11. Eleven

eleven

Phoenix

"Explain to me why we're here again," I said when we parked in the sanctum's parking lot, releasing the yawn I'd been suppressing when I got out of the car.

I was dogshit tired. I'd hardly gotten a wink of sleep, and the coffee I drank—aside from it being scolding fucking hot and searing the skin off the roof of my mouth—didn't do shit to help wake me up. If anything, it only heightened my exhaustion and left me with an unbearably sore mouth.

Fuck I needed a real day off.

"Research," Spike reminded me, rounding the vehicle and matching step with me as I approached the building. "I think I may know how Bull Mask was able to evade the cameras."

I stifled back a groan, not really in the mood to deal with anything else pertaining to those damn cameras. In the last forty-eight hours, those tapes and this damn club had done nothing but suck every ounce of energy dry from my poor body.

But fuck it.

We were already here, so I suppose I may as well nibble on the bait.

"What are you thinking?"

Felix came storming out of the door then, holding an empty beer bottle box in each hand, sighing with a look on his face that was more ridiculous than his royal blue shirt covered with festive dancing pineapples, gray sweatpants, and rainbow crocs.

"Well…" Felix gaped unimpressively at me but had no problem whatsoever winking and provocatively clicking his tongue at Spike. "I doubt you two dropped back by for an early morning peg session, so what do you need from me now, Detectives?"

"We're not planning to be here any longer than we have to be," I spoke up before Spike could dare fire back with an insult or worse, strangle Felix to death with his fancy pineapple shirt. "We just need a few minutes and then we'll be out of your hair."

Felix rolled his eyes but didn't refute. He dropped one of the boxes and flicked a hand toward the entrance. "The door is unlocked. I'll meet you at the bar."

Spike literally launched himself at the door, bolting through it and leaving me standing there scowling when it slammed in my face before I had time to catch it.

Asshole.

When I walked in, the door behind the front desk was closed, but the one leading inside the bar and lounge ahead of me was cracked open. I walked in to find Spike pacing in a circle, mumbling to himself.

"Our perp somehow managed to ghost his way through the club without being detected by a single security camera."

"You talking to me, or to yourself?" I asked just to be sure.

"It's impossible though," he carried on, shaking his head. "There's no goddamn way in hell me, you, and Charlotte failed to find his ass. There's just no fucking way."

Oh, so he was talking to me. "Again, what are you thinking?"

"We're missing something here. We have to be. Give me a minute and let me look around first. I need to be sure."

I was way too fucking exhausted to argue, so I let him do his thing and made my way over to the bar, plopping down on a barstool in the middle. The TVs weren't on, and I could hardly convince myself to summon the strength to play hide and seek with the remote, so I just got back up and wordlessly trekked around the lounge so I wouldn't make the mistake of falling asleep.

I'd never paid it any attention before but without all the extra bodies covering just about every inch of the place, it amazed me how big The Flirty Sanctum actually was. It wouldn't be a true sex club without the Red Room, but still, even without it, the space from the bar and lounge combined was immaculate all on its own. Hell, if you knocked down a few walls and had the money to make the plumbing and electrical adjustments, this place would make one hell of a three, maybe four-bedroom apartment. Shit, it was probably big enough to split into two two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments, but that was only if you were damn good at your job and could manage to divide the space evenly with two separate entrance and exits.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Felix barged through the door with both hands pressed firmly against his hips, his eyebrows furrowed.

"I know you are not conducting a search inside of my club without a warrant."

"Calm your tits, you rainbow shitting pineapple," Spike sneered near the end of the bar. "I'm just trying to find the security cameras. And speaking of which." He pointed a finger up to the ceiling, at the camera facing the hall, bathrooms, and the back door/emergency exit. "You never gave us the footage for this camera."

"That's because there's none to give. That camera and the one just outside the Red Room broke like three, maybe four days ago."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Spike roared at the same time I politely asked Felix why he failed to mention this to us ahead of time.

Felix had the decency to smirk at me. "You didn't ask. You told me to give you all the footage I had available, and so that's what I did. Obviously, I can't provide you with what I don't have."

Spike drew in a powerful breath and blew it out, scrubbing his hands down his face. I knew he was agitated but I couldn't translate if it was really with Felix or with himself. Felix may have been a ridiculing smartass and massive thorn in our asses at times, but he did have a point. Neither one of us had bothered to ask about any malfunctioning cameras once we had the warrant in our hands. And to make matters worse, we were so consumed trying to find this guy that we made a rookie mistake and hadn't recognized we were missing evidence.

"What's this really about, Detectives? I thought everything went well last night."

"It did," Spike answered as he ambled across the lounge. "The problem is that whoever the fuck this bull mask guy is, was smart enough to elude detection."

He kept walking and passed by the entrance to the Red Room, pausing to glare up at the nonfunctional camera attached to the ceiling. He studied the trajectory all for a small moment and then turned, locking eyes with me.

"And I think I just figured out how he did it."

For the third and hopefully last time, I asked, "What are you thinking?"

"Felix," he said first, sliding his sight over to him. "The back door, do you keep it locked when business is open?"

"I do not. The dumpsters are out there and it's easier letting the staff come and go as they need as opposed to constantly having to run off and unlock the door every ten minutes."

"God, I fucking hate you," Spike whispered in a low grumble, sighing as he squeezed his eyes closed. When he opened them, he looked at me and said, "The reason why our perp isn't on any of those tapes is because he came in through the back door. The camera near the end of the bar is angled directly toward the bathrooms and the other is just outside the door to the Red Room. Had they been working, we'd have him on camera, but since they weren't, that leads me to presume the guy knew those cameras were down."

Which implies this attack could've been premeditated after all.

