Missing Read online

  No Holes Barred:

  MISSING

  By

  Kimberly Zant

  © copyright by Kimberly Zant, June 2005

  Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, © copyright June 2005

  ISBN 1-58608-628-6

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  As I sat in my car, staring at the unprepossessing building that housed the exclusive adult club ‘No Holes Barred’ I was more aware of my body than I had ever been in my life. I’d spent the past two hours trying to convince myself that the humming within me was pure adrenaline flow from the danger inherent in the job I’d taken upon myself. The edge of excitement I’d put down to the thrill of the chase.

  The plain truth was, although there was a dollop of each within me, I knew it was more than that. I was sexually aroused as well, so much so that I could hardly keep my mind off of my tits or cunt and concentrate on the task at hand.

  If anyone had ever asked me if I was ‘in’ to bondage or S&M I’d have told them they had to be out of their mind, but I’d discovered that tonight, when I would be going into a place such as I’d never known, impersonating a woman I’d never met, my mind simply wouldn’t allow me to lie to myself.

  I might have been a little unnerved about facing the unknown, but I was far more excited by the prospect of my experience than I was afraid or reluctant.

  Solving mysteries wasn’t just my bread and butter. I loved it. I was fascinated with unraveling puzzles. I relished the adrenaline pumping excitement, and even fear, so often associated with my job.

  Obviously, whether I actually wanted to admit it or not, I was a glutton for punishment--prone to self-inflicted S&M, or at least indifferent to the possibility of having to experience it. Otherwise, I’d have chosen a less dangerous job.

  By day, I was a cop. I moonlighted for a private investigations firm, though, because I’d been stuck behind a desk in my chosen career and it didn’t seem likely I’d be seeing daylight any time soon.

  Besides that, the pay sucked and I figured if it took two paychecks to make ends meet, this was the best way to do it.

  With all due modesty, I knew I was good--maybe not Sherlock Holmes, but still damned good.

  It irked me that I’d been chosen for this assignment solely on my appearance.

  Our client’s daughter, who’d become a member of the club only a few short weeks earlier, had visited the club the weekend before and hadn’t been seen since. The client had gone the usual route but was too frantic to find her daughter to simply wait for the police to do their job. Preliminary investigations had turned up nothing except that Julia Hutchins appeared to have vanished from the time she’d gone into the club. She’d been seen entering, but no one had seen her come out and she hadn’t been spotted since.

  My boss had decided I was a dead ringer for the missing woman and the quickest way to discover if any of the club members had had anything to do with her disappearance was to pose as the missing woman. I was willing enough, but I couldn’t see it myself. I was the same general height, weight and build. Otherwise, I didn’t look much like the woman at all. I didn’t sound like her either, for that matter.

  I didn’t argue, though. I would be wearing her clothes. It was dark inside the club. Like the boss, I figured I was close enough to smoke the bad guy out if he was inside. Mostly, I was here to find out if anyone would react violently to the missing woman’s sudden reappearance, but in the back of everyone’s mind, we were all hoping that the charade would break the case wide open, not just give us a lead to pursue.

  It could be dangerous, and that was one of the reasons I’d agreed to do it. It wasn’t that I had a death wish or anything. I knew, though, that the boss would just find someone else and I figured I was probably more qualified to handle a dangerous situation than most anyone he could come up with.

  If I could just get my mind off of sex, sex, sex.

  I hadn’t been laid in a year, though, and even that had been pretty much a washout as far as I was concerned.

  My imagination was running riot, visions of sweating, writhing bodies flickering through my mind’s eye, the pungent, musky smell of sex in my nostrils and it was making me hot and wet and jittery in a way that had nothing to do with anxiety about the gig.

  I shifted uncomfortably. My radio squawked abruptly, causing me to jump as if I’d been caught playing with myself.

  “Candice?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Ready?”

  No. “Sure.”

  He must have heard something in my voice. “We’ve got somebody inside to keep an eye on you and Junior and I are watching the exits. You’ll be fine.”

  That ‘somebody’ was the new guy, Jerico. I wasn’t certain how I felt about him ‘watching’ over me. In the first place, he was an unknown quantity. His background sounded impressive, but I had to wonder what he was doing working for the agency if he was even half as good as I’d been told.

  And then there was the fact that he was so hot just looking at him was enough to make me warm, breathless, and wet. I was inclined to think he was pretty much every woman’s wet dream, tall, dark, well built, stunningly handsome and not even a dick wad jerk as far as I’d been able to discover. I didn’t know if I liked the idea of him watching me perform--or if I didn’t like it--but I was certainly not indifferent to the possibility. I hoped that wasn’t going to get in my way at a really bad moment.

  Shaking those thoughts off with an effort, I dragged in a deep, sustaining breath and let it out slowly. My heart was still pattering along about 100 miles an hour but I didn’t feel quite as lightheaded. Resisting the urge to check my appearance again, I grabbed my purse and climbed out of my car. A flash of light caught my attention as I looked at the building across the street. I looked up, curious, just in time to see another thin, bluish streak cut across the night sky, almost like a comet except for the fact that it was headed out, not inbound.

