Quinn Lee stepped toward them and reached for Gina’s hand.
“This is quite a surprise.” He raised her hand to his lips without taking his eyes from hers. “
Rosso,
my
bella rosso
. . . how nice to see you.”
Gina removed her hand, as if she had touched a hot stove.
“Save it for the little girl.” Gina jerked her head in the direction of Quinn’s pretty customer. “I haven’t been your
bella rosso
for a very long time.”
“Bella what?” Griggs asked. “That Spanish or something?”
“It’s Italian,” Quinn said, still gazing at Gina with that touch of amusement even as she turned away. “It means ‘beautiful red.’ A pet name for a lovely redheaded pet. Once upon a time.”
He gave Hanson and Griggs a blatant up-and-down. A slight twist to his lips said he wasn’t impressed.
“So, Gina, are you going to introduce me to your . . . friends?” Quinn asked.
Hanson pulled out his badge and enjoyed seeing Quinn’s eyes narrow.
“I’m Detective Tom Hanson. This is my partner, John Griggs. And you obviously know Ms. Larsen.”
“So this is an official call?” Quinn turned back to Gina, retreating once more behind a cool smile, his eyes guarded now. “I didn’t know you were back with the police.”
“I’m not,” Gina said stiffly.
“Ms. Larsen is a consultant,” Hanson said. “Is there some place private we can talk?”
Quinn inclined his head, almost bowed in a courtly manner, and pointed them to a door.
“My apartment is upstairs,” Quinn said, leading them through a supply room. “I suppose you know that already, but I’m not letting you into my home without a warrant. We can talk in my studio.”
“That’s pretty paranoid,” Hanson said. “What makes you think we want to see your apartment?”
He ignored the question completely, nodding toward a leather sofa and chair.
“Have a seat, if you like.”
Griggs let out a low whistle. Hanson followed his partner’s stare.
The far wall was lined with several huge blowups, presumably the work of Quinn Lee. They were all portraits of women in various stages of dress and undress.
And there, in all her naked glory, was Gina.
In the photo, she was standing against a brick wall. Her arms were spread horizontally, straight out to the sides, as if she were nailed there. One leg was slightly lifted, knee bent. Her head was tilted back, chin lifted, eyes closed.
It was a crucifixion without the cross. Everything was crisp black and white except for two trails of bright red drops coming from the upturned palms of her hands, like stigmata.
“Do you like it?” Quinn’s teeth shone between his mustache and goatee. “It’s some of my best work, I think.”
That was why he had brought them into his studio, Hanson thought. Quinn knew who he was, knew about his relationship with Gina, and he wanted Hanson to see this. The man was a sadist, after all.
He couldn’t stand to look at the photograph, and yet he couldn’t drag his eyes away.
It was all there: beauty and violence; sex and seduction. The vulnerability of her outstretched arms, opened to embrace the torturer behind the camera. The graceful white throat exposed, the prey seducing its predator. The fringe of eyelashes making a dark crescent above a single, glistening tear . . .
Beautiful and obscenely intimate. The photograph offered up her body like some kind of perverted sacrifice.
The photograph said it all. It told Hanson everything about the greatest passion of Gina’s life. Quinn Lee. Not him. Not ever him.
“Well, all these ladies are lookers,” Griggs said, running a hand over his mouth. “But damn, Gina! That’s hot!”
Hanson glanced at Gina, only to find her somehow smaller and tighter, as if drawing into herself.
He realized something else: Quinn Lee was the one who’d sold her photos to the press.
“Did you do something to her tits?” Griggs asked, turning to Quinn. “ ’Cause they look bigger somehow.”
“No need to alter perfection,” Quinn said.
Hanson felt anger rising and clamped down on it. He had to treat this like any other interrogation, and could not afford to let Quinn keep the upper hand.
“So you do erotic photography,” he asked in as neutral a tone as he could muster, “as well as—?”
“As well as weddings and people with their dogs? Yes. A photographer has to pay the rent.”
The photo was having an uncomfortable effect on Hanson’s head and other parts of his anatomy. This was a woman he had loved. But somehow he felt like a dirty little boy sneaking a peek at his mother’s underclothes.
“Your customers aren’t put off?” Hanson snuck another glance at the photograph and realized Gina wasn’t
entirely
naked. She was wearing that damned medallion. “They aren’t offended by having these kinds of photos here?”
“If they are, then they’re in the wrong studio.” Quinn sat down in the largest chair in the room, crossed his legs, and leaned back. “Don’t worry. I don’t let the kiddies in here. I don’t do children. Not even with a camera.”
“Seems like kiddie shots would be where the money is.” Griggs sat down opposite Quinn on the sofa, and Hanson sat beside him.
Gina walked around behind Quinn and leaned against the wall. She often did this to intimidate suspects, but Hanson thought the maneuver was also calculated to avoid the man’s laser gaze.
“I dislike children,” Quinn said. “I hope that’s not why you’re here. I have full twenty-two-fifty-seven documentation and releases on all my models—”
“We’re not here to bust you for dirty photos,” Griggs said. “We wanna talk to you about your ex-wife.”
Something hard came into his face.
“What now?” His voice was dull. “I’m no longer responsible for her debts, parking tickets, or any of the twenty-seven voices in her head—”
“She’s dead,” Hanson said, intentionally cruel. “Someone murdered her.”
“Ah.” He scratched his beard, then looked at the floor for a long moment.
“You seem all broken up about it,” Griggs said.
Quinn squinted at him and sighed.
“Cassandra and I have been divorced for more than a year. Our marriage was nine years of nonstop drama. I’d be lying if I said I was sorry or even particularly surprised.”
