A.K.A. Read online

  I frown at my fiancé. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Didn’t you tell me a few hours ago we were one? I was stuck to you like superglue.”

  Gary smirks. “Dude, you didn’t.”

  Ethan ignores him. “Okay, you can come, but let me go first.”

  I nod as we make our way below.

  “Hello,” he shouts. “Is there anyone here? Are you okay?”

  No reply.

  He turns and looks at me. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t like it. Not one bit.” I sniff the air. “Do you smell that?”

  “No.”

  When we reach the door to the sleeping quarters, he pauses.

  “Open it,” I tell him.

  He hesitates so I reach around and do it for him.

  It creeks open and we step inside. There’s a woman lying on her side, her back facing us.

  “Hello,” Ethan says. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  She doesn’t move, and the sinking feeling in my gut takes a dive.

  Ethan looks at me.

  I nod for him to continue.

  He steps closer and puts his hand on her shoulder. She rolls onto her back, and I scream.

  I hear a thud and then running.

  Mark appears behind me. “What the hell?” he says then looks over my shoulder at the dead woman. “Oh my God, is she…?”

  Ethan checks her vitals. “She’s dead.”

  I start to shake.

  “Get her out of here,” he tells Mark.

  “No. I’m okay.”

  Gary comes in. “What the hell?” He sees the woman and has the same reaction. “Oh my God. Is she dead?”

  Ethan nods.

  “I… I… I know her.”

  “You know her? How?” Ethan asks me.

  “She’s… she’s… her name is Jane. She’s been to a few meetings.”

  “My God,” Mark says. “You’re right. She’s the woman you introduced me to that time I picked you up.”

  “She didn’t come last week or the week before, I was told. I thought maybe she’d…” I shake my head. “I don’t know what I thought.” I step closer and point. “Look at her neck.”

  Ethan looks. “She’s been—”

  “Strangled,” I finish for him.

  “How do you know?” Mark asks me.

  “The bruising around her neck,” Ethan tells him.

  I touch her hand.

  “What are you doing?” Mark asks.

  I ignore him and look at Ethan. “She’s still warm.” I look at her eyes, jaw, and neck. “No rigor.”

  Ethan nods.

  “What does that mean?” Mark asks.

  “Rigor mortis,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  “It means she hasn’t been dead long,” Ethan tells him.

  Mark performs a dramatic shiver. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he says and turns to leave.

  I grab his arm. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  I nod toward the body. It was Jane, but…“Does something look different about her?”

  “Yeah. She’s dead.”

  I look closely at her face. “Her nose maybe?”

  Mark shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I second that,” Gary says and begins making his way out of the cabin.

  “Are you two coming?” Mark asks.

  “Right behind you,” Ethan tells him.

  Mark nods and leaves us.

  Ethan frowns my way. “What’s going on Bri?”

  I sniff the air. “Do you smell that?”

  He sniffs. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Jasmine.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t smell anything,” he repeats.

  Jasmine was the fragrance Tara wore all the time. I look at Ethan. “She’s… she’s real, right? You can see her.”

  “Of course I can see her.” He turns me around. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  We make our way to the deck.

  Chad yells, “What the hell’s going on?”

  “A woman. She’s dead,” Mark tells him as we jump back onto his boat, Hangover.

  “Oh my God,” Kat says.

  “Bri knows her,” Mark says.

  “You know her?”

  “Not well. She came to a few meetings. Her name was Jane. That’s what she told us anyway.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I nod her way. “Yeah.” I was everything but okay. I knew it was Jane, but her resemblance to Tara wasn’t as uncanny as I had thought. Did I imagine it?

  “We better call the Coast Guard,” Gary says.

  Everyone nods except me. It’s risky for me to be involved with a murder, but I have no choice. It has to be done.

  I walk to the bow and look out at the ocean. I believe in signs, and this one is loud and clear.

  Ethan comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me. He doesn’t say anything. He didn’t need to; somehow he seems to know what I’m thinking.

  Hours later, we’ve docked. While everyone is unloading, Ethan and I speak to Sherriff Henry Rogers.

  “Are we about done here, Henry? I want to get Bri home.”

  “I’m sorry, Ethan. I know it’s been a long day. I just have a few more questions.”

  Ethan nods as he runs his fingers through his wavy hair—something he does when he’s nervous, angry, or both.

  Sheriff Rogers looks at me. “Can you think of anything else, Ms. Richards?”

  “No. Like I just said, I think you should talk to Brenda Smith. She might have more information.”

  “You said ‘Jane’ might not be her real name.”

  I nod.

  “Is that common practice at these meetings, giving a false name? Going by an alias?”

  His line of questioning and the words he’s using feel personal. It was a mistake to bring up the possibility of a different name. He’s now stuck on it.

  “I wouldn’t say it’s common, but I know it happens.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Lots of reasons.”

  I appreciate the hard and, at times, dangerous work officers of the law do. But his questions aren’t really questions. He’s digging. For what, I don’t know.

  “Name one.”

