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  Straw Man

  Detective Damien Drake Book 10

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  PART I

  Mannequins and Sutures

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  PART II

  The Girl in the Cage

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  PART III

  Straw Man

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Epilogue

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Other Books by Patrick Logan

  The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

  –Carl Rogers

  Straw Man

  Detective Damien Drake Book 10

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  The woman pressed her back up against the cage, trying to put as much space between her and her captor as possible. The cold, diamond-shaped chain links cut into her bare flesh, but she was so used to the sensation that it barely registered.

  Today, like most days, the man who came down the stairs was wearing his apron—and only his apron. Made of thick black neoprene, it covered him from just above his nipples to his upper thighs. Even though he preferred to stay in the shadows, she’d seen enough to know that he was tall and muscular, with blond hair that was cut short to his head.

  And his eyes… her captor’s eyes were his most striking feature.

  They were a light blue, bordering on gray.

  “Let me out of here,” she whimpered. “Let me out. Please, I won’t—” a sob escaped her chapped lips. “I won’t tell anybody.”

  The man cocked his head to one side, and he stared at her with his strange eyes. His response was always the same.

  “Submit. Tell me you love me.”

  The woman shoved herself up against the cage so hard that her skin squeezed through the openings in a series of pale pink diamonds. Her mind screamed at her to do what he wanted, to say those words, but she fought the urge. The man, expecting this reaction, didn’t even bother pausing long to allow her time to speak. He strode forward, his bare feet moving silently over the straw and dirt-covered ground. As he neared the cage, the smell coming from the bucket clutched in his right hand reached the woman’s nose.

  The sweet odor of braised meat made her stomach churn, but as much as she wanted to be revolted, her mouth disobeyed and started to water. It was hard to tell, being cooped up in a cage too small to fully stand up in, but she figured she’d lost at least ten pounds over the course of her eight days in captivity. She based this estimate on the loose skin on her thighs and stomach and on the appearance of her friend who had been held in the cage beside her.

  “You need to eat,” her captor said. As he crouched, the old-fashioned keyring that he wore on his wrist clanged against the side of the tin bucket.

  If only I could get those keys, she thought before shaking her head and scolding herself. Really? Then what? What would you do?

  She was weak, she was naked, she was near freezing, and she was trapped in a basement only God knew where.

  But she hadn’t given up yet. There was still hope.

  That’s what Melissa thought, too, until the end.

  The night after the girl had done what their captive wanted—tell me you love me—he’d brought them food to eat. This had been the first offering, and they’d both considered it something of a reward for Melissa’s behavior.

  They’d been cautious, but starvation was a bully and the archnemesis of vigilance. After consuming a couple of handfuls of barbecued meat, both had passed out.

  When the woman had awoken sometime later, groggy and disorientated, Miranda was gone.

  She was let go… the man in the apron just let her go because she did what he wanted.

  “No… no,” she moaned. She knew better; giving in meant that their captor got what he wanted and their usefulness, whatever that might be in his twisted mind, was exhausted.

  “Yes,” the man said, misinterpreting her words. “You need to eat.” His voice was soft and smooth, mellow even.

  Friendly.

  He opened the cage with the single key that hung on his wrist and slid the bucket inside. The woman remained paralyzed until the man relocked the cage and then receded into the shadows once again.

  “You need to eat,” he repeated.

  “What—what happened to Melissa?”

  “Eat.”

  But she didn’t want to eat; she wanted to know where Melissa was. She wanted to know why she was here, what this creep in the apron wanted with her.

  She wanted to know what she’d done in her privileged life that was so wrong to deserve this.

  Starvation growled.

  Without any conscious command, she found herself on all fours, slowly crawling toward the bucket. The meat stench grew stronger the closer she got to the silver pail, and it soon became so powerful that it made her gag.

  What meat is this? What animal died so that I could live?

  It tasted like nothing she’d ever consumed before and, if by some miracle she managed to escape, would ever eat again.

  It didn’t taste like beef or pork or chicken.

  Sometimes there was hair clinging to the chunks of undercooked flesh.

  Long, thick black ones.

  But she still had no idea whe
re it came from.

  These thoughts exacerbated her nausea, and it was all she could do to keep her lips tightly closed to avoid vomiting. If she thought she could move without emptying the contents of her stomach, as pathetic as they were, she would have gone for the other bucket, the one that the man cleaned regularly.

