Going Down Read Online Free Page B

was on vacation I could look,” she offered. “Tropical island, nearly nude native hunks, filthy rich old men burning their fat bellies in the sun.”
    â€œWith their rich old wives in tow, don’t forget. Damn it, sis, you keep talking about taking some night classes. Do it. You never know who else might be taking the same class or teaching it.”
    â€œHmm.”
    â€œDon’t hmm me. Move beyond work situations in your search for Mr. Right.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, maybe? I’m just repeating what you’ve told me.”
    â€œI know.” She drew out the words. “I was just thinking—the other night this guy joined one of my chats. Then later we e-mailed privately. Great sense of humor, and he kept the conversation out of the gutter, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œHumor’s good. What do you know about him?”
    â€œThat’s it.” As she reached between her legs, the word Reeve echoed in her. “I don’t know a damn thing.”
    Â 
    â€œThey found a body.”
    â€œWhere?”
    Instead of answering immediately, Agent J stared out at the trio of sailboats in the distance. Although J was in his late fifties, his nude and tanned torso was as lean as when he’d been in his teens. If anyone in the sailboats or the tourist boat closer to shore had taken note of the two men in the luxury craft, they might have assumed the men were wealthy business owners, but although that was Reeve’s cover, the truth was that they were members of an organization so secret that the FBI hadn’t been able to penetrate all the layers. Fine, let the FBI believe that The Clan’s membership was limited to the powerful. Only the members themselves needed to know why they existed.
    The craft was Reeve’s, at least that’s what the financial trail would show. The same was true of R&R, the supposed electronics company he’d founded and recently sold, thanks to those who knew how to create something out of nothing.
    It was hot this afternoon, too damn hot to be exposing one’s skin to the sun’s rays, but when Agent J had sent a coded text message this morning saying he had vital information for Reeve, it was understood that they’d have their conversation far from eavesdropping equipment. Not that either man suspected their covers had been blown, but The Clan succeeded because no member ever took anything for granted.
    â€œOff northbound I-5 about forty miles south of L.A.,” Agent J said. “Road workers spotted the body when they were coming to work. She wasn’t there when they shut things down last night.”
    â€œNo doubt she was one of them ?”
    â€œNone.”
    Despite Agent J’s sunglasses, Reeve had no trouble reading the older man’s mood. It hadn’t been pretty. “She’d been branded?”
    â€œYeah. S on her left hip, not yet healed.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    The else included handcuffs and ankle restraints on the naked and gagged woman. She was beautiful, at least she had been before her body hit the highway. The preliminary autopsy report had concluded that she’d been dead when she was thrown from a moving vehicle. Other than the brand identifying her as a slave and the bruising around her neck, she’d been in prime condition—except for faint whip marks on her back, belly, and breasts. Perfectly acceptable, the bastard who’d snuffed out her life would have called them, a necessary element in teaching a slave the nuances of her new world.
    What had happened to the dead and so-far unidentified woman had nothing to do with classic BDSM where both dom and sub embraced the master/slave relationship. This was robbing a woman, always a beautiful woman, of her freedom and turning her into whatever her captor/owner wanted her to become.
    And if she didn’t accept her lot, she wound up dead.
    â€œWho’s doing the autopsy?” he