Blood & Lace Read online

  After nursing three lemon drop martinis, she hadn’t seen a single face she recognized. And she had to pee.

  Standing in the long line for the ladies’ room, she whipped out her phone from her small matching clutch and began to peruse the photos again in hopes of seeing something, anything, that linked someone here to Red Light. Her ankles ached from standing in sky-high stilettos. The entire night was beginning to feel like one big waste of time.

  “Eden? Is that you?” A female voice practically shrieked at her.

  Chloe’s head snapped up and she glanced all around her. Was Eden there? Hope surged hard and fast in her chest until she caught sight of the redhead coming her way.

  Me. Damn it. She’s talking to me. She thinks I’m Eden.

  Living across the country from her sister, she’d been able to avoid the mistaken-identity issue for the most part. That was, until some random guy on the train who used the Provocative Inc. catalog as jack-off material spotted her and thought she was a lingerie model.

  Her mind raced as she tried to decide the best way to play the situation with the strikingly attractive ginger-haired bombshell who was nearly upon her.

  “Girl, where have you been? Alex has been freaking out. He thinks you up and quit on him.”

  Chloe tried her best to feign disinterest, even though she wanted to grab Red and shake all the answers from her that she could. She had no clue who Alex was.

  “Oh.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah. I should call him. Just had a lot going on.”

  “Um, yeah. I figured. Your channel has been offline for a week. He’s been flooded with complaints about ‘Cossette’ being MIA. He’s super pissed.”

  Her channel? Cossette?

  Chloe was lost.

  “He’ll live. I’ll text him tomorrow.” She glanced at her phone as if she had better places to be. Eden was always looking at her phone.

  “Anyway,” the other woman said slowly, “I just wanted to check to see that you were okay. I’m not waiting in this ridiculous line. I was about to head out anyway.” She gestured to a tall man with dark features over by the bar. “I have big plans.” She winked, and Chloe forced a smile.

  “Um, yeah. I’m fine, thanks. And congratulations?” She wanted to slap herself. Eden always knew the right thing to say. “I mean, he looks like a lot of fun. So enjoy!”

  Ugh. She cringed at her own stupidity. Eden would never be so awkward.

  “He is. He’s loaded. He owns this place,” Red informed her. “I thought you’d met Ryker before. If not, I can introduce you—”

  “No,” Chloe cut her off quickly. “I mean I might have been too blitzed to remember. Who knows? I don’t want to seem like a flake. You have fun though.”

  “Okay, well . . . I guess have a good night.” Red eyed her skeptically. “You sure everything is okay?”

  Chloe nodded. “Sorry. I was supposed to meet a friend here and he’s late, but whatever.”

  “All right. Well, if you need a fill-in for the Con Sub stuff, let me know. I’d be happy to do a few guest spots. You have way more viewers than I do. Probably why Alex has his panties in a wad. ’Night, babe. Don’t do anything I would do.”

  With a wink and a convoluted mess of a good-bye, Red was gone. Chloe waited until she was out of sight to pull up the app she used for taking notes at work. She made a quick list: Alex. Channel. Cossette. Offline. Con Sub. Viewers.

  Then she pulled up the Instagram account for Red Light and searched until she found Red. She almost laughed out loud. Her user name was @NaughtyG1ng3r.

  Chloe clicked on her account. It was private, but the description showed and included a hyperlink.

  Before clicking the link, Chloe realized it was her turn for the ladies’ room. She maneuvered the restrictive leather skirt as quickly as possible and emptied her bladder in record speed, which normally would’ve made her giggle in her slightly buzzed state but she had more important issues to deal with. Her encounter with Ginger had sobered her instantly. After washing her hands, she exited the ladies’ room and the club as quickly as possible.

  As soon as she was outside, she clicked on the website link in Ginger’s bio. A black screen with glowing neon red letters came up. A RED LIGHT PRODUCTION. MUST BE EIGHTEEN TO ENTER. Below that was a blank box and a picture of a key.

  It was password protected, then.

