Chapter 18
Karrie made us a fresh pot of coffee and filled two cups before coming to join me on the couch. She sat on the other end, but lifted her feet so they were almost touching me. “I still can’t believe you drove all this way to break up with me.”
“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t want to break up I just knew it was going to happen.”
“I guess what hurts the most is that we’re also friends. I feel like losing you is losing so much of my life. Bastian, I know you aren’t that guy, so I want you to tell me everything. Just tell me how it all began and why it continued. Then I need you to tell me why you feel like you’re in trouble, because I am a little concerned that something bad could happen to you and as mad as I am, I couldn’t deal with that if it happened.”
I grabbed her foot and started to play with it. When she didn’t pull away, I felt relieved. “I told you about Mrs. Smith. I’m not going to get into details, but it happened a few times. .”
Karrie spit her coffee across the room and looked right at me. “Oh my God! You are kidding right now?”
I pulled one of the letters out of my pocket and handed it to her. “I never asked for it, but every time it was in there. Then she got her neighbor to be a client and that’s when everything got crazy.” I looked at Karrie and realized this was probably too much for her to hear. She gave me a half smile, letting me know it was okay to continue. “It was only those two women. I was with the neighbor once and then I met her crazy ass daughter, who is blackmailing me. She took pictures of me with Mrs. Smith and threatened to show them to you if I didn’t sleep with Mrs. Smith and her mother again. I looked into things and discovered that her stepmother won control of all of their money and I think she is trying to prove she is unfaithful to her father. Since I refused to go through with it, I knew it was only a matter of time before this all blew up in my face. I swear, none of them mean anything to me. She has pictures and claims that she is going to overnight them to you
to punish me for not helping her. Kar, I couldn’t let you open that envelope without talking to you first. Look, I have no idea if I will ever have to see any of them again, but I had to see you first.”
She got up and paced around the room. She needed space, but I wasn’t ready to let her out of my sight again. I could tell she was both hurt and confused.
“Bastian, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love you. Sure, I’m upset about everything, but none of that was the person that I know. Part of me wishes I could punish you for hurting me, but that would just be immature. The rational thing for us to do is work through this somehow. Since I obviously know what you did, it isn’t like that little bitch can hurt you.”
“I wasn’t worried about her hurting me, I was worried about her hurting you. I knew what I did and what I deserve, but you don’t deserve any of this. I appreciate that you love me, Kar. I also understand why you don’t want to be with me
anymore.” It hurt to talk about. As angry as I was, in the big spectrum of things I couldn’t imagine not sharing my future with Karrie. It was different when we broke up before. I wanted her to live her life. Her coming back and asking me to try changed all of that.
“I never said that we were over. Yeah, I’m totally pissed at you. I’m not stupid and I’m definitely not naïve. I just feel like I have loved you for too long to let you go because some little slut wants to ruin you. Fuck her. If she thinks I would just sit around crying, she’s messed with the wrong chick. I have no problem heading to Maryland and beating that little bitch’s ass.”
I let out a little laugh, while Karrie stared with a serious face back at me. Her arms were crossed and I knew that she had taken her pain and turned it into revenge. Have I not mentioned that she was a fighter? Yeah, she was pretty much the last girl I would ever want to get into a bar fight with. She is one of these girls who is always so calm and laid back. She
can take a lot, but given the right amount of bullshit, she will tear someone apart. “Well, I don’t need you fighting my battles. Do you really think we can work things out?”
She walked up close to me and held out her hand. “Come back to bed with me. I’m exhausted and I need you to hold me. I need to feel what they never got to feel. I need to feel your love.”
I held her hand all the way back to her bedroom. We both stripped down to our underwear and climbed back into her bed. When she saw me getting on my phone, she seemed to get worried. “Babe, I’m emailing my professor about the final I’m missing. I need to see if I can make it up.”
“You missed a final to come see me? You can’t risk your future like that.” She looked so shocked.
“Kar, the most important thing about my future is you. Just imagining losing you made me see that. I wouldn’t want to relive any of this, but knowing that it made me see how
important you are to me, kind of makes it worth it. As long as we get to stay together, of course.” I finished sending the emailed and leaned up on my elbow to face her.
She did the same thing and just looked right at me. “Thank you for being honest with me, Bastian. I can’t name one other man that would have done what you did. It’s one thing that I’ve always admired about you. It’s why I just want to move forward. As much as I want to break up with you, I just know that I’ll never find anyone like you. So for now, I’m going to cut you off from sex. No nookie until I say.”
“You just said nookie.” I started laughing.
She slapped me on the chest. “Don’t be a dick! You are seriously cut off. You really did hurt me.”
“I said I was sorry. You hooked up with some random dude, too. You can’t cut me off if I cut you off first.”
She turned around and backed herself up to my body. While in the spooning position, she reached around, pulled my arm over her waist, and intertwined our fingers. “Just sleep with me and be quiet. I’m too tired to argue.”
I don’t think either of us planned to sleep the day away, but when I woke up it was dark outside and I realized that was exactly what had happened. Karrie was still asleep in my arms so I pulled her closer into my chest. Feeling her body next to mine in such a loving position made me feel relieved. We were far from being perfect, but the fact that I was still this close to her was enough to hope for the best.
I kissed the back of Karrie’s shoulder, letting my lips drag over her creamy skin. At first she didn’t move, but soon began to stir as I continue kissing her. “What time is it?”
