After Her

by Amber Kay

  “There were no signs of sexual assault or genital trauma,” she interjects. “That’s what we found the strangest. Someone drugged her and yet she was fully clothed with only a single blow to the head. It makes no sense.”

  “I don’t understand. Who the hell drugs a woman for fun?” I ask and just as the words leave my mouth, a single name falls onto my lips. I gape at her, cool in the face, devoid of all body warmth.

  “Cassandra?” she asks with an intuitive cock of her left brow. “What’s wrong?”

  “Adrian,” I say.

  Her eyes narrow. “What about him?”

  I open my mouth and I'm quickly reminded of something. I close my mouth.

  “Cassandra?”

  “There’s something I have to say, but I...legally can’t,” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  It’s time I lay it all out, expose the Lynchs for what they are. My abdomen clenches tight, burying the words beneath a wave of unwanted emotions. I glance at the glass wall, wondering if Vivian has eyes and ears everywhere.

  “You need to protect me,” I say. “You need to use whatever police manpower you have to protect me from Vivian Lynch.”

  “I thought we were talking about her husband.”

  “This is more complex than you think,” I say. “If I tell you, you have to keep that woman away from me.”

  She glances over at the table then brings her eyes back to me as if she’s deliberating about something that she hasn’t informed me of.

  “Tell me what you know and I’ll see what I can do to help,” she says.

  I inhale, wishing I could literally swallow the words.

  “I’m under contract as Vivian Lynch’s intern,” I blurt.

  “Under…contract?”

  “She made me sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

  “People with nondisclosure agreements usually have something to hide,” she says.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “People that sign them, also have something to hide.”

  “You’re turning this on me?” I say. “I’m cooperating with you and you’re still condemning me?”

  She shrugs. “Tell me more about this ‘agreement’ and I might change my mind.”

  “I didn’t exactly sign it willingly. She tried to kill herself when I wouldn’t. What else was I supposed to do?”

  Karen sighs and rolls her eyes. While leaning against the back of her chair to stretch her arms over her head, she drops her eyes to meet mine. “Listen, Cassandra. This isn’t all on you.

  I didn’t mean to make it seem like you were the sole suspect. In fact, my focus was already on the Lynchs.”

  “What?”

  “Those people have been generating scandal for the last twenty years, “she says. “Since I was a rookie at the academy, I’ve been following their escapades over the last decade. At the academy, they were celebrities. Everyone knew who they were.”

  “If you suspected them, then why put me through hell? Why not go after them as hard as you’ve come down on me?”

  “Because they have access to lawyers. I'm not fond of lawyers. They get in the way.”

  “So instead you go after me?” I say. “The working-class, college sophomore who can’t afford a lawyer?”

  “I went after you as an informant,” she amends. “You aren’t just some unsuspecting young woman, Cassandra. You have managed to do what no one else has ever managed to accomplish. You’re a fixture in the Lynch marriage. They trust you. Vivian clearly adores you. Adrian, from what I can tell, is enamored with you.”

  “What’s your point?” I ask.

  “Vivian and Adrian Lynch are smart. They know how to lie better than you,” she says. “You can get in where we can’t.”

  “You want to me spy on them for you? What do I have to do? Wear a wire?”

  “No,” she says. “This can’t be an official assignment. I'm not allowed to involve civilians in ongoing murder cases, but I admit that I'm a little desperate right now. I don’t know what those people are guilty of, but I know they’re hiding something. Vivian gave me some odd vibes. Adrian was very overprotective of you. I suggest you use your connection to them to find out what happened to Sasha.”

  “What do you know about Adrian’s murder trial?” I ask. “Anytime I ask him about it, he gets defensive. It’s been ten years and yet he’s still really defensive about a crime he’s already served time for.”

  She shrugs nonchalantly, entwining her fingers atop the table. “That’s what initially drew me to them. After interrogating them at the party, I used some personal resources to dig up files on the old case.”

  “And?” I say, willing her to say more.

