by Julia Derek
“You’re right. I can’t. And I won’t.” A plan had begun to occur to me, quickly becoming clearer in my mind. “I have a plan.”
“Really? What’s your plan? If you don’t have one, I’m coming over there.”
I chuckled at the determination in his voice. It was sweet and exactly what I needed to hear right now. I was not alone. If I needed help here in NYC, all I needed to do was call Dante or George, both equally important to me for different reasons. But I knew what to do now. It was really quite simple. “I’m just gonna ask him straight out why he’s sending me those sick texts. Tell him I’m onto him and that I’ll go to the cops and turn him in if he doesn’t cut it out.”
“What? How’s that gonna help? He’ll never buy you’ll do that when he knows how much you wanna find Nick’s killers. You have more to lose than him. He’ll blow your cover.”
“I won’t actually go to the police. But whether I do or not, I’ll still get what I want. I don’t think he’s so good he’ll be able to play stupid if I confront him suddenly.”
“That’s probably true—you should be able to tell by his reaction if he did it. It’s not a bad idea... Just make sure you do it somewhere public in case he throws a fit.”
“I doubt he’ll throw a fit. He’s not the type to do such a thing.” I wasn’t nearly as sure about that as I’d made myself sound. For all I knew, Ian might very well throw a fit.
“Maybe not. Still, make sure there are others around when you do it. You don’t really know this guy. Don’t take any chances.”
“I won’t.”
We spoke more about him and Ricki and everyone else back in L.A. before we hung up.
I stretched out on the couch, feeling a lot better after having spoken to Dante. I knew he’d have such a relaxing effect on me. I’d also known I would come up with a solution to the situation with Ian while talking to him.
I would definitely confront the Brit about it as soon as I got a chance.
***
The following morning I had Channel One on in the background as I was getting ready to go to work. As expected, New York City’s 24-hour news station spent several minutes on the latest developments in the Upper West Side rape wave—well, the final development. Instead of looking for the rapist, the NYPD was now on the hunt for the mysterious woman who had saved the last victim and shot the elusive sex offender.
Again, there was that bad sketch of me on the screen, reinforcing my confidence I had nothing to worry about it looked so little like me. Though I would definitely make it a point never to wear a baseball cap anywhere in public from now on. At least not a Red Sox one.
Pulling on my black tights, I sat on the edge of my couch and took in what the anchor was reporting regarding the dead rapist. His name was Jeremy Perez and he was a 31-year-old Ph.D. student from New Jersey with no criminal record. He was single with no children and few friends. He was an only child and his parents were both dead, having emigrated from Mexico many years ago. The rest of Jeremy’s family was apparently all back in Mexico still.
There was no mention of how he had managed to outwit the NYPD for so long, nor how he had gotten into the buildings of the victims. Nothing about the perp having climbed the wall like Spider-Man. And certainly nothing about a potential accomplice still being out there.
I’d have to ask Ian about what was in the police report regarding Jeremy Perez. Surely the NYPD must have found out from the doorman that I’d seen the perp climb into the bedroom from outside the building. Not that I thought they’d actually state that he had climbed the wall like Spider-Man—that he possessed unnatural powers—but instead write it off like I had simply thought I’d seen it. Which was understandable. Not even I was sure I believed that’s what really happened despite seeing it with my own eyes. As time went on, the less convinced I became. It had been dark out, so my eyes could have played a trick on me.
That seemed more likely than Jeremy Perez being a human spider.
When the newscast moved on to a fire in Queens, I stood up and found my sneakers. In a few hours I would see Ian for a session and then I would for sure learn more about the man I had shot and killed. I had no doubts Ian had already devoured the latest police report.
I had decided not to confront him about the texts until I had learned everything there was to learn about Jeremy Perez. Read the police reports written about him with my own eyes, not just take Ian’s words for what was in them. To do that I would need to be in Ian’s apartment. Something told me he wouldn’t mind having me there again.
The moment we had shared after finishing dinner at his house a few days ago returned to me and all of a sudden I was warm and mushy on the inside, delirious like I was high on drugs. I could almost feel his hot breath against my mouth, an inch away from mine. I remembered how much I had wanted him to kiss me and how hard it had been to remove myself from him in his hallway, open the door and leave.
I sighed and shook myself to make those disturbing feelings go away. I really was fucked up, being so attracted to thugs and men who might be out to hurt me.
