Surviving the Chase Read online

  Did she fuck Miles Day?

  Everything about Sydney James was natural, feminine, and effortlessly beautiful. There was a glowing quality about her he could never get enough of. When he noticed the faint bruise on her brow, his anger seeped to the surface again.

  With the pad of his thumb, Donathan gently brushed the fading contusion, she stirred, then shifted her weight to her side, her back now facing him. He inspected his almost-healed knuckles, his mind navigating the altercation and the past few weeks. To the naked eye, the physical reminders of the fight with Miles Day were almost gone, but the repercussions of what took place at the small, well-loved eatery weeks ago still echoed in his bed. There were many things he was sorry for that day, one being that during the exchange of blows with Miles, Sydney got tangled up in the crossfire and he accidentally struck her. He loved his woman with every breath in his body and would never intentionally strike her. Only cowards put their hands on women.

  He couldn’t believe the amount of damage they’d done to the place, and he was sorry for his role in that, but he wasn’t sorry for kicking Miles Day’s ass. He could see straight through the manipulative bastard. He knew the game all too well, hell a few times he’d been the shoulder to cry on himself. Miles had been laying the groundwork right under his nose for weeks, pretending to be Sydney’s friend, when all along his ulterior motive was to get her in his bed. Women needed to understand that men were natural predators looking for an opportunity to pounce. If you let them hang around long enough, you would get fucked. Which is exactly what he was afraid of.

  Sydney hadn’t admitted to anything and wanted him to believe he’d overreacted when it came to Miles, but it was what Sydney hadn’t said, what he wanted and needed to hear from her lips, that bothered him most. Who the hell did Miles think he was, telling him what not to do to his wife?

  Some of his radio show fans witnessed the debacle, a marketing nightmare for his private practice and on-air presence, which resulted in the station suspending his morning “sex doctor” segments. But he didn’t give a damn about any of that. The radio clips were how Austyn Greene had fixated on him in the first place. At least that’s what she’d said when she arrived at the Richmond Country Club with every intention of luring him into her web, and like a damn fool he’d fallen for it. Should have listened to his gut instincts and run as far away from those ruby-red lips as he could. Then he wouldn’t have ended up drugged, tied up in that hotel room—almost castrated.

  * * *

  When sleep finally overtook him, Donathan found himself back in Austyn Greene’s apartment, drugged, paralyzed, and helpless. Her jet-black hair pulled taut into a ponytail exposing her exotic features taunted him—with the shiny scalpel gripped tightly in her hand. Austyn’s words reverberated in his dream. “You should have helped me and not tried to fuck me like all the others.”

  Donathan woke in a cold sweat, disoriented, his heart beating fast, almost leaping out of his chest. He felt exposed and vulnerable. For several weeks he’d chewed sleeping pills like candy, but there weren’t enough sleeping pills in the world that could help him tonight. Unfortunately for him, he’d underestimated Austyn, but he wouldn’t get caught slipping like that again. In fact, there would be no rest for him until Austyn Greene was found and put away so she couldn’t hurt anyone else.

  Careful not to wake Sydney, Donathan eased out of bed and made his way down the spiral staircase into his home office. It was early, still dark but approaching dawn. On occasions when sleep eluded him, he used the quiet time to prep for his morning radio show segments or catch up on patient charting, but since neither of those activities were a part of his daily routine right now, there was nothing for him to do. Donathan caught a glimpse of his tired eyes and ashen skin on the twenty-seven-inch computer screen before he powered it on.

  He felt like a fraud. A clinical psychologist, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, in desperate need of a psychologist of his own. He grunted at the irony. It was one thing to be covered in the veil of a cheating scandal—hell, cheating was something men did. But to be overpowered by a woman of that size twice left a bad taste in his mouth. People looked at him like he was weak. After mindlessly searching the internet awhile, Donathan found himself immersed in a dark-blue file folder. The outside of the folder was plain and inconspicuous, but a label bearing Curtis Holsey, Investigations was pasted on the inside pocket. He reread the contents for the umpteenth time, hopeful he’d find a clue to locate the troubled girl, tossed from one foster home to another. Miraculously, during high school, Austyn Greene became an honor student and was accepted into UCLA, his and Sydney’s alma mater, eventually landing in medical school of all places. This fact was mind-blowing to Donathan, but it explained her obvious familiarity with a scalpel.

  Massaging the bridge of his nose, he leaned back into the leather office chair and sighed heavily. Some would read this information and praise how, through all the adversity and abuse this child had suffered, she’d made it out, but the therapist in him knew better. Austyn Greene had been a ticking time bomb for years, waiting for the right insult to explode. His instincts told him his paranoia wasn’t a silly overreaction. Where the hell was she? Austyn’s whereabouts were unknown, and the police search hadn’t found anything useful. It was as if she’d just vanished into thin air.

  Words she had spoken to him in her apartment echoed in his head again: “I almost found her in Pittsburg, met somebody who kind of looked like her. Lois Greene is going to wish she had never been born. I am going to kill that bitch.”

