Forever After: Book Five in the Unrestrained Series

by S. E. Lund

  “It’s my understanding that people don’t change their interest in kink all that much,” Detective St. James said.

  “Maybe not for most, but for Drake, he did. That was a part of his life before he met me. Now, he’s monogamous and happy to be so. He wanted a family and children more than anything.”

  “Funny way to get a family, being part of BDSM…”

  “Excuse me, Detective,” Dana said, her voice impatient. “I don’t think your opinion on people’s motives regarding their families is pertinent to this matter.”

  Detective St. James sat back and nodded. “Whatever, we are interested in whether there was an ongoing relationship with Ms. Monroe the way she claimed and that was why she decided to do her residency in Neurosurgery – at Dr. Morgan’s suggestion and with his encouragement. According to her journal, Dr. Morgan and Ms. Monroe had plans to open up a practice together once they both finished their respective courses.”

  My jaw dropped open at that. “What?” I sat forward, my hands gripping the chair’s arm rests. “That’s ridiculous! Can’t you see that she’s totally delusional?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “It's in the diary and letters,” he said. "Ms. Monroe is painting a picture of Dr. Morgan that is very different from the happily married family man that you claim he is. She’s painting a picture of is a married man with a pregnant wife, maybe pregnant with a baby he had no interest in, with a mistress who was in his medical field, and who he wanted to be with instead. She’s painting a picture of Dr. Morgan as controlling her mind and behavior, suggesting that they could be together if only you weren’t in the picture.”

  My heart pounded in my chest. “Surely you can see that she’s making all this up.”

  “It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Detective St. James said doubtfully. “I’ve seen cases like this before, although not with such direct ties to the whole Bondage and Dominance side of the equation. That’s a first. Usually, these guys don’t join websites dedicated to BDSM and do it so overtly. They’re usually your ordinary run of the mill sociopaths and sadists, who dupe women into being their servants and doing their bidding.”

  “Detective,” Dana said, holding out a hand, palm forward. “I think that’s more than enough speculation about this matter. Do you have any further questions of Mrs. Morgan? If not, I think it's time for you to leave.”

  St. James shook his head. “No, that’s all I wanted to ask. I wanted to give you the opportunity to come clean, in case Dr. Morgan was controlling you, and you were afraid to tell the truth. Sometimes with these men, their wives or girlfriends know something’s up but are afraid to be beaten or abused, so they keep silent, hoping to prevent retaliation.”

  “I hope you can see that Mrs. Morgan is not in that category. She and Dr. Morgan have a loving relationship and this is all a fabrication of Ms. Monroe, who I suspect has some form of erotomania.”

  “Could be, but we have to rule out every possibility.”

  Detective McDonald turned to me and smiled. “Thank you for letting us come over, Mrs. Morgan. I appreciate your time. If you think of anything else, related to anything in your relationship with Dr. Morgan, either in the past or present, and you want to talk to me, please give me a call.”

  He pushed his card across the coffee table.

  I ignored it. “I already have your card,” I said, frowning. “There’s nothing I can tell you that I haven’t already told you. I’m sad that you seem to suspect my husband is involved in any way. He came to me as soon as he knew Lisa was in his class. He wanted to quit, but I encouraged him to stay. She’s the one who’s guilty here. She’s crazy.”

  Detective McDonald made a face as if he wasn’t sure. “Thank you for your time, and please, keep the card,” he said and pushed the card closer on the table. “If you have anything else, please feel free to call me. Either my partner or I would be glad to come back or have you brought in if you ever feel in danger and need someone to come and get you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said and pushed the card away. I stood up to escort them to the door and Dana stood up beside me. Both McDonald and St. James also stood as I got their coats from the closet. Finally, McDonald walked to the door to leave. I felt Detective St. James’s eyes on me, and an expression of polite disbelief. He truly did believe what Lisa had told him.

  Why?

  I didn’t understand why. Drake had never been alone with Lisa except for that one time he went to her apartment to help with the flat screen television.

  I followed them to the front door and caught St. James’s eye. “You know, you’re wrong about Drake. He’s not a liar and he’s not a cheater. He would never do what Lisa said. Never.”

  “Thanks for letting us come by,” was all he said in reply.

  As they left the apartment, I felt anger well up inside of me. He was so wrong about Drake. Why would he believe Lisa?

  It was obvious she was deranged. There was no other opportunity for them to be together. Drake hadn’t spent time talking to her on the phone or via text or email. Where did she think this relationship had been developed? It didn’t make sense that the detectives didn’t already know that this was all made up.

  When I got back to the sofa, Dana turned to me.

  “So,” I said while Dana took a sip of her coffee. “What did you think about their questions and what Detective St. James said about me and Drake?”

  She shrugged. “I talked about it a lot with Lara before I came over. She said there’s no way on earth that Dr. Morgan would ever hurt a hair on your head and that if the cops thought he might be involved, they were on the wrong track. I’m sure they’ll realize that when they find that those late-night emails were sent from Lisa's own IP. They'll realize Lisa made it all up.”

