Daddy Issues Read online

  Stop it, I told my­self fiercely. You’re not even in the front door yet and you’re already hav­ing repressed memor­ies or whatever they call them. Do you want to prove Pro­fessor Stevens right about your “Daddy is­sues” be­fore this case even gets star­ted?

  “I just don’t like it,” I said, frown­ing up at Salt. “I mean, I’ve got bows in my hair and shiny little pat­ent leather shoes on my feet. It feels per­ver­ted.”

  He raised an eye­brow at me. “More per­ver­ted than the other where your body is on dis­play? At least in this you are covered.” He nod­ded ap­prov­ingly at the dress.

  “Covered in a pe­do­phile’s wet dream,” I muttered sulkily. “Come on, Salt, this is gross.”

  “Look, Andi…” He blew out a breath in ob­vi­ous frus­tra­tion. “The reason I asked you to wear this one in­stead of the other is simple—the other is too dis­tract­ing. We both of us must keep our minds on the case. I find that very hard to do when you are so ex­posed.”

  His words made me pause. Could he mean what I thought he meant? Could it be that see­ing me in the slutty school girl out­fit was hard for him be­cause he wanted me? Sexu­ally? But surely not—we were just part­ners, weren’t we? Then I thought of the hard lump I’d felt un­der my ass when I sat on his lap the night be­fore.

  “Salt,” I said hes­it­antly. “Are you say­ing…what are you say­ing?”

  He sighed and looked at me.

  “I am say­ing you are very beau­ti­ful wo­man, Andi. Most of the time I can re­mind my­self you are my part­ner and is easy to deal with. But if you are wear­ing that out­fit, climb­ing me like tree and sit­ting in my lap…well, will be much more dif­fi­cult.” He leaned for­ward and stroked my cheek gently. “So please…for me will you wear the dress? At least for a little while? Is much easier this way. Much less sexual.”

  “Well…okay,” I said at last. I was taken aback be­cause this was the first time Salt had ad­mit­ted he found me sexu­ally arous­ing. I mean, there were al­ways little things like the com­ments about my eyes or telling me I was pretty but he’d never ac­tu­ally come out and said I made him hot.

  I should have been up­set or taken aback but, just like the night be­fore when he’d got­ten hard for me, I kind of liked it. It made me feel beau­ti­ful…power­ful to know my part­ner was at­trac­ted to me.

  Care­ful, Andi, I told my­self sternly. You’re on a slip­pery slope here. Go too far in the wrong dir­ec­tion and you could ruin the best part­ner­ship of your life. Hell, the best re­la­tion­ship period. So be care­ful—be damn care­ful.

  Yes, I would, I re­solved to my­self. I would watch what I said and did and if Salt found it easier for me to play this age than the slutty teen­ager, I could man­age it. I would have to man­age it.

  “Come, is time to go. We will be late for din­ner.” Salt got out of the car and came around to get the door for me, as he al­ways did. When he opened the door and held out a hand, I took it with a coquet­tish smile.

  “Thank you, Papa,” I said de­murely—might as well get into char­ac­ter now. Salt seemed to feel the same way be­cause he smiled and nod­ded.

  “You’re wel­come my little mishka.”

  Tuck­ing my arm through his, he led me through the park­ing lot around to the front of the build­ing, which didn’t look much bet­ter than the back.

  “Sheesh,” I said un­der my breath. “It’s not much to look at, is it? Are you sure we’re in the right place? It just looks like an old aban­doned ci­gar fact­ory.”

  “This is it,” Salt as­sured me. “Hope­fully will be bet­ter on the in­side.”

  “Hope­fully,” I said. “It could hardly be worse.”

  The big build­ing was a dull, uni­form gray with peel­ing paint and a rusty fire es­cape cling­ing to one side. The few win­dows at the front were boarded up like blind eyes. Only the broad wooden double doors at the top of the long row of crum­bling brick steps gave any in­dic­a­tion of wealth. They, at least, looked new and when Salt rang the bell soft, rich chimes soun­ded from within.

