by Eden Rose
“What?” He demands from me and tries to yank the coat back. “Don’t go tainting it. There could be evidence on it.”
“There could be the type of evidence that you don’t want to know on it.” The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them. I don’t even consider what I’ve said until he yells.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you? You fucking monster ass mother fucker. It’s not enough that you married my baby sister but now you’re going to throw it in my face that you had sex with her?”
I throw my hands up in the air and it catches him off guard. “Don’t you dare try to make me feel guilty for being with my wife.”
Garrett places his hands on his hips and growls down at me. “No, I’m going to make you feel the sharp side of my fist for letting my sister wear a trench coat out and now she’s missing. She’s missing and it’s probably because of you.”
Before I even think about it, I have my hand formed in a fist and it’s plowing into his face. I can feel my knuckles give way from the force and it's enough to make me scream from it. I’m positive I’ve broke my hand.
A set of hands begin to peel me off of my brother-in-law and I allow them too. Given the situation, I know it’s not his fault as to why this happened, but he’s pissing me off.
“Save it! Your wife is missing and she’s also his sister. We need to find her and you guys need to cooperate. If you can’t, get the fuck out of the way.”
*
The day of our wedding is beautiful. We’ve opted to have the ceremony be small and on the ocean at sunset. I know that she’s nervous about marrying me and to be honest, I am too. I’ve never considered myself to be a husband at all. Now, I’m about to be one.
Damn it!
Our music began to play on the beach and I looked up to see Audrey being led down the aisle with her dad.
Her beautiful brown hair is flowing behind her as she walks towards me wearing a lace dress that is an off white. It’s clung to her perfect curves and molded around her perky tits like an offering to me.
“Damn,” Kurt says next to me. He’s my best man and he’s been trying to figure out which one of the wedding guests he’s going to sleep with. “You a lucky fucking bastard.”
“I know, she’s perfect.”
She and her dad are closing the distance between us and I don’t even wait for her to get close enough to me before I walk over. I abandon my post and walk with purpose until I’m in front of her. The light and breezy scent that is Audrey, hits me and makes me crave her more.
I circle my arms around her waist until she’s flush against me and I breathe her in. I don’t care about the reasons why we are here. It’s real for me and I’m going to make sure that it’s real for her, as well.
“You take my breath away,” I whisper into her ear. She shivers and then lets out a deep sigh. It’s the greatest noise I have ever heard.
One Week Later
It’s been one week. One week since she was taken from me and not one person has a clue. What do I do in order to keep myself from swinging from the rafters? I work out. I’ve officially gained three pounds of muscle in a week and haven’t been at my practice once.
The idea of practicing dentistry is enough to make me sick to my fucking stomach and all I can think about is Audrey while I’m there.
The police keep giving me the same speech about how they are trying to find her and some stupid bullshit that doesn’t make sense.
And that’s where I am right now. Sitting in the police station waiting for the daily questions regarding my wife’s disappearance.
“Are you sure you can’t think of any other reason why your wife would have left you?” Officer Flack asked me. He’s an older man with a balding head and a double chin. The way he’s talking to me, he’s already making me feel as if he just assumes that I’m guilty.
I’m getting pissed off and I want answers and I want my wife found and brought back to me alive. “Look, I know you have to ask these questions but these are the same fucking ones that you’ve asked me every day for the past week. If I knew why my wife left or was taken from me, I would have brought her back by now. Are you going to ask me anything worthwhile or are you going to keep being a fucking asshole?”
My chest is heaving from the oxygen that I’m sucking in in order to calm myself down. I feel as if the fucking system is failing Audrey and there’s no telling where she is.
In the Army, I did a lot of tracking and tracing of people. That was my speciality. While on the trail of a terrorist in different countries, I worked hard and searched through all of their documents online and began to follow them. Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because if I would have known why she left, I would have prevented it.
Plus, there is no way in fucking hell I would allow my Audrey to wear a trench coat and high heels out. Granted, she did rock my world.
I slam my hand down on the table and it makes the officer jump a little. “My wife didn’t just run away. She wouldn’t have done that. Someone took her and it’s the same one that has been watching her. I’m one hundred percent sure of this. You need to search through her phone records and see if someone has messaged her through it.”
“Why are you telling me how to do my fucking job? What, do you moonlight as a cop when you’re not rescuing cavities?” The officer is taunting me and I’m not falling for it.
I cross my arms around my chest and stare him down. “You think you can make me mad and then I will lose my cool so you can pin something like this on me?”
