Unreal 2 Cold Illusion - Winter's Chill: (Adult Suspense Thriller)

by Riley Moreno

  “But that’s if it was you,” he said as he held her face. “And it wasn’t and this isn’t. This is my job. I want to get these assholes by the book. And I need Julie Edwards to make that happen.

  He held her close and ran his hands across her naked body. Morales melted into his arms and managed to nod.

  “So that’s a yes?”

  She murmured her assent as they fell back to the bed. Morales tried to twist her belief towards whole-hearted when she left him and headed to Julie Edwards’ door.

  It makes sense. It’s just a strategy. Maybe she’ll get that. And when it’s done, the nightmare will be over.

  Morales’ mind kept repeating that, and she had no doubts until she saw the girl crying behind her long brown hair.

  “Julie, listen---”

  Morales tried to touch her, but Julie moved to the far end of the couch and curled away from the cop.

  “I thought I could trust you.”

  That stung, and Morales stayed where she was and just let Julie cry. When her weeping slowed to whimpers, Morales started to reach for her shoulder. But then she held back. Ethan Graff could comfort her and be all kinds of angry when he learned of Leo’s plan.

  Hers was a different task.

  “Julie, look at me.”

  Morales was on her feet, and Julie slowly brushed her hair back and did as she was told and looked up with bleary eyes and a tear-stained face.

  “Do you want them to pay for what they did you? And Kim?”

  Julie nodded quickly, and Morales continued as she wandered the room. It seemed a cozy enough place, and no doubt Julie wanted a happy night with the man that had saved her. Now Morales stole that, too. Still she had to do this, but she could not look into Julie’s eyes.

  “Okay then. So you have to be strong enough to put it on record. We need the whole story for the jury. And you’re the only one that can tell it like it was.”

  She stopped at the window and heard Julie snivel. To put her through this was awful, but maybe Leo was right. Maybe it was the best way to get justice for these victims.

  “What about Pete?” Julie choked out. “Isn’t he… isn’t he like getting a deal or something?”

  Justice was an ugly mistress.

  “Yes,” Morales started. “But his word just isn’t enough.”

  “Why?”

  Now Morales had to face her to make her understand. Taking a deep breath, she turned and looked at the woman that Leo wanted, needed, as his star witness.

  “Because they’ll spin it like he’s just saying whatever he needs to, whatever we need him to say, so that he gets his break.”

  And then she channeled Leo.

  “If I had my choice, Julie, I’d rip them all apart and leave them in a hole to die. But it just doesn’t work that way. You have to paint the full picture. You were there. You know what happened.”

  She saw Julie starting to waver, and while she hesitated at the thought of the most manipulative of plays, she kneeled before the couch and caught hold of Julie’s hands.

  “You have to find a way to do this. For you.”

  Morales swallowed hard.

  “And for Kim.”

  The sound of her friend’s name caused Julie’s head to turn. But Morales needed the nod before she went back to Leo.

  “I…”

  Julie looked into Morales’ eyes and breathed back a new swell of tears.

  “I want them to pay. But… but I’m scared.”

  Okay. I can work with this.

  “I know, Julie.”

  Morales sat at her side again and placed a tentative arm around the girl’s shaking shoulders.

  “It’s okay to be scared. I’d be scared, too.”

  If it had happened to her, even Leo’s path of vengeance might not be enough to grant her a night where she dared to sleep without every light on.

  “But we’ll all be there to help you, Me, Leo and Ethan.”

  She held Julie closer.

  “He’s taking care of you, right?”

  Julie nodded and wiped her running nose with the back of her hand.

  Good. You’ll need him for what’s ahead.

  “So you think you can do this?”

  Julie sighed and pressed her hair behind her ears and stared at Morales with a sigh.

  “Okay. I mean… if I have to.”

  She should not have to do anything that she did not want ever again, but Leo and the case needed this.

  “It’ll be okay, Julie.”