  I frowned but finally decided maybe it was some sort of laser thingy to attract attention. It seemed a little high toned for a place that was really very ordinary in appearance, but who was I to judge?

  Without a backward glance, I left the car and crossed the street. I didn’t’ lock it. I’d never seen the point. No body was going to steal that old rattle trap and if they stole the garbage out of it--well, so much the better. It would save me having to clean.

  My knees felt like silly putty as I tried to stroll casually across the street toward the club. I hoped I looked more confident than I felt. I hoped I looked sexy as hell, but the moment I got out of the car my confidence slipped a couple of notches.

  I wasn’t used to the get up I was wearing. The fucking corset was one of the reasons I couldn’t even drag in a decent breath of air, and then there was the skirt, which barely covered my ass--actually I wasn’t convinced it did cover my ass. It felt airish back there, but that might have been the thong residing between my ass cheeks and leaving my buttocks bare--which I also wasn’t used to.

  The top I was wearing was almost worse. It was black like the leather skirt, but virtually transparent and I wasn’t wearing a bra--just the corset which pushed my boobs up as if offering them for a taste.

  It wasn’t the sort of clothing any woman could actually be comfortable in, but then it should have made me feel sexy as hell and boosted my self-confidence, instead of filling me with the anxiety that someone would think I looked ridiculous.

  I didn’t mind the idea that anyone would think I looked slutty. Ridiculous
was hard to swallow.

  A tiny panel on the solid metal door slid back almost before I’d rapped on the door. Video surveillance, I realized, flicking a quick look around to see if I could locate the camera. “Member,” I muttered to the two eyes peering at me and held up my hand, palm up, so that he could see the symbol I’d drawn--the one Julia’s best friend had said she’d seen on the missing girl’s palm.

  The panel slid shut again. I’d just begun to wonder if my ruse would even get me in the door when I heard a distinct click and the door opened. Relief and tension and reluctance smacked me all at the same time. It took an effort to stroll casually inside--I hoped it looked casual.

  This was where it got tricky. I hadn’t a clue of what the place was like inside. The missing woman hadn’t kept notes--which would have been damned helpful--or, if she had, somebody had gone through her place and removed them. We’d gotten what information we had about the club from a close friend of the missing woman but she’d never been inside it herself.

  I found myself in a wide corridor. The lighting wasn’t quite like I’d expected, not quite like anything I’d ever seen before actually. It was dim, which I had expected, but ambient light surrounded me, leaving nothing in actual shadow. Without glancing back to see if the man who’d let me in was actually standing behind me, or if he’d used an electronic door release--which I suspected--I followed the corridor as casually as I could. The floor and walls were thumping. My heart caught the rhythm and matched it before I even realized there was a bass beat filtering through every solid object.

  Reaching a door at the opposite end of the corridor, I pulled it open. The moment the door was cracked the music washed over me like a tidal wave. Blinking in surprise, I closed the door again. The music vanished and only the beat remained. “Way cool,” I muttered, impressed enough with the acoustics that it penetrated my self-absorption with my mission--and my excited cunt.

  Opening the door wide enough to enter, I stepped inside. The scene that met my curious gaze was almost anticlimactic. The room was huge. The dance floor took up most of it, but a narrow strip of tables and chairs ran all the way around the pit. In the pit, couples gyrated to the beat of the music. The same strangely ambient light lit this room, but a ball of colored lights rotated just above the dance floor, sending jewel toned colors across the bumping, grinding, wildly gyrating dancers that was pretty much like those I was familiar with seeing in social clubs like this.

  I studied the room for several moments, feeling oddly deflated by the fact that it looked very much like every other club I’d ever been in to. The only difference that I could see was that pretty much everyone was dressed as I was, in skin tight black leather that left almost as much flesh exposed as was covered.

  After surveying the room for several moments, I noticed that two sets of circular, wrought iron stairs led upwards. At the top of those stairs was a balcony mezzanine that circled the dance floor.

  My heart skipped several beats. This was where the real action could be found. Upstairs, the people were ‘dancing’ to a different beat altogether. Slowly winding my way through the crowd, I headed for the nearest stairs. No one seemed to pay the least bit of attention to me, which was not only strange but extremely disappointing. We had all expected varying reactions from the people the missing woman regularly hung around with. We hadn’t expected no reaction.

  I tried not to think about the fact that I’d thought I was dressed to kill and I was being ignored.

  On the other hand, I had to admit it was hard to stand out when one was dressed so similarly to everyone else.

  So much for the ‘disguise’. I could’ve probably picked up an outfit anywhere and nobody would have known the difference.

  A bouncer built like a wrestler met me at the top of the stairs. My heart leapt into overdrive, but after surveying me from head to foot, he merely nodded and stepped back. Relieved but curious about the security, I moved past him.

  Why have security if they weren’t actually going to check IDs?

  Shelving the puzzle for the moment, I glanced around the mezzanine. There were four fantasy worlds to explore, I saw. At the far end, directly across from me, I saw the one I was looking for. The informant had said ‘gallery of dates and mates, or something like that’. The sign actually read ‘galactic dates and mates’, but I figured that was as close as I was going to come. Besides, if I guessed wrong, I could always check out the other areas next time.