"There aren't any cameras inside the Red Room and unfortunately, the others don't give any direct shots of the entrance or of anyone coming and going, which really fucking sucks because we still can't account what time our perp arrived. Anyway, I believe he was in the Red Room. Delilah walks in looking for Justin, he sees her, waits for her to leave, then makes his move. He corners her, knife drawn, and then he takes her to the bathroom and assaults her."

"Here's what I don't understand." I started moving and didn't stop until my eyes zeroed on the emergency exit at the end of the hall. "Why run for the front door when there's a perfectly functional door right there?"

"That may be my doing," answered Felix. "While I do tend to keep the door unlocked most of the night, I do lock it up from ten to midnight due to them being our busiest hours. I don't know when that poor girl was attacked but if it was within that timeframe, then that's probably why."

Spike and I shared a look then.

"Are you sure you have no idea who this guy could be?" I asked, shifting my attention back to Felix. "You don't remember selling a bull mask or something similar to that animal recently?"

"God, no. I remember every mask I've ever sold in this place so trust me, I'd know if I'd sold anything resembling a bull. However, you two should keep in mind that not every mask worn in this place has been purchased from my shop. Members are free to buy elsewhere, and it doesn't even have to be anything animal related. It's preferred, but it's not required. As long as you're a member and you walk in with the top half of your face covered, you're good to come in. All masks have to be worn at all times or you're gone. It's that simple."

Shit.

"Alright then, Felix." Spike let out a sigh and tiredly rubbed his eyes. "Thanks for the help. Per usual, we'll call or drop by if we need anything else."

He started for the door first, and it was quiet for a long time even after we'd entered the car and hit the road. Not that it did me much good the first time, but I wanted another coffee.

"You want one?" I asked when I pulled up at the drive thru.

"Yeah, I'll take one."

I recited our orders and after another whopping round of silence, we had our drinks and were heading back to the precinct.

"You good?" I asked Spike in the passenger seat.

"Yeah, man, I'm fine. Sorry I'm being so quiet. I'm just thinking."

"Well, good. Keep doing it for the both of us. I'm so goddamn tired I'm surprised I haven't dropped dead and wrecked the car yet."

That summoned a slight chuckle out of him.

"I think the attack was premeditated."

He drew in another deep breath and released it. "I do too."

"So what about what Delilah said about her attacker? Do you believe he'd mistaken her for someone else?"

I glanced over to find him lost in thought, his forehead puckered. "That's where it gets a little tricky for me, bud. It's possible he did, but aside from Delilah's word, we have absolutely nothing evidence wise to back it up. Any of it. And with no visual evidence or precise timestamp of when the bastard arrived, it only makes it all the more difficult to prove he was there, not unless we can find a match to the DNA."

Fuck. He wasn't wrong there.

"Are you saying you don't believe—"

"That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that the situation with the cameras isn't a coincidence. It can't be. This guy knew what he was doing, which means he had to have been in there countless times in order to become so adequately familiar with how Felix runs the place—not to mention knowing where each and every security camera is located. Neither of us really know if Delilah was his real target or not, but one thing we can both agree on is that this guy snuck inside the sanctum that night with intentions of hurting somebody. The main questions now are: Was Delilah chosen by random draw? Or is she really telling the truth this time around and this asshole really did brutalize the wrong woman?"

"I think she's telling the truth. The things she claims he said to her… Those aren't words you just come up and say to some random stranger, not unless you're confident you know who they are. I saw the look on her face, Spike. I don't think she knows the guy, and I highly doubt she just erratically produced all of that shit off the top of her head." I shook my head. "No, she's telling the truth. She has to be. And hey, man, there's something Felix said that's really been bugging me."

"What's that?"

I took a sip of coffee, having decided it had cooled down enough not to inflict third-degree burns to my mouth, and winced, though I couldn't help but groan in pleasure at its heavenly taste. It wasn't melt the skin off the roof of my mouth hot, but it was warm enough for me to still feel the furious sting leftover from the wound the earlier morning's batch inflicted.

"He said he locks the back door from 10pm ‘til midnight. We didn't leave until after midnight that night, and if I remember correctly, I don't recall seeing anyone, male or female, leaving for quite some time after Delilah ran out the front door when we were reviewing those tapes. Obviously, our rapist didn't depart through the front door, so that means he was still inside the sanctum with us long after Delilah left."

"God fucking damn it." Spike twisted in his seat to face me, and I turned my head, blinking in utter surprise when I realized he'd never linked the connection between the timeframes. "You're right. But…" He froze, and then his eyes went distant like he was taking a moment to do a mental surf through his memories. "Phoenix, we were all over that fucking place before we left. I think I'd remember seeing some random weirdo prancing around half-naked in a fucking bull mask."

"Exactly," I agreed, nodding and focusing back on the road so we wouldn't wreck. We'd be arriving at the precinct soon. "I don't remember seeing anyone wearing anything like that either, which is strange given that most of the rush clears out just about a quarter before midnight. Unless… I mean, it's a long shot, but just hear me out, okay?"

"Okay," Spike said, tilting his head at me. "I'm listening."

"What if he had two masks with him? Maybe Bull Mask really is on those tapes somewhere and the reason why we can't find him is because he was wearing a different mask. I mean, I doubt he hid in the bathroom or was camped out in the Red Room getting sucked off while rubbing peanut butter all over his nipples like that one guy did a few weeks ago, so he had to have gone somewhere else to lay low until midnight, right?"

"Fucking hell." Spike leaned back in his seat and rubbed his fingertips so hard and deep into his eyeballs, I was worried he'd puncture them and send nasty eyeball jelly splattering all over me. "I love you but I fucking hate you, man. That's smart thinking and I can't believe I hadn't considered any of that first."

"Hence why you have a partner," I reminded him by flashing him a toothy grin. "You can't save the world by yourself, man."