  Morales patted her arm and headed towards the door. It was a weak promise. But it would have to do. Morales wanted out even as she felt bad about leaving another mess for Ethan Graff to deal with, the one good guy in this whole mess.

  The knob was in her hand, and Morales looked back over the couch and Julie’s head. She saw the ample bags of groceries scattered about the counter just waiting for something special.

  “Looks like it’ll be some dinner.”

  Julie turned her head and followed Morales’ eyes to the unmade meal.

  “It’s Ethan’s birthday.”

  Morales took her leave feeling like the worst person that had ever lived.

  4

  Arcadia was business as usual. Ethan Graff found himself with the prospect of a new account. Phyllis Felcher was a CEO at thirty-one, and even though she had many more years to make and save her money, she had heard that Arcadia’s halls held a man who had saved someone from a house of horrors. She decided during their first meeting that Ethan was a man to be trusted. It was a win for Ethan, but he did not like the way it had come to pass.

  Because it made Julie a victim all over again, and he just wanted her to be Juliet.

  Juliet was kind and sweet and trying to get past a series of sucker punches that might have made a lesser girl wilt. And she still cried out in the night and needed him to hold her. Ethan did so without complaint. It was insane that she was still with him, but he wanted to keep her close and safe forever. When she was Juliet, they laughed and talked and she let him kiss and hold her. She relaxed in his arms and fell asleep with a smile across her face. Juliet.

  But then there was Julie. The girl he had first seen bruised and crying and with matted hair and the pathetic promise that she would do whatever he wanted to avoid another beating.

  He would do anything to pull her soul from that poor girl’s battered skin.

  “You still here?”

  Donna entered his office and twirled her wedding ring about her finger. She never missed a chance to broadcast her happy state, and if it was before he had met Julie, Juliet, he would have suppressed a groan and tried hard not to roll his eyes. But that night, the night when Donna saw her dreams come true was the first time that Juliet was able to forget and give herself to him. Ethan was reminded of being with her, holding her, feeling her body against his seemed like the end of a nightmare.

  Donna’s wedding had done that, and even though Juliet regressed into terror after that night and could not bring herself to be with him again, she still let him hold her before she fell asleep. And on those nights when she woke up scared, Ethan just held her tighter. It cut him like the sharpest knife when she trembled, and he wished that he could corner all of them, Carter, Geoffrey, and those fucking boys. He would gouge out their eyes, cut away their tongues, and tie them to the hottest desert sands and watch them fry in the sun, slowly.

  “Still here, Donna.”

  He smoothed his hands down his shirt and let his fantasies of revenge sink to the soles of his feet. They would not solve anything, and Juliet would be left alone.

  “Mr. Graff…” she teased as she playfully punched his shoulder after turning the business end of her engagement ring away from his arm.

  “I won’t let you work through your birthday.”

  “That’s tomorrow, Donna.”

  Naturally, she had the cake ready on Friday, and he had to blow out the candles and make a wish.

  He wished for Juliet to find peace and to sta
y by his side. Okay. It was two wishes for the price of one, but their fates were so linked that he saw no harm in the hope.

  “I know, Mr. Graff. So what’s on tap?”

  Juliet made him promise to have a good day. Maybe it was bizarre. It was bizarre. But Ethan liked looking at her, and he caressed her face as he lightly kissed her lips.

  “Have the best day,” she whispered into his mouth.

  His kiss intensified. He wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her closer. When their lips parted, he stroked her hair and thought of her at Danielle’s shop surrounded by flowers. She always came back smelling sweet, and he loved the lingering scent.

  “Every day’s good with you, Juliet.”

  She smiled and gave his neck a soft peck before sending him away full of confidence. He was able to focus on figures and the Phyllis Felchers of the world when he knew that Juliet was waiting.

  It was crazy, but it was real.

  “Nothing too fancy,” Ethan said as he saw the hands on his wall clock near five and pressed the work that he would not see to into his briefcase. When they had him on the clock, he was theirs. But after hours he was Juliet’s, and as he left her that morning, she promised a night that he would not forget. His mind could not help but flash back to their first time. She felt amazing around him. But he would not force her into anything that she did not want. If they ended up just spending the night in each other’s’ arms, it would be enough for him.

