Private Investigation

by Aidèe Jaimes

  Licking her lips, she says, “You’re always trying to figure me out. But you know, I want to know about you too.”

  “Like what?”

  “I see the weight of guilt in your eyes. Have since the first time I saw you. Tell me what troubles you. Do you blame yourself for Lena’s death?”

  The fork clanks against the white porcelain plate as I set it down. “It’s not her death I blame myself for. That falls squarely on the shoulders of the idiot that came into the wrong house looking for his coke dealer. God, when I think of how terrified she must have been, it makes me want to break into his prison cell and tear him apart with my bare hands.”

  Her eyes widen. “They caught him?”

  “Yes. My dog, Titus, nearly killed him. Chewed up his legs and hands so badly that he has limited functionality. Our tax dollars pay for his physical therapy, by the way.”

  “Titus. I like that name,” she says with a slight smile.

  “Lena named him. He died the following year. Spleen cancer. It was quick.”

  “I have a dog too,” she tells me. “Her name is Sasha.”

  “The German shepherd?” The question is out before I can stop it.

  Her brows pinch together as she considers it. “Did I tell you about her already?”

  “I… Yeah, I guess you did.”

  “So if it’s not Lena’s death you blame yourself for, what is it?” she asks, picking up a green bean and sucking it in like a spaghetti noodle.

  “Everything else. My restlessness that made me unable to stay put, to be content with what we had. My need for something more. The fact that she didn’t want to go to New York but I made her because it was what I needed. The five-minute walk that turned into fifteen minutes. Thinking that because I taught her self-defense, she’d have a chance. I convinced her to learn how to handle a firearm. She did. And the investigation concluded that she tried to get to the gun. That’s where I found her, near the safe. But there was no hope with that man right at her heels. Lena tried to save herself the way I told her to.”

  Eva’s hand covers mine. “It wasn’t your fault. Every day we do the best we can. There’s no way to predict how our actions will impact our lives. The lives around us.”

  “Is that what you tell yourself too?”

  Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, she looks up at me. “I don’t tell myself anything.”

  “Easier said than done?”

  “Mmm.” She gets the last forkful of fish and offers it to me. “You have this.”

  I take the bite. “Thank you. I’m going to shower.” Bending down, I kiss the top of her head. I need to leave the room. The atmosphere has gotten too heavy. Ever since I started this case, Eva has consumed my every waking thought and crept into my dreams. The whispers have all but gone.

  But talking about Lena, bringing her back into my mind, makes my stomach constrict in that way it always does. The muscles in my neck bunch up with the weight of my guilt, knowing that what Eva says is true but unable to let it go.

  And I want to let go.

  The rather cool shower slows my thoughts, little by little washing away the anxiety. When I come out, she’s waiting on the bed for me. I lie beside her in just the towel wrapped around my waist.

  “Do you need something to wear?” she asks.

  “Can I just wear you?”

  She sits up, throwing off her shirt. There’s nothing underneath. My eyes roam her body, following the path of my hand over her soft breasts that tickle my palm and down the curve of her belly and hip. Leaning forward, I take a nipple into my mouth as she undoes the knot on the towel, opening it to expose me.

  Straddling me, she rubs her core over my shaft to wet it. Then when I bring her down to me, kissing her, the flame is stoked, and within moments, we’re lost in our own world. It isn’t a gentle fuck, but it’s not just a fuck either. There’s so much more to it. As she impales herself on my cock and I feel the tightness of her take me in, we become one, beyond the physical.

  I flip her over onto her back and pound into her, our eyes never straying from each other. It’s a needful union, the kind where you know you’ve met your match in more ways than one and the sex is an act of merging. I want to be a part of her as much as she’s becoming a part of me.

  When she reaches her climax, I push her legs back until she’s nearly bent in half, making sure that the head of my dick runs across her G-spot with every deep stroke. Her hands grasp the pillow over her head as she stiffens and screams. The way she looks, lost in her ecstasy, and knowing that I put her there, pushes me into my own orgasm. I drive into her harder until there’s nothing left of me.

  Falling to her side, I pull her to me. “Do you feel it, Eva?”

  “What?” she breathes out.

  “I’m not sure what it’s called. I’ve never felt it before.”

  She says nothing for a few seconds. Then, “Yes. I feel it.”

  “How do I go back to living without it?”

  “You just do, taking this as a sweet memory. And when you find someone, you know that if you felt it once, you might feel it again.”

  I say nothing. The thing is, I know no one else will ever make me feel the way Eva has.

  Chapter 23

  A strange buzz, followed by the wind at my face as the creature takes off, wakes me.

  “Fucker!” I slap my upper lip, knowing full well the mosquito got what it wanted. Instantly, the area stiffens and itches from the swelling. “Enjoy it, little bitch, ’cause if I ever come back, I’m bug-bombing this place!”

  I look at my watch. Eight in the morning. I’ve slept for at least seven hours. A smile lifts the corners of my mouth as I think about the reason. It has to be Eva. Finding her has been the reprieve my tired soul has been searching for. She’s the oxygen this dying man needed.