  He flipped the file pages with purpose, this time searching for anything he could find on Lois Greene. The dossier listed her last known address in Southern California, but the million-dollar question was whether she had Bay Area connections rooted in Pittsburg.

  In all his years as a therapist he never understood how anyone could knowingly harm an innocent child. What type of woman would sell her daughter for a hit of crack cocaine? Donathan thought back to Austyn’s account of the abuse. At the time he had no idea if she was lying or telling the truth. And even though she wasn’t his patient, her confessions haunted him.

  Psychologists were trained to get both sides of the story before drawing any type of conclusion, but in this case it was all about Austyn’s perception, the driving force behind her need for revenge. The type of retaliation that would keep her here hunting for the target until Lois Greene got what Austyn felt she deserved. Austyn was still here—he could feel it.

  Donathan located the business card for Curtis Holsey and hesitated. The private investigator had proven to be shady. He attempted to double-cross one of Donathan’s closest friends, Tyrese, by extorting money from him to keep him from exposing his infidelity. Tyrese paid the ruthless investigator, which proved to be futile because his wife found out and left him anyway. Holsey didn’t have any integrity and was clearly in it for the money.

  Donathan typed “private investigator” into the Google search bar and a link for The Best 10 Private Investigation Firms in Oakland, CA popped up. He clicked, then scanned the list of investigators and chuckled to himself when he didn’t find Holsey Investigations. None of the names on the list jumped out at him, and the thought of bringing someone new up to speed on the case gave him a sense of uneasiness. Last time, Holsey had been thorough and quick, which was exactly what Donathan needed right now. Finding and vetting a new investigator wasn’t his top priority. Locating Austyn Greene was. He couldn’t deny the dude was slick and couldn’t be trusted, but it was Holsey’s gutter mentality that would lead him right to where Austyn was hiding.

  Without further hesitation, Donathan picked up the receiver and dialed the numbers displayed on the card. It was too early to reach Holsey, but he would feel better once he left a message. The phone rang once.

  “Holsey.”

  Donathan was caught off guard when the live hoarse voice piped through the phone.

  “Hello?” the raspy voice barked again.

 
“Sorry, man, I didn’t expect you to answer your phone at five in the morning.”

  “I don’t get paid to sleep. How can I help you, Dr. James?”

  “How did you know it was me?” Donathan said, eyeing the private phone he used to phone patients from time to time that obviously wasn’t as private as he believed.

  “You have heard of caller ID, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, I have, but AT&T assured me the number was private. I’m calling from a blocked number—”

  “Dr. James, I make a living finding out things about people they don’t want other people to know, like phone numbers for starters. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I have some more work for you.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the story that’s been leading the local news, would it?”

  Donathan made his way to the office window, peeked out, then groaned. At some point something had to be done about the news hounds camped outside his front gate. Donathan thought that by him and Sydney not giving a statement, the story would quickly be dethroned as the Bay Area’s hot topic, but over three weeks had passed, and even though the numbers dwindled, a handful of reporters were still there.

  “I need your help finding her again.”

  “Aren’t the police looking for her?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how much of a priority she is to them. This woman is a threat to my wife and my life. I need her found ASAP.”

  “Ya know, this new deal requires new money. I need a new retainer fee plus expenses and—”

  “Your fee is not a problem.”

  “Well, since you have so much money to burn, cash is my preferred method of payment.”

  “I can meet with you later—”

  Holsey cut him off. “Good. I’ll get back to you with a location. In the meantime, you might want to just lie low and stay put behind that nice gate of yours. It sounds like you got a real loony tune on your hands. And in my experience, people like Austyn Greene don’t usually go away until they get what they’re looking for.”

  Donathan pondered that last statement a moment. Holsey was right. Like most victims of abuse, Austyn Greene suffered from low self-esteem and a distorted view of herself that made her susceptible to abusers. Usually, this was an accurate profile of such cases. Unlike Austyn, rarely did a subject do a complete 360-degree turnaround and go from being visibly troubled to a stellar member of society. She had become a medical doctor for Christ’s sake, a task that even he, to his mother’s chagrin, had been unable to master. But every once in a while, abuse victims became sociopaths, their pain the driving force behind their destructive behaviors. Austyn Greene was both. And although he and Sydney were locked in her crosshairs, there was someone else she wanted more. Austyn believed one woman was to blame for the current state of her life, and she would stop at nothing until she made her pay.

  “Holsey, change of plans. I need you to locate someone else for me.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Austyn’s mother. I need you to help me find Lois Greene.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Austyn Greene’s pulse quickened, her thoughts in overdrive and agitated by the loud noises jarring through the poorly insulated Sheetrock. She hobbled unevenly to the door to check the lock operated from the inside by a thumb turn, then latched the safety chain for added protection. She didn’t know how much longer she could survive in this hellhole, yet she was out of options at the moment.

  The roadside motel was a haven for drug addicts, sexual deviants, and gum-chewing prostitutes—a dump by anyone’s standards. The pain in her right knee pounded in sync with the elevated voices as she limped away from the door, to switch on the bedside lamp resting on the side table. Her hands shook as she reached for her backpack, opened the bottle of painkillers, and managed to pop a few in her mouth, before chasing them down with the half-empty bottle of water on the nightstand.