  “Just a cozy, romantic evening with your lovely lady?” Donna teased.

  “Sounds fine to me.”

  With a sigh, Ethan clicked his mouse and minimized the spreadsheet that had held his attention for the better part of the afternoon. Phyllis Felcher could wait until Monday; tonight and for the rest of the weekend, he belonged to Juliet.

  “How… how is she?” Donna tentatively asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  As soon as the question left his lips, he took note of the defensive tone in his voice and saw Donna cringe at the sound.

  “Nothing. I didn’t…”

  Donna’s voice trailed off, and she started to leave the room.

  “Wait, Donna.”

  She quickly turned back, her eyes bright and warm, her smile of the same variety.

  “I’m sorry,” he started. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  He expected Donna to laugh it off and send him on his way, but instead she curled her fingers around the door and gently eased it shut.

  “Mr. Graff, look. I’m not trying to pry or gossip. Whatever it is, and… I mean… we all kind of know what it is…”

  A shiver raced up and down Ethan’s spine. Not because he thought Donna or for that matter any other man or woman on Arcadia’s staff would exploit what had happened. Because they knew that Ethan had saved them from the best client that they never actually landed. Carter McCord and Geoffrey Troxel were now regulars on Page Six as they prepared to go on trial for taking part in a perverse pastime. This time, as Ethan knew better than anyone else, their games claimed a life. Even without a body, they would go down for what they did to Kim Beyer and to Juliet.

  “So I’m only asking because… because you’re my friend, Mr. Graff.”

  He cocked his head at the comment. Was Donna in fact his friend? He respected her and always thought that she was sweet. He had danced at her wedding, but was it not just a professional relationship and nothing more? Her hand suddenly on his arm suddenly made a case for something else.

  “And she’s… well I can see that you care about her. A lot. So I worry about her. Because I worry about you.”

  Although he tensed at her first touch, he gradually relaxed at the feel of her fingers against his sleeve. She was naturally curious, and while he was not quite sold on the label “friend,” he knew that she had closed the door to keep whatever he might say between them.

  “You are sweet, Donna. Truly.”

  He brushed a stray strand of hair from her gentle face.

  “She’s…”

  Ethan could not find the words. He did not like to talk about it. Not that keeping it quiet made it any less real. It was all too real every time he saw her, held her, heard her talk about something as banal as a flower arrangement making its way to a group of mourners keeping vigil before a cold, open casket. Often Juliet could not complete the story, and though she stayed silent, he knew that her mind drifted to the burial that Kim would never have. Julie carried the guilt of her survival beside the memory of her own torment.

  “She’s going to be fine,” Ethan said. While he was glad that she was safe and with him now, his mind could not help but move to a space where the vicious bastards were behind bars. Her stepfather, the weeping sadist who had set this whole thing in motion, was still waiting on a trial date, but that too would come and pass. And even without Kim’s body to give the whole episode proper closure, Ethan always resolved to stay by her side and somehow, some way, finally bring to her place where she could finally forget.

  “And the trial?” Donna asked, her voice interrupting his reverie of tomorrow.

  “What about it?”

  “Will she have to testify?”

  He was able to laugh at the naïve absurdity of Donna’s statement.

  “That’s not happening. The DA, Barber. He can… I know he can nail them to the wall. Juliet won’t have to be involved.”

  “Well good. She’s been through enough, right?”

  Ethan bristled some at her assumption, but to an extent, she obviously knew what Juliet had endured.

  “Exactly,” Ethan said as he flung the briefcase over his shoulder. “And you want to hear something else?”

  “Yes!”

  He rolled his eyes in the face of Donna’s eagerness for another piece of the puzzle. How could he blame her? If this had happened to someone else, someone that he saw and talked to and smiled at each and every day, no doubt he would be equally curious.

