by Kristen Lane
It didn’t take long for a nervous Adrianne to spill the beans as to why she had called him, amongst many other things. “I don’t know where to start,” she stuttered and Michael placed a reassuring hand on top of hers from across the table. “Start at the beginning,” he told her calmly, playing the part of her friend and confidant. She told him everything, starting with the fight she had with her husband earlier that night. She had confronted Timothy about where he was the night that Maria was murdered and how did someone just waltz into her apartment when he was the only other person with the key. It didn’t take long for Mr. Preco to figure out that Adrianne had spoken with the police and he became enraged with her. She explained that at first she had never doubted her husband’s innocence, but after she had spoken with Michael she had questions and she certainly did not expect her husband to react as violently as he did.
“Did he hurt you?” Michael asked, genuinely concerned. Adrianne shook her head no, explaining that he had tried to but that she fled and called him from the car before her husband had the chance to. She said she had never seen Timothy this angry before and it seriously made her fear for her life. Adrianne also admitted that their marriage was less than perfect, not at all like the media depicted. Timothy Preco was an abusive and neglectful husband, treating Adrianne more like his property and as if she were disposable, than as the wife he had once claimed to love. She spoke of violent outbursts and rampant cheating and then she dropped the bombshell that Michael had been looking for.
In her descriptiveness of Mr. Preco’s neglect and tendency to ignore her, she mentioned that he often hid himself away in a secret bachelor pad he kept just outside of Beverly Hills. This was news to Michael, who had thought he had been thorough in his research and investigation of Mr. Preco. Adrianne explained that Michael had not been able to find it as one Timothy Preco’s listed residences because he had illegally obtained the lease through a false name. She then produced a copy of the fraudulent lease to Michael, which she claimed to have taken from her and her husband’s bedroom safe.
This was more than a break in the case, this might very well be the piece of the puzzle Michael needed to solve the murder of Maria Constantine entirely. He still didn’t feel confident in confiding in his Captain, who more than likely would be unreachable until morning anyway. Michael realized that he could not very well send Adrianne on her way, if her husband was indeed a murderer then Mrs. Preco was in peril, as well as now becoming one of the key witnesses in the case. Michael was sure the answers he needed could be found in Timothy Preco’s bachelor pad. All he had to do was patch one phone call through to a judge, who happened to be an old friend of his father’s, and Michael would have the warrant he needed to search the place first thing in the morning.
In the meantime, his focus had to be on keeping Mrs. Preco safe until her husband was locked away securely behind bars. Although, if Mr. Preco’s reputation held true and he was as awful as his wife made him out to be, his reach extended far beyond the prison walls. Adrianne could very well be forced to live a life of constantly having to look over her shoulder, as could Michael. He knew how big the risks he was taking were, but he also knew when he looked into Adrianne’s scared, yet grateful eyes that it was the right thing to do.
Michael doubted that the former wife of a billionaire would be content in staying the night, or possibly longer in a no name motel, but he knew anywhere four stars or better would instantly recognize her face. Adrianne confirmed this by telling Michael that she had in fact frequented almost every upscale hotel in the state, bashfully admitting that sometimes she needed a place to run away from her life and her husband as well. The next best place that Michael could think of was his house. Liam was staying overnight at Mrs. Arthur’s and it was definitely the last place anyone would ever think to look for her.
Much to Michael’s surprise, Adrianne didn’t put up a protest or even so much as murmur a complaint. She went willingly with Michael as if he were truly her knight in shining armor, he supposed in some way that he was. He came up with the idea to park her car in a local garage nearby, that way it would be off the streets and out of the immediate view of anyone Mr. Preco might send out after her. Although it would be rather foolish for Adrianne’s husband to try anything while she was in the company of a detective, Michael would still love to collar this creep on any charge he could get, even if it was only temporarily for a domestic disturbance. He would pull out the big guns tomorrow and be able to charge him with the murder of Maria Constantine.
They took Michael’s car back to his house, and both seemed surprisingly at ease in each other’s company. There were no awkward silences or the normal disconnection he felt with anyone ever involved in one of his cases before. Adrianne acted just as she had the first time she met Michael, completely at ease as if they were old friends. Michael made it back to his place in record time, feeling more alert and energetic than he had in a long time. It felt almost as if he had a purpose in life again and he was beginning to wonder if that purpose was Adrianne. She had certainly calmed down tremendously since she had been in Michael’s company, he wondered if she was beginning to feel an attraction towards him as well. Michael had never really thought of being with any other woman since meeting Linda, and especially not since she had gone. Love was a sore spot for him and a wound that was still far from healing. He could be misreading her flirtatious manner all together in his desperation and loneliness, some people were just flirty in nature, especially rich bored housewives he presumed.
