San Francisco

By Lila Dubois

When Christiana discovers a secret BDSM club, she sneaks in hoping to glimpse a world she's only ever fantasized about.

Then she meets James.

Dominant and charming, he's everything she never knew she needed. And he wants her.

Three amazing nights later, the party's over. They make plans to meet again, but Christiana knows it ca

• Language: English
• Publisher: Farm Boy Press
• Release date: Jun 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781941641743

Book preview

Prologue

She’d weighed her fear of rejection and pain—quite literal pain because she was sure he would punish her—against her fear of regret. Regret for what she’d done to him. Regret for not mustering her courage and telling him the truth about who she was and who she wasn’t. She didn’t want to look back on her life and be anguished at her own cowardice. If she’d known what would happen, she wouldn’t have lied. Wouldn’t have pretended to be someone she wasn’t.

It had started out as an adventure. She’d been a stranger in a strange land, an anthropologist studying a foreign culture.

She was still a stranger to him, and to his world. She was a quiet, quirky engineer while he was a rich, powerful, and worldly prince.

A literal prince.

Her body was still bruised and aching from the beating last night. What would he say if he knew in her desperation to get over him she’d tried to find another Dom? It had been a mistake, leaving her body and soul battered and bruised.

He’d come for her. He’d found her. That meant he knew who she was.

I don’t fully understand why you lied. Why you pretended to be a member of the Orchid Club. James Nolen’s elegantly accented voice was carefully neutral.

I told you, I felt like—

Alice through the looking glass, he cut in. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You recognized the St. Andrew’s Cross.

She couldn’t deny it. Yes, I did.

That means you’re interested in BDSM. Knowledgeable. He stepped closer. You wanted to see Masters and submissives play.

Her breath was coming faster and she felt flushed. Yes.

Because it’s something that fascinates you. Is submission what you fantasize about at night?

I was just going to look, just that first night, she whispered. I wasn’t going to do anything.

But you did. With me. His dark gaze bore into her. You submitted to me.

Christiana shivered at the need, the aching desire, his simple words aroused within her.

She wanted him. Needed him. Especially after the mistakes she’d made last night.

I’m so sorry, James.

I want you. I need you.

Forgive me

One

There was beauty in the well-worn and aged, something reassuring about the resolute nature of a building that stood strong against the ocean, wind, and rain. Though it showed the trials of time’s passage, it remained. It was strong, despite the fact that it didn’t fit in, that it was a mismatch for everything around it. Like the woman who stood in the dying afternoon light, alone in the hulking shell.

Sorry, girl. You have to make way for bigger and better things. Christiana shook her small can of spray paint and marked the worn concrete exterior wall with a neon orange X. Rust from the window bars had stained the concrete, and to her the variations of copper and gray were lovely.

She pulled out her personal phone and took a picture of the bit of wall that was the most interesting. A burst of embarrassment stole over her—why did she always have to be so weird? Who took pictures of a stained concrete wall in a soon-to-be-demolished warehouse?

But there was no one here to judge her, and Christiana shook off the feeling. Pulling a pen from behind her ear, she noted the wall she’d just Xed on the plan on her clipboard and turned to finish her inspection.

The whole building had an otherworldly feel. Admittedly, the floor was covered in bits of shattered windows, rotting wood that had once been shelving, and slithery patches of mold that weren’t the most appealing looking floor covering.

The salt water and damp environment of the small island had taken its toll on this once bustling building. Remnants of its past were there—such as a large sign that said Ogle Canning leaning against the wall.

But change was the only constant, and this building was marked to be demolished to make way for some new development on the small island in San Francisco Bay.

The time to save the building was long past, and though people might have appreciated having the building converted rather than knocked down, salt water and time had done their job. Christiana wasn’t the executioner—that would be the crew with the wrecking ball that would arrive next week. She was the governor who signed the death warrant. As a civil engineer, inspecting buildings and deciding what could be saved, what couldn’t, and which wall had to go first hadn’t exactly been her dream work scenario. But her job working for the State of California was a good one. It was safe. She got to travel a bit—mostly within fifty miles of Oakland—but that was still traveling. And she got to be alone—just her, a hardhat, and a clipboard—in her work truck.