When the answers didn’t come, I knew the truth.
“Find me my wife and bring her home.”
I storm out of the office before I kill Officer Flack. I can’t be held responsible for my actions at this moment. I can’t. I’m way too close to breaking right now and I need to find Audrey.
Just looking at my car in the parking lot, I knew something was wrong. My convertible sat lower than before and I can see the rims touching the ground on all four tires. I run over to my car and I see that all four of my tires have been ruthlessly slashed and gutted.
“What the fuck?” I growl and try to calm myself down before I freak out even more.
The tires are not important to me; I can get new ones. This is just another thing on top of my shitty ass week.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Liz did it. I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my phone to call Garrett.
“‘Lo?” He says into the phone.
“Hey, man. Are you at the station?” I question and look around to see if I can see his car.
“Yeah, I’m finishing up some paperwork for a case. What’s up?”
Since our fight last week, we have managed to get along long enough to figure out how to work together. We both want the same thing and that is to find Audrey.
“Come to the parking garage. Someone slashed my fucking tires and I’m positive that it’s Liz.”
“Be right there!” Garrett hangs up on me.
The emotional stress that I’m carrying around with me is crushing me. I can’t even deal with another thing happening right now. This is just getting to be too much and I can feel the weight crushing my chest.
I have my head in my hands and I’m trying to count to ten when Garrett finds me. He places his hand on my shoulder in a comforting gesture but it doesn’t even begin to comfort me.
“Let’s look at the damage,” he says as he begins to walk around my car.
I watch helplessly as he takes notes on the slashing of the tires and then looking at the inside of my car. “There’s no sign of a note or anything so I don’t think believe it was random. Problem is, we can’t pin this on Liz because the cameras aren’t working so we can’t see her.”
Deep breath. Calm down. It’s going to be okay!
“So, she just gets away with it?” I grind the words out and look at my car. “Well, at least I have insurance and can get someone over here to fix it.”
This is now the t
hird time that Liz has striked out at us. The first was when she began sending notes to Audrey. The second is when she kidnapped her from me. Now this. She’s bound to get sloppy eventually and when she does, I’m going to swoop in and kill her.
Two Weeks Later
My hands immediately lead me to the police station and I park outside of it. I know that they’re going to be talking shit about how I keep showing up but I don’t care. I want to know where my wife is and they aren’t finding her fast enough for me.
I jump out of my car and run up to the front of the building through the rain that is pelting down. It’s almost as if it’s a sign or something. That’s how hard it is raining.
When I get to the front door of the precinct, the secretary greets me. “Hi, Damien,” she murmurs.
The secretary is a pretty woman with dark brown hair and tanned skin. She looks like one of those porn stars or something. You know? The little waists with the big tits? And she doesn’t do anything for me.
“Hello, Autumn,” I greet her and walk back to the office of the man that is in charge of bringing my wife back.
“Damien!” He yells as I come into his office. He’s got his hands on his desk and he’s leaning over it. He looks as if he’s contemplating something big, but I don’t know what that could have been.
My hands brace themselves against the doorframe and I lean into the office. “What do you have for me?” I demand.
Jarrod takes a deep breath and then looks up to the ceiling. “Look, I’m going to tell you the same thing that I told Michaels, we have nothing. But-”
“There’s no buts to this! I want to know where my wife is and I want her home. Now! Tell me you have something that points to where she’s at.”
“Damien…”
I take a deep breath and count to ten. “That sounds an awful like you don’t have anything. What the fuck is up with that?” I persecute.
My desperation of not knowing where my wife is is starting to wear on me and I need her home. There’s no telling where she’s at or what the fuck those people are doing to her. I already know who was in charge of capturing her.
“I need you to look up Elizabeth Harding.”
Jarrod temples his fingers in front of his face and gives me a pensive look. “Why would Elizabeth Harding know where your wife is at?”
I consider my options. If I tell him what I know about my ex, this could implicate me. Of course I can’t lie regarding why she would target Audrey or her family, but…
“She’s my ex-girlfriend and also Garrett Michaels’s ex as well. There is something wrong with her mentally and she wouldn’t stop until she’s made her point made that she is smarter than we are giving her credit for.”
“You said Harding?” Jarrod begins writing some information down and then looks up at me. “Is this the same Elizabeth Harding that made a report that she thinks you are the one that kidnapped your wife?”
My blood pressure rises and I straighten out my shoulders to look at him through squinted eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Liz is a crazy bitch. There’s not one thing that the woman could possibly say that would be truthful.”
