The Devil's Intended-Love & Evil In Palm Beach
Page 24
beers, and left her sitting alone while he went over to the rest of the gang. Kristen sat there and started to think it was pretty funny. He ignored her for about twenty minutes.
She felt he was waiting for some type of reaction. She caught him from time to time taking a side glance at her out of one eye, like a pirate. Finally, he sent one of the rookies over to unlock her. She still sat there and did not go over to him. Then, another officer, who was pretty cute, sat with her. When Doug saw that, he immediately rushed over to the table. The officer politely excused himself, somewhat in fear. When Doug was drunk, no one was going to mess with him. Kristen acted like nothing happened and grabbed Doug’s beer and drank it. He smiled approvingly, like she had just passed some kind of test with him. She looked out the window and could see some cruel hints that the sun was thinking of rising. He said sweetly to her. “Are you ready to go now?” She stood up and walked with him. He stood by her car and opened the door. He then said very graciously. “May I kiss you?” Kristen smiled at him and he leaned her against the car and very sensuously engaged his lips with hers for a very long time. At this point, Kristen was sold.
Even though all the warning signs were there indicating a volatile relationship was in the making, she was intent on pursuing it. He said “Would you like to follow me to my house? I don’t live too far from here. I don’t know if it will impress you like your fancy pants Palm Beach boyfriends. I have never dated a rich girl before.” Kristen giggled “Don’t worry. I am not that rich right now. You can handle me.” She then smiled “But I am sorry to tell you this. I would like to go home. Is that alright?” Doug smiled back “We have all summer.” He then helped her into her car and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
Doug was right. For the rest of the summer, Kristen spent almost every night at his house. And it had not taken many dates before she got a close-up look at “the gun” fully-loaded! As the days burned by, she started to learn the Lieutenant’s story. But it came from his fellow officers, and not Doug. They told her he was recently divorced and had a small daughter. The more they talked, Kristen realized that he might be a loose cannon.
As the relationship wore on, the excitement wore off and Kristen could tell that Doug was just basically an irritable person. She felt that whatever initially turned her on, was the mere fact that he was a cop. If he hadn’t been one, she doubted they would have gotten this far.
Suddenly, she didn’t hear from Doug. She had no plans to call him, because this gave her a chance to party and stay out late without him knowing about it. After a week, it started to gnaw at her. She was out in the uptown bars and it was late, so she decided to drive over to Doug’s bar by his precinct building. As she walked in, the overwhelming stench of bad cigars greeted her and it looked like a retirement party was in progress. She sat down on a stool, looked around and didn’t see Doug. However, she did see one of the officers from his shift. He walked up to her, sat down, and handed her a fresh bottle of beer. He was very good-looking, around her age, and his name was Joe. The same one Doug had gotten tattoos with.
The one rule with high-ranking cops is that their women never mess around with the men they are in charge of. It shows disrespect. It is just like the Mafia rule about not pursuing a made man’s wife or girlfriend. Kristen looked nervously behind and around her. Joe knew why she was in fear and said, “Don’t worry, he’s not coming in. He’s at home acting like a baby because he hurt his knee.” Kristen said, “How did he do that?” Joe answered, “He was running after a bum and he tripped. He hasn’t been back to work.
Kristen wasn’t sure if she believed him. Joe continued, “He was in here earlier and had to leave when he heard his Captain was invited to this shindig too.” Joe moved closer to her, “It’s just you and me babe.” Suddenly her cell phone rang. She just knew it was Doug. She was scared to answer it and let it ring a while. When she finally did, his voice was gruff and drunk. “Get away from Joe right now or I am taking you both down.” Then he hung up. Joe smiled, “That was Doug, wasn’t it?” Kristen was about to tell Joe that some spy was watching them, when the phone rang again.
“I’m loading my gun. Get up now. Be over here in forty minutes or else! I’ll leave the back door unlocked.” He was slurring and his words were almost unintelligible. “Get me a pack of cigarettes.” Kristen was half-tempted not to leave, but she knew he would take it out on Joe. “Joe,” she said, “Someone hates us here and turned us in, I have to go. Doug seems to have a following.”