Alone was easy.

She moved from wall to wall, marking which walls had to come down first, indicating the load-bearing and critical structures. And if she stopped to take pictures of a beautiful slat of broken wood, or a rusted bit of scrolled ironwork, there was no one to see her do it.

She reached the far side of the warehouse, and the fourth exterior wall. This one had no windows, and the brick here looked new. Christiana frowned at it. Perhaps this wall had been protected by its position away from the rocky shoreline of the island.

She was losing the light, and she still had to do the second floor, so she pulled her florescent pink can out of the pouch she wore on her belt, and marked it as a load-bearing wall. Once she was done inside, she’d check it from the outside.

Weaving her way back through the room on the first floor, she found the stairs and cautiously made her way up, testing each wrought iron step before she put her weight on it.

The second floor was easier, since most of the walls got the same markings as their counterparts downstairs. The light that came in the broken windows was golden, so she indulged herself in a few more pictures. There was some tagging on the walls here, and a pile of cardboard and trash that made her think someone had been squatting here at some point. She made a note to order the demo crew to do a detailed walkthrough to check for people before they started. It should be standard practice, but she’d known crews who got a bit giddy with excitement to start smashing stuff.

She worked her way around to the inland exterior wall. Again, the brick looked nearly untouched by the ravages of time.

What’s your story? Christiana pulled off her heavy glove and laid her hand on the brick.

It wasn’t cold. It was cool, but not cold. Brick held onto the cold, and it should have been nearly icy against her skin. Her eyes went wide.

Christiana looked around the second floor, which had fewer internal walls than the ground floor. She closed her eyes and pictured the building from the outside—a large rectangular two-story warehouse, the outer walls faced in corrugated metal siding to protect the brick that showed on the inside. There were evenly spaced windows on the long walls, the openings protected by metal grates and bars. A one-story addition had been added to the shoreline-facing short wall, and that was where the entrance was. A small gravel parking area and large turnaround had allowed trucks to pick up the canned fish before snaking up the hill to the access road that fed onto the freeway. The dock had long since rotted away, and the trees and greenery that would have been cut back when this was an active business had crowded the warehouse, making it clear that this building had been abandoned by humans, giving nature a chance to reclaim the stolen terrain.

The footprint of the main building was big, nearly three-quarters the size of a football field. Christiana opened her eyes, calculating the square footage she could see. She frowned, then went to the long wall and paced it off. She did some quick mental math and turned in a circle.

The second floor wasn’t as big as it should be.

Christiana’s heartbeat started to thud in her chest. She pulled her glove on, then tucked her clipboard into her backpack and took out the heavy black flashlight that could double as a weapon. The interior square footage didn’t match what was on the blueprints filed with the city planner. This was as close to dramatic as her job ever got.

Still, usually it was the other way around—the building was actually bigger than on the plans. Christiana walked back to the suspect wall.

She tapped the top of her hardhat, making sure it was firmly in place, though she was practical enough to acknowledge that if this building came down on top of her she wouldn’t survive. Flashlight in hand, she walked along the brick wall, rapping it with her free hand. It sounded hollow. Brick shouldn’t sound hollow. Hollow sounds, plus irregular temperature for the supposed material.

It was a false wall.

She reached the corner, where the troubling wall met the long exterior wall. Christiana walked to the nearest window. The glass was long since gone, and she was lucky that her heavy jacket, stitched with the name of her agency and striped by reflective tape, kept her warm against the ocean-cold winds.

Christiana examined the metal grate mounted to the inside of the window. It was coppery brown with rust. Wrapping her gloved hands around the bars she pulled. The grate groaned. Planting one booted foot just under the sill, she gritted her teeth and yanked. The grate gave way, and Christiana had to dance back out of the way as it fell.

Heart hammering in her chest, Christiana leapt over the grate and stuck her head out of the window opening. A gust of wind nearly took her hardhat off, and a few pieces of hair pulled free of her braid.

