Tormented

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“There,” said Marissa as she added the finishing touches of makeup to Kimani’s cheek. “Can’t see the bruise at all. You’re lucky you have dark skin.”

“Thanks.” Kimani looked at herself in the mirror of their bathroom and saw only the faint shadow of a bruise beneath the concealer and powder. Her cheek was still slightly swollen, and it was sore to the touch. Jake had managed to hit her in the same spot twice, once on their first meeting and again on their last meeting.

That last day at the cabin had been a blur, save for the emotions that still haunted her: fear, dismay, panic, relief, helplessness, despair, and misery. She remembered fearing for her life when Jake had pulled out the gun, then panicking that Jake might shoot Ben. The thought of Ben hurt—or worse—had galvanized her out or her paralysis to take a chance on knocking the gun from Jake.

“I wasn’t going to shoot anyone,” Jake had protested when everyone else had returned, shocked and confused to find Claire in tears, Kimani holding an ice pack to her head, and a large Mongolian with a gun standing over Jake and Vince.

“I just wanted to send a message that I’m not going to be bullied around,” Jake had explained, his gaze on Ben.

After looking over Kimani and getting her an ice pack, Ben hadn’t touched or said anything to her. When he’d held her jaw, firm yet gentle, to inspect her injuries, her heart had crumbled. She had wanted his fingers to remain on her forever.

She never got a chance to tell him how awful she felt about the article and to apologize for her part. She wanted to say how sorry she was that she had been so prejudiced at the beginning, so convinced that a guy like him had to be bad. By the time she had realized her error—by the time she had fallen for him—it was too late. Zealous in her mission, she had acted without enough consideration for him or his family.

If she could do it all over again, she would have done things differently.

And now she had created a mess worse than a bull in a china shop.

“So, whatever happened to your rich Asian hottie?” Keisha asked when Kimani went to have her braids undone. They reminded her too much of her time with Ben.

“Back in China,” Kimani replied.

After quitting the cabin, Ben had brought everyone except Jake, Vince and Derek onto the jet. She wished she had pulled Ben aside and found the words and the courage. But she had allowed the opportunity to pass, not realizing that she wasn’t going to get a chance to speak with him again.

After landing in San Francisco, Ben had had Wong drive Claire and Kimani to the hospital to be checked by a doctor.

“Can you have Ben call me?” Kimani had asked Wong after being dropped off at her home after the hospital. She had handed Wong a slip of paper with her phone number and email.

Three days had passed without word from Ben. She had tried his office and was told by the receptionist that Mr. Lee was in Shanghai, with no return date scheduled.

“He’s got to come back to work on his waterfront development,” Kimani had said.

“If you need to talk to someone about the development, the project leader is actually Harold Stone, in our office,” the receptionist had replied.

Remembering that she had texted and called Sam from Ben’s phone, she had gotten his cell number from Sam, but some kind of answering service routed only authorized calls through. Calls originating from unauthorized or blocked phone numbers had to leave a message to be called back.

“You can’t write the story,” Sam told her as they sat in his office at the Tribune offices. “You were in too deep. Especially if you’re going to press charges against Jake, you’re no longer unbiased.”

Expecting that to be Sam’s answer, Kimani didn’t feel as devastated as she thought she would have been. Her efforts wouldn’t be in vain if she could bring someone like Jake to justice and take down the Scarlet Auction. She had told the San Francisco District Attorney all that she knew and had handed over her recording pens so that the D.A.’s office could investigate the Scarlet Auction.

“This is definitely something to look into,” the Assistant District Attorney had told Kimani.

It was the bright spot in an otherwise depressing turn of events. At least something positive had come out of it all. Something worth a broken heart.

“I’m not anxious to go back to Trinity County, but I’ve got to press charges,” Kimani said to Sam. “I don’t think Claire will.”

“That’s the woman this Jake strangled till she passed out?”

Kimani nodded. “She said he did it on accident. Apparently he bought a diamond and emerald ring to prove how sorry he was about it.”

“A bribe, in other words.” Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry about the way things turned out. I should never have let you take this on. It was too dangerous.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Kimani paused. “You never told me you were going to run an article about Oakland Forward.”

“It was a last-minute call. Ownership was having a conference call that I just found out about that day.”

“The article is not going to be good for Gordon Lee.”