Rooked

by Caitlin Sara

  CHAPTER 45

  Ara paced her living room, picking the dead ends off her hair. Anything to occupy her mind. Lane still hadn’t returned her calls. The only thing she hated more than waiting around was not knowing what was happening. Not having control of what was to come, left simply with her own thoughts and morbid imagination. Her phone buzzed, Lane’s name flashing across the screen.

  Finally. He texted he was on his way up.

  She ran to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. Dark shadows hung below her eyes, but there was no time to cover her imperfections with makeup.

  Ara ran up to him and tried to grab his hand, but he pulled away, moving past her, sitting instead on the couch. He held his head in his hands, then brushed his hair back, pulling his jaw tight.

  “I’m sorry I ignored some of your calls. I’ve just been thinking a lot since this morning.”

  Sitting next to him she tried again to touch him, but he flinched, pulling away from her. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you the whole story about Dan sooner, and I know that’s not good enough, I should have, and I know that, but it’s just something I’m not proud of.”

  “That’s what you think this is about?” he asked. “Seriously, Ara, I’ve been trying so hard to be here for you, but you are making this so difficult.” Lane pushed himself off the couch, the words coming out of his mouth barely audible, but no less forceful. “You’re no better than him, Ara. Either of them, Brad or Dan. I know you have been through hell, but all you can think about is yourself.” His raspy, hushed tone hardly hid the pain in his voice. “I’ve been here for you, day in and day out. I’ve held you almost every night for months, lying there until you fall asleep and after all this time, you still feel nothing for me. You still can’t tell me you love me, and I just can’t take it anymore, Ara.”

  “What are you saying, Lane, that all I care about is myself?” Tears poured from her eyes, but Ara didn’t care what she looked like now. He was seeing her for exactly what she was. “You want to think I’m this perfect little thing who’s worth defending, but I’m not. Trust me on this, you don’t want to love someone like me.”

  Lane shook his head, disagreeing. “No, that’s where you are wrong. You surround yourself with men who need you damaged. They get off on it even, and you play right into them. I’m not here to defend you, I love you, Ara, but I’m not so sure you love me back, and that’s not fair.”

  “You keep saying that, I love you, like it’s no big deal. How are you so sure that you love me, maybe you’re just getting off on my problems, too, you think of that? You only came into my life after my husband was murdered. Before that you barely noticed me.”

  “Sure, Ara,” he said, laughing. “If that’s what you think. That I like getting off on your problems.” He stood, walking to the door only to turn back. “Is it so crazy to think that someone could actually love you for you? Despite the endless cycle of nonsense that follows you.”

  “Well who am I Lane, what do you think you love about me?”

  “Everything, since I laid eyes on you at that first New Year’s Eve party.”

  Her words spilled from her mouth before she could stop them. “Even if you talked to me back then, I wouldn’t have picked you. Is that the girl you know and love? The girl who would have picked a flashy relationship and security over something real?”

  “You’re right.” Lane looked disrupted. Raw emotion seeped through his appearance, his eyes fighting not to show the tears welling up inside of them. He could only nod, saying, “How could I ever think that you would want to be with me over a cheat and a liar. How could I have been so stupid?” He grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her. Hard, with intention.

  Just as quickly, he turned to leave, slamming the door behind him. The wind knocked out of her, Ara fell to her knees, rocking back and forth, trying to catch her breath. Of course, she loved Lane. Why could she never hold on to the good things?

  CHAPTER 46

  An unremitting tapping on the door convinced her to drag herself from bed. Her first thought was Lane, but he had a key, there was no reason for him to knock. Even Arabelle could let herself in if needed. Glancing at a wall mirror she hardly recognized her face. Dark pockets squished up her eyes until they were almost completely closed, her face spotted with bright pink raised patches of skin. The liquor and God knows how many hours of sweat-filled sleep hung in the surrounding air. In almost a full year of rock bottoms, this one proved to be a new low.

  Without even looking through the peephole, Ara swung the heavy door back, only to regret answering instantly. Maro and Ameno stood there, looking taken aback. Ameno even went as far to wave his hand left to right in front of his face.

  “Rough night?”

  “You could say that. What do you want at this hour?”

  “It’s after 8 p.m., Ara,” Maro said.

  “Sure.” She paused, trying to put together her day. “You’ll have to excuse me, my life these days, it can be a lot,” she said sarcastically, leaning into her hip from being unbalanced.

  The detectives looked at each other, back to Ara, and then past her, checking for any other people in the apartment.

  “Can we come in? You may want to be sitting down for this.”

  Ara moved to the side and dramatically motioned with her left hand to enter. She walked past them as they seated themselves on the couch and returned moments later with a single glass of water, offering nothing to her guests. Gulping the entire glass after adding an Alka-Seltzer. Arabelle would be so proud.

  Ameno cleared his throat, cutting to the chase. “We found Dr. Daniel DaVedere unresponsive in his office yesterday.”

  Ara nodded blankly, not listening to a word he said.

  “He’s dead, murdered. Stab wound to the neck.”

  Dead. Dead. Dead. Ara said the word to herself three times before saying it out loud. “Dead?”

