Forever After (Unrestrained 5)

At that, the doorbell rang and I glanced at Lara.

“What are you going to tell them about why you’re here?”

Lara stood and straightened her suit jacket. “I’m only a friend offering advice.”

I nodded and went to the doorway. When I got there, I took in a deep breath and tried to calm myself. Then, I opened the door.

There stood the two detectives who had interviewed me in the hospital – Detectives McDonald and St. James.

We said hello and I invited them in. Lara stood a few feet away from the entrance.

“This is Lara, a friend who will be with me while you interview me. She’s a lawyer.”

St. James frowned and looked Lara over. “You don’t need legal counsel now,” he said and handed me his coat. “You’re the victim. We want to ask a few more questions about what happened and what you know about Ms. Monroe.”

“I’m not here to offer her legal advice,” Lara said, her voice calm. “I'm here to sit with her and be moral support. You have to understand that dredging all that up is upsetting to her, all things considered, Detective.”

Lara held St. James’s eye for a long moment and then he relented and nodded his head.

“Shall we get started?” he said and I pointed to the couches in the living room. McDonald and St. James sat on one sofa and Lara and I sat across from them.

McDonald took out a small notepad and pencil and flipped through the pages. Finally, he sat back and regarded me with a piercing gaze, his blue eyes intense.

“So, as you may have heard, we’ve found Ms. Monroe’s personal diary and have been reading it to see what she might have written about Dr. Morgan and you.

“And?” Lara said, her voice sounding impatient. “I’m sure you found that she imagined a relationship with Drake that didn’t exist.”

McDonald shrugged. “She wrote very highly about Dr. Morgan and claims he was willing to maintain the relationship they had before, when she was Mr. Richardson’s submissive partner,” McDonald said to me, after turning pointedly in my direction.

“That’s not true at all,” I said. “They had no relationship. Drake never saw her again after the last time they were involved with Mr. Richardson until the day his fellowship at NYU started.”

“Did you know about that relationship before the accident?” St. James asked, his eyebrows raised.

I nodded, but I didn’t like the way he was looking at me – like I was a naïve little woman who couldn’t see the truth.

“When Drake and I became serious about each other, he told me about his past relationships. Not any details, but he told me that he’d been with several submissives. He didn’t mention names or anything. But when Lisa showed up in his class, he told me about what happened between them.” I cringed a bit inwardly because he hadn’t told me immediately. He didn’t tell me right away. We were getting married, and then there was Christmas…

McDonald nodded and wrote something down in his book. “And when did he tell you?”

I swallowed. “After Christmas when she started to bother him.”

He glanced up at me. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me that Lisa was nothing but a friend’s submissive who he topped a couple of times, but that they never met outside of those instances,” I said, feeling weird talking so openly about BDSM. It now seemed second nature to me but to be talking about it to police officers felt very strange. “She wanted more than the occasional experience with Dr. Morgan. She pushed for a threesome, but neither of them wanted it. Richardson was a voyeur. He liked to watch.”

St. James leaned forward. “Did he ever tell you that he exchanged personal emails with Ms. Monroe?"

"What?" I asked and frowned. "Do you mean work related emails?"

'No, personal."

"No," I said, a surge of something in my gut at the news Drake had sent her emails. "He never said he emailed her. Mostly, they talked in the hallways at the hospital. Or in meetings. During rounds, that sort of thing. He never said he emailed her…" I glanced at Lara. "Did he tell you he emailed her?"

Lara shook her head. "Not that I'm aware of. Can we see the emails?" she asked St. James.

He shook his head. “We have a few we can show you,” he said. “As you can see, they’re of a personal rather than professional nature."

He handed me a couple of sheets of paper from a file. I took them and glanced at them, my heart in my throat.