  “And, I found nothing,” she says. “It was oddest thing. Nothing from that ten-year old case is available.”

  “That’s impossible. I-I mean—high-profile murder cases don’t just disappear from public record.”

  “Well, this case did,” she says. “Everything I tried to find has inexplicably been redacted. I looked up many archives and dug through public and private police files. I couldn’t even find a strand of DNA from that case. I underestimated the Lynchs and the things that they can buy with their money, but I see it now.”

  “Yeah well, welcome to the club,” I mutter. “You figured out what I’ve known all along.”

  She sighs, accepting defeat in a cloud of sudden futility.

  “My boss is on my ass about dropping this whole thing. He urged me to leave it alone. Maybe he’s right. I have no real proof to back up my suspicions. If I do anything without his approval, I could lose my job. I don’t want to ask, Cassandra. Closing the case on Sasha could depend on what you do next.”

  “You want me to worm my way back into their lives so I can spy on them?”

  “I doubt it’d be much of an effort on your part,” she says with a laugh. “Vivian may be a hard nut to crack, but we both know what it would take for Adrian to open up.”

  The insinuation is heavy in her voice, much like that same one I’d seen in her eyes a few minutes earlier. I sense nothing noble about what she’s suggesting, but it’s obvious what she won’t say aloud.

  “Are you suggesting that I seduce Adrian into telling me the truth?” I ask.

  She doesn’t deny or confirm my theory with anything, verbal or otherwise. I suspect bugs hidden somewhere in the room, somewhere nearby. Listening ears are definitely present. I just don’t know where. She offers me a roundabout look, the kind that says more without saying anything at all.

  “What kind of a cop are you, anyway?” I ask. “This sounds kind of crooked.”

  “I'm the kind of cop that wants to solve your best friend’s murder,” she replies with a halfhearted smirk that does nothing to convince me of her sincerity. “We are at an impasse here. No witnesses saw what happened to Sasha. No one heard a damn thing. I find it hard to believe that out of four-hundred people, no one saw anything. If I were the paranoid type, I’d suspect the Lynchs of witness tampering.”

  “I knew Vivian didn’t like Sasha, but I didn’t think she’d actually hurt her,” I say. “I didn’t think she’d go this far.”

  “I heard that you two were best friends since childhood. Would she do the same for you if you were victim instead? Would she do everything in her power to make sure that your murder was solved?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I say. “I think I may know where to start.”

  I wipe away a trail of mucus from beneath my nose and scrub the wisp tears with the palms of my hands. I'm sure I look a mess. Swollen eyes. Clogged nose. Red cheeks. I glance at the glass wall and spot a girl that I don’t recognize. She is my tortured doppelganger. She is who I need to be to face the Lynchs.

  32

  When I pull into the parking lot, I have one objective in mind.

  The clinic lobby is half-empty. A frail old woman and two middle-aged men occupy three of the ten chairs. None of them looks up to acknowledge me when I enter. The television plays on m
ute, drowned out by the usual muzak sounds humming from hidden speakers. A different receptionist sit behind the front desk. This one is younger and homely. A skinny brunette with a crooked smile.

  “Hello, can I help you?” she greets me.

  “Dr. Carrick, please,” I say.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Mention that it’s a ‘Vivian’ emergency and I'm sure he’ll be willing to squeeze me in for a little chat,” I say.

  Before the receptionist can respond, Carrick appears in the doorway behind her desk. He looks at me and his face falls pale. Those same bloodshot eyes from the night of gala, stare back, devoid of all light, all emotion. I don’t have to speak. He already knows why I'm here.

  “It’s alright, Claire,” he tells the receptionist. “Miss Tate is free to come in.”

  She says nothing and doesn’t try to stop me from following Carrick into the hallway. He walks ahead of me without looking back, refusing to speak. I imagine cogs turning in his head as he wonders what kind of lie he’ll tell me. The walk to his office is a journey.