It didn’t take Adrianne but thirty minutes of being inside Michael’s home to make her intentions very clear to him. He was changing the sheets in his bedroom, giving Adrianne the master bedroom with her own bathroom and shower for privacy. He was planning to bunk it on Liam’s bedroom floor for the night. While Michael had his back turned and was bent over the bed changing the sheets, she crept quietly into the room. Michael would have been startled when he turned around and saw that she was suddenly there, had Adrianne not been standing completely in the nude and wearing only her black high heels. He supposed that he wasn’t just reaching out for a woman’s affection out of desperation, but that Adrianne had practically been throwing it at him since the day that they had met.
Linda had always been a bit of a goody two shoes and a prude, even after they had been married several years. Not to say that she wasn’t hot, she definitely was, but she lacked excitement to put it politely. She would never do something as bold as put herself out there and prance into their bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of black stilettos. Adrianne had to be the sexiest thing he had ever seen and Michael’s masculine instincts took over. He marched over to Adrianne, pulling her roughly into the bedroom. She gasped and let out a small squeal, pretending she was frightened, but by the look on her face Michael could tell she liked it very much. He was a very good judge of character typically, and he had hit the nail on the head when he assumed that proper Adrianne Preco was a very bad girl in disguise.
Michael moved Adrianne towards the foot of the bed, standing behind her with her back facing him. He ran his hand up the small of her back, pushing her downwards until she was bent over the bed with her rear end up in the air. He delivered one good hard smack to her bottom, causing Adrianne to squeal again, this time in obvious pleasure. He smacked her again and again, enjoying the sight of his red hand print on her firm and round buttocks. Michael gently kicked Adrianne’s legs further apart with his feet, making her hold her spread open position while he undressed himself. He could already see her body shaking with desire but he wanted to punish his bad girl just they way she had been craving all along.
Rubbing his fingers slowly against her, Michael found Adrianne to already be wet and ready for him, just after only her spanking. Still he teased her with his hands, watching her struggle to maintain her balance as her legs quivered and she was on the brink of release. “Do you want me inside you?” he asked with a primal growl to his voice. “Yes” Adrianne replied, her voice also sha
king. “Beg for it” he instructed her, delivering another hard smack to her behind. “Please!” she practically screamed, no longer able to hold herself up on her heels.
Michael flipped Adrianne over onto her back with strength and ease that only seemed to turn her on even more. Placing both of her legs on his shoulders, Michael plunged deep into Adrianne, causing her to explode around him. He pumped himself deeper and harder with every thrust, never letting up his speed or intensity. She was screaming so loudly Michael had to put a hand over her mouth because he was afraid she would wake the neighbors.
He watched as Adrianne’s eyes practically rolled back in her head from pure ecstasy before Michael found his own release. Slamming himself deeply inside her and causing her body to tremble as she clung tightly to him. Michael knew what he and Adrianne had done was a mistake and that it could never happen again, the mere fact that she was at his house could jeopardize the entire case against her husband, let alone if anyone found out that they were sleeping together. Yet, something about being with her and being inside of her just felt so right. If their pillow talk that night was of any indication, Adrianne felt just as strongly for Michael in some unexplainable and cosmic way. Michael knew deep down in his heart that this would not be the last time that they were together or made love. He hadn’t been able to get Adrianne out of his mind since the moment that he had met her and it had very little to do with her husband being a murder suspect or even his case. Michael had tried to fool himself into thinking he was playing a game of cat and mouse with Mrs. Preco as a means to get information from her about her husband. In truth he had been falling for her and her for him all along.
There was only one solution to their problem, and they both knew that quitting each other wasn’t it. Michael placed the necessary phone calls first thing in the morning and executed the warrant to search Timothy Preco’s secret apartment. Michael had felt sure that whatever the apartment contained would put the nail in Mr. Preco’s coffin, but he had never expected the case to practically solve itself from the moment the police opened the front door. Everything was there, as if someone were serving the LAPD the forensic evidence it had been searching for on a silver platter. The landlord was a recent immigrant from China, which explained why he had no idea who Mr. Preco was despite the fact that he regularly made the papers and tabloids almost every week. Hidden in a hamper in the closet was Mr. Preco’s bloodied clothes along with a pair of blood splattered running shoes, all in his size and having previously belonged to him. They even were able to find and identify the murder weapon, which he had not bothered to wash the blood off of before shoving it under the sink in the kitchen. Never in his years as a detective had Michael seen such a difficult case, suddenly so easily solved, but a victory was a victory and he had Adrianne to thank. He would be doing a double justice by protecting her from her psychopath of a husband and by locking him away for Maria Constantine’s murder.
Timothy Preco was in police custody within the hour and that was about the same time the media began to swarm the station. Instead of the heat he expected for bringing down one of the biggest and baddest politicians in LA, Michael was pleased to find his Captain enthralled by the arrest. The media had a very similar reaction, praising Michael for his extraordinary police work in single handedly taking down a heartless murderer.
