Daddy P.I.: Negotiation

Chapter 1 - Logan

Upstate New York on a Saturday afternoon. Not where I should be.

I should be on the way to Los Angeles, or at least getting ready for the trip: emailing my contacts on the Left Coast, researching my client's business.

I should be videoconferencing with Miranda, giving her the précis I've got on the five victims and toxicology reports. Bouncing ideas off her on how to interview the four survivors and the widow, who still won't answer my calls or emails, and the best way to approach the investigation on the boat. I should be packing her favorite toys and thinking about how to spend our downtime on the cruise together.

Instead, I'm in upstate New York and Mir's at home in London. Probably planning her goddamn baby shower. While I try desperately to replace her.

At a kink expo.

I make another circuit of the main convention hall, passing a table of sex toys, most of which I already own. The prospects are dismal. One, to be exact: a curvy little redhead who is staffing a table for a local piercing studio. She's advertizing its services so heavily I have trouble making out her features. I didn't actually know you could tattoo your upper lip. I'd need to scrub her up before I take her on the boat. She'd stick out like a sore thumb among the hard-body Californian crowd.

A woman walks up behind the redhead and kisses her on the back of her tattooed neck.

Fuck, my radar's malfunctioning.

I'm usually better at identifying women who share my sexual preference, even if a match with my particular set of kinks can be hard to spot. But, then, a kink expo isn't my usual fishing grounds. I glance around the brightly lit hall, cluttered with kiosks, stands, banners, tables and chairs. A million miles away from the candlelit interior of my club with its dark wood, cool leather and warm flesh, where I usually look for partners. The people swirling through the hall, in various stages of undress, costumes, and fetish-wear, are a million miles away from the women I look for. Too bad looking for a partner at my club is . . . complicated right now.

This was a mistake. I might have to call Sophia and apologize.

I rock up onto my toes with a creak of my boots at the thought. Ten days on a cruise ship with Sophia will have me jumping overboard.

A small arrow over an open doorway catches my attention. Hall B.

Well, it can't hurt to look.

I follow the arrow.

Hall B's smaller than the main floor, with fewer flashy kiosks. It's packed tighter than Hall A, both because the room's smaller, and because the center of the room's taken up with tables and chairs, populated by expo-goers taking a load off. Maybe that's why it takes me a full circuit of the hall to spot her.

When I do, my internal radar pings loud and clear. Bingo.

She's sitting by herself at a small table she's draped with a white cloth. Her head's bent over a book; dark brown hair in a plait down her back, secured by a floppy, white silk bow. Her table's empty. She's not selling anything. There's just a handwritten sign, printed in neat capitals, pinned to the front of the table. I'm at a bad angle to read it, so I move past, taking in her face: a pale oval, a dotting of freckles across her nose, long brown lashes shading her eyes. No obvious makeup.

On the second lap, I get a look at her sign. Nothing dissuades me, although I haven't tried her particular kink. I start angling toward her on the third lap, but a man beats me to her table.

I turn, pretending to browse a selection of home videos, and watch them out of the corner of my eye.

She looks up from her book, speaks to the man briefly, then goes back to reading.