  “Yes. He’s gone.”

  Another one, gone.

  “We think he knew whoever did it. Surprised him at his desk, bam,” Ameno said.

  Bam, just like that. Ara cringed at the thought, a life being taken in just one syllable. Bam. “That’s hard to hear, I’m sorry.”

  Nodding, Maro said, “Us too. But . . . we have to ask. Given your history with the doctor, and the recent story you shared with us, where were you yesterday morning?”

  “Not a story, Detective. Facts. Hard facts, as in the truth.”

  “Yes, damning facts about the doc and how he manipulated you into a sexual relationship. It’s just funny, you tell us this, we go to question him and he’s dead? Seems a little suspicious.”

  Ara had to agree. The circumstances certainly seemed convenient. If only she’d kept her mouth shut for a few more hours, her secret would have died with Dan.

  “I was home yesterday morning, sleeping.”

  “Can you think of anyone, a family member, friend . . . Someone who may want to seek some sort of revenge in your honor that would hurt Dr. Daniel DaVedere?”

  Everyone in the room knew they were only speaking of one friend. Lane.

  “Lane was at work.”

  Maro pressed his lips, forcing a disapproving silence.

  Again, Ara assured, “He was with me, Detective, until his shift that morning.”

  Realizing neither detective wanted to accept her answer, she stood, showing them the door. “If you have any further questions, you can take them up with Lane or with my attorney.” The Alka-Seltzer was boiling in her stomach and up the back of her throat.

  Maro stood, but Ameno remained perched on the end of the couch.

  “Ara, we want to make sense of this for you. You seem to have a lot of bad circumstances happen around you, and it’s our job to figure out why. For you and the other victims.” Maro was practically pleading for her to cooperate, tell them anything that could lead somewhere, anywhere.

  “No one else knew. I should have never said anything to anyone.” Her eyes were wet with tears, a few
spilling to her chin as guilt came over her.

  Maro placed an arm around her, guiding her back to where she was sitting.

  “Between you and me, if what you are saying about your past with him is true, then DaVedere got what he deserved. I’m not supposed to say things like that, but for me, it’s the truth. We need you to help us figure it all out. You have to have some idea of who wants to do this to the people around you.”

  Sobbing into her hands, Ara could feel the stirring in her stomach. She was the connection between Brad and Dan. She knew that. There was nothing else bridging these cases together. Though her relationship with Dan was more than strained, she hated that someone had ended his life. Mood depending, she considered him one of her life’s greatest loves, as screwed up as it was.

  When Brad died, a part of her left with him. He was ingrained in her like a habit of the worst kind. Oxygen couldn’t help her live without him. Dependence does not always equal love. The last time she saw Dan, she nearly gauged his eyeballs out.

  “Are you sure Dan didn’t kill himself?” she asked, in between her shortening breaths. “He knew what he did and that I could prove it. I had plenty of emails and texts to do so. It would ruin his reputation; he would lose his license. That alone might cause him to kill himself.”

  Nodding again, Maro said, “Makes sense. But there’s no knife. The damn thing couldn’t have walked away.”

  “Stabbing seems personal. Especially if he didn’t fight back,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s the theory we’re working.”

  Ameno reached for his cell phone, turning on the voice recorder before Maro waved his hand, signaling to him that this was off the record. Once the phone was back in his pocket, Ara continued.

  “Brad and Dan . . . you should learn more about men like them. Their lives, they’re not clean. Both of them loved risk.” Squinting, Ara tried to remained focused on Ameno. She had already won over his partner. “They used people. Each in their own way. Women were nothing but objects to them. Strong women don’t fall for that kind of crap, but they picked ones who yearned to feel pretty and loved. The desperate ones. Myself included.”

  Shaking his head, Ameno said, “I don’t believe you fall into that category. We know you can be strong when you have to be, calculated even. You don’t think they loved you?”

  Not the way Lane does. Her throat burned, stomach flipped, and seconds later she threw up into her water cup.

  CHAPTER 47

  Harley gathered the bubbles floating on top of the steaming hot water, forming a lilac-scented mound that resembled an ice cream sundae above her navel. She’d always loved the doctor’s bathroom. Especially its large soaking tub. Taking a sip of expensive champagne, she let her head fall back, breathing in the sweet scent of luxury from the foam.

  Two years was a long time for someone like her to stick around. But then she met Dan and began dedicating every moment to him, never feeling she could completely pay off the debt she owed. At twenty-three, her world had crashed and burned at her feet. Leaving her homeless, addicted to drugs, and worse, helpless to recover from a childhood dream that failed her. Returning back to her hick hometown in Indiana was a failure she couldn’t endure. The ruthless small towners would relish in pitiless “I told you so’s,” her family especially. So instead, she resorted to the seedy life of many spent models, stripping first before finding her way into a high-end escort service.

  It was through the latter that she met Dr. Daniel DaVadere. A young, attractive doctor, brooding in heartbreak at a well-to-do bar in the world’s most fabulous city. A former flame had officially broken things off the night before, an ending he didn’t see coming, or so he claimed. He wooed her with fairytales of their romance and found comfort with her warm, curved body lying next to him. She’d fallen asleep praying that a man who could love so deeply might one day wake up and fall in love with her, too. It seemed like a reasonable ask of whatever higher power existed up there.