“You’re not surprised?”
“Cassandra had a lot of enemies,” Quinn said, shoulders rising and falling. “Gina can attest to that.”
“I told them there wouldn’t be a shortage of suspects,” Gina said tersely.
An ordinary person would be uncomfortable having someone stand behind them, but Quinn didn’t bat an eyelash. Nor did he give in to the temptation to turn around.
“Since we divorced, Cassandra’s been doing a lot more pro work,” Quinn went on. “She was never particularly smart about picking clients.”
“So you think a client killed her?” Hanson asked.
“It’s just the first thing that occurred to me,” Quinn said. “What was it, a botched burglary? Pretty unlucky thief, if that was the case.”
“Why do you say that?” Griggs asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Because Cassandra didn’t have a pot to piss in, to use the vulgar vernacular. How was she killed?”
“Someone beat her to death,” Gina said.
Quinn grimaced.
“So you came to talk to me.” Quinn didn’t take his eyes from Hanson’s face, even though Griggs was the one asking the questions. “You think I killed her.”
“Dunno,” Griggs said, scratching his ear. “Did you?”
“I made it through nine years of hell with that woman without ever striking her in anger,” Quinn said in the same weary voice. “If I was ever going to kill her, it wouldn’t be now when I was finally free of her. And I wouldn’t have beaten her to death. She might actually have enjoyed that.”
“That’s cold.” Griggs shook his head. “Even for a sadistic bastard ex-husband.”
“Is that what this is about? Not because I’m the ex-husband, but because I’m a sadist?”
“Well, there was that little gang-bang of yours that went bad a few years back.” Griggs smiled. Hanson realized he had put two-and-two together as well. “Yeah, we know about that.”
Quinn didn’t look as surprised as Hanson had hoped.
“That was a carefully negotiated and orchestrated role play,” Quinn said as coolly as if discussing a photography client. “The young lady requested it—begged for it, in fact. I set it up because I was afraid she would find someone else who would just fuck it up.”
“Sounds like you didn’t exactly knock it outta the ball park,” Griggs said.
“It’s an unfortunate fact,” Quinn said with a little mocking frown, “that some people find the reality doesn’t live up to the fantasy.”
“She accused you of rape,” Hanson said.
His lips tightened, and Hanson was thrilled to see him annoyed at last.
“She eventually came to terms with it. That’s why she dropped the charges. You have no idea how many scenes like that I’ve arranged that produced deliriously happy results.”
“We’ll have to take your word for it,” Griggs said. “Those gang-bang kidnappings, they sometimes get a little rough? You
are
a sadist, aren’t you? You admit that?”
“Sadism
with
consent is entirely different from sadism
without
consent,” Quinn said. “You people think we’re all serial killers and child molesters—”
The man’s eyes lost all traces of that mocking amusement, and Hanson glimpsed the iron under the kid gloves.
“We’re not interested in a witch hunt,” Hanson said quickly, even managing a friendly smile, as if to say,
I don’t need you to explain the game to me, you smug little bastard.
“That’s why we brought Ms. Larsen with us.”
“So
bella
is here as your guide to the kink community?” Quinn showed his teeth this time. “I suppose that makes sense, seeing as she’s been on both sides of the badge.”
“We just need to know where you were last Friday.”
They had been able to pin down a more definite time of death for Lady Cassandra and Randall Heeler; Heeler’s sister had seen him leaving the little garage apartment he rented from her on Friday morning, but he had never come home.
“Just Friday?” Quinn raised his eyebrows and twisted his lips. “That’s a rather wide time frame.”
“Where were you?” Griggs asked.
Quinn sighed, as if suddenly wearied by their little games, when in truth, he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. Hanson had seen it before in other sociopaths.
“From eight a.m. until six p.m., I was here. At six, Maggie and I closed the shop and went to dinner—we had Mexican, if you’re interested.”
“And after that?”
“Then we went to a photo club meeting until around nine thirty. Then we came home and fucked for a while. Do you want to know the particulars of position and orifices?”
“No,” Hanson said. “And after that?”
“Then I fell asleep watching Conan.”
“So you were with Maggie the whole time?” Griggs asked.
“Yes,” Quinn said, then reconsidered. “Oh, wait. I did go out at lunchtime to meet a lady at Starbucks around the corner. I’m sure I have a receipt somewhere. She had a latte, and I had a Chai tea.”
Gina snorted, then shook her head. But she said nothing.
“No, I didn’t bring her back to the studio,” Quinn said pleasantly, answering the unspoken question, tipping his head slightly toward Gina behind him. “I was a little off my game.”
“Look, Mr. Lee,” Hanson said, “we brought Gina in on this because we think there may be a connection between BDSM and the murders.”
“Murders?” Quinn’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean there’s more than just Cassandra?”
Real surprise? Or fake? He was damned hard to read through that superior veneer.
“We have four dead bodies.” Hanson pulled photos from his coat pocket. “Do you know any of these people?”
Quinn took the photos and looked at them.
“Oh, my.” He held up the photo of Roger Banks, taken from his driver’s license. “Grey Dragon? He’s dead?”
“You didn’t see it in the news?” Griggs asked. “His real name was Roger Banks.”
“And Kitty, too?” Quinn was looking at the photo of Robyn Macy, a picture from her college ID. “I heard about the murders, of course. But I never put it together with people I actually knew.”
Quinn handed the photos back, but the corner of his mouth twitched, as if in some private amusement.
“Terrible.” Quinn sighed. “How awful for Dragon’s wife.”
Hanson opened his mouth, then shut it again quickly. Quinn had known both Roger and Robyn immediately . . . It seemed odd that Gina hadn’t recognized them.