“No clue. It’s dark out.” I kept my arms around her even as she turned to face me. I took my chances and leaned down to kiss her.
She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t exactly reciprocate either. As I pulled away, I saw her smiling. “Sneaking in a kiss before I was awake enough to know what you were doing?”
I kissed her forehead. “I don’t have to sneak. If I want you, I’ll have you. You can say it’s all about our love and our friendship, but there is something else about me that you can’t get enough of.” I started laughing halfway through the comment and she covered her face with her pillow.
“In your dreams!”
“No, in yours!”
My phone started to ring, so I reached over to the bedside table and answered it.
Hello?
Who am I speaking with?
You called me. Who is this?
This is officer Travis with the Baltimore City Police Department. I’m calling about a phone call you received last night from Mrs. Genevieve Smith. Do you recall having that conversation?
Yeah, I work for her. She was telling me that I didn’t have to come in tomorrow to work.
And your full name is?
Sebastian Young.
Did Mrs. Smith give you an explanation why?
What the hell was going on? I didn’t know what else to tell the guy. I didn’t even know what he was calling for.
No! She just told me not to bother coming in.
According to the phone records, it appears that you were on the phone for several minutes. Perhaps you discussed something else during that time?
What was this dude getting at?
I told her that I was going to go to New York to visit with my girlfriend. She also worked for Mrs. Smith and liked to know how she was doing. What is this about, officer?
Just a couple more questions. When was the last time you saw Mrs. Smith?
Oh shit! I didn’t know how to answer that. Was I supposed to admit that I met her privately to discuss being blackmailed?
I guess it was the last time I worked at her house. A few days ago. Actually, I didn’t really see much of her because she was spending time with my girlfriend. Is everything alright? Is she in some kind of trouble?
Mr. Young I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Mrs. Smith was found dead this morning.
Chapter 19
No words could describe how I felt in that exact moment when I heard the detective say the word ‘dead’. How could she possibly be dead? I just talked to the woman not even twenty-four hours ago.
He couldn’t give me any information since it was an ongoing case, but he asked when I would be returning to Maryland. After I got off the phone, I sat on the edge of the bed and took in all of the thoughts that were going through my mind. Karrie wrapped her body around the back of mine and held me. “What’s wrong, Bastian?”
“That was the police. Mrs. Smith is dead and I’m the last person she talked to.” Even saying it out loud felt unreal to me.
She jumped of the bed and sunk down in front of me. “Are you serious? How? What happened? Why did the police call you? Oh my God…was she murdered?”
I grabbed both of her hands and looked right at her. “I know as much as you do right now. This shit is unreal.”
It wasn’t a shock like I would feel for someone that I cared about, but Mrs. Smith had been nothing but nice to me even when she was trying to have sex with me. She had children that were my age. I thought about them getting the news of the loss of their mother and how I would feel if I were them.
She had everything a woman could ask for. She was beautiful and rich, but was also kind and generous. There was obviously more going on than just her sleeping with the maid. There had to be something else that I didn’t know about.
“Her poor family. Her daughter is our age. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. This is so horrible.”
I rubbed her back and watched as she began to cry for the woman that had slept with me behind her back. For her to have such compassion for a human being after she blatantly
stabbed her in the back, well, it was pretty amazing to watch. I felt emotional just seeing it for myself. The more I opened my eyes to look at the real Karrie, the more I fell in love with her.
“I’m sure that they’ll have a big service for her. Do you think we should go?” I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.
She nodded. “Yeah, I think we should. I mean, she obviously really liked you. I know I said awful things about her last night. I feel terrible now. God she was lying dead somewhere and I was calling her names. I’m going to go to Hell.”
“Kar, you couldn’t have known that something like that would happen. You had every right to say the things you did. We both betrayed your friendship. As wrong as that was, I don’t think it was because she didn’t like you. She spoke highly of you, especially after I told her that you were more important to me than a paycheck. I think she respected me for
that.” Karrie stood up and waked into her bathroom. When she came back out, she was blowing her nose. She climbed back into her side of the bed and got comfortable under the covers.
After using the bathroom, I climbed in behind her and hugged her tightly. She grabbed her laptop and we situated ourselves so we could both see the screen.
After just a few clicks, we were looking at the FOX Baltimore’s news page.
Wife Of Millionaire Ted Smith Found Dead In Pool
Breaking News: Genevieve Smith, wife of Ted Smith and mother to Gwendolyn and Ted Jr., was found dead this morning by one of the family’s employees. Details are still sketchy as to how and when the victim passed away. The police have not speculated about whether foul play may or may not have been involved.
Stay tuned to Fox News for updates on this breaking event.
Karrie closed the computer and looked over at me. “Jesus Christ! She couldn’t have drowned. That woman swam every day of her life. Someone did this to her. Someone killed her, Bastian.”
I knew what she was saying had to be true, still I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to talk about it. “It’s not like we can do anything. Hell, they called me because I was the last person she talked to according to phone records. Sticking my two cents into the investigation would only make me look guilty. The detective asked me everything he needed to know. If he wants to know something else, he has my number.”
She climbed back out of bed and started pulling things out of her dresser. “We need to go back to your place. I can call work and tell them I have pneumonia or something. My roommate works for a doctor and stole a whole pad of
doctor’s notes. I’m sure she can come up with something legitimate. It doesn’t even matter. If you’re in trouble, I’m going to be there for you because it’s what you did for me.”