  When I reach over, the bed is empty. But her scent is still there. I bring her pillow to my face and inhale the sweet, subtle femininity she left behind. There will never be enough, not with her. My body will always want more. Even now, I start getting hard for her.

  And my heart… She’s in it. Somehow, she’s been in it longer than I’ve been aware. Even before I met her, she was there. Her tattered soul calls to mine. She’s its mate. I know it with every fiber of my being.

  I want to tell her that I love her, and I want to do it right this second.

  My heart in my throat, I jump out of bed, calling out to Eva.

  When she doesn’t answer, I notice that she’s outside, cleaning out the boat and everything we used last night. Erasing evidence of our stay here.

  “Hey,” she says as I step out. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Better than I have ever, possibly.”

  “Good.” She steps up to me, kissing me on the cheek. It’s not the act itself that alerts me to the fact something has changed. It’s the coldness I feel coming from her. A sort of aloofness.

  “Can I help you?” I look around, seeing that everything has already been done.

  “Nah. You go get showered.” She pushes me toward the bathroom, where I rinse off quickly.

  When I finish, she’s waiting for me in the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” I watch her as she pours it for me, observing the reflexive manner I know all too well. It’s what happens when the mind detaches from all emotion. The movements are automatic. “What time do we need to be out of here?”

  “Soon. I’ll be leaving in about twenty minutes.”

  Surprised, I say, “Oh. That is soon. I wish you would’ve woken me.”

  She shrugs with strange indifference. “You looked like you needed the rest. Though I thought about it when I remembered what you said about not paying me to sleep.”

  “I thought this wasn’t for money.”

  She takes a sip of her coffee, setting it down to add more sugar. “It’s not. Sorry, bad joke. Anyway, I was thinking a lot last night about our conversation yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  “You
’re right. Everything you said. What I’m doing is wrong. I have enough money; there’s no reason for me to continue. And I love my husband. If he ever found out, I’d lose him. So I decided that the best thing for me is to go home and stay home. It’s the best thing for me,” she repeats, nodding.

  My breathing pattern changes as I listen to her, and there’s a clear heating of my face as the blood rushes there. She wants to stay with her husband? “I’m a bit confused.”

  “There’s nothing to be confused about, Matt. Everything I said about Peter is true. We did have financial problems. He didn’t handle it well. But we don’t anymore. I can’t be in this business forever without consequences. The price may be too high for me to pay. Because of you, I see that now.”

  “So your husband isn’t the one who’s making you miserable? What about the horrible thing that’s tormented you?”

  She looks down at her hands. “By that, I meant what I’ve become. It’s horrible.”

  “And just like that, you’re done.”

  “I’ve been wanting to do it, but I needed that nudge. You’ve given it to me. Thank you for saving me.” Coming to sit beside me, she wraps her arms around me. I feel a slight tremble, but I can’t tell if it’s coming from her or from me.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just promise me something, Matt.”

  “What?”

  “Let go. I know you want to. When I’m gone, don’t turn back to her. Be free.”

  I pat her arm because I can’t speak. There’s a huge lump constricting my throat, choking the life out of me. Tears sting my eyes, desperate to be shed, but I hold them back.

  “Well, we should go. Unless you want to stay a little longer,” she says.

  I shake my head.

  “Okay.”

  After I grab my things, I follow her out. When I open her car door, she stands there for a moment, then pushes up on her toes and kisses me sweetly on the lips. “Take care, Matt.”

  “You too, Eva Jean.”

  She smiles at me as I close the door.

  Walking to my car feels like I’m going to my death. To a hollow grave.

  I go first, watching through the rearview mirror as she follows me out the narrow drive. The road seems longer than it did yesterday, knowing that she’s behind me the entire time. When we get to I-75, she goes south and I head north.

  As she fades from view, the sound of my heart breaking fills my ears. I clear my throat and try to dispel the pain that the emptiness she’s left has caused.

  She wants to leave the business. Be with her family. Isn’t that what I wanted her to do? I wanted her to be happy, to resolve whatever sadness fills her eyes. And that’s exactly what she’s doing. Now my job will be to make sure her husband never finds out about her secret.

  Ember can go down for all I care. Now I can hand them over, knowing that Eva is safe from their grasp.

  Everything will be as it should be. If only I could convince my heart of that. Instead, it hurts to think that I’ve lost her, that I couldn’t hold on to her. She will never again be mine. If she ever was. It was her job to make me believe everything she said. And I did, even when I knew it was all a lie.

  Chapter 24

  Ten hours, twenty-five minutes, and eight seconds. That’s how long my arms have been empty. That’s how long I’ve missed her.

  Sitting here, looking through picture after picture, deciding what will go on the final report we’re sending to Mr. Cage, I wish I was still there. Still at Heaven’s Gate with her. I wish I could take her away from him, keep her to myself. Be the one who makes the blue of her eyes return, chasing away some of the gray.

  Hundreds of pictures of her are all here, ready to go at the click of a button. But with the click of another button, all could be deleted.

  “Fuck!” A call interrupts my inner debate. Anger fills my voice when I answer, “What!”