  When she clicked again, she saw that it was a paid site she’d need to enter credit card information to access. If anyone with Red Light was involved in Eden’s disappearance, giving her credit card info to them was probably not the best idea.

  Chloe wanted to scream. Or throw her phone. Or both.

  Her first real lead and it was a dead end.

  Except . . . she knew a certain FBI agent who was known for his computer-hacking skills. She’d read Alexis’s notes. He might be a white hat now, but once upon a time Gage Pierce had been a very bad boy.

  Pulling up his number, emboldened by alcohol consumption, she decided to call instead of text.

  He answered on the second ring.

  “Chloe?”

  So he had recognized her number from the text. She couldn’t help but smile in the darkness.

  “Hey. I need to see you. I mean, to talk to you. Well, to talk to you and see you.” She rolled her eyes at her ineptitude. Smooth was not a quality she possessed around this man.

  “Where are you?”

  Chloe looked around. She was on a deserted street beside a club downtown trying to find her car. “Um, well, I was at a club called the Vault. A lot of the Red Light employees seem to hang out there, so I thought I’d see if I could find out if any of them knew my sister. I didn’t make a whole lot of progress until I was in line for the ladies’ room. Now I’m looking for my car because I ran into this woman who knew Eden and—”

  Agent Pierce didn’t interrupt her. Chloe stopped talking all on her own. Because she’d found her car.

  And all four tires were slashed. Violently, from the looks of the side she was currently surveying.

  “Chloe? Chloe, what’s wrong? You there?” The panic in his voice was clear, even though their connection was not.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just . . .” The full weight of what she was seeing began to press down on her, shoving her heart into her stomach. Someone was very angry at her. Either they were mad that she was here or they didn’t want her to leave. Or both. “I—I was going to ask if I could come by, but I guess I need a ride.”

  “A ride?” Agent Pierce echoed.

  “My tires have been slashed. All four of them.” She glanced around to see if the instrument of destruction had been left behind but saw nothing. And no one.

  Agent Pierce didn’t miss a beat before responding. “Get your ass back in the club. Now. Sit in front of the bartender. Talk to him or her. Tell them your tires were slashed. Call roadside assistance and tell them you are in an unsafe area. Speak loudly. Be seen. Do not move. Keep your phone in your hand. Do not go anywhere with anyone for any reason. I’ll be there in ten . . . Fuck. Five minutes.”

  The line went dead.

  Chloe half jogged back into the Vault on wobbly legs that had nothing to do with her sister’s four-inch heels.

  She did as she was told mostly on autopilot.

  The bartender was a raven-haired woman with intriguing tattoos swirling a vibrant mural up and down her arms. Chloe made a production of telling her about her tires, citing a fictional “crazy-ass ex-boyfriend who wouldn’t take the hint,” while she dialed AAA and was given a drink on the house.

  By the time she finished her complimentary drink, Agent Pierce was there.

  And he was livid.

  Chloe trailed behind Agent Pierce, following him to his truck as he rattled off her list of offenses.

  “Do you even know what could have happened to you?” The closer they got to his truck, the more enraged he seemed to become. “For fuck’s sake, Chloe, you contacted me because you think your sister is in danger. So you stroll up i
nto the lion’s den looking just like her? You think she got kidnapped, or so you’ve said. Do you have any idea what might’ve happened to you if whoever took her saw you?” He shot her an incredulous look. “And wearing that . . . that dress, or half of a dress. What was the endgame here? Pick up a Red Light employee and seduce him into giving you information about your sister? Do you think maybe you could’ve discussed that strategy with me first? Or given me five minutes to find out more about Red Light? I told you I was working on it. I mean, hell, at least clue me in before you launch a suicide mission.”

  Chloe let him vent. If her tires hadn’t been slashed to kingdom come, she would’ve told him he was overreacting. But they were, so she kept her mouth shut.

  When he was done, she spoke softly so as not to provoke him any further. He was worked up enough as it was.