With his templed fingers, he points towards the door. “Let’s just say, it’s enough for me to start asking you some important questions. Such as, what did you do in the military?”
My anger has shot through the roof. “You are going to ask me a fucking question like that when my wife is missing? Do you have a heart?”
Jarrod throws his head back to look up at the ceiling and when he’s looking back at me, he’s got a snide smile on his face. “No, I don’t have a heart when it comes to someone that abuses their power in the military. Care to tell me about those videos that I received from Elizabeth?”
“No. I don’t want to tell you anything without a lawyer present and I’m going to tell you one thing. Don’t make problems over something that you don’t know anything about.”
My blood pressure is rising and I can’t help it but clench my fists together in order to ease the urge to punch him in the fucking face. I want to so badly, but it would look awful on my part if I did.
Just then, there was a knock on the door and both Jarrod and I look over at the door and see Garrett walking in. “Look, I know that shit is looking bad but we have to get on the media in order to get our case heard. The longer we wait, the longer and harder it will be in order to find my sister. I want my sister home.”
“What do you suggest we do?” I ask him and begin to feel defeated. Who knew that I was capable of feeling these feelings. It’s hard to explain the feelings that I have as I’m waiting to hear what he is thinking.
“We need to do a press conference and have the community looking for her.”
I nod my head and then place my left hand behind my neck to rub out the stress that I’m feeling. “All right. When can we get this going?”
“Yeah,” Jarrod says as he walks around his desk and leans against the edge of it. “When are you wanting to do this, Michaels?”
“Now.”
Twenty minutes later, Audrey’s whole family is waiting to be interviewed by the video cameras and the news crews that are waiting to get at us. I know that it can go either good or bad, but I’m hoping for the best. I’m standing between Liz and Jerry as we wait.
Garrett is walking down the hall that we are in and he’s addressing all of us in different ways. “I need you to make sure that you’re answering the questions in it’s entirety.”
“We have to find my wife. I will answer anything that will help find her.”
A reporter approaches us and he’s got a stink face look to him. I can tell that he’s probably trying to figure out how to pin it on me or something. “Alright, guys, let’s go and get this going.”
We all stood in a line and waited. We waited for our turn to begin so that we could talk to the public about what happened to my wife.
“We will begin by discussing the case and at the end of the statement, we will be accepting questions for the family. Two weeks ago, Dr. Audrey Michaels Alexander went missing and her car is crashed. We have reason to believe that she’s in danger and this happened on purpose. If you have any information regarding this case, we highly suggest you call the number at the bottom of the screen.”
My heart began to beat faster and harder in my chest. Hearing him talk about my wife so clinically hurt worse than being here. I missed my wife and am desperate to have her come home so I didn’t want to start anything by advising him to speak with more compassion regarding Audrey.
The first reporter that stood up is a female with big tits and a little waist. “My first question is for the husband. When did you first realize that your wife was missing?”
I blushed throughout my whole body as I thought of the crude words I wished I could say. I want to tell them that this press conference is a waste of time. And that she can go fuck herself. “Her brother, who is a police officer, approached me at work and told me about Audrey’s disappearance.”
She then turns to Garrett who is looking at me as if I have three fucking heads. I mentally shrug and try to school my expressions so it doesn’t seem as if I’m getting way too emotional. It’s important that they see me as a human but I don’t want them to think that I’m faking this.
“When did you first realize that Audrey was missing? Do you think that it has anything to do with the death of your brother?”
Jerry gasps and places her hand on the podium in front of her. I don’t think she’s ever heard anyone speak so casually about the death of Baron.
I place my hand on her shoulder in hopefully a calmly way in order to help her get through these vultures. Garrett looks at my hand and then up at me with a glare. I yank my hand away and then stand to the side and wait for another question.
“I noticed that my sister went missing when I received a call about her car being abandoned and crashed on the side of the road. When I approached it, I noticed that it was her car and she wasn’t in there
nor was she anywhere near there.”
A man steps up and asks: “Do you have any idea who has her?”
Immediately, I nod my head and then blurt out: “Elizabeth Harding. If you have her, please let her go. She didn’t do anything to you. We need her to come home now.”
“Anything you would like to say to her or her captors?” A different man says.
I listen to what the others have to say and I can’t help but tear up a little bit. Her parents are standing off to the side as they listen to the questions and the answers that are being said.
“If you know where my wife is and you are afraid, please don’t. My lovely, I need you to come home and stay strong. I’m coming to get you. I love you.”