  She smiled at me and I nodded, but I didn’t feel as confident as her.

  “I was reading about wrongful convictions,” I said, remembering an article in the New Yorker about a man wrongfully convicted of rape who had been in jail for two decades. “They could try hard to pin it on Drake or at least make him look like an accomplice.”

  She shook her head. “They have no physical evidence and no circumstantial evidence, except for some coffee dates at work and the single time Drake went to her apartment. That’s the only contact they have had since the last time Drake and she were, well, you know. At the dungeon party several years ago. It’s not enough to impute that Drake had a torrid affair with her and convinced her to try to kill you so they could be together. They’ll get off that tangent soon enough.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” Dana said to me. “I’m sure it will all work out in the end.”

  “Thanks for everything,” I said and forced a smile. “I hope it’ll all work out.”

  She finished her coffee and stood up. "If you don't mind, I have an appointment."

  “Can I get my limo service to drop you back at the office?” I asked, disappointed that she was leaving so quickly.

  “Nah, I’m going to walk," she said and went to get her coat. "I need another coffee and it’s only a few blocks. I'll call you later,” she said and went to the door. "Don't worry. They'll give up on Drake as a suspect soon enough."

  "I hope so.

  She gave me a bright smile and then left.

  Moments later, I received a text from Drake:

  DRAKE: How did it go?

  KATE: Fine. They wanted to know what I knew about Lisa and when. We’ll talk when you get home.

  DRAKE: OK. See you soon. Love you.

  KATE: I love you.

  I put my phone away and despite Dana's assurances, my gut did not feel good about the way the police were viewing Drake’s involvement in the attack.

  Not at all.

  A vague sense of gloom came over me. Dana seemed so sure that things would work out and that the police were doing their jobs, but I wasn’t so sure.

  Sophie had been quiet the entire time the police were at the apar
tment but she cried out. I checked the time and she was right on schedule. I went to her room and picked her up, sat down in the rocker beside her crib, and fed her. While I was remembering the interview, Drake arrived home. I heard the door unlock and the coat closet open and close after he entered the apartment.

  "I'm up here," I called out. I heard his footsteps as he came up the stairs to Sophie's room.

  “There you are,” he said and kissed me, then stroked Sophie's cheek. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and took in a deep breath, not wanting to upset him.

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “Dana, Lara’s intern, thinks that things will all work out fine in the end. This is the cops doing what they’re supposed to do.”

  “I hope so,” Drake said. “I got a call a few minutes ago and have been invited down to the precinct myself for a little chat tomorrow. I've already talked to Lara. She'll come with me.”

  “Oh, Drake, you too?” I said, and pulled Sophie off for a burp. Drake reached out and took Sophie from my arms. “My God, haven’t they interviewed you enough either?”

  He shrugged and put a receiving blanked on his shoulder than held Sophie up for a burp, patting her back. I followed him downstairs to the sofa. We sat down together and finally, after she'd given a small burp, Drake handed her back to me. When I finally had her latched on the other breast and feeding nicely, I looked into Drake’s eyes. He was watching me with an expression of such warmth and affection that it made my breath catch in my throat.

  How could they be so wrong about Drake?

  It upset me so much to think of the police putting Drake through the wringer over the lies that Lisa told them.

  “We’ll get through this,” he said and stroked my cheek. “We have each other. The three of us against the world.”

  I smiled, but after reading about men falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned, I knew we had to be on our toes.

  Chapter 7 : Drake

  I met with Lara an hour before my scheduled meeting with Detectives McDonald and St. James. She was waiting at her office, and greeted me with a hug and peck on the cheek as per usual. The expression on her face was somber, and I knew she wasn’t feeling all that comfortable with the fact that the detectives were interested in me as a possible suspect.

  I unbuttoned my jacket and sat down across from her, bracing myself for what was to come.

  “So,” I said, wanting to get right to it with no small talk. “What do you think? Why are they interviewing me yet again? Don’t they know from talking with Lisa that we have no relationship – that it’s all in her head?”

  “You’d think so.” Lara shrugged and opened a file. Inside were hand-written notes on a yellow notepad. She read over the notes for a moment.

  “Tell me everything again. Right from the start. I know about the encounters at Derek’s dungeon, but what about since then? Did you ever see her socially between the last dungeon scene and the first time she showed up in your course?”

  I shook my head, unable to remember any single time we were at the same function together.

  “I honestly can’t think of one time.”

  “I spoke to one of my contacts in the major crimes unit and he said she claims you saw each other at a benefit concert that was sponsored by Doctors Without Borders.”

  “That’s news to me,” I said. “If she was there, she never came up to me or spoke to me.”

  “She claims you snuck off together and had sex in a broom closet in the concert hall.”

  “What?” I said, a shock of adrenaline coursing through me. “Believe me, I’d remember if I had sex with her in a broom closet at Carnegie Hall…” I shook my head and ran a hand through my hair. “Seriously? She’s making shit up. What else did she claim?”