  The clinic is small, the halls are narrow, but it seems that with each step, the corridor lengthens before us like some optical illusion. Carrick’s office is the last door at the end of the next hallway. He types in some four-digit number into a keypad outside and jerks the door open with a hard nudge.

  Upon entering the office, he drops a stack of manila folders onto his desk and proceeds to fiddle with the file cabinet adjacent to his desk. I glance out the window behind his desk, noting the thin of veil of fog collecting in the air outside.

  A few degrees and plaques hang on the wall. The room smells of Pine-Sol. It’s a typical doctor’s office. Clean smelling and spotless. I sit in one of the two plastic chairs in front of his desk. The squishy cushion squeaks when I sit. After putting away his manila files, Carrick locks the office door and whirls around to face me.

  “So, how much did Vivian tell you?” he asks.

  I hesitate, mainly because I didn’t expect him to be so cooperative.

  “Nothing,” I say. “But it’s not like I expected her to anyway.”

  Carrick smirks then sits along the edge of his desk. A heavy sigh escapes him. A tuft of blonde hair hang low in his eyes. His shoulders pull up, tensed. “I’m sure you’re wondering how long it’s been going on.”

  “That’s crossed my mind a few times,” I say. “Yes.”

  “Twenty years.”

  “What?”

  “The affair,” he says. “It’s been twenty years.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “How’d she manage to keep this a secret for twenty years?”

  “Vivian is good at keeping secrets. I thought you knew that by now.”

  “Did she manage to share any of those secrets with you in the last two decades?”

  He clears his throat. “I'm not sure what you want from me.”

  “You’re the only lead I have to connect me to Sasha,” I say. “I owe her. That girl was only involved in this because I wasn’t smart enough to walk away when she warned me to. I need to know what happened to her.”

  He glares at me, his brow furrowed.

  “Are you accusing me of murdering that girl?”

  I shake my head and turn away. Nerves have gotten the best of me.

  “I don’t know what I'm accusing you of. I just thought you could help, but I guess I was wrong.” I stand from the plastic chair and head toward the exit.

  “I'm not a total lost cause,” he says before I can leave the room. I turn back and find him standing, arms folded.

  “What?”

  “She told me about the proposition she offered you to marry Adrian,” he says.

  “She told you?”

  “We weren’t just lovers, Cassandra. We were friends. Friends do confide in each other.”

  I turn back into the office, shutting the door behind me.

  “Did Vivian tell you anything or hint at something about Sasha,” I say.

  “Wait,” he says with laughter. “You think Vivian did this?”

  “I just want to do right by Sasha. Whatever happened to her out there, she didn’t deserve it.”

  He sighs and I can tell that somewhere hidden beneath his apathetic expression is an ounce of sympathy. He knows something.

  “I gave up on getting the truth from Vivian years ago. I don’t know what she’s thinking these days,” he says. “That worries me because there was a time when I could read her, you know? We were team.”

  “Do you love her?” I ask. “I mean—are you in love with her?”

  “Sometimes I think I am. Then I remember. Vivian will always be Vivian. I don’t think she’s capable of reciprocating love,” he says in a voice that suggests he’s learnt this lesson from experience.

  “Does Adrian know about you two?”

  He chuckles as if the mere mention of Adrian incites hilarity.

  “Vivian and I met because of Adrian,” he says. “Did she ever mention to you a place called the Carnal Chapel?”

  The skin on the nape of my neck tenses at the words. “She called it a sex club. Is that where you two met?” Of course it is. She’d mentioned it outright. I chose one of the men at the Chapel and made Adrian watch while I danced for him, she’d said. Adrian isn’t the jealous type. He wanted to me to go further…

  “You’re the man?” I ask. “The one Adrian ordered Vivian to have sex with. That’s you?”

  “That first night we met, I could tell she didn’t want to be there,” he says. “She looked nothing like any of the other woman that frequented the Chapel. She exuded innocence. Just Adrian’s type. Virginal and naïve. She was uncomfortable. Adrian didn’t care. He wanted what he wanted. Vivian just wanted to be noticed again, to feel loved and Adrian…he was too busy with his head up his ass to notice.”

