“But I didn’t bring a bathing suit, Channing.” I get up and go to the closet to see what I can wear.
He clears his throat as he takes a little red bikini from the same drawer he pulled his shorts from. “Yes, you do. I bought this for you last week.” He tosses it to me. “Now you get dressed and I’ll meet you up there. And don’t even make an attempt at turning on the sound system until I get up there. I’ll show you how to do it. It’s a fussy bitch of a system.”
Laughing as I go into the bathroom to make sure I’m mostly hair-free before donning the tiny bathing suit, I can’t help but feeling this will all work out. Somehow it has to.
As I’m shaving my legs in the sink my cell rings and I see it’s the security company I called early this morning. “Hello.”
“Um, I’m at your door and no one’s answering. Are you home?” a man asks me.
“Yes, we are. Have you not noticed the crowd out there?” I ask as I can hear them all yelling questions about Channing and me.
“If you let me in, I can be of help to you,” he says.
“Be right down.”
Quickly, I find a cover up and throw it over the bathing suit and rush down the stairs to let our help inside. As I run through the kitchen I see Channing putting things in a bag.
“Hey, the security guy’s here. He says he can help us.”
“Then let his ass in. We need all the help we can get!” Channing follows behind me. Temporarily abandoning his at home shopping.
As I look out the peephole all I can see are reporters. I call the number back. “I don’t see you, sir.”
“I’m right here at the front door,” his deep voice tells me. “Just open the door and you’ll see me. Move to the side so I can slip in quickly.”
“Stay back, Channing. He’s coming in fast, he says.” I pull the door open and all I see are the reporters who blast me with questions.
I don’t know why they bother. It’s impossible to understand any of them.
“Hi,” the same deep voice I heard over the phone says and I look down. I look way down to find a small man with a full beard and sparkly blue eyes looking up at me.
I mean this man is short. His head comes to about my waist. “Oh, sorry. Come on.”
He moves his small body through the narrow opening of the door and I manage to close it back up before anyone can manage to get an appendage in to stop me.
Channing is all smiles as he greets the security guy. “Hey, dude!” he says like he knows this guy.
“I know, it’s me! The Skippers’ number one fan!” he holds up his hand and makes a fist pump into the air. “Go, Skippers!”
Channing reaches out to shake his hand. “Wow! How cool is this, huh? What’s your name, guy?”
“I’m Lance with the security company. When the order came in this morning and I saw your name on it.” He kind of blushes and I smile. “Well, let’s just say it felt a lot like Christmas.”
Channing laughs. “That’s nice to hear after all I have going on in my life right now.”
Lance gives him a wink. “Hey man, I got your back. I happen to have witnessed quite a few things going on when you and that, pardon the term, battle-axe of a wife you have, were at some of the games. The ones she went to that is. That was only a handful, but I happen to live down the street from another one of your nemesis, Mr. Michaels.”
Channing shakes his head. “No misters around here, Lance. You call me Channing.”
The guy smiles like he just won the lottery. “Wow! Okay, Channing. This is like a dream come true, man!” He hops up in the air and does another fist pump.
This guy has a lot of enthusiasm, I must say!
“So who is it you live by, Lance?” Channing is only wearing his swimming trunks so I go to the laundry room and grab him a T-shirt.
When I walk back into the entry room I see a frown on Channing’s face. “That mother fucker.”
“Who is?” I ask as I toss the shirt to Channing.
“My father,” he answers as he pulls the shirt on over his head. “Lance saw him borrow a boat from one of the neighbors the same day I took Jana out sailing. I knew that bitch was up to something that damn day.”
I look at Lance and ask, “You personally saw him take the boat?”
“I did. I didn’t know he was Channing’s father until last night, though.” Lance looks back at Channing. “That must’ve been rough, Dude.”
Channing nods. “The roughest.”
Lance looks back at me. “Since all this stuff has been on the news since it all began I knew the date Jana disappeared. And since I’m kind of a math junkie, I remembered the date I saw the man taking the boat from my next-door neighbor’s house. I actually talked to him about it because my neighbor wasn’t home and I wanted to be sure he had permission. I asked him if he knew about the small craft advisory and he assured me he did and wasn’t taking it out very far. Just wanted to do a little fishing, is what he told me.”
“I bet he did do a little fishing. For Jana,” Channing mumbles. “So, it’s quite possible they set the whole thing up. I bet her ass did have some type of flotation device on.”
Lance smiles. “The lifejackets that my neighbor uses on his boat are those little things you wear around your neck. They’re flat and undetectable under clothing until you pull the little cord to inflate them if you need to. She could’ve had it under her clothing. You did report she had on a red dress, right?”
Channing nods. “And it had a high neck and a collar. She could’ve had one on under it I didn’t see. God knows I didn’t touch her. She knew I wouldn’t. She knew she was safe from me finding it on her like that.”
From outside the noise gets louder as someone starts honking a horn and the others shout even louder. Lance smiles at Channing. “Want me to end this?”
“Can you?” Channing asks with hope in his voice.