The exterior wall extended from her window at least forty feet to the corner of the building, yet on the inside it was only five feet from where she stood to the wall. Thirty-five feet of space were missing.

Son of a bitch. Christiana yanked her head in and glared at the fake brick wall. It was almost like someone had created a false duplicate of the exterior wall. Who would bother to do that? This building hadn’t been used in years.

Christiana made her way back to the brick, debris crunching under her feet. She pursed her lips as she looked at the puzzle. Her heart was still pounding, but the trickle of unease that slid through her was nothing compared to the burn of curiosity.

There was a delicate way to investigate this. She could go outside, pace it out. Maybe try and enter the walled off area via one of the doors on the bottom floor, though all the doors except the one she’d come in were supposedly chained shut from the inside, as well as locked.

That was the delicate way.

Christiana flipped the flashlight and smashed the heel of it into the brick.

Plaster crumbled. As she’d suspected, the brick was a molded and painted plaster facade.

Christiana grinned, once more glad she was alone, so no one would see her being unprofessional as she gleefully smashed a hole in the wall about the size of a manhole cover.

Flipping the now dusty flashlight back around, she turned it on, shining it through the hole. She could see the edges of two-by-four studs that supported the facade. In theory there should be something mounted to the other side of the studs—drywall, more plaster—but when the light hit the hole she saw fabric.

Christiana cautiously reached out, tapping the fabric with the flashlight. It moved, confirming that it was, in fact, fabric. Heavy. Black. And perfectly intact.

What is going on? Christiana’s voice echoed slightly.

This false wall, with its plaster-brick on one side and fabric on the other, was new. The two-by-four supports smelled like fresh wood, and any fabric that had been here for any length of time would have been destroyed by the salt air, which meant the fabric had probably been added at the same time as the wood.

Christiana took a step back and considered her options. She was faced with a mystery. Not the sort of mystery she normally came up against. Those were usually the how is this building still standing? and who in their right mind approved these plans? sort of mysteries.

This was a real mystery.

The smart thing to do would be to back out, call the office, and come back in the morning with another inspector. Maybe with the police. Whomever had done this was trespassing—even the building owner wasn’t supposed to be on-site.

Christiana put her hand on her work phone, clipped to her belt.

Be smart, or be adventurous.

She lifted her hand off her phone. There was no one here to see her make a bad choice. She was going to be bad. Christiana was many things, but bad was never one of them. In her darker moments, when she slogged into her apartment covered in dirt and dust, with nothing to look forward to beyond some frozen food and TV, she regretted her painfully boring life. She hadn’t set out to be this way. Who would plan to be boring?

Christiana’s secret self, the person she thought of herself as, was adventurous and bold. That person just didn’t have a lot of opportunity to come out—she’d gone from college into an internship, at the end of which she’d been offered a job. She’d worked hard, harder than most people had to. She was a woman in a male-dominated field, and she’d had to adopt an all business manner and prove herself over and over again.

Year after year, bit by bit, that wild adventurer she’d seen herself as had retreated deep inside, coming to life only when Christiana watched movies or listened to audiobooks as she drove.

A smile curled the corners of her mouth. The universe was giving her a gift. A mystery, and adventure. All she had to do was decide to take the opportunity. To be bad.

Christiana tucked the flashlight away and lifted her boot. Holding onto the vertical supports she’d exposed with her improvised flashlight-hammer, she used the steel toe of her boot to break down more of the false wall.

When she was done, she had a hole roughly three feet wide by four feet tall, the lower edge nearly touching the floor.

Pulling out the flashlight once more, Christiana crouched and turned it on, then sandwiched it between her jaw and shoulder so both hands were free. She reached for the bottom of the fabric. There must have been weights in the hem, because it was heavy. She gathered it, lifting it inch by inch, her light trained on the gap, so she’d be able to see whatever was on the other side and, if needed, run for it.

Her heart was pounding so loudly that all she could hear was the thud, thud, thud of its beat.

The beam of her flashlight shot into the space beyond the false wall. Christiana’s eyes went wide and her lips parted in shock.

Her imagination had been running wild, but even the wildest things she could imagine held no candle to what she saw. Holding the heavy drape up with one hand, she braced herself and—still crouching—stepped through.