  “Fear, for one.”

  “Why would she be afraid?”

  “Have you ever dealt with an abuse victim?”

  “Unfortunately, too many.”

  “Then I think you know that answer.”

  He nods and writes something in his pad. “Do you go by your real name at these meetings, or do you use an alias?”

  “That’s enough,” Ethan says. “Bri has answered the same questions a dozen times.”

  Sheriff Rogers flips his notebook shut. “Okay, Ethan. You can take Ms. Richards home. I’m not quite sure who’ll be the lead on this investigation.”

  That was code for we’ll be talking to more investigators.

  “I understand,” Ethan tells him.

  “Have a good night.”

  “Thanks, Henry. It’s been a long day.”

  Ethan grabs my hand, and we walk toward Mark’s boat. “Asshole,” he mutters.

  “He was just doing his job.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Finally,” Mark says when he sees us.

  “Can we go home?” Gary asks.

  “Yes,” Ethan tells him. “They’re done for now.”

  “For now?” Mark says as he hands Ethan our bags.

  “A detective will most likely take over the case, and he or she will have questions,” I tell him.

  “Didn’t you already tell him everything you know?”

  I nod.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Ethan tells him.

  “It’s routine,” I add.

  Kat jumps off the boat. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  We make our way to the parking lot.<
br />
  “I’m staying with Chad tonight,” Mark informs me.

  “Okay. Don’t forget you work tomorrow.”

  He and Chad say goodnight before they get into Chad’s BMW.

  Ethan opens the back of his Jeep and tosses our bags in.

  I open the passenger door, get in, and buckle up.

  Ethan gets behind the wheel and does the same.

  I reach over, and he takes my hand and kisses it. “I’m so sorry, Bri.”

  “For what?”

  “I wanted this to be the perfect weekend.”

  “It was until….”

  “Let’s go home,” he says and drops my hand.

  He puts the Jeep in gear and looks at me.

  I force a smile before we make our way out of the marina parking lot and onto Highway 101.

  We drive in silence, and I’m glad for it. I need to think about Jane, my unstable metal state, and our engagement. Friday was wonderful. A long day of sailing had done wonders for me; for just a moment, my world felt as if it had righted itself and was back on its axis. Then on Saturday, Ethan blindsided me with a proposal. I said yes because everything at that moment seemed possible. But after seeing a dead Jane, my world tilted back off its axis and my reality, within a false reality, rained down on me, drowning all hope of a future with the man who owns my heart.

  Staying in Pine Rock and marrying Ethan is a crazy idea. I have to break off the engagement and get back to planning my next move, my new life.

  Ethan exits the highway and turns onto Shoreline Drive. At the end of the street, he takes a right onto my long, graveled driveway. When Rocky End comes into view, the hairs on the back of my neck stand at alert. “What the hell?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The lights. I only left the outside lights on.”

  He brings the Jeep to a stop. “Give me your keys.”

  I remove my keys from my duffle and hand them to him.

  “Stay here.”

  “I don’t want to stay here.”

  “Stay here!” he repeats.

  “Okay.”

  He gets out and walks the short distance to the cottage. I watch as he opens the side door and enters.

  After a few minutes, he returns. “The door was locked, and everything looks fine. Nothing out of order.”

  “The lights didn’t turn themselves on Ethan.”

  He puts the Jeep in gear.

  “Ethan?”

  He drives the short distances and pulls under the carport. “It was locked and dead bolted.”

  “What about the windows?”

  “I looked at all of them. None of the sensors have been triggered. Don’t you need the code to reset them?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “It must have been Mark.”

  “Mark?”

  “Don’t you remember?” he says as he gets out and grabs our bags.

  I get out, shut the door, and join him. “No, I don’t remember.”

  “He said he’d forgotten something, and he’d stopped by after we left.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I totally forgot,” I lie. I didn’t remember the conversation with Mark. “He must have turned on the lights,” I say, mostly to myself.

  We enter the cottage, and I look around. Ethan is right. Nothing looks out of place.

  He follows me into the bedroom. “I’ll start the shower,” he says before he disappears behind the bathroom door.

  I remove my clothes, then toss them and the clothes in my bag into the laundry basket.

  I do the same with Ethan’s clothes and join him in the shower.

  I open the shower door. Ethan’s hands are planted on the tile in front of him. His head is down and resting between his muscular arms.

  I close the door and step closer. His eyes are shut tight as if afraid to open them.

  He is so close, yet he seems a million miles away. I know he’s upset; we all are. As a firefighter, he’s seen dead bodies, but finding a woman on a boat, who’s been strangled isn’t something he’s likely to have come across.

  I’ve seen hundreds of murdered souls, mostly women and children. If a woman or a child was abused or murdered in LA, their case would usually end up on my desk. However, my experience didn’t make me immune. I’m shaken by Jane’s murder. Something about her never felt right, and now… I don’t know what to think.

  I run my fingertips up his backside. He opens his eyes and turns to face me. Without words, his arms surround me, cocooning me. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I say into his chest.