  “Galactic dates and mates,” I murmured quietly, wondering if my backup could actually hear me. A burst of static was my only answer. I didn’t dare try to adjust the transmitter or receiver while I was in plain view, however, and pushed the prick of uneasiness the static produced to the back of my mind. When I found a lady’s room, I’d check the damn thing. Otherwise, I was in no immediate danger unless I gave myself away.

  I headed for the sign. The door wasn’t locked. Pulling it open, I stepped inside. A long corridor much like the one at the entrance greeted me. The similarity ended there. Peepers, mostly men, were lined up along each wall, staring at something I couldn’t see. Curious, I moved to the first window and stopped. There was a man and a woman inside. The woman, who didn’t appear to be wearing anything but manacles and a corset around her middle, was bound by her wrists to a chain that disappeared into the darkness above her. She was blindfolded. A circle of light surrounded her. Next to her, a man wearing a mask that covered his head, and absolutely nothing else, was toying with something that looked like a whip.

  The dialogue sounded like something from a bad porn, but I hardly noticed. My attention was riveted to the whip. I gasped when he abruptly struck the woman with it, expecting to hear screams of pain and terror. Instead, she merely moaned.

  I saw then that the ‘whip’ hadn’t left a mark on her. Whatever it was made of, it was obviously too soft to cause actual pain.

  Domination. Losing interest in the couple--I really wasn’t ‘in’ to watching and I was working besides--I peered at the room around them, trying to figure out why this area was designated as ‘galactic dates and mates’. I saw then that the shadowy walls that surrounded the couple depicted deep space. Murals? I supposed that was what it was, but it had been treated with some sort of phosphorescence, because the stars glowed faintly.

  Mentally shrugging, I moved on to the next window. This one gave me a bit of a jolt. The creature inside was roughly the size and shape of a human, but it sure as hell didn’t look human.

  Kick ass make up job!

  There were several men plastered to the window and I wasn’t tall enough to see over their shoulders. I moved a little closer anyway, trying to peer between their shoulders. The woman was spread eagle, but she looked like she was floating in the air.

  Cool! I couldn’t see a sign of the filaments I knew must be supporting her.

  As I watched, a long, tongue like thing slid out of the ‘alien’ creature’s mouth and went straight for her pussy--like a prehensile elephant trunk. Despite the fact that I’d assured myself that I wasn’t in to watching, I couldn’t pull my gaze away. My own cunt clenched as I watched that long tongue slide inside of her. My nipples hardened. My breath grew short.

  It was amazing. I’d never seen anything like it and yet it looked so real!

  From the whimpers the woman was making it must have felt real too.

  I jumped guiltily when someone touched my shoulder, glancing around quickly as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or pissed off when I saw it was Jerico--my inside man. Frowning at him, I jerked my head slightly, trying to shoo him away. He wasn’t supposed to approach me, the numbskull. He was just supposed to watch for someone else to approach me.

  He shook his head slightly. Wrapping his fingers around my upper arm, he pulled. Rather than attract attention, I went with him, wondering what the hell was going on. It looked like either our cover was blown, or something had gone sour.

  Containin
g my curiosity with an effort, I allowed him to lead me to the end of the hallway and into a room to one side of the corridor. He placed a finger on my lips before I could say anything and shook his head slightly.

  Nodding to let him know I’d understood the warning, I followed him meekly as he led me to the center of the room.

  “Undress.”

  I stared at Jerico blankly at the command. He couldn’t be serious. It occurred to me after a moment, though, that the place had security everywhere, which probably meant cameras.

  We were being watched.

  I still didn’t like it. I’d known when I took the job that I might have to do something I might not especially like. I hadn’t expected to be doing it with my partner. Not that I would’ve minded that under other circumstances, because I hadn’t been able to actually look in Jerico’s direction since I’d first met him without fantasizing about being in bed with him. But I didn’t want it to be a ‘job’, something to throw off suspicion. This sucked a hairy one.

  Mentally shrugging, I reminded myself that I had to play along if I didn’t want to risk blowing my cover.

  I was almost sorry I hadn’t taken strip lessons. Here I was being offered the opportunity of a lifetime and I felt awkward as hell stripping while he watched. When I’d discarded everything but the thong and corset I was wearing, he touched my hand, a signal to stop. Wondering wryly if that meant he’d seen all he wanted to see, I did as I was commanded and tried to act casual while he walked around me, examining me, skating a curious hand over me here and there and sending shivers of delight all the way through me that I tried really hard to hide.

  Maybe this was another security measure? He was looking for bugs? I was wearing a modified cell phone--which he knew. Everyone carried the things these days and it was a lot less conspicuous than trying to hide a wire, particularly considering what I’d had to wear this time.

  Despite my pose of unconcern, I glared at him pointedly when he was facing me again. He ignored it. Reaching for my earpiece, he removed it, wound the cord and then removed the tiny ‘phone’ at my waist.