She stood and let the fabric drop down behind her, hiding the hole she’d made.

Like Alice, she’d entered another world, and the dank, crumbling warehouse seemed a thousand miles away.

Two

The ceiling soared above her head, lights hanging down from the massive steel beam girders that served as the backbone and key structural supports of the building. The lights were a mixture of globe-like chandeliers made of wide circular bands of steel surrounding starbursts of Edison bulbs, and clear white glass globes, each as large as a beach ball, grouped like grapes. The bulbs were dark, but the glass caught the final rays of sunshine that filtered in through a large skylight that should have been dingy and yellow with age, but which was sparkling clean and looked new.

Behind her was an entire wall of heavy black velvet drapes. Some of the panels had to be twenty-five feet long to span the distance from the roof high above to the floor of the second story. The other walls—which based on the proportions of the space were the real walls and not more false ones—had been cleaned of the rust and paint that marked the brick and concrete walls of the untouched side of the warehouse. More black velvet drapes covered the windows that should have been visible. No doubt the thick fabric would serve to block out the illumination from all those light fixtures.

The floor she’d been standing on moments ago was pitted concrete, but here it was fresh hardwood so dark it almost looked black. She’d punched through near one corner of the large room, and with the sunlight fading, the opposite corner was cloaked in shadows.

The center of the second floor was open, due to the top of a grand staircase rising from the below. The opening to the ground floor was edged by thick iron railings that echoed the industrial yet elegant lighting.

As astonishing as the surroundings were, the furnishings nearly overshadowed them. Five feet from where she stood there was a seating area—two dark leather wingback chairs, a tufted cream chaise, and a loveseat were grouped around a low, square coffee table.

Chains waited, curled like snakes, on top of the table. That might have been an odd decorating choice, if not for the fact that beside the chairs a collection of manacles and cuffs was set out.

Christiana’s sense of adventure faded as alarm bells started to go off. What the hell was this place? She leaned forward, peering through the gloom that had fallen now that the sunlight was more memory than fact.

The chains weren’t just lying on top of the coffee table—the ends of the chains were bolted to the legs. The manacles varied from something that looked like classic handcuffs lined in suede to wide leather bracelets with metal rings on them that she suspected weren’t just decorative.

Christiana’s hand shook as she aimed the flashlight at the table, pulled out her personal phone, and snapped a picture.

She turned, the beam of her flashlight flowing over the elegant yet increasingly sinister furnishings. The cone of white light made the rest of the room seem even darker than it had before, an effect that was amplified by the diminishing illumination from the skylight. She took two steps, hugging the wall. She looked back at the drape where she’d entered, reassuring herself that she had a way out of here. It was a good thing that she looked back, because her boots were leaving dusty white footprints on the dark floor.

Shit. Shitshitshit. Christiana crouched and unlaced her boots, slipping them off. She stepped out of them, then shuffled back to the drape, using her socks to clean away the evidence she’d left behind.

Back at her makeshift entrance, she took off her hardhat, thick gloves, belt, and backpack, stuffing them back through the hole in the plaster brick. She tucked the boots under the hem of the panel, twitching the fabric so the draping hid her shoes. The weights in the fabric kept the drape from moving, despite the rather large hole on the other side.

After she’d finishing making sure her boots were hidden, Christiana laid one hand on the floor, bracing herself to push to a standing position.

She paused. What are you doing, self? Call the police. Get out of here.

She waited, balanced on the balls of her feet, one hand splayed wide on rich, dark hardwood that should not be there.

Be sensible. Be safe.

She was tired of sensible. Even more tired of safe. The place was deserted—there were no cars in the lot, outside, and no cars in the secondary lot half way up the hill where she’d parked her work truck so she could enjoy a brisk walk down to the water.

It was just her and a mystery. She could indulge herself by looking around before calling it in.

Christiana popped up. Maybe she was about to expose a human trafficking ring. She’d seen that Liam Neeson movie. She, Christiana Dell, was going to bust this thing wide open.

