The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

Pool Sex Girl, I think, but don’t say aloud. She’s a trail of breadcrumbs leading off in another direction, and while it’s tempting to follow it, I don’t think that trail holds any of the answers I’m looking for.

“Did you see Rick again that night?”

“Nooo.” He draws the word out and I can almost hear him straining to remember over the phone before he dissolves back into munching. “I don’t think so. I stayed by the pool for a while until I saw what was going on. The idiots were stuffing towels into the filter. Holy crap on a cracker, what a mess! You should ask Terri about it. She was beside herself, poor thing.”

I heard. “After you left the pool?”

“I went back into the house but there wasn’t anyone interesting at the bar and all the rooms were already taken. Early night, I tell you! I shouldn’t joke, though. That must have been when it was happening.”

“When what was happening?”

“Don’t you know? The Stans and a couple others got two girls drunk and pulled a train on them. So nineties frat party.” More munching. “You should speak to Terri about it. She has all the deets.”

Another trail of breadcrumbs. “Did you come across a girl named Laura or a guy named Damon at the party?”

“I don’t remember a Laura, but sure, I know Damon. He’s on the tech side, if you know what I mean.”

The tech side of what? “Sorry, I don’t.”

“Computers. IT. You know, the stuff with ones and zeros. Not the six-figure ones that I like, either. The boy codes or something. And I think he still lives in his mother’s basement. Well, her Manhattan high-rise, but still.”

“He’s here in New York? What’s his full name?”

“Damon Tiger. Now that sounds like a name that should be in front of the camera, doesn’t it? But I swear it’s his real name.”

Rowe doesn’t have Tiger’s number, but he directs me to the guy’s website, Tiger Tail Tech.

While I’m thanking Rowe and giving him my contact details in case he remembers anything else once he’s no longer distracted by his potato chips, I surf the Tiger Tail Tech website for contact information on my laptop. There’s only an online contact form, which isn’t ideal, but I fire off a request for Damon Tiger to contact me and give my cell and the house landline. I also email the website address to Max to see if he can work his magic on getting a physical address or phone number.

As I’m typing, I hear voices in the other room. My hair-trigger goes off. Literally. The small hairs on the back of my neck rise. Is there someone in the house? Gina, the housekeeper, came and went in her usual flurry of furniture polish and floor cleaner an hour ago, so it should just be me and Emily in the house. And Sable.

Damn, I knew he looked like a Jellicle Cat.

I rise and move silently to the doorway. Listening, I catch the cadence and timbre of the voice. It’s Vashi, the submissive of my friend Niall’s trio. Emily must be on a video call to her.

I move back to my desk and finish going through my emails. Hoping to catch at least one of them, I try the people on Rick’s list that I haven’t reached yet. But no one answers. It is Friday night. I leave more voicemails, before I lock away my laptop and join Emily in the kitchen.

She’s sitting in the breakfast nook, the French doors still open to the twilit garden and evening breeze, with her tablet propped up on the table. The cat’s on Emily’s lap, one white-tipped paw reaching up to bat at the tablet, his rusty purr filling the air.

I drop a kiss on the top of Emily’s head as I move past her to the fridge. There’s a big jug of filtered water with lime wedges next to the iced coffee. I fill two glasses and take them to the table.

“Hello, Master Logan,” Vashi greets me when I sit down.

I tip my head so I’m in frame and smile into the tablet’s camera. Vashi smiles back, white teeth flashing. I’ve never seen her in anything but a sari, and although I can only see her head and torso, it looks like she’s wearing one today: midnight-blue and gold, with her hair draped over one shoulder like a black silk scarf.

“Hello, Vashi. How are you and your masters?”

“We are all very well, thank you, Master Logan. Master Niall sends his apologies. He was called out to a site but he says he will call you tomorrow.”

“No problem,” I say easily, but my shoulders tighten. I was looking forward to talking with Niall. The whole brother from another mother thing is asinine, and I’d never say it to him, because he’d never stop taking the piss out of me if I did, but he is. Getting to know Niall on the cruise was the second-best part of it, after falling for Emily. He had my back in a way no one else could have after I was injured, and since coming back from San Diego, we’ve talked every few days. I’m looking forward to seeing him when he and his submissives come to New York next month, even more than I’m anticipating Thanksgiving with Lizbeth and my nieces, and that’s saying something.

I haven’t told him about the medical bills, but I was going to tonight. I’ve got to get it off my chest before I explode. I’m not going to ask for his help financially, although he’ll probably offer, but I know he’s not that liquid. All his money is tied up in his construction business and the house that he’s in the middle of building in San Clemente. So much so that he maxed out his credit cards getting flights to San Diego from Mexico when I was injured. I paid him back half, which was all he’d