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ajar. Nick gripped his gun as he climbed from his car, scanning the property.
    If a man had been murdered, the killer could be lurking nearby.
    The area appeared clear, but his senses were honed. The trees rustled in the wind, mosquitoes buzzed nearby, an owl hooted from the woods, followed by the wail of a cat. He approached the door slowly, checking over his shoulder just before he stepped inside the doorway.
    Except for the dim glow of a table lamp, the room was dark. Brenda stood by the table, her face ashen.
    He quickly scanned the room, but the metallic scent of blood hit him before he even spotted the corpse. He immediately noted the position of the body on the bed, and the fact that he was naked and had bruises on his chest, arms, and legs. His color was gray, his eyes wide open in the death stare, his wrists and ankles raw from straining against his restraints.
    The setup suggested S & M behavior, and the wire—asphyxiation sex. Had the sex been consensual?
    Kinky sex that went too far and turned into an accidental death? Or was this premeditated murder?
    Another step closer, and he touched the man’s neck, where a pulse should have been. But the skin felt cold to the touch, and when he lifted the man’s arm, it was rigid and heavy, indicating rigor had set in.
    “What were you doing here?” he asked as he looked up at Brenda. “Do you know this man? Were you meeting him?”
    She released a breath, then seemed to pull herself together. “No, I don’t know him.” Her voice took on a brittle edge. “And no, I wasn’t meeting him.”
    She indicated the ropes and piano wire around the man’s neck. “And I’m not into that kind of sex either,” she said sharply.
    For the briefest of seconds he wondered what kind of sex she was into, but decided not to broach that subject. He did not want to get personal with Brenda Banks.
    “Then why
were
you here?” he asked.
    Brenda pushed her phone into his hands. Her fingers were clammy, her sigh shaky as she gathered her composure, and he had the sudden urge to pull her into her arms and comfort her.
    “I received this text about a half an hour ago.”
    Dread balled in his stomach as he read it.
    Tell the Commander I left a present for him.
    Slaughter Creek Motel. Room 7
.
    Now he understood why Brenda had been so certain this was murder.
    He jabbed Jake’s number into his phone. Jake answered on the second ring. “Did you find Amelia?” Nick asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “Brenda was right,” Nick said. “You need to get over here asap and send a crime unit, Jake. We’ve got a homicide.”

    Amelia let herself back inside her condo, her body coiled with tension as she eased into her artist smock and picked up her paintbrush. She’d desperately needed some fresh air.
    To clear her head.
    And quiet the voices in her mind.
    She also had to find some relief for the sexual urges that seized her when Viola whispered in her ear.
    But she’d lost a few moments, actually hours, and that worried her. She thought the blackouts were behind her…
    What had she done during that time?
    She glanced down at her tattered shirt and rumpled skirt and smelled sweat and the scent of a man on her.
    Her therapist assured her that her sexual urges were normal, and that as a young woman, she had a right to enjoy sex. But she wanted to make real love, the way the doctor said it was supposed to be. To be with a man without Viola’s propensity for rough, edgy escapades. To have a man love her with tenderness andaffection. But most of all, she wanted to remember every minute of it.
    She began to paint, purging the demons inside her head, letting her artistic side flow. Long black strokes, images of a woman and man engaged in violent sex, of whips and chains and ropes, of dominance and submission, images Viola placed in her head with her books and whispered words and…pictures.
    It took three canvases to capture the darkness Viola liked, but with each stroke, Amelia’s determination to