  Austyn inspected the bruise where the steel lever made impact with her kneecap. She couldn’t believe she let that bitch, Sydney James, do this to her.

  Over the past few weeks, the swelling had gone down considerably, but the constant ache hadn’t ceased. Austyn leaned back against the faux-wood headboard and fixated on a single spot of peeling paint on the ceiling.

  Attempting to silence the chaos, she plugged her ears with her two middle fingers and hummed out loud. When she’d stopped at this roadside motel a few weeks ago and paid cash to rent a room for a month, the manager on duty took the payment, gave her a key, and never asked any questions. It was her just-in-case option. She had no intention of ever using the dingy space until she found Donathan James snooping through her apartment, then it became her only option.

  Austyn grinned, recalling the look on Donathan’s face when she stabbed him in the neck with the loaded syringe and watched his full height buckle to the floor. But then everything went completely wrong. One minute she was about to give Donathan James just what he deserved; the next minute his wife, Sydney, busted her knee with a tire iron and loud sirens had her on the run. By the time she reached the old car she kept stashed around the corner—her plan B—she was barefoot and blinded by fury, and her knee had ballooned to the size of a small melon. She had to get away from there... to be safe. Austyn retrieved the spare key attached to the underside of the car bumper, then drove to the very place that was now her prison—Pittsburg.

  “Dammit,” she gasped, as a sharp pain sliced through her knee. She reached for the almost-empty water bottle and flung it across the room.

  “Shut the fuck up!” she screamed at the wall. “I should have killed them both when I had the chance.”

  Did Donathan remember her rant about Pittsburg?

  Of course not, the voice in her head assured her.

  Her mind’s eye replayed the reel of Donathan James sprawled across her living room floor, intoxicated by the effects of the drug and drifting in and out of consciousness. There was no way he could remember the things she’d said to him. All the things she’d shared with him that day were their little secret.

  “Hmph,” she barked at the irony.

  For years she drowned in secrets. Her breath quickened at the thought of the rapes, the beatings, then hitched in her throat at the memory of being fondled by random men at the direction of her mother. When she heard Donathan James on the radio show giving information and bragging about how he helped his patients, she thought he was different, thought he could help her, but he turned out to be just like all the others.

  Consumed by the hunger for revenge, a sudden rush of anger made its way to the surface of her mind as she moved toward the air-conditioning unit affixed to the wall. If the sex doctor did tell the police, she didn’t have much time before they came looking for her.

  “Fuck!” Austyn winced, panting through the pain as she eased her way to the floor, then untapped a Phillips head screwdriver from the bottom panel.

  Getting tossed into a jail cell was not on her agenda. Not before she located Lois Greene, the bitch who put this avalanche in motion, and not before she made Donathan and Sydney James pay.

  Austyn removed the front panel of the cooling unit and retrieved a small black case no bigger than the size of a small cosmetic bag. The woman’s screams and the crashing of what sounded like drawers opening and closing, being pulled from the plywood dresser and tossed to the ground, sent Austyn’s heart rate into overdrive again. She scooted closer to the wall, leaned in, and listened. She flinched with every slap, as if she could feel the palm-to-skin contact coming from the other side of the plaster wall.

  “Bitch, you’ve been working all day, and this is all the money you have? You must be skimming or fucking for free,” the man yelled before he struck the girl again.

  “Ray, please don’t,” the girl begged. “I swear I didn’t take no money.”

  The room grew quiet before her barely audible sobs intensified.

  “Well, somebody been sleeping on the job, ’cause you should be an expert at what t
o do with that mouth and the heat between your legs. Get your ass over here and let daddy give you a lesson.”

  A few minutes passed, but it wasn’t long before deep moans and grunts smothered the room. Austyn sat paralyzed as the constant thud of the headboard flooded her mind with images of the filthy man who’d stolen her innocence. Bile rose in her throat as she relived the first time. Her body crushed by the weight of the grown man lying on top of her. He played with her almost-budding breasts, before it quickly escalated into something much worse. Lois looked on, unfazed by Austyn’s tears.

  Lois said, “Shush, girl. It’s only going to hurt this one time. Now stop all this foolishness so the man can finish his business.”

  Austyn’s body trembled uncontrollably, then drifted into a back-and-forth rocking synchronized with the hard and steady rhythm of the headboard as it banged against the wall. Her movements stopped abruptly. She unzipped the black toiletry bag she had retrieved from the air-conditioning unit, removed the scalpels, syringes, and vials of medication, then placed them one by one on the worn brown carpet next to her. The banging grew louder and faster, followed by the howl-like moans signifying the predator had finished his business. Austyn became eerily calm, hypnotized by the bedside light bouncing off the surgical instruments.

  “They all have to pay,” she murmured through her post-traumatic haze, knowing that Lois Greene’s debt was immeasurable and way overdue.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Open and close your hand for me,” the surgeon said, examining the wound and what was left of a few sutures on Sydney James’s right hand.