  “First of all, I didn’t know it was a lion’s den. You never said you suspected anyone at Red Light had hurt my sister in any way. Though it’s clear now that you do. Second, I wasn’t trying to seduce anyone. I was trying to blend in.”

  “Well you failed,” Agent Pierce blurted out. “If one of the people in there is responsible for your sister’s disappearance, then you just put a giant target on your own back. Because I can guarantee every damn man in there saw you.”

  Chloe scoffed openly. “Yeah, okay. Did you see the other women in there?”

  Just as they reached the truck, Agent Pierce pinned her with a fierce, blazing glare that was even more intense than the one he’d laid on her when he’d realized she’d switched cars on him.

  “No, I did not see the other women in there,” he bit out through gritted teeth. His eyes scoured every inch of her body. Slowly. Hungrily. Landing heavily on her breasts and dipping down lower to her exposed legs. Heat sparked everywhere his perusal touched. And a few places it didn’t. “I saw you. And my money says I’m not the only one. Get in the damn truck, Chloe.”

  She gaped at him for several seconds before realizing he was holding the door to the back of the extended cab open. Because the passenger seat was occupied.

  By another woman.

  Shame covered her like a white-hot flaming blanket.

  They’d kissed.

  She’d called him for help and he’d come.

  But he’d obviously been on a date. And he’d brought the date along to what? Watch him berate a foolish woman?

  Once she was safely buckled in the back seat, Chloe chanced a glance at the woman in the passenger seat.

  She was young, probably early twenties. Didn’t that figure.

  Her hair was long and straight and thick. In the darkened cab, Chloe couldn’t make out the exact color, but it was multiple shades of black and purple. The lights from outside made it appear to be highlighted with some caramel tones of blond as well.

  Petite features smiled instead of looking perturbed. The girl was like a beautiful, magical sexy unicorn. She was intimidating as hell and yet sickeningly sweet. Piercings ran all the way up the left earlobe that Chloe could see.

  “I’m Aly,” the woman—well, more like girl—said, twisting in her seat to make eye contact. “That’s an awesome dress.”

  She forced an appreciative smile. “Chloe. And it isn’t mine. It’s my sister’s. But thank you.” She bit her lip and considered staying silent through the ride, since Agent Pierce hadn’t turned on the radio and was still stewing in his own anger. But the silence was becoming exceedingly awkward.

  “Sorry to have interrupted your evening,” she said, mostly to Aly, but she hoped Agent Pierce accepted her apology also.

  A lump of disappointment formed in her throat. They made a cute couple. She wasn’t the type to be jealous of another woman, but knowing Agent Pierce would drop her off and continue his night with his date was bothering her significantly more than it should have.

  “You didn’t,” Aly offered. “In fact, Gage was just about to call you.”

  She calls him Gage was the first thing that registered in Chloe’s mind. Then the words sank in.

  “He was? You were?” When he didn’t answer, she scooted forward in her seat and touched his shoulder gently. “Gage?”

  Tonight he didn’t feel like Agent Pierce. Not since she could still close her eyes and recall the way his lips felt on hers. Not when he’d told her she was the only woman he saw in the bar. She glanced over to see his white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel. Maybe calling him by his first name had been a step too far.

  He swallowed thickly before answering. “I was. Dav—Alyson here found something that might be useful in your sister’s case. I was going to see if you wanted to take a look.”

  “What is it?”

  It was Aly who answered her eager question. “It’s, um, kind of graphic. Some videos . . . of your sister. Gage and I were arguing over whether you’d want to see them. If I had a sister, I’m not sure I’d—”

  “I do. Want to see them. I want to see anything that might be helpful in locating my sister. Even if it makes me . . . uncomfortable.”

  Aly nodded. “That’s what he said you’d say.”

  10

  “It’s like an onion,” Aly explained to Chloe once the three of them were situated in front of Gage’s computer on Eden Sterling’s couch. “That’s why they’re called onion sites. There’s layer upon layer—an entirely different network lying beneath the surface of the one we all use regularly.”