  The one for shit and piss and puke and whatever other bodily fluids she might produce.

  The woman closed her eyes, fighting these visceral urges. In her mind, she saw Melissa sitting in the adjacent cage, clutching her knees to her chest, her dark hair swept over bare shoulders.

  “I… I love you.”

  Eyes still closed, she reached into the bucket and grazed the contents with her fingertips. The mystery meat was warm and soft, the consistency of ground beef boiled in duck fat. This time, she didn’t just gag, but her stomach did a back flip, and a dry croak exited her mouth.

  For some reason, she felt ashamed of her actions and opened her eyes.

  At first, she thought the man had left her. But there, blending in with the dirt walls, standing completely still, was his familiar outline. He was watching her, waiting. The woman dipped her hand deeper into the bucket. Then she pulled back it out, letting the viscous liquid strain between her pale fingers.

  After a quick, shuddering breath, she brought her palm to her mouth and, with her head over the bucket, slurped some of the meat. The texture was foreign, but not entirely unpleasant. Still, she didn’t risk chewing; she just swallowed.

  “That’s a good girl, sweetie,” the man’s haunting voice chided from the darkness. “You’re going to need your energy to submit. You’re going to need it for after you tell me you love me.”

  PART I

  Mannequins and Sutures

  Chapter 1

  “Fuck me harder,” Lisa Fairchild demanded through gritted teeth. She grabbed the man’s ass and pulled him closer. “Goddamn it, fuck me harder.”

  The man responded in kind, thrusting his hips forward so forcefully that the back of Lisa’s head bumped against the shelving unit. Something fell to the ground and smashed, but neither of them paid this any notice.

  “Harder,” she moaned. “Harderrrrr.”

  It had been so long since she’d been fucked by a real man that Lisa was on the verge of exploding. She took her right hand off his ass and grabbed her breast, squeezing it tightly.

  Oh, fuck, yeah. God… oh God… don’t stop… please don’t—

  But the man was stopping—well, slowing at least.

  “No, keep going,” she pleaded.

  A shout forced Lisa’s eyes open. Her first thought was that the man fucking her had finished, had come inside her even though he’d promised not to, but that wasn’t the case. The handsome man whose name she couldn’t remember was panting, his face still pinched in expectation of waves of pleasure.

  He hadn’t finished yet.

  “Why are you—”

  Another shout, and this time, Lisa managed to locate the source of the sound.

  It was coming from somewhere down the hall, in the direction of the gallery.

  Take care of this, Norm. For once in your fucking life, take care of something without me.

  Lisa removed her hand from her breast, instinctively adjusted her dress to hide her nipple, and then stroked the man’s face. His expression relaxed, and he stared at her with brown eyes that begged for further instruction.

  “Don’t stop,” she said, holding his gaze. The man hesitated, but when Lisa slid her lower half forward, he got the idea. “Yeah… harder now. Harder—”

  Another shout, this one louder and laden with—fear? Was that fear?

  “Fuck,” Lisa cursed.

  It was over now; the moment was lost. Lisa tried to slide off the desk, but the man had other ideas. He thrust again, and Lisa pushed him back.

  “I thought you said—”

  “Just fucking stop,” Lisa instructed. Confusion washed over the man’s face, but when she planted both hands on his chest and shoved him a second time, he slid out of her.

  A third shout reached her, one that carried Lisa’s name this time.

  She hopped off the desk, adjusted the hem of her dress, and looked the man up and down. He was standing in the middle of the closet-turned-office, his dick hanging out of his pants, still semi-hard, a stupefied look on his face.

  “What are you staring at?” she demanded, smoothing the wrinkles on her thighs. She waved a hand at his waist. “Put it away and get dressed.”

  Still obviously confused, the man slipped his softening penis into his drawers, tucked his white shirt in, and did his fly and button up.

  “Lisa! Lisa!”

  Fucking Norm!

  “Fix your bow tie and then count to sixty before you come out? Understand?” she wiped the lipstick from the corners of her mouth using a thumb and forefinger. “You know how to count to sixty, don’t you?”

  “Lisa!”

  She shook her head, took a deep breath, then opened the door and slid into the well-lit hallway. Lisa raised her head just in time to avoid being bowled over by two white-haired men in suits.

  “Jesus!” she barked. She was about to berate them further when she caught a glimpse of their faces; they looked like men who had been invited to join a harem of beautiful young women only to realize that they’d finished their Viagra the day before. “Wh-what’s going on?”