  He steps back, lifts my chin, and looks into my eyes. “Those eyes will never let me go. They’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.”

  His words and the tone of his voice sound and feel bleak. Did his bubble burst? Did he realize the gravity of our rushed engagement now that his feet are on solid ground?

  His thumb brushes over my bottom lip. “Why do you have to be so damn beautiful? This isn’t how it was supposed to be.”

  Before I can respond, his lips greet mine. In an instant, everything changes. His lips become mine, and mine become his. All the lines I put between us in the last few hours blur, and we’re back on the beach where he proposed and I said yes. All that matters is the right now. I’m going to live in the moment with him for as long as I can.

  He turns me around and pushes down on my lower back until my hands make contact with the tiled bench. He then nudges my thighs apart with his knee and enters me in one hard thrust. Shocked by the intensity, I cry out and breathe in simultaneously. I need a minute to chase my breath, but he doesn’t give me one. He sets a rhythm that’s raw and unforgiving. My body and mind waver between pain and pleasure. Once they make up their minds, I come long and hard.

  “Again,” he says.

  “No.”

  He pulls out and turns me around. “Did you just tell me no?”

  “Yeah, I did. I’ve got other plans.”

  He bites his lip in an effort to keep a straight face. But when I kneel in front of him and take his cock into my mouth, all he can do is smile.

  I like seeing him this way—happy, satisfied, and in the moment; not rushed.

  I look up at him, and his smile disappears and is replaced with an expression I’ve seen before but haven’t yet deciphered.

  I want to know why he looks at me like that. There’s so much about Ethan I don’t understand. I’ve asked him all kinds of questions about his past, and he’s answered all of them. But his answers seem detached, as if scripted, especially when the subject is his ex-wife. I know he isn’t telling me the truth about their divorce, and it makes me doubt if it had been, as he says, a mutual decision.

  There are also things I don’t understand about his daughter, Lily. He rarely speaks of her, telling me it’s too painful, but not telling me why his visitations are rare and seemingly unplanned. However, I do see the uncertainty and pain in those bottomless blues when he does talk about her. So I can only conclude, for whatever reason, it is too painful to talk about her.

  But what I find odd and most troubling is that his questions are seldom reciprocated. My past is scripted, a fabricated history, but he doesn’t know that.

  It only takes a couple of minutes before he comes undone.

  Satisfied, he helps me up, and we quickly wash before the water turns cold.

  We step out and he tosses a towel my way.

  I catch it and begin drying off while he watches. “What are you looking at?”

  He walks up behind me and removes my towel. Nodding toward the mirror, he says, “That’s what I’m looking at. The most breathtaking woman I’ve ever seen. And she’s mine.”

  I smile.

  “I love when you smile. You don’t do it enough.”

  He is right about that, not lately anyway.

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  I nod and let him lead me into the bedroom.

  He lies down, and I set my alarm.

  He’s asleep before my head h
its the pillow.

  I kiss his perfect, upturned nose. “Goodnight, my love.”

  I close my eyes and wait for sleep.

  I wake with a start.

  Ethan rolls over. “Are you okay?”

  This nightmare was different. Terrance Thomas was inside of me, cruelly fucking me. Then he turned into Tad, and Tad warped into Ethan. Tara or Jane, I don’t know which, sat in a chair, cheering him on.

  “Bri? Did you hear me?”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him and look at the alarm clock. “What time do you have to leave for work?”

  He pulls me into his arms and kisses the top of my head. “I’ve got an hour.”

  “I wonder what we can do with that hour?”

  “We can talk.”

  I chuckle and roll over, facing him. “So that’s what they call it now.”

  He kisses me on the tip of my nose. “I’m serious. I want to talk.”

  “Okay, Mr. Black, let’s talk.”

  “Let’s get married.”

  “I believe we’ve been there done that.”

  He pinches my ass.

  “Hey, that hurt.”

  “I need your full attention.”

  “Okay. You have my full attention.”

  “I’m serious, Bri. Let’s get married this weekend. We can drive to Vegas and—”

  I sit up. “Whoa there, cowboy. We’re not going to Vegas to get married.”

  He frowns.

  “Don’t give me your Mr. Frowny Face. We’re not going to Vegas.”

  He sits up. “Why the hell not?”

  I grab my T-shirt from the end of the bed and pull it on.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to make you breakfast.”

  He throws his pillow at me as I walk to the door. “Come back here! We’re having a serious conversation.”

  “You’re having a serious conversation,” I tell him as I close the door behind me.

  I make my way to the kitchen and open the fridge.

  Ethan sits at the bar wearing nothing but what God gave him.

  “Eggs or pancakes?”

  “Cereal.”

  “Eggs it is,” I say and remove a frying pan from the cabinet.

  I crack a couple of eggs in a bowl and begin whipping them.

  “Do you love me?”

  I stop midwhip. “Yes, very much.”

  “Then what’s stopping us? I want to be with you. You want to be with me.”

  “I said I love you; I didn’t say I wanted to be with you.”