  A small pee­p­h­ole I hadn’t no­ticed be­fore slid open in one of the doors.

  “Name?” a cul­tured voice asked.

  “I am Viktor Saltanov from Mo­scow,” Salt said, de­lib­er­ately deep­en­ing his ac­cent. “I was told to be here at this time for din­ner? Yes?”

  “Oh, yes of course.” The small pee­p­h­ole shut and the front doors swung open, re­veal­ing an op­u­lent hall­way flooded with golden light—the ex­act op­pos­ite of the out­side of the build­ing. “Do come in,” said the but­ler—be­cause he had to be a but­ler. Dressed as he was in black and white with white gloves there was noth­ing else he could be.

  “Thank you.” Salt entered with me still on his arm.

  I looked around, my eyes nar­rowed as I searched for pos­sible threats. The Cap­tain had told us that Berkley, the man who owned and ran the In­sti­tute, was a dan­ger­ous guy, pos­sibly with ties to the Mob. We weren’t ab­so­lutely sure he was the one dis­trib­ut­ing Please, but it was a pretty safe bet he was in­volved in one way or an­other.

  But all I saw in my scan of the entry­way was a broad, open area with hard­wood floors and an old fash­ioned crys­tal chan­delier hanging from the high ceil­ing. There were two curving stair­cases, one on either side of the entry­way but I couldn’t see where either of them led. Ex­pens­ive look­ing paint­ings hung on the walls as well as an an­tique mir­ror with an or­nate, scrolled frame. When I looked at my re­flec­tion, I got a nasty shock. I saw a little girl wear­ing a fluffy party dress hanging on her father’s arm like she was about to go to a Daddy/daugh­ter dance.

  The Valentine’s Day dance—that’s why he bought me the dress! But he left be­fore it happened. I never got to wear it and Mom threw it out. She said— I shut down the memory hast­ily and looked away. I really had to get hold of my­self if this was go­ing to work!

  “We’re very glad to have you here, Mr. Saltanov,” the but­ler said. “Dir­ector Berkley is ex­pect­ing you.”

  “So I am and it’s good to see you got here safely.” A tall man with iron gray hair sud­denly ap­peared, smil­ing at Salt. I real­ized he must have come up to us while I was star­ing in the mir­ror, hav­ing mor­bid thoughts. “You had a com­fort­able flight from Mo­scow, I hope?” he said, hold­ing out his hand.

  “Mod­er­ately com­fort­able.” Salt made a see-saw ges­ture with one hand. “First class is not what it once was. Still, my little mishka was happy. She loves plane rides. Isn’t that right, mishka?”

  He looked down at me af­fec­tion­ately and I tried to re­turn his smile but the sight of the two of us in that damn mir­ror kept tug­ging at me. There was a long si­lence and I real­ized Salt was wait­ing for me to agree with him.

  “Yes, Papa,” I man­aged. “It was fun.”

  It soun­ded lame, even to me but it was too late to take it back.

  “Well…” Dir­ector Berkley smiled and bent down, put­ting his hands on his knees. “And this must be your Little,” he said in sing­song voice as though he was talk­ing to a small child.

  “Yes, this is my mishka,” Salt said. “She is…how do you say? New to the con­cepts your In­sti­tute is foun­ded on. We are both here to learn.”

  “Is that right?” Berkley looked at me with in­terest. “How long have you been your Daddy’s little girl, my dear?”

  “Just a few months,” I said tightly. I knew I ought to act shy or coy like a real little girl might but this guy’s sim­per­ing, con­des­cend­ing at­ti­tude was get­ting on my nerves and the im­age in the mir­ror seemed to be mock­ing me.

  “And do you like it?” Berkley per­sisted.

  “Sure,” I said flatly. “It’s great.”

  He stood up­right, frown­ing. “You don’t seem too thrilled about it, my dear.” He looked at Salt. “Mr. Saltanov, I hate to ask, but are you cer­tain your Little is as c