I welcomed the chilly breeze that met me as I stepped out of my apartment building, the cold drizzle that hit my face as I walked along Columbus Avenue. It was just what I needed to distract myself from more thoughts of Ian about to kiss me.
As I got closer to Nikkei, my plan to confront him had morphed into a better one. It was much smarter to be subtle about the texts first, pretend like I thought someone else—perhaps a disgruntled male in my life—was harassing me and see how Ian reacted. If that didn’t yield anything, I could always confront him as initially planned.
I wasn’t a bad actress. I could easily pull off acting like I was convinced the person texting me was some weirdo I’d refused to train and therefore had an ax to grind.
The more I considered doing this, the more content I was having thought of it. I would carefully watch Ian’s facial expressions as I did so and maybe I’d learn additional useful information about him, things I hadn’t expected. At this point I was prepared for anything.
I was glad I had a few hours before I would see him so I could fine-tune how to break the news about the texts. I’d roam the floors at the club before, which would allow me plenty of time to think. I would also talk to more people to see if I could finally learn something new to help my own, seriously stalled investigation.
But of course I didn’t learn anything new. It was beginning to get on my nerves. Really, the only lead I’d gotten so far was what Ian had told me about Adler and that didn’t count for much for obvious reasons.
He was already waiting for me when I came out of the trainers’ lounge a couple of minutes before noon, the time we had decided to train. Wearing a blue T-shirt and dark athletic shorts, he was leaning against the fitness desk, looking like any other guy at the gym. Well, one of the better-looking ones. Ian was definitely one of the club’s hotties and that said a lot about him, considering that most of the current trainers were drop dead gorgeous. But Ian had a certain air about him—an air of old money and aristocracy—that set him apart from the trainers.
He was one of a kind, for better or for worse.
He turned around to face me just as I was about to say hello. He hadn’t bothered to shave for the last couple of days, resulting in him having a thin beard now. It made me think of the first time I saw him in the cafeteria, glowering at me. Scruffy beard or not, he still appeared as blue-blooded as always, I noted. And attractive.
“Well, hello there,” he said and smiled wide.
I returned his smile, automatically repressing the annoying excitement that suddenly shot through me. “Hi, how are you? Have you recovered from our last workout?”
“Yeah, I’m feeling great and ready to push it today. Whatever you want me to do, I’m game.”
“Let’s go down to the third floor,” I said and began walking in that direction. He joined me and we descended the stairs together. I was about to tell him that I had re
ceived some very nasty texts lately, but before I could get the words out of my mouth, he spoke in a quiet voice. “I read the final police report about Jeremy Perez this morning. Wanna know what it said?”
“Yes, of course.” I threw a glance behind me just to make sure we were alone. We were.
“The detective filing it claims he used hooks to get up the building. And that that was how he got into the other two high rises as well."
I turned to look at Ian. Hooks? Was he kidding me? It certainly hadn’t looked that way.
“It’s true,” he confirmed. “It’s obviously a lie, but you already knew that. You’re welcome to come over to my place and read the report for yourself.”
“I would love to do that. When can I come?”
“How about tonight?”
I thought about what my evening looked like and quickly concluded that I had nothing on my schedule. “Okay, I’ll come over tonight. I can bring some take-out since you cooked dinner last time.” I wasn’t sure why I had offered that, but it was too late now.
Ian grinned. “Sounds like an excellent idea.”
“What would you like? Maybe sushi?”
“Sushi would be great. I’ll make sure we have some sake to wash it down with. That is, I’ll be washing it down with some sake at least. You can watch me while I do it.” He nudged me.
“I might have a sip as well,” I said just to humor him. “You know, to celebrate that we got the bastard. What did the NYPD say about me? Something I should worry about?”
“Not really. There isn’t much said about you except that you’re a woman in your early twenties about five eight and 130 pounds. I know a man shouldn’t ask a woman’s age, but I don’t think you’re in your early twenties any longer. Am I correct?”
“That’s okay. I’m not. I’m in my late twenties now. But I guess me wearing gym clothes together with the Red Sox hat made me appear younger. And that’s a good thing.”
“It sure is.”
We entered the functional training area on the third floor. As we walked toward the TRX frame so I could have him warm up, a moment of silence ensued. Now was as good a time as any to bring up the nasty texts. But I would let him get going with the squat rows before I began talking about it. I told him to grab the TRX strap handles and start moving.
