“Your relationship with Eric is clouding your judgment,” Ashley snapped.
“Isn’t that what you want, though?” I cocked my head to the side, my hair falling over my shoulder. “Isn’t that why you came here in the first place? I wouldn’t be surprised if Ryan King sent you himself to rile me up so I would say something that might prove how I’m ill-equipped to be on this case. Even if that had worked, you know I wouldn’t have to legally recuse myself, right?”
Ashley opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. That wasn’t actually a bad thing. It meant there was some part of what I said that was actually correct.
“What I’m sure King forgot to mention is that I’m really good at my job. There’s a reason why I have a badge that gets me into the police department. I work closely with them, almost like a consultant, because they trust me.”
“How can they trust someone who gets paid to look into things in a particular way?” she lashed out. “Your clients pay you. You’re going to figure out things they want you to discover and bury anything they don’t. You’re completely skewed to one side. It isn’t fair –“
I held up my hand to stop her and was surprised it actually worked.
“I assure you that my job isn’t to help my clients,” I told her. It was important to me that she understood that was the truth. Not because I cared what she thought about me, but my business reputation was important to me. “It’s to find the truth. That is why I have such a close working relationship with the police. That’s why they trust me with stuff like this.”
“And it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re the daughter of the coach?” she asked. “You have two relationships that would imply your head isn’t completely clear as you might like to think it is.”
“My father has nothing to do with this.”
“So he didn’t hire you?”
“I thought you said Eric did.” I smiled sweetly at her. “Now you’re claiming it’s my father. Which is it? It can’t be both.”
“Can’t it?” She perked her brows and leaned forward. “Derrick told me it’s just you and your dad. Why wouldn’t you do anything you could to help his most prized player?”
“What does my dad have anything to do with this?”
I didn’t like that she knew more about me than I realized. I didn’t like that she had access to my life because Ryan King wouldn’t keep his mouth shut.
You can’t blame him, can you? He’s doing his job just like you have to do yours.
I brushed stray strands of hair from my face. This conversation was getting out of hand. I was getting bored and annoyed. In fact, I wanted time to think. I had different pieces of the same puzzle and I needed time to figure out how they all fit together. Ashley Dunham’s presence was not helping in the slightest.
“Everything, duh,” she said. “Every girl I know has daddy issues and I’m sure you have more than most. Your father is barely home because of his job. Your mother recently died. You have this innate desire to please authority.”
“I’m going to stop you right there and ask you to leave,” I said, my hand up. “Let me give you advice, Ms. Dunham. If you’re going to regurgitate everything your lawyer says, you aren’t going to be able to figure things out for yourself. Now, instead of listening to King and his paralegal or assistant or whoever this Derrick person is, maybe try to start thinking for yourself and –“
“Derrick isn’t associated with Ryan King,” Ashley said, scoffing. As though I was a complete idiot for not knowing this already. She bent over to grab her purse before standing up and heading to the door.
“Then who is Derrick?” I asked, leaning against my chair, my hands resting loosely in my lap.
She opened the door to my office. I thought she wasn’t going to answer. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder.
“My ex-boyfriend.”
Chapter 18
It shouldn’t have surprised me how easy it was to find Ashley Dunham’s ex-boyfriend online. All I had to do was find Ashley’s Facebook profile and there he was, listed as one of her friends. There wasn’t much interaction between the two of them; they liked each other’s pictures every now and then but that was it unless they private messaged each other.
But I knew they had to still be in contact. There was no reason for them to talk about me before Ashley decided to claim Eric Foresburg had raped her. It was obvious she wasn’t a hockey fan and a few clicks on his profile told me he was.
I frowned as I studied his pictures. It stated he lived in Santa Ana, and judging by the few pictures he had posted, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had gang associations, or at least, knew people in gangs and did drugs. He looked like an idiot, but a dangerous one. An unpredictable one.
Unfortunately for me, he was my only lead.
I didn’t waste any time checking him out and finding his address. If he knew something, if Ashley still confided in him, I had to find out.
I probably should have told someone I would be heading to Santa Ana to talk to Ashley’s ex. However, I knew that I needed to act fast. Each day that passed by was one day closer to the opening. The Bucc’s had their first preseason game with their crosstown rivals, the Los Angeles Warriors, and Eric was still not allowed to play. He had his first pretrial date as this Thursday, two days away. The DA would have to present evidence to show the judge there was enough to go to trial. Which meant if I didn’t figure this out soon, Eric’s reputation was going to get worse – maybe even irreparable.
I knew Beech was only doing his job. I knew the DA – whoever was assigned to the case – was only doing theirs. But I wished I had more time to figure this out.
This whole thing was problematic from the beginning. I wanted to be done with everything. I wanted put this case behind me and work on something that didn’t involve hockey or my dad or Eric.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened. I didn’t want to think about what Ashley said. I didn’t want to think about Eric saying those words and meaning them.