She retraced her steps, checking the floor for hints of plaster as she went. Beyond the first seating area was a second. Here there were four long, low couches of black leather set in a perfect square. In the center was a strange piece of furniture. It looked a bit like an odd, padded stepstool, but instead of a solid first step, the lower of the two steps was split in half, and the upper step was narrow like a balance beam, rotated ninety degrees from the way a normal step would be oriented.

Frowning, Christiana kept going, stopping to take pictures as she came across pieces of furniture that didn’t quite make sense. Skirting around the opening for the stairs she passed a long mahogany bar that held court at the top of the stairs, complete with freestanding glass shelves behind the bar with hundreds of unopened bottles of alcohol.

How had they gotten that massive bar in here? How had they done any of this? All those lights meant electricity, but there was no power—the lines had been cut in prep for the demolition.

She made her way to the opposite side of the stairs, where there were a few more seating areas close to the banister, and a handful of high-top tables close to the bar.

Then she came to an area where ten couches were lined up in rows facing the wall. She slid down the center aisle, heart thumping as she swiveled the light side to side, checking each couch. She was half convinced she’d find a dead body on one of them. The darkness and mystery were getting to her.

Once she was at the first row, she realized they weren’t facing the wall, they were facing a stage. The beam from her flashlight danced across black-draped shapes on the raised platform of a stage.

Christiana’s heart was in her throat as she hopped onto the stage. Grabbing one of the drapes, she yanked it free.

A large X made of wood and leather seemed to loom above her. Black straps hung loose off the sides, making it all too apparent that this was meant to restrain someone so they could be tortured.

Or pleasured.

Christiana’s flashlight tipped down as something bubbled to the surface of her mind. Christiana’s preferred reading genre was fantasy, but she’d read a bit of everything, including erotica. Plus as a perpetually single woman she’d watched her share of porn. When she did, there was one kind she always gravitated toward. The kind where women were tied up and pleasured over and over again. More than once the women in the videos had been bound to something that looked like this.

There was a name for an X like this—a St. Andrew’s Cross. It had been a medieval torture device, but in this day and age it was far more likely to be used for sex games.

It would be perfect for torturing poor girls who were about to be sold into sex slavery.

Or…or this whole place was some sort of secret sex club.

Both options seemed far-fetched.

Christiana took a picture of the St. Andrew’s Cross, then picked up the drape.

The lights came on.

Christiana was momentarily blinded by the light, and frozen in horrified shock. Her vision cleared before her shock dissipated.

The industrial-chic fixtures provided a dim, gold light from above. There were slim bars of track lighting she hadn’t noticed before hanging from the ceiling or mounted to the walls. Small, bright LEDs pointed at the various seating areas and pieces of equipment, highlighting them with a cool white light.

One-such spotlight was pointed directly at the St. Andrew’s Cross, the light blinding Christiana when she whipped around to look out.

Christiana flushed hot then cold with terror. She’d been caught and now they were going to kill her.

She dropped the drape and dashed to the back of the stage, hands in front of her. Her eyes hadn’t fully adjusted when her palms hit brick. She tapped the boards with her foot, hoping there was space between the stage and the wall she could drop into. There was nothing. Stomach knotted with terror, she ran along the wall, bent at a crouch until she stumbled off the stage, her feet sliding slightly as she landed. She raced the remaining ten feet to the corner where the brick wall met the velvet-covered false wall.

Please, please, please.

She yanked the fabric back, and slid behind it. Raising the flashlight, she prepared to smash through the plaster from this side.

No shouts for her to stop. No gunshots.

She forced herself to calm down and listen. Hacking at the false wall with her flashlight wouldn’t be quiet.

Christiana dropped into a crouch and held as still as possible and tried to slow her breathing.

Think. Don’t panic. Think.

She was on the second floor. Whoever had turned on the lights must have come in on the ground floor, through one of the doors Christiana had been told was chain-locked from the inside.

If they’d come in and turned on the lights, they probably hadn’t seen her. All she had to do was keep quiet and maybe she could sneak along behind the curtain to where she’d come in and get away.

