CHAPTER 22
The rest of our trip was exquisite. Grand Cayman was gorgeous as well. Trey and I did more snorkeling, more shopping, took more pictures and made love whenever we could. We had beach sex for the first time which while exciting and romantic with the moonlight and crashing waves, did have the downside of allowing sand to get into some very uncomfortable places.
All too soon the ship was docking back into New Orleans and we were on a flight back to Atlanta. I was curled up against Trey on the plane. We were both sipping margaritas, trying to make our vacation last as long as possible. We still had Saturday and Sunday before he went back to the firm. We had talked again about his going for a judgeship. Deep down, I was thrilled with the idea. I didn't want to get my hopes up at this point because nothing was guaranteed.
"I wish we would have had another week," I grumbled to him.
"Oh sweetie, it was perfect. I'm sure if you had spent any more time cooped up with me I would have been on your nerves."
"Yeah? You're probably right."
His arm drew me to him playfully, his fingers pulling my face to his. He kissed me making a long and loud sucking sound. The other passengers in first class were looking over at us.
"Trey, stop," I whispered loudly, starting to giggle. "People are watching."
"Why don't we give them something good to watch then, Mrs. Sinclair? I think it's time you get initiated into the 'Mile High' club."
Trey asked the flight attendant for blankets. He switched our overhead lights off and gave me a blanket to cover myself with as did he. He raised the armrest between our seats so that we could cuddle together. I had nearly dozed off when I felt Trey's hands beneath the blanket. He unzipped my jeans and his fingers dipped below the top of my panties finding my sex and gently manipulating his fingers to get inside me.
(Oh my! I had thought he was kidding…)
My eyes flew open and I looked up at him. His eyes were closed as if asleep. His hands were very much awake and doing magical, lovely things to me. I relaxed against him and thoroughly enjoyed it as his fingers brought me to orgasm. I stifled my moans by chewing on the edge of the blanket.
Once pleasured, it was my turn. I shifted on my side moving closer to him as I 'slept.' My hand explored his crotch area under the blanket. I wasn't nearly as adept as Trey was with getting inside of someone else's clothing with precise and fluid movements. I fumbled around for a couple of minutes. Finally Trey came to my rescue by unzipping his fly and releasing his very erect manhood without notice.
I took it from there as my hand expertly stroked the length of his shaft moving up and down from head to root. My fingernails traced lightly along the sensitive ridge, then plunged down the length of it again. He squirmed underneath me; I heard his breathing coming faster. I increased my tempo in response to his breathing, making sure that I lowered my other hand to gently massage his scrotum. He was close; his breathing was ragged. I felt him stiffen and I stopped as I felt the familiar throb of his penis. A soft moan escaped as he came beneath the dark blue blanket. I was glad the seats were leather. It was much easier to clean.
A limo took us from the airport to our house. There were a couple of lights on inside which we kept on timers. I had fallen asleep in Trey's lap on the way home. Jean wouldn't be coming back until Sunday evening. We were going to pick Preston up at Tristan and Gina's in the morning. Trey paid the driver as I unlocked the door. Trey brought our luggage into the entry hall.
He locked the door behind us.
"Come on 'Island Tylar,' let’s get to bed. We can get unpacked in the morning."
Trey had taken to referring to me as 'Island Tylar' while we had been on vacation. I kind of liked it. We had grown so close; I felt we were closer now than ever before. He put his arm around me as we climbed the stairs to the master suite. Our own bed was going to feel so damn good.
Trey flipped the light switch on once we reached our room. It took me a moment to get my bearings and make some sense of what I was seeing. I heard Trey suck his breath in as he looked around.
Dresser drawers were hanging open with clothes scattered about. There were empty hangers strewn all over the floor from my closet to the bed. Our bed was piled high with clothing. My clothing. I went over to the bed picking up the various articles of my wardrobe that had been slashed, ripped and cut up with either a knife or scissors.
"Stop," Trey ordered, causing me to jump. "Don't touch anything, Tylar. We have to call the authorities."
Two hours later both of us fell exhausted into our bed. The sheriff's deputy said that there wasn't a lot they could do. Nothing had been taken as far as we could tell; there was no sign of forced entry. It appeared to them that it was a simple act of vandalism. I didn't consider it simple at all. This was malicious. This was totally directed at me. It was a threat if nothing else.
The deputy said that they would send the mobile crime lab out in the morning to dust for fingerprints but not to get our hopes up that anything would develop. He advised Trey to put an alarm system in. That was that. Our beautiful vacation had been spoiled by coming home to something like this.
"Trey," I said, looking over at him in bed. "Do you think that Amber is capable of something like this?"
"God Tylar, she would have to be a psycho. I can't think that she would take it this far. I'm starting to wonder if I'm looking in the wrong direction at all of this. Try to sleep baby."
He pulled me to him, wrapping me in his safe, strong arms. We finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
Trey and I slept until nearly noon the following day. The doorbell woke us up. It was the mobile crime unit that had been dispatched to dust for fingerprints in various places of the house both inside and out. They were there for about an hour and a half. Trey and I cleaned up their mess afterwards.
I found something to wear in my suitcase. Most everything else had been destroyed. Some of the torn clothing was taken by the crime unit for further examination.
I made lunch for Trey and I in the kitchen. He was sipping coffee at the table.