I didn’t believe Eric was a rapist. But I didn’t like this new Eric. And he could blame his stupid decision to break up with me if he wanted. But I didn’t care. This Eric wasn’t someone I wanted in my life. I didn’t know who this Eric was. I didn’t want to know who he was. The Eric I did know was gone.
I got off the freeway and drove through the streets, looking for a small side street that would take me to a residential area. Santa Ana was much different than Irvine. It was more urban, with houses and businesses mixed together. There were more pedestrians, more people waiting for the bus. A homeless man snored softly on a bench sign advertising a defense lawyer in Spanish. The strong aromas of beef and chicken coming from a mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant tickled my nose and caused my stomach to rumble. A couple of skinny kids with shaved heads huddled on a street corner, their dark eyes glaring at me with unflinching resolve. It was like they knew I was an outsider and they wanted nothing to do with outsiders.
My heart skipped and I refocused my attention on the road. I didn’t want to miss the street.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered to myself.
I didn’t like to admit I got nervous when I was alone in strange neighborhoods, considering my clients came all over Orange County, but I couldn’t help but wish that I had someone with me so I wouldn’t be alone. Unlike police officers who always had a partner, someone they could count on, private investigators tended to be on their own all of the time.
I finally saw the street and moved to the middle of the road, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass so I could turn left. It took a moment before it cleared up and I made my way through the small, residential street.
Santa Ana was a weird city. The main streets were urbanized. There was trash everywhere, homeless people on a lot of bus stops and park benches, trying to find shelter for the night. Sometimes, gangs huddled on street corners, exchanging drugs and money between them in broad daylight.
And yet, when immersed in residential neighborhoo
ds, small, quaint houses lined the streets with green grass and kids playing basketball in driveways or street hockey. There were parks that probably could use more upkeep – trash littered everywhere, graffiti was on the bathroom walls, homeless people were going through dumpsters – but weren’t actually aesthetically displeasing besides the issues listed.
I pulled in front of a small, two-story house that resembled a cottage. Smoke came from the chimney and there was an old Buick in the driveway. Someone was home. I just needed it to be Derrick.
I turned off the engine and locked my doors before heading up to the small porch. The grass wasn’t green and the lawn was overrun with weeds.
I knocked on the door and stepped back, waiting to be answered. I glanced at the windows, consumed with dust and tacky curtains. The smoke coming from the chimney smelled bitter, though I couldn’t figure out why that was.
After a long moment, someone opened the door. He had dusty brown hair, maybe red, with tired blue eyes. He wore a muscle shirt and Nike sweatpants with no shoes or socks. Honestly, it looked as though he had just rolled out of bed. I was tempted to whip out my phone and see what time it was. It had to be well after noon.
“Yeah?” he asked, his voice gruff.
He scanned me from head to toe. There was nothing lecherous in his gaze but it made me uncomfortable, regardless. I couldn’t figure out as to why that was, though. I didn’t feel threatened, but I didn’t exactly feel safe either.
“Hi,” I said, too brightly even for my standards. I grabbed my badge from the waistband of my jeans and flashed it to him. “My name is Mika Chalmers and I’m a private investigator looking into the rape of Ashley Dunham. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Ashley Dunham?” He ran his hands down his face like he was trying to wake himself up. “Why would you want to ask me any questions? We’ve been broken up for, like, a year I think?”
“I know,” I said. “I was actually interviewing her yesterday and she mentioned you. I don’t think she realized what she was saying –“
Derrick scoffed, interrupting me. “Yeah, no surprise there.” He rolled his eyes. “She was all talk. That girl had a flair for the dramatics, let me tell you.”
“Yes, well.” I faked a smile and continued. “Anyway, like I said, I don’t think she realized how her words came across because she used the present tense instead of the past tense, and I thought that was strange, considering you guys had been broken up for a while.”
A gentle breezed nipped the back of my neck. It was humid, an uncomfortable thing that touched me the way a skeezy college professor might in an attempt to implore one of his grad students to be there for him in a way that had nothing to do with education and everything to do with satisfying basic needs in exchange for a passing grade in his class. I didn’t like it. The Santa Anas were going to pick up soon and they always brought discomfort and a sense of dread with them. I shouldn’t be here. Derrick probably had nothing to do with the case and Ashley was just some idiot who didn’t know how to speak correctly.
“Look, Ashley and I talk every now and then,” he admitted. “You know I’m the reason she likes the Bucc’s in the first place, right? Like, before me, she didn’t give a shit about hockey. I took her to the games. I watched them on TV all the time. The Bucc’s are my ride or die, you know?”
I didn’t. I knew the phrase but I didn’t know what it meant in this context.
“She called me out of the blue to give me these special tickets to the Bucc’s Lights Out Fan Event,” he said. “I already gave the stub to a detective.”
I did a double-take. “A detective?” I asked. “Detective Beech?”