“If you can bankroll it, I can get you a security team. And I know you can manage the money part. Plus, I know two of the best private investigators this side of the Mississippi. With one phone call they can be here tonight,” Lance says as he pulls out his cell phone.
“Do it, Lance!” Channing looks so relieved.
But now I’m the one with trust issues as this little guy seems to have all the answers.
A little too good to be true…
Chapter 7
BETH
“Set him up with free tickets for life, Beth. I want Lance to have his own skybox and everything.” Channing is nearly glowing with his affection for his new BFF. “Oh, yeah! Set him up right too. Make sure you add chauffeur services for game days. We don’t want our little guy getting any tickets after the game if he’s consumed a little too much free beer.”
“Free beer?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, free food and drinks come standard in the skyboxes, Baby. Didn’t you know that?”
“How could I? You and I have always sat on the floor-seats behind the team. I’d love to sit in a skybox.” I tap into my laptop to get all the things he’s ordering for the guy and frown.
Channing sits down next to me on the sofa in the living room and puts his arm around me and kisses my cheek. “I like to sit with my team, Baby. Hence, the reason I don’t have a skybox. But if you want one then I’ll get it for us. It would be nice for our families, anyway. And one day, when we have kids, they’d do much better in one, I think.”
I turn to him and find him grinning at me. “Channing, you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. Don’t you think? I mean thinking about kids right now with so much hanging over your head. Well, it’s kind of playing in a fantasy land.”
“Lance is helping me get to the bottom of it all. The private investigators have been on the job for two days now. I expect results soon. If Lance saw my father taking a boat out the same day Jana fell overboard then those men can certainly dig up more on Jana and Morgan. I have complete faith.” He gets up and finds the remote to the television hanging on the wall.
&
nbsp; With one push of a button, his face falls as the television lights up the room which previously was only lit by the lamp next to me. Being that it’s nearly ten at night, I suppose he thought he might find a game half over.
Instead, his wife’s face fills the screen. Crocodile tears cascade down her red cheeks. Along the bottom of the screen run the words, ‘previously recorded.’
“Change the channel,” I say and look back down at my laptop. “Michelle sent me the notes on this. It was done the other day. The day your boyfriend, Lance, showed up. You don’t want to know what she says, Baby. I promise you, you don’t.”
Instead of turning the damn thing off or changing the channel he turns the sound up and comes back to sit next to me. Taking his beer off the coffee table in front of us, he downs the last half of it.
“I’d like to see what I’m up against here, Baby.” His eyes stay trained to the television.
“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other woman, ever again,” Jana says as she sniffles.
The female hostess of the trash television show shakes her head with sadness in her dark eyes, Sally, of, ‘The Sally Show’ looks into the camera which has been moved to show her. “If we can get just one more creep off the streets then we’re at least trying to make this world a better place. Remember what I said in the beginning of this show. A ticket bought to watch Channing Michaels beloved hockey team, The Skippers, is a ticket saying you believe what he did to this poor woman was right.”
“Does she have to go after my team?” he asks then looks at me. “Why the jugular? Why do so many people go straight for the kill without knowing a damn thing?”
“Wish I knew, Baby. You really should turn the channel.” I go back to finding what all Channing wants for Lance, and he gets up and goes out of the room after pausing the show.
I look up as he comes back in with another beer in his hand. “Okay, I’m ready to hear what all she’s going to lie about now.”
He starts the show back up and Jana is looking sadly into the camera again. “You think you know a person after an entire year. I thought he loved me. I really did.”
Channing shakes his head. “I did. I was a fucking moron.”
I stop doing what I’m doing to pay attention to this little session he seems to be having.
Jana has a long necklace of pearls her hand nervously twists. “He gave these to me on our wedding day, Sally. Who would give a girl something so nice as this if he didn’t love her?”
Channing laughs. “I did not give her those. She must’ve bought them herself. On our wedding day, I placed the wedding ring she picked out on her own, on her finger and gave her nothing more than that.”
I stay quiet while he stares at the screen. He takes a small drink of his beer as Jana says, “The loss of our son is what pains me the most.”
He leans up and places his elbows on his knees. “Do tell, liar.”
Sally asks, “Jana, how far along were you when he threw you off the small sailboat in the middle of the ocean?”
“Six months. I hadn’t told Channing yet. I was waiting for that special moment and I found it on the boat. I’m afraid that may have been what made him try to kill me.”
A laugh comes out of my mouth. “Liar!”
Channing looks at me. “Yes, she is.”
Then Sally’s producer puts a picture up on the screen of a smiling Channing and Jana. Her dress is form fitting, hugging her skinny body. Her very skinny body with no hint of a baby bump.
Sally asks. “This is the last picture anyone could find of you two. How long before he tried to kill you was this taken, Jana?”
“Two weeks.” Jana’s face fills the screen again. “I had just been to see my doctor that very day before we went to the fireman’s gala that night. My doctor told me I was going to have a son. I was so happy and wanted to tell Channing then, but he was in a foul mood so I decided not to.”
“If that bitch is six months pregnant in that picture, then I’m the Pope?” I say then close my laptop to focus on her.