Kristen went out to her car. She turned on the engine and laid her head down on the steering wheel and groaned. “I just want to go home.” She really felt tired of things and was experienced enough to know that it was time to end it. But with Doug, even if he didn’t like her anymore, it was still a control issue, and she wasn’t going to get free, unless he made the choice. She drove fast to his house, and just to annoy him, she didn’t buy him the cigarettes. Then she worried that he would get mad about that and turned the car around to go home.
Kristen refused to see Lt. Walsh for at least two weeks and was now thinking of going home to Illinois. But there was something about Doug that she just wasn’t ready to give up on yet. She was always able to find an excuse for things. No wonder why she continued to find the wrong men.
One morning she woke up depressed and felt even more strongly that she was done with New York. She started pulling moving boxes out of the closet, when her phone rang. It was Doug! He sounded very sober and said “I want to start treating you better and actually take you on a real date.” His offering was hard to get tickets for a dinner show that night featuring Rat Pack imitators. Kristen liked Sinatra, but this era was still way out of her age range. She pretended to be excited, was a bit apprehensive, but accepted his offer. She told Doug to call her when he was about ten minutes away so he could just pull up and she would run downstairs. Parking in her neighborhood was ridiculous, if not impossible.
Kristen cleaned up her apartment and decided to put the boxes away for now. When she was through, she decided to go shopping for a new outfit to wear that night.
By the time she returned home, there wasn't much time left to get ready. Just as she jumped in the shower, there was a knock on her door. Kristen scrambled out of the bathroom dripping wet and looked at her clock. It was only 5:30 PM. She thought it must be her landlord and she chose to ignore him. The knocking then became very loud. “What the hell?” Kristen walked out of her room and stood naked by the front door. She asked in an angry voice “Who is it?” A rough voice answered “It’s me. It’s the police! It’s time for our date.” Kristen felt panicked. “Doug?” Doug was mad now “Who the hell else do you think it is?” Kristen complained “It’s too early. You were supposed to call first.” Doug replied “We need to get a jump on traffic. We are going into the city.” Kristen was very annoyed. She hated being rushed. He leaned on her door and said “Do I hear someone in there? What’s going on? Is that why you haven’t been seeing me? I’m going to shoot through this door if you don’t open up now.” Kristen replied calmly. “No, I’m just getting ready.” She was now considering calling the whole thing off, she really didn't think she could handle being with him again. It was too much work. She needed some more time to think.
Kristen lied, “Doug, I’ve got to wait for my landlord to come by. Can you go to the bar at the end of the block? I will meet you over there in a half-hour.” Doug looked through her peephole, and of course could not see in. He moved his fingers and tried to see if he could screw it off. “Are you sure no one is in there? Don’t jerk me around!” Kristen was exasperated “Doug, come on. I’m not ready. I’ll meet you at the bar. OK?” Doug thought about it and answered slowly “I guess that will be alright. Hurry up, will you? We have to get going.” Kristen assured him “I’ll be there.”
She listened by the door to hear his footsteps creak down the hall. She then looked out the window to make sure he
was getting in his car. Kristen dried off and started to slide herself into her new dress. She then looked for her pearls and earrings in her jewelry box. As she walked by, she did a twirl at the mirror. She looked great and was definitely ready to take Manhattan! On came her black Louboutins with the silver-lined heels for the finishing touch and she proudly strode out the door.
As she drove to meet Doug, she was very nervous and almost turned around twice. Pulling up to the bar, she saw his car parked well over the curb. She frowned and said out loud "I guess he thinks he owns this place too. One last chance to escape Kristen. Do it!" She maneuvered in very close to his bumper and went inside.
Doug was sitting at a table drinking a beer. He smiled at her and said “You look beautiful. Are you ready to go?” She was surprised to see that he was wearing an expensive suit and had a new haircut. Maybe he was a new Doug, one she could like again. The traffic was awful as they drove into Manhattan. Doug pulled the car in front of a large restaurant. He reached into the glove compartment, grabbed his extra gun and put it in his pocket. He then let the valet