUV, agreeing to hit Murphy Taylor’s house first, since it was less than a mile away. Luc darted out of the vehicle as they rolled to a stop in the man’s driveway and pounded on the door. A pretty brunette answered. After they identified themselves, she said that her husband was in the UK on business. Her pretty brown eyes soft with sympathy, she showed them a picture of her husband, just to be certain. Definitely not the Tyler they were looking for.
Cursing, his stomach twisting, they pulled out and headed to T. Patrick Murphy’s residence. It was an apartment on the northwest edge of town. Again, Luc knocked impatiently on the door. A moment later a young man answered, maybe all of twenty. Tall, lanky, and exhausted.
After blessing them out for waking someone in the middle of his sleep who worked graveyard shifts, the men muttered their apologies and left. Luc’s stomach sank. One more possibility. Luc didn’t want to think about what he was going to do if the last lead was a dead end. It almost certainly meant she’d been abducted, and he couldn’t think about Alyssa being afraid or in pain at the hands of a madman. Or dead.
In grim silence, the trio made their way to the southwestern edge of town, to an upscale apartment building. It looked new, gleaming. They drove past a sleek new swimming pool that looked more like a tropical oasis than a man-made water hole. Multiple spas, jogging trail, Wi-Fi included. Definitely more upscale than Tyler could afford on a bouncer’s salary.
Luc’s heart sank, and given Jack’s and Hunter’s grim faces, they had done the math as well. But they continued on until they reached apartment 314 and knocked.
A scuffle and a grunt and a long minute later, the door opened. Tyler stood there. Shock transformed his square face. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Do you know where my wife is?”
Tyler raised a brow, then smiled. “Follow me.”
Relief crashed Luc’s system. “She’s here? Is she all right?”
The big tawny bouncer threw a glance over his shoulder, his expression somewhere between confused and annoyed. “Of course.”