"Honey, I don't want you to worry about this, okay? I'll contact our insurance agent Monday to file a claim to replace the clothing. I will also arrange to get a security system installed."
"I'm okay, Trey. I don't believe that this was Amber, though. You remember what my father told me at Thanksgiving."
"Yes - but I can't fathom what Ms. Deeny would hope to gain by doing this. Also, that doesn't explain my computer password being changed."
"So you think that all this stuff is related to the same person?"
"I don't know," he said rubbing his face with his hands. It might be random things but the timing is suspect. Someone knew we were going to be gone; someone knew my password; and how would someone get into the house without forced entry?"
"Let's think about that for a minute," I said, taking a seat next to him. "Amber would have knowledge of us being out of town. Amber would have knowledge of your password. We know for a fact that she used it to download that special ring tone to your phone that one time. Amber wouldn't have a key to this house though. Besides that, would she really risk her career to cut up my clothing?"
Trey shook his head. "It makes no sense that she would take it that far, I agree. Perhaps these incidents are not tied together. I want to find out if the bitch cancelled my credit cards though."
"Trey - how are you going to do that?"
"I can find out how they were cancelled."
"What do you mean?"
"Unless she cancelled my credit cards directly from my laptop which is extremely unlikely; then she had to do it from another computer with a different IP address. That can be tracked. Otherwise she had to do it by phone or mail. Those records are kept. I need to dig into it before I arbitrarily accuse her of anything."
"Okay. If we've narrowed the suspects to either Amber or Ms. Deeny, then how would either of them gotten into this house?"
"We need to talk to Marcus and see if he saw or heard anything this past week. I can't think of any way Amber could have had access to my keys. Unlike my phone, I don't misplace my keys."
Something Trey said then triggered a memory of mine. My keys had been lost. I recalled it now.
"Wait a minute, Trey. I lost my whole set of keys last year, remember?"
"That's right," he said, his voice getting excited. "It was shortly after we returned from Baton Rouge. You thought you had left them at your father's house."
"That's right. I called him and he had his staff search high and low but they never found them. I figured after that I had either left them on the plane or in the limo. I bet Ms. Deeny took them."
"Yeah but Tylar, we hadn’t moved out here yet."
"I know Trey, but I still had a key on the chain for this house. It even had one of those circular white tags that had the address on it. We both had them for when we came out during construction, remember?"
"That's right," he replied. "Do you suppose she has been lying in wait all of this time?"
"It's possible. I need to let Dad know what happened. I'm going to call him Trey, then we'll leave to get Preston."
"Okay, baby," he said, pulling me to him. "I love you, Tylar. I had a great time with you this past week. I want more of those times for us."
My butterflies surged as I pressed against my husband. We kissed and held each other for a moment. "I love you, Trey."
An hour later Trey and I were on our way to pick up Preston. I had Gina's stuff in my purse. I had brought an envelope full of the pictures we had taken on our cruise. The ship's photographer had taken about twenty pictures of Trey and I that we bought as we left the ship. I had printed the others out that Trey and I had taken, from our home computer.
There was no available parking in front of the apartment building. Trey had to circle the block twice before finally finding an open parking space on the street the next block down. It was on the other side of the street from our old apartment building. We got out and started down the sidewalk toward the cross walk.
As we neared the crosswalk I remembered that I had left our vacation pictures in the car.
“Hold up, Trey,” I called out as he turned from the curb to see where I was.
I unlocked the car with my remote and pulled the envelope full of pictures off of the front seat. I relocked the car and joined him at the curb.
“You aren’t going to bore Gina and Tristan with our vacation pictures, are you?” he teased.
“They are gorgeous. I’m sure they will enjoy seeing all of the fun we had.”
We waited for the light to change to enter the crosswalk of the busy street. Trey was several steps ahead of me as usual due to his long legs and the fact that I had unfortunately decided to wear the new pointed toe, high-heeled leather boots that I had purchased in Montego Bay. They weren't quite broken in yet. I was stumbling along after him, my feet in pain.
“It might be nice if you waited for me, Trey,” I called out after him.
Trey turned to look back at me and that’s when we both heard the squeal of peeling tires coming from around the line of stopped cars. It was a cream-colored SUV traveling at a high speed and going in the wrong direction. The driver was headed directly for me. I froze.
In that split second it was if everything unfolded in slow motion. I saw the look of fear and panic register on Trey’s face; I saw him instantly dive in front of me. He shoved me back full force towards the curb and sidewalk. I rolled up against the sidewalk, my head slamming against concrete. My purse and the envelope full of photos went airborne and landed several feet from me on the sidewalk. I heard the sound of metal and glass shattering further on down the block. I tried to raise my head up to see what had happened. The SUV had crashed into a storefront; the vehicle’s horn was blaring.
I saw a pair of men’s shoes standing in front of my face as I tried to get up; a voice instructed me not to move. I figured the voice belonged to whoever was wearing the shoes. It wasn’t Trey’s voice. Those weren't Trey's shoes. My head was reeling as I rolled on my other side to search for Trey.
I saw his black coat lying in the street. It took me a moment to realize he was still wearing it. He was face down in the street; he wasn’t moving. People had gone over to him. I could hear shouting; someone said they had called for the police and an ambulance. From somewhere I heard a very loud, plaintive wail. It seemed to go on forever. It took me a few moments to realize that it was coming from me. Then it was dark and silent.