This was assuming they hadn’t heard her panicked running. Damn. Should she make a break for it, or stay where she was and wait until she was sure it was safe to move?

That also assumed they hadn’t seen her work truck and come looking for her. The upper parking area was off the road a bit, and fairly well hidden by an abundance of overgrown vegetation. Unless they’d decided to park in the same lot they might not have seen her truck.

Christiana closed her eyes, fighting to keep herself calm. Part of her—the part that wanted to run—was sure that a hulking, bald brute with a swastika tattooed on his forehead was standing just on the other side of the fabric drape, waiting for her to make a move so he could grab her and strangle her before throwing her body into the ocean, where she would be eaten by sharks.

Calm down, calm down.

Christiana leaned gingerly against the false wall, focusing on each breath she took. She opened her eyes, and after a moment’s adjustment, she realized she could faintly see the glow of the lights though the velvet. Even that bit of illumination helped her calm down to the point that she could think.

Sliding her phone from her pocket, she shot off a text message to her friend. Work knew where she was, but it wouldn’t hurt to let someone else know. It was Thursday evening, and if she suddenly went missing it might be easier for the cops to get information about her last known location from a friend rather than her job, which had very few staff on Friday.

On Treasure Island. Investigating a warehouse. May be dangerous.

She was slipping her phone back into her pocket when it vibrated, even that faint buzzing seeming painfully loud.

Be careful! See you for Taco Tuesday?

Christiana fumbled with the phone, shutting it off. She wasn’t surprised her friend hadn’t been alarmed. Christiana’s job had an element of danger built into it, and Ginger knew that. Knowing the phone was off, and that she’d just eliminated that easy access lifeline, had her pulse clicking up once more.

She should have called 911. If she really thought the police would soon be looking for her body, a text to a friend was not a smart move. She was being an idiot. If this were a movie, Christiana would be yelling at the stupid female character who was hiding instead of calling for help. Yet here she was, being as stupid as any horror movie heroine. The only difference was horror movie heroines were rarely wearing khakis and bulky reflective jackets.

A bubble of amusement calmed her once more, and it was a good thing, because there were people coming up the stairs.

Christiana froze, taking slow, shallow breaths as the sound of footsteps got louder.

Beautifully done, Lillian. The speaker was male, his voice low and confident.

Thank you, Sir. The valet services will start picking up patrons in an hour. I expect the first arrivals around seven o’clock. The woman—Lillian—spoke with a faint accent—possibly Indian?

And special rules from the sponsor?

No rules, only requests. The invitation asked that subs wear brown, gold, and cream colored velvet, cotton, or leather. I believe she feels those colors and fabrics will best complement the aesthetic of the event.

Lillian and the unnamed man were, based on the sound of their voices, at the top of the stairs. The empty space echoed slightly. If not for that, Christiana might not have been able to hear.

The man sighed. An odd and slightly difficult request.

I agree, Sir. I have a selection of appropriate lingerie and clothing in the subs’ dressing room.

Clothing? His voice cracked, hard and harsh.

There was a pause, and then Lillian replied, I misspoke, Sir. The garments in question are thin, short nightgowns made of natural, undyed cotton.

Silence stretched, and Christiana was worried for Lillian.

Very well. Remember, it would be too easy for this to become nothing more but another gala or party. I have to be harsh, Lillian.

Of course, Sir. Thank you for your care and attention.

Another sigh. I wish you looked at me the way you used to.

A pause. I wish the way I looked at you were pleasing to you, Sir.

Will you ever forgive me, Lilly?

There is nothing to forgive, Sir.

Silence stretched, and then there were footsteps—heavy on the hardwood. Probably the man.

Who’s performing? Do you have alternate plans? And the servers, who are they? Based on his voice, he was walking toward the stage. Closer to Christiana’s hiding place. She flexed her fingers around the shaft of her heavy flashlight.

Guests had the opportunity to sign up for either fifteen- or thirty-minute time slots to perform on the main stage. The seating areas are not assigned. If no one takes advantage of the equipment, I’ll pull a server off rotation and put him or her into bondage myself.

Good. And who are the servers?

The same people we used in Morocco and Tokyo, Sir.

