Right breast, he typed. Pinch it. Hard.
Colleen grabbed hold of her nipple with her knuckle and thumb through the pink tee-shirt she wore and tweaked her flesh hard.
A spike of pain flashed through her, and she was instantly sore.
Left inner thigh, he typed. Hard. I want a picture of your marked skin tomorrow.
Colleen did it. Another pinch, hard enough to bruise.
Come for me, my good girl.
She did.
The following day, Anjali dropped Colleen off at the airport’s private terminal, which she hadn’t even known existed. But maybe that was the point of a private terminal. The cement building looked a little sketchy from the front, but the parking lot was packed with Bentleys and Mercedes.
Anjali leaned over the steering wheel and craned her neck, swiveling to look at every corner of her car as she drove at a crawl through the narrow aisle of the parking lot. “Sri Ram, I don’t want to ding one of these mofos.”
Colleen was also giving the overpriced cars the apprehensive side-eye. “I’m glad I’m not the one driving.”
“I still do not believe you should go. I should turn this car around and take you right back to your apartment. I cannot believe that I am enabling such risky behavior. On our friendship, on my love for you, you should not go with this man you have never met before.”
“I promise I’ll be careful.”
“I’m not worried that you’re going to break your ankle. I’m worried this man who has convinced you to get on an airplane with him is going to kill you and throw your body in the desert somewhere.”
“Look on the bright side, Anjali. It was probably all a scam. He’s probably not going to show up, and I’ll never see him again. Nobody owns an airplane.”
“I still do not like it. I still do not like anything about it. I should turn around and drive away right now.”
“‘Kay-’kay. He’s supposed to be here soon. He said to meet him at eight, and it’s seven-fifty.”
“Should I park?” Anjali asked, still looking around.
A black town car glided to a halt at the sidewalk in front of the doors, and the chauffeur hopped out to open the passenger door behind him.
“You don’t suppose—” Colleen began.
A man’s foot wearing a brown shoe the color of good saddle leather stepped below the bottom of the door, and then an extraordinarily tall man unfolded himself from the backseat. He stepped away from the car, and sunlight shone on his black hair streaked with mahogany, but sunglasses shielded his eyes when he surveyed the parking lot and terminal. As he pulled his dark blue jacket to button it over the suit’s matching vest, the fabric molded to his narrow waist and broad shoulders, and the jacket’s sharp lapels neatly outlined his midnight blue tie.
“Okay,” Anjali said. “I get it now.”
Colleen nodded. “Right? Serial killers don’t have that much time to go to the gym. They’re out there killing people. Murdering takes a lot of time. That guy obviously doesn’t have any other hobbies.”
Anjali carefully drove around the parking lot's perimeter and coasted into place behind the black town car. By the time they pulled up, several more luggage bags were lying on the sidewalk, and another man had emerged from the vehicle.
The new guy was slimmer than Tristan King and wore a perfectly fitted black suit. His glossy, ebony hair was tied back in a tiny ponytail on the back of his head, and a short, knife-edge beard accentuated the hard slashes of his cheekbones and jawline.
Anjali leaned forward over the steering wheel again. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Colleen said. “Do you want me to ask if you can come along and find out?”
Anjali shook her head like she was trying to fling stupid off her face. “No. I am not going on this crazy jaunt of yours. I will stay here so somebody will receive your texts and know if you have gone missing. But you will find out that man’s name for me. And if he is married.”
“Roger dodger. Pop the trunk for me, will you?”
But still, Anjali marveled at the two men standing on the sidewalk. “The two of them must be steaming in those suits. It’s already over ninety degrees outside.”
Colleen hopped out of Anjali’s car and started to walk toward the back, but the chauffeur had beat her back there and was retrieving her suitcase.