  “Adrian told me that Vivian was the one that pulled away,” I say. “He said that she lost interest in him. I don’t know which of them is telling the truth about that and I don’t care. It has nothing to with Sasha. If you know anything, if Vivian mentioned anything, please just tell me.”

  He shakes his head and rubs his chin, giving the notion some real thought.

  “No,” he says. “Vivian is a lot of things, but she’d never resort to murder for no reason. Everything she does is calculated. There has to be some personal gain. Otherwise, she won’t waste her time. If you’re looking for someone to blame, why not Adrian? He has murdered before. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again?”

  Adrian has drugged women. Adrian has even admitted to some unusual kinks and the man is a bona fide alcoholic in denial. I can’t imagine him hurting Sasha. He seemed to like her. The two of them spoke only once and he appeared completely enthralled by her. He had no reason to want her dead…did he?

  “You really don’t like him, do you?” I ask.

  Carrack’s lips curl into a sneer. “Like him? I wish I’d killed that man when I had the chance.”

  I lean forward in my chair, white-knuckling the cushion.

  “What’d you say?”

  He blanches a shade whiter, eyes widened as if he’s just realized what he said.

  “You should leave now,” he mutters abruptly.

  I remain seated, convinced that I can sway this to work out in my favor.

  “Carrick,” I say. “It’s okay. I won’t—”

  “Get out of my office!” he snarls and jerks out of his chair. The pitch of his voice causes the office walls to tremble. Words lose themselves in my throat. I can’t speak. With him glaring at me, I don’t want to risk pissing him off any more than I already have.

  “Okay,” I say while holding my hands up as if he has a gun to my head. “I’ll leave. Just calm down.”

  His shoulders quiver. Fists tremble atop the desk. His eyes never leave me. They trail me to the door as I walk backwards toward it. I don’t want to turn my back on this guy. Once I’m outside, Carrick slams and locks the door behind me. I stand in a daze in t
he middle of the hallway, wondering what to do with myself next.

  After scurrying back to my car, I rummage for my phone. I can barely dial with my hands shaking so much. The phone rings. Once. Twice.

  “Hello?” Karen answers.

  “It’s Cassandra. I have a name you should look at. Jack Carrick.”

  She pauses and I hear her fingers clack against keyboard buttons. I imagine she’s at the police station behind her desk, guzzling her usual espresso with a splash of whiskey to take the edge off.

  “Is he anyone important?” she asks.

  “You said that your people questioned everyone at the gala. What about him?”

  “We checked everyone’s name against the invitations sent out for the party. His name never came up,” she says. “Vivian must have invited him under a pseudonym. Do you have any clue why she’d do that?”

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Jack Carrick and Vivian have been lovers for twenty years.”

  I hear Karen gag on her coffee. I imagine her doing a spit-take.

  “I don’t know how the hell this went under our radar,” she says. “I combed over every single detail about that woman!”

  “I just got done talking to Carrick. There’s something weird about him, Karen. I don’t know what it is, but something is weird.”

  “How ‘weird’ are we talking?” she asks.

  “I don’t know much about him. All I have is that he’s been Vivian’s physician since she was diagnosed with cancer,” I say. “He hates Adrian. And he was really adamant about not discussing it. If you’re looking for a suspect, check him out.”

  “Alright. I’ll call you back if we get any more information,” she says. “Oh and Cassandra?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s best that you keep these conversations between the two of us,” she says. “I’m not authorized to work this case. Technically, neither are you. I’d catch hell if anyone found out I'm allowing a civilian to conduct vigilante work on behalf of the police. If the wrong people find out then—”

  “I know,” I say. “I’ll do all of the footwork. You just handle the technical aspects.”

  “Cassandra, just make sure you watch yourself, okay? You’re not trained for any of this. Don’t overexert yourself and do not confront any of these people until you’ve called me first. Understand?”