  The men just kept on running—and they were only the start. The stampede of guests that followed the two impotent men was more diverse, and more terrified if that were possible.

  What the hell is going on? What the fuck did you do, Norm? Not tonight… not on my night.

  Apparently, not everyone had been scared from the gallery. At least twenty hand-selected members of New York’s elite, people whom Lisa had spent weeks, and sometimes even months, petitioning to come here, to her exhibit, stood in the main hall.

  What in the fuck is going on?

  They were frozen, almost as motionless as the mannequins on display.

  Lisa knew that her work, that the outfits and the mannequins themselves, that the entire La Nuit des Femmes, was a showstopper but something wasn’t right here. Even if it hadn’t been for those who had run from the gallery, she would have known something was off.

  “Norm?” she raised her voice. “Norm!”

  Lisa continued to move through the crowd, trying to identify what everyone was staring at with such… horror.

  Where the fuck are you, Norm?

  “Out of my way,” she grumbled, pushing by several gawking onlookers.

  And then there they were, all twelve mannequins, all of her hard work, displayed before her. They were beautiful, each one different both in shape and color, stature, physique. And that was just the mannequins, themselves. Their outfits were equally diverse. When Lisa Fairchild had first come up with the idea of celebrating women from all walks of life in this fashion, she knew that the idea was a winner.

  Convincing her husband had been a different story, but Lisa had a very specific, and effective, method of persuasion. And while Norm had funded the endeavor, and she had used his Rolodex to bring in donors and buyers, it was all hers. La Nuit des Femmes was Lisa Fairchild’s and it offered her more than just an expression of calculated creativity.

  Of cashing in on the current zeitgeist

  There was also the alluring hint of autonomy that she had been seeking for so long.

  Ever since her father had died nearly two decades ago.

  “Lisa,” a soft voice said from her right.

  Lisa turned and saw her husband walking toward her. Having decided not to wear her glasses, it took until he was much closer before she recognized the dour expression on his face. This wasn’t terribly revealing, however, as the man always looked as if someone had just shit in his cornflakes.

  Different in almost every way—from complexion to age, to goddamn eye color—from the man she’d just been fucking in the modified closet, Lisa had to force herself not to sco
wl as her husband hurried toward her. When Norm Fairchild was close enough for her to smell his woodsy cologne, a terrible thought occurred to her.

  “Did you—did you do this?” she whispered. Had Norm found out about her many indiscretions and had chosen tonight to voice his dissension? Was this all just a setup to humiliate her?

  Lisa shook her head.

  Norm was a lot of things, but cruel wasn’t one of them. And yet, she knew from experience that you could only push someone so far before their very character changed.

  But despite the heavy wrinkles around the man’s green eyes that seemed deeper than she remembered, like cracks in his very soul, his soft gaze told a different story; Norm was breaking but had not broken. And yet, while Lisa realized that this—whatever this was—wasn’t Norm’s doing, he nevertheless knew.

  Not only that, but the man’s stare suggested that he’d known about her extra-curriculars for some time.

  Fuck.

  “What? No… Lisa, you need to see this.”

  “See what?” she hissed, her tone reverting to what it had been upon leaving the closet. “What the hell is going on, Norm? Why did all my guests run away?”

  As she spoke, Lisa’s gaze moved from her husband’s face to the direction that he was subtly indicating with his hand.

  At first, all she saw were the twelve mannequins and their outfits, all of which she’d designed and commissioned.

  “What the hell is so—” Lisa stopped mid-sentence.

  There weren’t twelve mannequins, but thirteen.

  “I think we need to call the police,” Norm whispered in her ear. It sounded like a question rather than a statement. Typical Norm: no balls, barely a soft dick.

  “For this? It’s just some dumb prank.”

  Ignoring her husband, Lisa moved toward the mannequin she didn’t recognize. The first twelve had been strategically arranged in a staggered triangle pattern so that every one of them could be seen from the front. The intruder had been placed in the back on its own, barely visible from where Lisa stood now.

  Who would do this? Who would do this to me?

  Lisa couldn’t answer her internal query, not because she couldn’t think of anyone who might want to ruin her special night, but because there were too many suitors to mentally sift through. But whoever had decided to prank her had done a shitty job; the new mannequin wasn’t like hers—it wasn’t even close. Instead of sporting a carefully constructed custom outfit, this one didn’t appear to be wearing any clothes at all.