  “What the fuck bit you this morning?” Justin asks, sounding just as pissed.

  “Sorry, I’ve had a rough day.”

  “Well, I’m about to make it worse. I need that report. You were supposed to send it to me no later than eight last night.”

  “I’m getting it ready now,” I tell my brother.

  “Where were you, by the way? I stopped by your place.”

  “Still in Naples.”

  He huffs critically. “I’m not covering the room. You were supposed to be out of there by Friday.”

  “I know. Chill. I’ll ask Dad to approve it.”

  “The hell you will!” His voice booms through the phone, though I’m already expecting it and hold it away from my ear.

  “I’m joking. I got it, don’t worry. It’s just… I had something to finish.”

  “So is Mrs. Cage getting some action behind her husband’s back?”

  “I…” I’m at a total loss for what I should say. If I lie, I could be putting Grayson Investigations at risk for a lawsuit. Fuck, I already put us at risk to lose our license by doing what I did with Eva.

  I want to tell him. He’s my older brother. Justin has always had my back, even when he wanted to kick my ass himself.

  “Matt, I can tell something’s wrong. Are you in trouble?”

  “No. Give me thirty minutes. I’ll send it to you,” I assure him.

  “Be sure that you do.”

  After I hang up, I click on the document. “Message sent,” it reads, and it takes me only a second to realize I hit the send button instead of the small garbage can. “No!”

  Fuck! I go to my outbox, hoping that deleting it there will stop it from going to Justin. It doesn’t. My phone rings again.

  He doesn’t wait for my greeting. “What the fuck am I looking at?” I can hear him mumbling as he reads the report, day by day. “What the fuck is Ember? Prostitutes? Matt!”

  “If you’d let me talk, I could explain.”

  “You said you didn’t find anything. This looks like a fucking lot of something!” he yells.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “You didn’t know how to tell me what?”

  “Mrs. Cage is a prostitute.”

  The line goes silent. There’s no breathing. No sniffling, no swallowing. Nothing to give away he’s there. But I know he is.

  “Justin.”

  “So you’re telling me Mr. Cage’s wife is a prostitute?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t consider telling me this when you first found out, says here, last week!”

  I yank on my hair, damning myself for it all. “I wanted to get confirmation before I got anyone in trouble.”

  “Shit. I’m thinking I’ll let you pass that one on to our client.”

  “I don’t want to tell him. Mr. Cage can’t find out about this,” I say seriously.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? He has to know. I’d fucking want to know if my wife was out whoring around!”

  “I don’t know. Something tells me it’s going to end very badly for her if we do. And she’s decided to quit. They just fell into some bad times. But she’s done now.”

  “Is she? How can you be sure?”

  “She seemed sincere.” And I have to believe her.

  “God, how can someone with kids do that? How’d you figure it out? Was she standing on some sidewalk?” The way he asks it demeans her and sets me on edge.

  “No. The Ember Jewelry Company is the front. A friend owns it.”

  “Did you look up the business?” he asks.

  “Yes. It all checked out. It’s under a woman named Elizabeth McWilliams. She lived on the same street as the Cages, but now she’s relocated to somewhere in Bonita Springs. I didn’t find any other connection, so they must still be friends.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, mulling over what I’ve said. “And a Bentley picked her up? Guess she’s not your common hooker.”

  “She’s not.”

  “The pictures are still loading. Hold on, I think they’re do—” He stops mid
sentence, and I can surmise what he’s seeing. Eva. “What the fuck? Is this some fucking joke?”

  “No,” I answer flatly.

  “This is Lena.”

  “That’s Eva Cage. Lena is in none of those photographs. Look at the eyes.”

  An audible gasp escapes him. “Holy shit. Shit, shit, shit! Oh my God. This is exactly why you decided to handle the case, isn’t it?”

  “I had to see her.”

  “Fuck. This entire case is compromised. You should have told me from the start. I would never have allowed you to take it on.”

  “I’m glad you did, Justin. She needed my help.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? She needs to go to jail. And her husband needs to know.”

  “The fuck he does!” I yell. “He’s the reason she turned to this in the first place. He admitted it himself. Because of him she felt there was no way out. She was trapped in a marriage where her husband emotionally tortured her. He lorded over her, took away any feeling of control.”

  “No one is trapped in a marriage.”

  “She thought she’d lose her kids. You get that, don’t you? What the idea of losing your kids can do?” I ask it because I know if there’s anything Justin can understand, it’s the fear of losing his kids.

  “Did you talk to her? How did you find out about all of this? Matt, answer me. Did you have any sort of communication with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck me!” he curses.

  “She needed help, and I needed to be the one who gave it to her.”

  “Matt, listen to me. Whatever sob story she gave you, it’s all bullshit. She’s the one who cheated. Now it’s our job to tell her husband she’s not having just one affair, but who the fuck knows how many. Hundreds?”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t want to share it with you. I knew you’d be too concerned about doing the right thing to worry about someone’s feelings.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the feelings of a prostitute. But I do give a fuck about you. And to know she’s somehow twisted you into believing her pisses me the fuck off. I want her in jail.” His breathing is ragged, erratic.