  The doctor plucked her from wretchedness, giving her a well-paying position as his executive assistant and making sure she never wanted for anything again—not a new dress or an orgasm. He treated her for free, helping her to overcome her addictions and past. Despite a passion-filled affair, he could never be exclusive to her, nor did he promise that. He respected Harley, never parading another woman in front of her, but it was made clear she needed to accept the terms of their open circumstance. And accept she did.

  It wasn’t until his mood began to deteriorate that she first snooped. Learning quickly of his obsession with his past and the secret pay as you go phone he kept hidden in his top right desk drawer. The distance grew between them, and he barely spoke to her let alone touched her in recent days. And if he did, it was only to spin her around, bend her over his desk, and take her from behind. Smashing into her, hard and angry.

  It was no different today. If he’d at least looked up at her when she walked into his office, killing him would not have been so easy. But he didn’t even look at her, too entranced by his own worries to notice her lip quivering. But nervousness aside, she knew she needed to free Dan from his unhealthy obsession and free herself of hers.

  He’d angrily brushed away her hand when she’d touched his shoulder. Retreating, she’d taken a step back, then switched the knife behind her back from her left hand to right and tightened her grip. She’d asked around some of her old hangouts if anyone knew where she could get a gun. These were working women, not fools. They certainly weren’t about to help the old competition blow a bullet through one of her Johns. So, she’d gone with a knife.

  She’d exhaled. Loudly. A final warning that he should acknowledge her existence but even that went unnoticed.

  Look up. See me, she had silently begged before forcing the knife with both hands into his neck. All you had to do was look at me. He’d fallen, slumped down to the floor with his eyes still forward, never giving her the satisfaction.

  She’d feared she wouldn’t have enough strength to drive the knife into his neck. That he would overtake her, slit her throat instead. Oddly, it wasn’t very hard at all.

  Expecting to feel a horrible sense of guilt and not wanting to leave behind her DNA, she’d satirically blew a kiss in his direction and wrapped herself in her mid-length trench coat, tucking the knife into the coat’s deep pockets. Leaving the office just as it was, minus the life she had taken.

  Now, here in the tub, Dan’s blood already showered away, she held the knife. A simple tool, imbued with so much purpose. A knife they had once used to chop vegetables while making a stir fry together over one of Dan’s favorite Napa cabs. Happy memories tied to a desperate, sickening finale. Slowly, she dragged the sharp edge over her forearm, a bright red stripe of blood trailing behind the blade. Now they each bled by the same means and that connection brought her a sense of fulfillment.

  Her blood trickled into the steaming pool, its red color dissipating into the clear water, leaving behind no sign the two had ever mixed.

  Finishing her champagne, she reached for Dan’s phone, scrolling between the only two contacts. She waited for hours to finally complete her plan.

  Come meet me. My place.

  She watched as the phone marked the text message as read. She waited patiently, staring at the three teasing dots until the response flashed across the screen.

  Why should I?

  Someone was playing hard to get.

  Because I need you. Now. She knew Dan well enough to mimic his tone.

  Moments later the response buzzed across the screen. On my way.

  That was also easier than she’d expected.

  She was just going to confront her, not even attempt to hurt her. She just wanted to know how she kept him, what control she had over him. Maybe it’s scotch-flavored nipples, she thought, laughing at the absurdity of such a thing. Harley had given him everything. A petite frame, perfect cup-sized breasts, and an open, unquestioning love. They would cheer on New York’s sports teams and experiment with fin
e wines and delicately-created dishes at its finest restaurants. Dan finally seemed to be crossing the commitment threshold when something, or someone, blasted him back to his past, tearing him from her arms. Closing him off to her forever. Whoever this woman was, Harley had to meet her.

  CHAPTER 48

  Raina wanted to vomit. She couldn’t look at her own reflection without gagging.

  Raina’s conscience was always forgiving. While Ara and other girlfriends lamented their growing number of sexual partners or hemmed and hawed over skipping out on plans, Raina could remove all regret from her mind. Not everyone could win in life, and she easily made the relentless moves that caused others to fill up with guilt. But tonight, the city streets seemed darker, stained with an impending sense of doom, and her guilt wouldn’t stay locked up. She was only a block or so away when the doctor texted her, so she finished off another martini, not wanting to seem too desperate. The doorman recognized her and nodded as she passed through the entranceway and into the gold-plated elevator doors.

  The relationship between her and the doctor had lost its luster quickly.

  She shouldn’t have expected more from him. They’d literally bumped into each other on a New York street. Outside of romantic comedies and daytime soaps, random situations like that rarely led to long-term happiness. Raina didn’t mind; he was good in bed and drank expensive wine. In her world, that made for an above-average hook up.

  The doors sprang open, revealing the brightly-lit corridor. To the left of each apartment flickered a bronze lantern-style fixture, giving the long hall an extra touch of elegance. One could judge the wealth in a building by its corridors, Raina always thought. Obviously, the electric bill was not a topic on this building’s board meeting agenda.