  Lara flipped through a few pages. “She claims you met her for dinner several times over the past years. She has dates from when you were working on staff at New York Presbyterian. Seems that she has a half-dozen dates, all of which match up with time you were between surgeries.”

  “None of it’s true,” I said and frowned. “I never once saw her between the time at Derek’s dungeon, which I can barely even remember, frankly, and the day she turned up in my Fellowship course. Not one time. It’s all lies.”

  Lara shrugged. “I believe you, Drake. I know your sex life and submissives probably better than you do, because I arranged most of them. I have a list of them,” she said and handed me a sheet of paper. It was a spreadsheet, neatly done with columns and names and dates.

  “Holy crap,” I said. “You sure are thorough.”

  “Do you have anyone to add?”

  I checked over the list. There were seventeen names.

  “There might have been a few more. One-off’s during dungeon scenes. I wouldn’t even be able to tell you their real names. A lot of that was private and anonymous.”

  She nodded and took the sheet back. “I’m prepared to turn this over to the police as evidence that I was your, shall we say, facilitator. That you turned to me for help finding partners. That I would have known that you were seeing Lisa. In fact, this list might be helpful, if we can get a list of dates Lisa claims you two were together and compare them with your known dates you were with submissives.”

  I rubbed my temple, grimacing at the fact that things had come to this. “I hate the fact that my sex life will be evidence and that any jury and judge, and any interested parties, can look and see how active I was.”

  “Yes, it sucks,” she said and looked at me squarely. “And you had better brace yourself. If the police think they have enough evidence, they could arrest you or at least, make you suffer a lot of questioning. These so-called emails from you to Lisa have me worried. They should have written them off by now, with their forensic team. I don't know why they haven't. Hopefully, we'll find out more today.”

  I sat in mute silence for a moment. “Do you think they could arrest me? None of what she says is true.”

  “They don’t know that. All they know is that she’s making these statements and giving dates, times, and making allegations. Plus, they have the letters… The husband is always the first suspect in any murder or attempted murder. Always.”

  “But it’s not true,” I said, frustration overwhelming me. “Can’t they see that she’s certifiable? She’s nuts at best, a sociopath at worst. None of it happened and she’s fabricating this story to cover her ass or get me in trouble as some kind of revenge.”

  “I know that,” Lara said. “The police might suspect that, but if they can’t rule you out somehow, then they’ll have to act. It depends on the DA and how she wishes to proceed.”

  The DA. I hadn’t thought about her. “What kind of DA is she?”

  Lara shrugged and raised her eyebrows. “She’s new. She’s hoping to be a hotshot and she wants to make a name for herself, according to a few of my friends inside the DA’s office. I have no idea whether she’s for us or against us, in terms of her attitude towards BDSM. That’ll count for a lot. If she’s a religious type, she might be out to prove something to her constituents.”

  “Great,” I said. “I already had to deal with the editor, who has a reporter with her sights set on hurting the kinky crowd. Will I have to deal with a DA out to prove herself?”

  “That’s the way the system works,” Lara said. “But don’t worry too much. There is no real evidence. There isn’t. I know this is all a lie she’s concocted. Sooner or later, the police will figure it out as well. The most important thing is to be as open and transparent as possible with them. Cooperate. When they realize she’s suffering from some kind of erotomania delusion about you, they’ll back off and focus back on her alone.”

  I sighed and rubbed my chin, the grizzle in serious need of a trim. I’d let myself go a bit lately, what with the late nights with Sophie and the general sleeplessness.

  “What are they going to ask me today?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Everything they’ve alre
ady asked you when you were in the hospital. They’ll be looking for consistency. If you tell a slightly different story each time or if your story is consistent. If you change your statement in any way. That’s why it’s important to be absolutely truthful and fully disclose everything.”

  “How can I prove I didn’t fuck her in the damn broom closet at Carnegie Hall?”

  “Who were you with?” Lara asked.

  “One time, I was with one of the donors to the foundation. We’d gone out for dinner and then to hear a concert. I can give you his name. Steve Benson. He’s from California and was in for the week so we got together. I’ve been there a few times in the past five years. I’ll have to think about it.”

  She nodded. “You make sure you write down every time you were at Carnegie and who you were with. We should be able to refute her claim.”

  Finally, it was time to go, so we stood and I buttoned my jacket.

  “I’m not feeling all that confident about this,” I said.

  “Don’t worry too much,” Lara replied, coming around her desk, squeezing my shoulder to give me courage. “We have the truth on our side. They must have a psych consult, and they must see she’s nuts. Until then, we should be careful, that’s all.”

  We drove to the precinct house and my driver dropped us off in front. We walked up the stairs to the main desk. They knew Lara there and the desk clerk smiled at her and took her name, then motioned to the waiting area while we waited for the detectives to come for us.

  I waited for Lara to sit before I did and then I tried to calm myself, even though I knew I had nothing to hide. What I feared was that the detectives would be so prejudiced against BDSM practitioners that they’d see guilt where there was none. They might be more sympathetic to the so-called victim of a sadist than looking for the truth.