  “I…”

  In his mind, whenever Juliet sobbed or flinched, he envisioned Carter and Geoffrey in chains for whatever remained of their miserable lives. The loss of their opulent lifestyle was one thing, but Ethan wished them another kind of suffering. He wanted the word to travel like lightning through every cell block, and he could not suppress a smile at the thought of those one-time captains of industry tied down and sodomized endlessly for all that they had done. That situation would seem as hopeless as Juliet’s, with one very important exception. Even in her darkest moments, Juliet could still cling to the thought of escape or someone finding her. The captivity awaiting Carter and Geoffrey would be state-sanctioned and there would be never be any end to their misery. Parole would be a long way off, and even if that happened, no one would wait to collect them from their confinement and help them back to a normal life.

  But he never shared this with Juliet. He did not want to scare her by his anger, so he kept his desire for vengeance hidden even as it often boiled about his soul.

  “Mr. Graff?”

  Now he dared to share it with someone.

  “I want those assholes ripped apart for what they did to her.”

  He expected Donna to wince or at least blush at his words, but she just patted his arm and nodded her head.

  “Amen to that, Mr. Graff.”

  Donna never ceased to surprise him.

  “Better that their wives have nothing but damaged goods.”

  “Right. I… what?”

  He was listening to Donna. It felt good to share this with someone. But then his mind took several steps back as he registered the plural term.

  “Wives? What wives? Victoria sure, but---”

  “How do you not know?”

  Ethan just shook his head nervously as Donna reached into her pocket and swiped the news of the day to attention on her iPhone.

  “It’s everywhere. Look.”

  He blinked at the text that flashed across the screen.

  Carter McCord, the conflicted heir to McCord Inc., has found a mome
nt of happiness in the wake of his many legal woes. Just yesterday, in a private ceremony, he finally married Melissa Troxel, the only daughter of his soon-to-be co-defendant at what’s shaping up to be our new favorite program if they let the cameras in the courtroom. McCord, along with Troxel, is accused of…

  The words stopped making sense under Ethan’s eyes, and his entire body tensed at the stock picture of Carter, seemingly so benign, alongside an image of Melissa Troxel. Ethan saw her younger and happier than she had to be now.

  Or was she?

  “She… she married him?”

  Donna nodded and Ethan pressed the announcement from the screen closer to his face. The smiling faces, the cheery text that left out the worst of what he had done. A casual glance would see nothing but a high society wedding. The eyes that drank in scandals with their coffee had to know that Carter McCord and his brand new father-in-law were on the hook for something that even Ethan could not imagine had he not seen it with his own eyes. The groom along with the father of the bride, were monsters to be feared. Melissa Troxel had to know that her new husband was guilty of something pretty despicable, and yet she allowed him to slide a ring across her finger. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “She married him,” Donna said.

  Ethan breathed hard and tried to calm the heaving in his chest. If he had his way, he would corner both men in the gilded cage that was the Troxel penthouse and reveal a gun. Not to blast their brains away. That was too easy and far more than they deserved. He would aim for their legs, and as they lay moaning and pleading, he would find a knife. Preferably one from the dishwasher still covered in some kind of scum. The thought of whatever it was finding its way under their skin and inviting an infection was a bonus. He wanted them to feel pain, pain and fear that rivalled all they had done to her, and he would drive the blade in and slowly flay their flesh from their bones. He would drown out their cries with one hand to his ear as the other worked the blade deeper and deeper still. In a perfect world, they would finally appear before his eyes as masses of blood and sinew, begging for death. And then he would wipe the knife clean without granting their final wish of escape. He would leave them bleeding and crying, and then, only then, would he collect Juliet. He would have to still the shaking that was ever-present about her slim limbs and bring her back to the place in his mind. He could feel her face turning closer into his arm as he led her down a blood-stained hallway, but Ethan would do everything to keep her upright until her eyes saw the oozing masses that were the men that had violated her and slaughtered her friend. Kim. Kim was the girl that Juliet still cried out for as she laid in his arms.