Channing takes a drink and nods. “That’s what I’m saying.”
Sally’s hand moves out and rests on Jana’s leg. “Please tell us you went to see your doctor when you got back to safety, Jana.”
With a shake of her head, Jana says, “I was much too afraid of Channing at that time. I mean, I lost a lot of blood when I was rescued by another boat. It was full of fisherman who spoke no English. They helped me into their boat and since I couldn’t communicate with them, I found a payphone at the old marina they pulled into. I called the only person I could trust. Morgan Riley. And he took excellent care of me.”
Sally looks concerned. “But you have gone to the doctor since you came out of hiding, right?”
Jana looks at her with tears dripping down her face again. “There was no need. The baby was gone.”
I laugh. “There was a need. It’s called a D and C, idiot! She really is a tool.”
Channing looks at me and smiles. “This is all very good, Baby. If you know these things so do others. Her lies are about to trip her up.”
“I hope so.”
Looking back at the television I see the slightest hint of doubt on Sally’s heavily made-up face. “Jana, let’s talk about something else. That subject is too painful for you. Tell us more about the change in the man once you married. You said he turned your bedroom into a torture chamber. My followers would love to know more about that.”
“So would I,” Channing mumbles just before he pulls the tall, dark bottle to his lips for another drink.
“When we came home on our wedding night,” Jana says. “We had no honeymoon thanks to a hockey game that was happening the next night. Anyway, he took me to his bedroom.”
Sally holds up her hand. “Wait. What do you mean his bedroom?”
Jana sighs. “Okay, Channing and I made a bedroom on the second floor of his house into the bedroom that was to be ours. He had his own room on the third floor. And I didn’t know it yet, but he had made one for me on the first floor. So when we came home after the wedding I thought we’d be going to the bedroom I had furnished before the wedding for us, together as man and wife.”
“But he took you to his room instead?” Sally asks in confusion.
“He did,” Jana says with a nod. “In that room, he told me things were going to change between us. I was his now and he could do with me what he wanted. He made me change into a tiny leather outfit and he pulled my hair back into a very tight braid.”
Sally’s eyebrows arch. “BDSM, and against your will?”
“I wouldn’t say against my will at that point. I found it exciting, and I went along with it. You have to recall I did love this man at that point.” Jana looks back into the camera. “When he took me to the room I had so carefully decorated I found it void of all the things I had bought. A set of silver handcuffs hung from some contraption on the ceiling A long chain hung on one wall and several whips on another. It looked like a dungeon it was so dark and frankly scary to me.”
Channing takes a drink. “What a sack of lies she holds. That night when we came home she told me she was exhausted and went to her room she’d already set up for herself on the first floor. That room hadn’t been set up on the second floor yet. She did that a couple of months after we were married. Her shit just gets deeper and deeper.”
Sally asks, “And that was the first time he ever hit you?”
Jana nods. “He turned very brutal. I got my first of many scars that very night. And I soon realized he was not the man I knew before. That man was a lie.”
Sally looks sadly at Jana and touches her arm. “Why didn’t you leave him, Jana?”
“He said he’d kill me.”
Gasps erupt from the audience and Sally looks at the camera. “And now a word from our sponsor.”
Channing just sits there in stunned silence. Then he looks at me. “I think she should get some kind of award for performance of the year. And I’d love to kno
w who her writer is. It must be my father. I never knew her to be that imaginative.”
I run my hand through his dark wavy hair. “Just think how blown out of the water everyone will be when they find out what a big liar she is and how they were all duped into believing her shit.”
Then a thought runs through my head that the show aired a few days ago and we’ve stayed off all social media since this all began. So I open up my laptop and search Jana’s name.
Just as I thought, people are commenting on her age, her small frame, and the fact there is no possible way that woman was six months pregnant in that picture. I look at Channing who seems shell shocked.
I suppose anyone would be, though. I mean he was married to the lunatic.
“Channing,” I say and he turns to look at me. “We need to tell your lawyer you want a statement and receipts for this supposed doctor Jana said she was going to and who diagnosed the pregnancy. I told you before when we were looking for dental records, the insurance had no reports of any physicians’ visits since you put her on your insurance. And we both know she was cut off the credit cards and the bank at that time. She would’ve had to ask you for extra cash for those visits to the doctor.”
“So get her caught in one lie and see how quick her house of cards falls?” he asks me and his lips turn up into a smile. “I like it, Beth. I like it a lot.”
“We can watch the rest of her bullshit interview tomorrow. Let’s hit the hay,” I say as I get up and he follows behind me.
Things may be looking up for him!
Chapter 8
CHANNING
As I pull her into the shower with me, Beth giggles and I stop them as I take her mouth in a hungry kiss. The giggles turn into a low moan and her arms go around me.
The warm water flows over us and feels almost like rain. To hold Beth and kiss her in the rain is something I look forward to.
Her nipples go hard as they rub against my chest. Her tits go tight and her stomach tenses as our bodies touch.
She must love the way the muscles feel on my back as her hands run over them every chance she gets. I pull my mouth from hers and she makes a little groan in complaint.
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