Page 43 of Kept
But despite three-days in custody, James still had not confessed.
I jump with a start as my phone vibrates in my pocket.
“Blake, any news?”
“No, hon, he’s a tough nut to crack, playing the whole ‘respectable academic from good family’ card. He’s definitely not all he seems though. He changed his name to Hunter from some long English name. He’s only lived in the US for the past eight years, so I’ve sought police records from abroad, and that is the only reason I’ve managed to hold him so long. He’s hired a great lawyer though, one of the best, and bail money is not an issue, he’s loaded. I expect I’ll have to release him in a day, two at the most.”
“But Margarita, we need to know what he did with her?”
His silence speaks volumes.
“Blake?”
“Josie these types of people, these psychopaths, they enjoy the chase, they enjoy the psychological games and the fear they instil in their marks. I’d suggest he has been stalking you, lurking around your apartment, watching you at work, he maybe even chose you before he met you, leaving that book where he knew you would find it. It is all a big game to him. I doubt whether we will ever know what happened to your friend, but my gut tells me he killed her to ramp up your fear, as a way of getting you to turn to him.”
I feel tears welling at this. My friend, a victim because of some bizarre obsession James Hunter had with me? After she told me to stay away from him?
“Are you sure you don’t need the journals, as evidence?”
“Not yet, hon. You keep them there. I’ve got enough notes from them to keep him locked up until we can get him to trial; then they will be more valuable than gold. But like I say, I’m not making any headway with a confession yet.”
“I feel so guilty,” I say quietly, the tears beginning to fall.
“Don’t. Look I’ll be over tonight. Cook me something I’ve never tried before, something amazing.”
“Don’t I always?” I half-smile, wiping the tears briskly off my cheeks with my fingers.
“Afterwards we will have a bath together,” he says gently.
“I don’t have a bath.”
“Well, maybe you should start spending the night at my apartment,” he says, his voice seductive, “I have a bath.”
“I’d like that.”
He hangs up, and I put my phone back into my pocket and allow a few more silent tears to fall.
We’d spent every night together in my apartment since that first night he had come over for dinner, and already it felt like I’d known him forever. It was nice to have someone to cook for again, but I suspected one of the main reasons he had been staying over was to help me feel safe and ward off my depression, now that it was clear Margarita had likely been murdered.
Tonight, he was on duty again, so he would stay until 11pm, like last night, and then have to leave. Still, I would cook for us, and we would have sex, which was getting better, slowly. And hopefully, I would sleep without nightmares and not even wake when he left.
Remembering just in time that I needed to shop, I hop off a block sooner than my apartment and pick up some ingredients. They would be expensive, but I have money, plenty now that I haven’t paid rent for a few months. I’d taken it out of the cookie jar just last night and counted it. With the cash Margarita had forced upon me for new shoes and clothes, and the rent money, I had about $3000 – more than I’d ever had before.
And although I am spending up on expensive ingredients, I am keeping my eye on my savings, because I have decided that one day I will open a restaurant, regardless of whether I am ever formally trained as a chef. I will pursue my dream.
Thinking about this, I pick up all the ingredients for homard rôti au beurre d’estragon and head home.
I close my eyes and push down on the knife, plunging it deep into the lobster’s head right where it meets the body, and killing it instantly, before turning to the next one.
“Sorry, sorry, but you had to be fresh, and fresh means alive. I’ll make this quick.”
I dispatch the second one and stare down at them for a minute before shaking the sadness off and dropping them into boiling salted water.
I have already made the melted button and tarragon sauce and will drizzle it on them once they are cooled and cut in half. Then I’ll pop them into the oven about half an hour before they are due to be eaten.
I slide the sauvignon blanc into the fridge to chill and move on to the dessert.
Something he hadn’t tried before, he had said, and so tonight I was being adventurous – because I’d never tried cooking this before.