“I don’t remember her name.” He shrugged. “I still don’t understand why I’m being interviewed by you guys at all. I have nothing to do with Ashley. Not anymore. I just talk to her because she gives me free tickets to Bucc’s games and she still goes down on me every now and then. I saw her little press conference and she brought up the whole Light’s Out thing. I decided to turn in my ticket because I wanted to be helpful. I’m trying to get that assault off my record.”
I made a face before I could stop myself. Not only was he the grossest asshole on the planet, he knew absolutely nothing of how police records worked. How Ashley ever dated him in the first place, I had no idea.
“Did your ticket have a golden insignia on it? Like a gold swish?” I asked.
He wrinkled his brow. “I think so.”
“Did she ever talk to you about her relationship with Eric Foresburg?” I asked. I was ready to leave but I needed to know if there was anything else. Derrick was more helpful than I initially gave him credit for, but he had a creepy vibe and I was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Relationship?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Foresburg doesn’t do relationships. It’s all in her head. Why do you think we broke up?”
I shifted my weight, refocusing my attention on him. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Foresburg fucks, he doesn’t –“
“Not about Foresburg,” I snapped. I hoped he didn’t notice. There was no reason for me to get so defensive over Eric’s sex life, especially in front of some kid who probably didn’t even realize I was the woman Eric dated seriously before jumping back into the single life. “Why did you guys break up?”
“Besides the fact that she was cramping my style with her constant talks of getting serious and marriage,” he said, “and the fact that she wouldn’t even try to swallow for me, Ashley thought we were more than what we were.”
“You mean she thought you were serious when –“
“When we were just fucking around,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, we did date. And I didn’t have a side chick or anything like that. I liked Ashley. She’s good with her mouth and she wanted to be with me when she could have any guy, you know? But she’s a stage-five clinger. And when we broke up, she went crazy. Started saying some shit that was a fucking lie. I had to get my boys to shut her up, you know?” His hand shot out and I flinched, thinking he was going to touch me. He didn’t. “Not that they did nothing, you know? They just scared her. And now we’re friends and she understands, we’re not nothing more.”
I nodded my head.
“Now, is there anything else?” He furrowed his brow. “The last thing I need is for my boys to think I’m talking to the cops, even one as fine as you.”
There was something about the way Derrick looked at me… A chill ran down my spine. He had indulged my curiosity and if I didn’t leave now, there would be consequences.
I forced a smile and nodded my head. I got all the information I needed anyway.
The fact that Ashley didn’t do well with romantic rejection was something I would definitely have to look into. More pressing than that, however, was this piece of evidence Derrick had turned over.
That was something I needed to look into. Hell, it might even be that missing piece of the puzzle I needed to figure out the truth.
Chapter 19
What I wanted to know was how Derrick came into possession of this evidence. Could it have something to do with spiking Eric’s drink? If Derrick had ties to gangs and drugs, it’d be easy for him to get his hands on a date rape drug. Maybe they were in it together. Maybe he was the guy in the video who spiked Eric’s drink.
I made a mental note to watch the video again if I was able to get my hands on it.
I hopped in my car as quickly as I could and started the engine. It sputtered before stopping completely.
“Fuck!”
Not now!
I refused to let myself go over the list of everything I should have done that would have prevented me from getting to this spot here. Instead, I took a calm breath and ensured that my doors were locked. From my peripheral, I saw Derrick step out from his house and stand on his porch. The look he gave me was nothing short of scary – which didn’t make sense because why was he so defensive of someone he wasn’t even with anymore?
“Don�
�t think about that yet, Mika,” I muttered to myself. I tried to start my car and heard the screeching attempt of the engine trying to turn over, trying to start.
My heart squeezed with hope until it sputtered out.
I clenched my teeth together. I didn’t even want to curse out loud.
Derrick moved from his porch, crossing his brown and yellow lawn. My heart sped up, as though I didn’t already know that this was a bad idea and that I should have called Beech or my dad so they knew I was here.
I should have a gun on me. I should have protection. I was a private investigator. As long as I passed a couple of tests, I could get licensed. It would be legal.
I shook my head of all of these plans. If I left this place alive, I would fill out an application for it right away.
Derrick rapped his knuckles on my window. I shrieked. I didn’t roll it down. He was telling me something but I couldn’t hear him. Not over the pumping of blood throughout my body. Not over the rapid beating of my heart.
I tried the keys one more time and managed to start my car.
“It’s alive!” I yelled out, bursting into maniacal laughter.
I threw my car into reverse. I didn’t care what Derrick was trying to tell me. He could be offering me help or wanting me to roll down my window so he could shoot me in the head. I did not want to be stupid enough to find out.
I only calmed down once I was back on the 55 freeway. I should go home, but I didn’t feel like it. I was too jittery. I wanted to be around people. I wanted to feel safe.
“And,” I murmured to myself, “if I can do my job at the same time, why not?”
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