Kristen Ashley - Wild Man

I held his eyes and said nothing.

“You ran away,” he stated.

“Yes,” I whispered.

I ran away. Fuck yes, I ran away.

“Had he hurt you before?”

I nodded. “He was changing. Something was happening.” I hesitated then repeated, “He was changing.”

“What was happening?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I tried to talk… we had… we fought. He would get…” I paused. “Suddenly, it never happened before but suddenly when we fought it would get physical so I stopped trying to talk.”

“He fought the divorce.”

“Damian doesn’t like losing hold on what he thinks is his.”

He studied me with eyes now as gentle as his voice.

Then he said quietly, “But he left you alone for four and a half years.”

“Yes, he left me alone,” I whispered.

“Then he wanted you back.”

“Yes.”

“Did he explain why he approached you after all this time?”

I shook my head but said, “He said he was… he said…” I pulled in a deep breath then told him, “He said he loved me, missed me, messed up and wanted to make it up to me.”

“And since that lunch, he’s been contacting you regularly in an effort to do that.”

“Yes.”

His head tipped slightly to the side. “And after what he’d done to you, you took his calls?

You had lunch with him?”

Suddenly, needing to know, needing to know since I’d told him something I’d never told anyone before, I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Sorry, Agent Calhoun.”

“Well, Agent Calhoun, the answer to your question is, yes. I took his calls and I had lunch with him. Damian is who he is and I know who he is. I didn’t want him showing up at my house. I didn’t want him sending presents and flowers. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.

He thought, throughout the whole time we were getting divorced, that I’d come back. He told me so and he worked at it. Only when I saw it through did he leave me alone. Whatever this is, whatever he wants from me, I had to see it through until it sunk in with him that I wasn’t coming back and he left me alone. So, I was seeing it through.”

He studied me again then he remarked, “That took a lot of courage.”

“He raped me, Agent Calhoun, he hit me but he didn’t kill me. As long as I’m breathing, I’ve got fight in me and luckily I’m breathing.”

It was at that he whispered, “You aren’t like a lot of women.”

“Yes I am,” I whispered back. “I’m like all women. You see this but inside there’s something else that I won’t let you see or him see but it’s the mess he left me. But that’s mine. No one gets to it. Everything you get and he gets is a show. One thing you learn really quickly and really well when that kind of thing happens to you is to be a fucking great actress. You don’t have a choice in that because a man like that does something like that to you, you lose having choices. The only choice you have is what role you intend to play. I picked my role and that… that Agent Calhoun is what you see.”

I watched him draw in breath but he didn’t respond.

Then I asked, “Now, will you tell me what’s going on?”

He held my eyes as he finally answered.

“Tonight, we swept up your ex-husband’s entire operation. He’s the top narcotics distributor in Denver with ties direct to Colombia.”

I blinked.

Then I breathed, “What? ”

“As far as we can trace it, after a number of years being a low level dealer to high end clientele, mostly colleagues, he entered the game in a serious way ten years ago and crawled his way to the top.”

I felt my lips part as I stared at him.

He kept talking. “Your name is joint with his on all his offshore accounts. There are four of them totaling seventy-five million US dollars.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“You hit our radar with your lunch and we monitor his phones. We were aware you were in regular contact with him over the phone for the last six months though we did not know what these conversations were about. And we were aware your name was on his accounts.

However, we didn’t know what your involvement was in his operation. As the disintegration of your marriage and your divorce coincided relatively closely with his moves to elevate his position in the business, we thought you’d discovered what he was doing. But we couldn’t know why you and he resumed contact.”

“I don’t have any involvement in his operations.” I was still whispering.

He reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out a tri-folded piece of paper and set it on the table. “Search warrant. We’re searching your house, car, business premises and computers. We’ll also be taking a sample of your handwriting because someone signed your name to open those offshore accounts and they did this approximately six months ago.”

I kept staring at him then I closed my eyes and turned it away while shaking it.

Damian.

Evidence was suggesting that I would, indeed, never get rid of him.

“I don’t… I can’t…” I sucked in a deep breath, looked back at Agent Calhoun and said, “I don’t believe this.”

“If what you say is true, this will bear out in our searches however I will have to ask you to remain here until those are complete. This could take some time, Ms. O’Hara,” he stated while standing. “Can I get you some coffee while you wait?”

I had tipped my head back to look up at him, too shocked by what I’d learned to respond.

“Tess,” he prompted quietly. “Coffee?”

I kept staring at him then I shook my head sharply once and looked at the table, murmuring, “Yes, thank you.”

“Someone will be in shortly with your coffee,” he told the top of my head.

“Thanks,” I told the table.

I didn’t see him but I also didn’t feel his presence leave for several long moments. Then I heard his feet hitting the floor as he walked to the door then the door closed then I was alone in the room with nothing but the table, the chairs, the mirror and whoever was behind it.

I didn’t move and continued to stare at the table.

And luckily, when the one tear I couldn’t control fell, it coursed down the cheek that was on the opposite side to the mirror.

