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“You are one crazy bitch, preggo.” He pulled the watch from his pocket and dangled it in front of her. “All for this?”
Just then she heard the sirens. Mark turned his head toward the busted-in door, and Rae took the chance. She snatched the watch from his hand, and he hit her hard across the face, making her fall backward onto the bed.
Cops swarmed the room and pushed Mark to the floor, hands pressed into his back.
“I didn’t fucking do anything!” he said to them as they cuffed him.
“Are you okay, Miss?” one officer said to Rae, helping her sit up on the bed.
The side of her face was on fire. “I think so.”
“We have paramedics on the way, and we’ll have them look you over. Make sure your baby’s okay.”
Rae held her belly as if Lily would fall out of her at any second. She’d been reckless, and she didn’t know how she would forgive herself for putting her baby in danger. But she had the watch clutched in her hand. She told herself it was worth it.
The cops hauled Mark from the room, and Rae’s lips curled.We got him, Viv. And now he’ll pay for what he did to you.
CHAPTER 44
RAE
2024
Her client was dead. Rae thought about the six months she’d spent with Thomas Highsmith in her dungeon, his weekly sessions something she’d come to look forward to not only because he had been nice to look at, but because he was a good, respectful client. And she couldn’t stop wondering what happened at the meeting he was going to at the Skirvin after he’d left their last session and what happened to him later at the Coulters’ party.
Thomas’s death was all over the news the next two days, mainly because he was an executive for Arkana Oil and Gas, one of the premier oil producers in the state, and, predictably, the news loved to feature the deaths of attractive, young white people. She watched the morning news and saw a story confirming Thomas died from a fentanyl overdose by injection, which immediately rang as bullshit to Rae. She’d been around drug users, and Thomas hadn’t been one. She’d seen every inch of his body, and he never had any signs of track marks. She called Dayton right after watching the report.
“Hey,” she said when he picked up. “I just saw Channel 4’s story on Thomas. He never did drugs. Not that kind, anyway.”
“You don’t know that for sure, Rae.”
“Well, don’t you think it’s awfully strange how people keep showing up dead from overdoses? What about Cierra?”
Dayton turned quiet on the line.
“It was fentanyl, too, wasn’t it?” she said. “Her supposed overdose, even though by all accounts she wasn’t into drugs and was a year away from graduating with her college degree.”
“I agree the coincidence is hard to ignore, but we need a clear way to connect her and Thomas to the parties. And I’m working on it.”
“How? How are you working on it?” Rae felt like she was reliving everything that had happened with Viv, the police saying they would handle it but dragging their asses.
“Hey, I’m frustrated too.” He lowered his voice. “I got a lot of heat trying to push the information from your missing friend about the Coulters’ parties, and now I’m on a different lead. That’s all I can tell you.”
“What about Felton Holdings?” she said.
“I have a friend who owes me a favor looking into it. I might hear back today. And, yes, I’ll call you as soon as I hear back from them.” He sounded tired and stressed.
“Did you all ever find out who Thomas was meeting with at the Skirvin before he went to the party?”
He sighed. “Working on it.”
“And you’re not going to tell me anything else about it.”
“Rae.”
“Fine.”
She hung up on him and then felt bad about it. She didn’t want him to get in trouble by divulging information about the investigation, but she also hated being in the dark when those crazy assholes had one of her good friends and might come for her next. It was alluncomfortably familiar. She knew it wasn’t uncommon for people to overdose from fentanyl, but it reminded her too much of the Santa Monica house, how Clint and Bobby would keep her and the other women under control with small doses of something similar unless they proved themselves no longer profitable or manageable.
