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

“Mr. MacDonald thought it might be—” I flip back to the note I made, so I get it right. “Oxymorphone. Do you know what that is?”

“No.” She shakes her head for emphasis. “Look, Mr. Logan, I don’t know about you, but I need to keep myself absolutely clear when I’m topping. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and I don’t do drugs. Not even painkillers. Topping’s my high.”

“Same,” I tell her. “I don’t allow my bottoms to do drugs, either.”

Although I’m perfectly happy to give them painkillers, particularly after a session like last night.

Her nostrils flare and her jaw knots. “Are you suggesting I put my sub’s health in jeopardy?”

“No. I’m trying to establish Mr. Black’s mental state. If he wasn’t allowed by his top to take drugs, and he took something on Friday night when he was alone, that would explain why he didn’t answer your calls and why you felt he’d done something outside the boundaries.”

“Oh.” She rolls her muscled shoulders. “I wouldn’t have allowed him to take that, whatever it was called.” Her spine stiffens as she connects the dots. “Are you saying he took something Friday night that killed him?”

“I’m not drawing any conclusions at this stage. I’m investigating.”

“But that’s why you think it isn’t food poisoning?”

I hold my hands up, since it’s no more than the truth.

She touches her fingertips to her mouth, remembers that she’s wearing lipstick, and wipes her fingertips on the hem of her top. “Dammit. If I’d stayed on the cruise with him—”

I can see where she’s going. “You can’t know that. I don’t know anything for certain at this stage. I’m going to try to track down this other couple. See if they had any contact with him on Friday and Saturday. If you remember anything else about them, could you call me?” I fish my card out of my wallet. “Here’s my number.”

She takes the card and turns it around between her fingers. “You think I let Bill injure himself.”

“I’m not pointing fingers. I’m investigating. If you’d like to know the results of my investigation, I’ll ask my client if I can share it with you. Dom to Dom, I think you have a right to know.”

She nods. “He always was a willful sub.”

She’s justifying it to herself already, but I make a note to ask the cruise people if I can disclose Bill Black’s cause of death to her.

I stand and offer her my hand, which she shakes firmly. When I show her to the door, she turns to me and says, “I would like to know.”

“I’ll request a waiver from my client. They may ask you to sign a nondisclosure agreement, since my investigation’s confidential.”

She nods. “Nothing against Reggie, but she shouldn’t be suing anyone. She’ll realize that when she gets her head straight. Bill was carrying ten mil in life insurance. Sure, half of that goes to the company, but Reggie’s set for life.”

Reggie didn’t mention that, but I don’t think money is her motivation anyway. I shake Olsen’s hand again and close the door behind her.

When I walk back through the living area, Emily’s peeking out from behind the bathroom door. I beckon to her with two fingers as I go to the couch and sit down to call Ed Isaak, the VP I’m reporting to.

She comes to me but instead of sitting on the couch, she kneels between my knees. I tuck her hair behind her ear and stroke her cheek. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“She let her sub do drugs and he died, Daddy.”

I nod.

“But it’s not really her fault . . .” She trails off.

Any Dom worth their salt will feel it was. “That’s between her and her conscience.”

“Have any of your subbies done drugs?”

I nod. “Two. I broke it off when they wouldn’t stop.”

“I don’t do drugs, Daddy, but I do have medication for depression. I haven’t taken it in over a year, though.”

I’ve been waiting for her to tell me about this, since seeing it in her medical records. I understand why she hasn’t yet. This is deep, and she’s nervous about how I’m going to react. I can see it in her posture even more clearly than her expression. I keep my voice neutral and stroke her cheek with my fingertips.

“What is it?”

“Zoloft.”

“Do you have it with you?”

She nods. “Just in case.”

“When we get aboard, I’d like you to show it to me and we’ll go over the dosage.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Emily, when you have bad thoughts, how bad are they? Do you think about hurting yourself?”

She shakes her head and looks up at me with clear eyes. No evasion. “It’s different.”

“The next time you have bad thoughts, I want to hear about them, okay?”

She bites her lip. “Okay.”

Her expression tells me it’s not okay.

“We’ll take baby steps, Emmy. We’ll start with you just telling me when you have the bad thoughts, and we’ll work up to you telling me what they are. Does that sound good?”

She smiles and nods.

I cup her cheek in my hand. “Daddy’s proud of you. I know this is hard to talk about, and I don’t know anything about dealing with depression, so I’ll have to learn. But you’re a very good girl for telling me.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m hiding things from you the way Mr. Black was from his Domme. I’m not, Daddy.”

I brush her hair back from her face and kiss her bitten-pink lips. “I appreciate you telling me.” It dawns on me why she has. It’s not because of what she overheard about Black. It’s because of last night. We’ve climbed a couple of rungs on the trust-ladder. “You’ve been a very good girl, Emily, do you hear me? A very good girl. I need to update the Pink Pearl people and then we need to catch our taxi to the port, but you’ve earned a reward once we get on the ship. What would you like it to be?”

She beams up at me. “Anything?”

“Anything.”

Her eyes dart over my face. “Is