The Thai people you rescued?

I did not rescue them, Sir.

I find that debatable. I’m sure you’re paying them an exorbitant amount.

Another pause. I’m paying them an appropriate amount, given their specialized skills, history of discretion, and excellent service—

I was teasing you, Lillian. This is all lovely. Everyone will enjoy themselves. Show me the security.

Security is a bit of a concern, since we had to focus the majority of our resources on renovating the warehouse.

Show me, he demanded.

Yes, Sir.

Footsteps headed back down the stairs. Christiana waited until she couldn’t hear them any longer, then blew out a long breath.

That hadn’t sounded like human trafficking—guests, valet, servers.

This was some sort of underground sex club.

And based on what she’d heard and seen, it was all about bondage. She’d heard the term sub before. That meant submissive.

A secret speak-easy style BDSM club for rich people. It had to be rich people, based on both the astronomical amount of money it would have taken to build this, reconnect electricity, etc, and the very expensive brands of alcohol she’d seen at the bar.

Christiana needed to sneak back into the warehouse and pretend she’d never seen any of this. She could pretend she’d never seen it and file her report, making multiple notes about checking the space for occupants before beginning demolition, and move on to the next assignment.

Or she could call this in to the police. A trespassing case on a vacant property would be low priority, so it may or may not be investigated before the demo crew arrived.

She could involve her supervisor—he’d be able to file a higher priority report that would get immediate police action. To shut this down, that would be the most secure course of action.

And then she could spend the rest of her life imagining and wondering about what she would have seen if she stayed.

She eased from behind the curtain. There was no sign of Lillian and the nameless man. With the lights on, the space seemed both intimate and intimidating.

Christiana held her breath and strained her ears, trying to figure out where Lillian and the man were. She couldn’t hear anything. She stood and took a few steps, sticking to the dimmest areas.

When she reached the bar, she stopped. She could keep going straight, paralleling the velvet wall, until she reached the far corner where her boots and escape hole were.

Or she could sneak down the stairs and see what was on the first floor.

And when she got caught? What would happen then?

She had a right to be here—they were in the wrong. Though she didn’t look very official standing there in her socks.

Looking down, she wiggled her toes. The reflective band on her upper arm caught the light, and Christiana cursed. Without thinking, she stripped off her jacket. Rolling it into a ball, she darted across the floor, running on the balls of her feet, slipping slightly against the smooth wood. She dropped to her knees and lifted the curtain where she thought the hole was. She was only off by a few feet. She knee-walked over there and stuffed the jacket through the hole where it joined her clipboard, backpack, and hardhat. After a moment’s consideration, she stuffed her boots through too.

Decision time.

Go or stay.

Be safe, or be adventurous.

In Alice’s story, the trip down the rabbit hole had been one-way. Alice had to go through the rest of Wonderland to find her way home.

Christiana lowered the curtain and pushed to her feet.

The first floor was just as magnificent as the second, though there was far less open space here.

When people entered through the narrow back door, they’d be looking down the long hallway to the grand staircase. The hallway was flanked by two large rooms, which she knew from the plans had originally been an office for cannery management and a locker room for workers. The rooms still existed, though they looked freshly built, and there was just the faintest scent of fresh paint.

To one side of the staircase was yet another bar, while the opposite side had duplicates of some of the equipment from upstairs—a St. Andrew’s Cross, a spanking bench, a person-sized birdcage—but no seating areas.

It was easier to see on this floor. Evenly spaced iron fixtures supported Edison bulbs, but with the lower ceiling height and cream-colored walls, the dim bulbs provided better illumination. Added to that there were clusters of iron candelabras with fat white pillar candles. The walls of the hallway were lined with black candleholders and what had to be five hundred candles. It would be magical when they were all lit.

All that light meant there weren’t many places to hide. Christiana crouched on the stairs in a shadowy spot and looked at the bar. She could duck back there, but a bartender would show up eventually.

Christiana’s fingers tangled together in an anxious knot. She couldn’t just stay here waiting to be discovered. She had to either find a place to hide down here or go back upstairs and return to her hiding place behind