When he was about five repetitions into the set, I spoke in a low voice as there were some trainers working with clients only a few feet away. The music coming from the gym’s loudspeakers was pretty loud, so I felt safe talking about it. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’ve been getting some weird texts lately. Nasty texts.”
I watched him carefully as he lowered himself to the ground and then pulled himself back up again, using the TRX straps. If he had any idea what I was talking about, it wasn’t visible on his face. He merely gazed at me with a blank look.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve received three texts from an unknown phone number threatening me.”
Ian frowned, the picture of innocence. Interesting. Maybe he was as good an actor as my friend Nina back in L.A. “Threatening you how?” he asked.
“Basically telling me I was going to be the rapist’s next victim. At first I was pretty sure it was from the rapist himself, but I couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten my number.”
Ian stopped moving. “When did you receive the first text?”
“I didn’t tell you to stop moving, did I?” I gave him a playful yet challenging look. He started squatting again. “I got it the night you told me to come with you to Belinda Jones’s apartment building.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it then?”
He had me momentarily thrown, but I soon found my composure. “I didn’t think it was important. I also thought it might have something to do with a disgruntled client of mine.” There, I’d said it. It came out as casually as I’d wanted it to do.
“A disgruntled client?”
“Yeah. A day before we went to that building, I did a training session with a guy who was so sleazy I refused to see him again for another session.”
“Really?” Ian looked very interested all of a sudden.
“Really. I received another text shortly after I’d shot Perez, which means it couldn’t have been him texting me. So I’m thinking it’s that weirdo guy I trained. He has my number and a reason to do it.”
“I’m sorry,” Ian said and looked genuinely sorry. “Want me to kick his arse for you?”
“No,” I replied. “All I want you to do is a set of chest presses on those straps. I’ll take care of this freak myself.”
“As you please.” Ian immediately started doing the exercise I wanted him to do, not looking bothered at all by what I had just told him.
Well, I guess I have no choice but to confront him about the texts after all, I thought. It was the only way to get to the bottom of this.
Chapter 2
My stomach was in knots as I waited for Ian to buzz me into his brownstone. I was determined to find out if he was behind those texts one way or another. After today’s session I didn’t know what to think. His behavior had made me doubt he had anything to do with them, but how was that possible? I didn’t think George had been wrong when looking up the number the second time. Not after I’d told him what the texts had regarded. He wasn’t a sloppy person.
Well, when I left Ian tonight, I would know the truth.
The buzzer sounded and I pulled open the heavy door. A minute later I put foot on the fifth floor where Ian lived, out of breath like the first time I’d ascended those long, steep stairs. But tonight I didn’t care to try to hide it.
“Hey,” I gasped, slipping past him as he held his apartment door for me to enter. Walking into his living room, I plopped down on one of the barstools along the marble island that separated the small kitchen from the living area. His gray cat was curled up on that same armchair again, giving me a lazy look before returning back to la-la land.
Ian was soon next to me. I handed him the plastic bag with the sushi I’d picked up for us.
“Would you like some water?” he asked with an almost concerned look on his face.
“Sure, that would be nice,” I replied, able to speak more or less normally now.
He came over with a tall glass filled with water. Giving him a grateful smile, I took it and had a few big sips.
He sat on the stool before me and gazed at me. I noted that his thin beard was gone.
“Those stairs are a killer, aren’t they?” he commented.
“Yeah, it would be great if you had an elevator.” I chugged the rest of the water.
“Agreed. Are you ready for some sake? I have some heated up already.”
I knew it was a bad idea for me to say yes, but at the same time I thought it would be rude if I refused it when he’d gone through the trouble to not only get the sake but also prepare it. So I smiled and said, “Sure, that would be nice.”
He walked around the island and soon returned with two small white porcelain cups filled to the brim with warm liquid. I took it from him and raised it to propose a toast.
“To catching the Upper West Side Rapist,” I said.
Ian did the same, holding my gaze all the while. “And to you being here tonight, celebrating this occasion with me. It means a lot to me.”
I lowered my cup to ask him exactly what he meant. But the way he was looking at me, like me sitting there before him really did mean a lot to him, made the words get stuck in my throat. The air between us was suddenly electric it became so full of tension.
A sharp sound coming from my smartphone that I’d left on the marble top while sitting down fortunately interrupted the quickly escalating moment. Someone had sent me a text.