I stared at the table for a long time and I kept staring at it after they brought my coffee, asked me to write my signature on a blank piece of paper, I did that, drank my coffee and then kept staring long after that.

But in my head, even with all that was happening, all I could see was my pale face in the mirror.

God, was that really me?

The door to the room opened, my head came up and Agent Calhoun was standing there.

“You’re free to go, Ms. O’Hara,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid we’ll be working with your computers for a little while longer and we’ll need to ask you not to leave town in case we have follow up questions but you can go home now.”

I stared at him a moment before I stood. Grabbing my purse they’d let me bring with me, I walked his way but he didn’t move out of the door so I stopped two feet away.

“We’ll contact you when we’re done with the computers and arrange a time to return them. It shouldn’t be more than a day or two.” He was still talking quietly and I nodded.

“You want me to call you a taxi or do you have a friend who’ll come pick you up?”

No way I was phoning any of my friends. Not about this. Not when it had to do with Damian. Not when questions could be asked and answers would be expected and lies might need to be told.

No way.

“I’ll call a taxi,” I told him. “Thank you Agent Calhoun.”

He didn’t move therefore I didn’t either.

Then he offered, “I know it’s been a long night, Tess, but, you give me twenty minutes, I can get away, take you home.”

I studied him and really saw him for the first time. A little salt in his pepper hair, not much. Tall. Broad shoulders. A bit of a belly. Nice wrinkles by his eyes saying he either needed to wear protective eyewear in the sun more often or he laughed a lot. Older than me by maybe five years, maybe more and he was good at hiding it, maybe less and he didn’t take great care of himself. No wedding band.

This was the kind of man for me. This was the kind of man who might take on that pale faced woman in the mirror and handle her with care.

Not Jake Knox.

Never Jake Knox.

Agent Calhoun was a decent looking man, probably a good man, maybe a safe man and, above all, I needed a man who made me feel safe.

But, not being a bitch or anything, he was no dream man.

I’d fucked up once, gravitating toward a man who blinded me with his charisma if not his looks.

But, if that night taught me nothing it taught me I needed to learn to play it safe in order to get safe.

Something tight and uncomfortable was sitting coiled in my belly but it was squirming like it was about to unfurl and I’d had enough experience with that poisonous snake that I knew I didn’t want it to do that. I knew it.

But it was going to happen. I knew that too.

“I’ll be okay,” I said softly.

His head tipped to the side and something shifted through his eyes, disappointment, maybe, concern, possibly.

“Sure?” he asked and I nodded.

He opened the door further but stepped out of my way.

I stepped into the hall and dug into my purse for the phone. Lucky for all citizens of Denver, the taxi companies had easy to remember numbers they plastered on the sides of their cars.

I’d never called a taxi.

Until now.

I punched in one of the numbers as I walked down the hall then I put the phone to my ear, listening to it, eyes on the elevators in front of me as I walked out of the mouth of the hall into a bustling open room filled with people, phones ringing, fingers tapping keyboards and low conversations.

My eyes moved through the room unseeing and then they blinked as I heard the taxi company answer in my ear and I stopped short.

My eyes were pointed through the window of an office taking in the back of a man I knew.

I knew the back of that man.

Hell, I knew that old t-shirt and I’d committed that fine ass in those faded jeans to memory. I’d been pressed to that back on a bike. My hands had moved across the skin of that back and that ass just that night after I’d removed that shirt and after he’d removed those jeans. My fingers had moved through that dark, messy hair that night too and other times, countless times the last four months.

He turned toward the door and I didn’t see his face.

No.

I saw the shiny badge on his belt.

“You sleep naked?”

“No.”

“Don’t start tonight.”

Oh.

My.

God.

He left the office he was in and my eyes went from his badge to his face and since that thing in my belly was unfurling, growing, swelling, filling my stomach, slithering up my throat, I didn’t notice the look on his face or feel his mood hit the room like a slap.

I just knew a man like Jake Knox would have not one thing to do with the pale faced woman that was me.

Unless it was his job.

His eyes caught mine and he stopped dead.

I’d been stopped dead and the minute his eyes hit mine I moved.

Rushing quickly towards the elevators I hit the button at the same time my eyes scanned.

I found what I was looking for.

Exit.

Stairs.

I dashed to the door, opened it, darted through it and then down.

I heard my heels echo on the stairs then I heard his boots.

One flight and around, I went faster. Two stories. Three flights to go.

“Tess,” I heard his voice call and I went faster.

Another flight and around.

“God damn it, Tess,” he clipped and I kept going.

Another flight and around.

His boots were getting closer.

Another flight, the last one, I raced down them and had a hand to the door, opening it when my wrist was seized in an iron grip, yanked away, my body with it. I was pulled from the door and pushed against the wall, Jake’s tall, lean frame fencing me in.

I looked to the side.

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“You promised we’d talk,” he growled.

I shook my head and kept my eyes averted. “Let me go,” I demanded.