  Gage watched Chloe’s eyes widen as the hacker he’d previously known only as Da Vinci explained the Deep Web and the Dark Net in layman’s terms.

  He didn’t often find himself surprised, as he dealt with all types in his line of work, but when Da Vinci showed up at his apartment and turned out to be a twenty-two-year-old female Council of International Schools student from Berkeley, he was damn near shocked.

  “You need the appropriate proxy software—meaning a specific browser and network to access the sites. So you couldn’t just google it,” Alyson “Da Vinci” Davis said as she navigated through to the Red Light Productions site using the TOR—the onion router—she’d installed. “It’s like having a decoder ring that lets you see hidden messages. Except it’s an entire network. And most of it is used for illicit purposes, such as buying and selling illegal items—drugs, materials, sex, people, pornography, and such—in a hidden marketplace using an alternate form of currency.”

  Judging from the light in Chloe’s eyes, most of this was new information to her, and she was soaking it up like a sponge. Gage wanted to cover her ears, keep her safe from the darkness that lurked below the surface. But she’d already plunged in headfirst courtesy of a solid push he felt responsible for.

  “With the regular Internet, the one we use to check our email and such, there’s an IP address, a registered user, and tons of searchable information that makes it easy to tell who accessed a site, when, where, and for how long, as well as who hosts it. With the Dark Net it’s much harder, oftentimes nearly impossible, to trace that information.”

  “So you’re saying it’s impossible to find out who owns Red Light Productions because their website operates on the Dark Net?” Chloe’s voice was heavy with disappointment.

  Alyson shook her head. “Not necessarily. I’m just saying it’s more difficult, that’s all. I’m working on infiltrating their site now. I was already able to access their archived videos using a program that tries out thousands of passwords within seconds. Three of the webcasts I unlocked include your sister. Or at least we think they do. She’s wearing a wig, but Gage was right, she looks enough like you that we’re pretty certain it’s her.”

  “She’s wearing a black lace mask,” Gage added, knowing that would carry a great deal of significance for Chloe.

  She nodded. “Is she . . . being hurt or anything? In the videos, I mean.”

  Gage could hear the trepidation in her voice. He suspected watching the videos would be like watching a car accident in slow motion. She probably wouldn’t like seeing them, seeing her sister in th
at light, but since it was currently the only lead they had, she probably wouldn’t be able to look away either.

  “Not from what I saw,” Alyson informed her. “Mostly she’s hosting a webcast with live chatting. It’s just that the content of what she’s demonstrating and discussing is . . . intense.”

  Gage watched Chloe take out her phone. “Do any of these come up in her webcast?” She glanced down and rattled off a list. “Alex? Channel? Cossette? Offline? Con Sub? Viewers?”

  Aly nodded before he could. “Her screen name is Cossette. I figured she was a Les Misérables fan.”

  Chloe sucked in a breath. “Our mother read it to us every Christmas when we were kids until she passed. She had cancer and it spread until it took her, when we were fourteen. We both read it every Christmas still.”

  Alyson’s icy-blue eyes filled with sympathy, but she continued without voicing it. “Channel is a direct reference. Just like YouTube, Cossette, er, Eden, had a channel on the Red Light Productions site. It would have viewers like any other channel. And it would be offline if she’s not logging in and hosting webcasts. The actual show she hosts is called Consensual Submission, so I assume that’s what Con Sub stands for. I don’t know who Alex is, but I can do a search.”

  Chloe gestured for her to go for it, but Alyson came up empty. She frowned hard at the computer screen. “I’ll keep trying.”

  Gage gestured to Chloe’s phone. “Want to tell me how you came up with that list?”

  “Tonight . . .” Chloe trailed off and then shrugged. “I ran into a woman by the restroom who thought I was Eden. She rambled off each of those in such quick succession my head spun. I didn’t exactly have time to question her. But if we can tell when Eden’s last webcast was, we might nail down when Eden went missing without my having to head back to the Vault to find the random woman again.”