It all felt like a dream to Michael, like the dream he had been chasing all of his life and had finally achieved. Michael had opened his heart much sooner than he had expected, and he had let the light and positivity in. Everything good that had happened to him in the past few weeks he all owed to one woman and once chance encounter. Michael began to wonder if it had been Linda holding him back all of these years, if she had in fact been the jealous one in control some figurative voodoo doll that brought him bad luck. The moment he returned home that night, Michael pulled out the enveloped that Linda had mailed to him now nearly six months ago. Without so much as a second thought or hesitation, Michel scribbled his name on the bottom of each form, officially finalizing his divorce once he dropped the envelope in the mailbox. Michael wasn’t exactly sure what his life would bring after he had finally achieved his goals of becoming one of his precinct’s top and most honored detectives. All that he knew was that he was now faced with a much brighter and better future for both him and for his son.
Conclusion
Linda had may not been able to see it, but everything Michael did was for his family and most importantly his son. He had learned at a very young age from his father that hard work and dedication make for a better man. Michael wanted Liam to look up to him, just as he had always looked up to his own dad. He finally felt like he had a reason to hold his head up high and have the honors of walking in his father’s footsteps, and this was only the beginning of his hopefully great career.
Michael had been right about him and Adrianne being unable to quit each other, in fact that could hardly keep their hands off of each other. They still couldn’t go public with their relationship but neither of them minded, they were too content and seemingly in love to care what the outside world thought or knew. Michael and Adrianne were in their own little world and she had graciously accepted Liam into her circle too. Adrianne decided to continue to raise her ex-husband’s love child, whom she adopted as her own and renamed Isabelle. Together the four of them made the perfect family. Michael couldn’t stop thinking over and over again in his mind just how perfectly everything had turned out.
That was in fact exactly the same thing that while it brought Michael and his son great happiness and not to mention financial benefits, bothered him the most. Everything was almost seemingly too perfect, as if it all had been a part of a plan, but whose plan exactly? He knew what his faults were in his previous marriage and that he was far from a perfect man, so Michael often wondered what exactly Adrianne had seen in him. He had rescued many young woman from stressful and dangerous situations before, none of which had then thrown themselves at his feet practically begging to be his. Adrianne seemed to have put all of her cards out on the table too soon, as well as had fallen for Michael maybe a bit too soon. He wondered if her feelings were sincere or if there was some sort of hidden agenda all along.
Michael tried to dismiss such thoughts in his mind as just paranoia and a lack of self confidence, but the more he thought about it, the less anything in his recent past seemed to make sense. He was pretty positive that he had fallen for the rouse of a beautiful young vixen, who was not as sweet and innocent as she pretended to be. The closer he became to Adrianne, the more he could see her manipulative and persuasive tendencies. Yet still she clung to him desperately, dragging him in deeper into their relationship and in love with her.
There were so many other things that made no sense and he felt like a fool for jumping the gun in the heat of the moment. He had been so hell bent on solving this case and playing savior for Adrianne that he hadn’t even thought about how easily the evidence just seemed to fall into his lap. All with a small slip of the tongue from Mr. Preco’s ex-wife, Adrianne who had been the person to tip off Michael to Mr. Preco’s bachelor pad. She was also the sole person in control of his vast fortune, having won everything in the divorce due to the fact that her ex-husband was assumed to be a deranged maniac who had also tried to kill her as well as murdered his lover.
Michael had forgotten his morals as well as his cardinal rule. He always went over every single detail of a case as if it were his first and he was a rookie, leaving no room for mistakes. Instead he had taken the information that was fed to him at face value, doing no actual investigation of his own. It was very well possible that Adrianne would also have access to a copy of the key to Maria’s apartment, seeing as Mr. Preco more than likely kept it somewhere in the house they had shared together. Even if he had kept it on his most of the time, Michael doubted that the man wore his key ring in his sleep.
On one hand his career had hit heights he couldn’t even previously imagine, he had a beautiful woman by his side and a stab
le home for Liam. His son nor himself would ever want for anything in life and in the end that’s all that Michael had ever really wanted. On the other hand, the deeper Michael dove into the facts, the more positive he was that he had indeed arrested the wrong man for the murder of Maria Constantine. Michael was sure that the killer had been none other than Adrianne herself, who then cruelly and calculatingly implicated her husband in the crime.
Michael was torn as to what to do with his revelation. His mind told him to be the good cop he had always been and admit to his mistake but his heart felt for Adrianne. He had witnessed firsthand the pain and devastation of being cheated on by his spouse and he had come to know Adrianne in very intimate ways. She was not an evil person, just hurt and wounded and in a moment of poor judgment and rage, she had acted out. Her crime was a crime of passion, she had sought revenge on her husband for ripping out her heart by destroying his, beginning with his beloved mistress and ending with his freedom and his wealth. Had Michael not wished he could do the same to Linda, and was he not in fact guilty of the same crime, even if it were committed in a different manner? Michael sat in the driveway of his new estate that he now shared with Adrianne, behind the wheel of his very own Ferrari she had gifted to him, wondering to himself what path his new life and new beginnings would wind him up on in the end.
