The Raping of Ava DeSantis Read online

  “Really? Heroin?”

  “Yes. And he told me that cops up there nicknamed her ‘brains’ because she would ask for a crossword puzzle every time she went into a holding cell. Very smart girl. Why she became a hooker is what intrigues me.”

  Wesley’s chiseled face remained indifferent. “What else did you find?”

  “We also checked your mother’s personal bank records like you suggested. You were right. She made two wire transfers to a brokerage account owned by Nick DeSantis in Atlantic City. One was in February 1991 for half-a-million dollars and the other was for the exact same amount, fifteen years later, practically to the day.”

  “Okay.”

  Zhao’s demeanor changed. “Wesley, your mother paid Ava one million dollars to have an abortion.”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit steep? Eighteen years of child support wouldn’t have added up to that much money.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Wesley, there’s a piece of information missing here. And my bet is that you’re the only one left who knows it. Think hard. What am I overlooking?”

  A fog of silence suddenly filled the bar…

  Wesley had finally run out of stories.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Michelle drove their black Escalade down Birchwood Road, approaching her home in the distance. She spotted Ava jogging on the sidewalk, decked out in sexy black yoga pants and a yellow hooded sweatshirt.

  Michelle pulled alongside her. “Hey, Ava!”

  Ava waved and turned on her best Southern twang. “Hey, Michelle. How are ya?”

  Michelle’s big brown eyes welled with tears.

  “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “Everything.”

  Ava casually looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Want some company? I’m tired of running anyways.”

  “Sure, why not. Hop in.”

  ***

  Wesley began sweating under his sleek, black Versace shirt.

  “What’s even stranger is that Nick DeSantis committed suicide the same night the second wire transfer was made. Isn’t that odd?”

  “What? Ava’s father is dead?”

  “Yes. And here I was thinking this was going to be some boring investigation of a bunch of spoiled gwai lo.”

  Wesley ignored the insult. “What happened?”

  “According to the police report,” Detective Zhao referred to his notebook. “Nick took a gym bag full of cash to the Trump Taj Mahal, which was the hotel where Ava was living at the time. He knocked on the door, handed her the money, told her how sorry he was for quote ‘destroying her life’ then stuck a .44 caliber in his mouth and blew his brains out right in the hallway…right in front of psycho girl.”

  “Oh my God. That’s horrible.”

  “You bet it is. And when the police arrived, she turned the bag of cash over to them and said she had no idea where he got it. Two days later, she checked into Ocean County Rehab for Women, and when she was out, she booked a first class flight to Atlanta Hartsfield. That’s it. Clean record ever since.”

  “So she’s sober now?”

  “Appears so.”

  “And unemployed?”

  Zhao hesitated. “Well, she hasn’t paid taxes since 1991.”

  “Then how the hell did she get so much money?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her condo, her car. If she blew the first payment on drugs and didn’t keep the money from the second payment, then how did she become so wealthy?”

  “There’s lots of ways to get rich, Wesley. Maybe she’s dealing the smack now. Or maybe she’s milking rich ass sugar daddies—or in her case, sugar mommas—who the hell knows. All I know is that I wasn’t able to find any property or cars registered in her name.”

  “Wow. She must blame all of us for her father’s death.”

  “Yes, could be a motive.”

  Wesley raked his hand through his dark blonde hair. “Can you excuse me? I need to call my wife and make sure she’s okay.”

  “Certainly, please do so.”

  Zhao turned to the bartender and in Chinese, ordered another round.

  ***

  Michelle served Ava a second glass of sweet iced tea.

  “Perfect. Thanks.”

  The pressure of her son’s impending birth, combined with her mother-in-law’s recent death, was finally taking a toll on Michelle’s spirit. Her eyes were sallow, her body bloated, her energy listless. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she said in a solemn tone.

  “You need to take some time for yourself, Michelle. Relax. Take a spa day before your son arrives.” Ava inconspicuously grabbed a large object in the front pocket of her sweatshirt. “You need to recover from this ordeal.”

  “I’m trying.”

  Ava’s large green eyes perked as she took another sip of the delicious tea. “How’s your husband holding up? He was close to his mother, right?”

  Michelle cocked her head. “He’s not doing well. None of us are handling this well…” She walked over to the junk drawer. “Especially me.”

  With Michelle’s back turned, Ava slowly rose and approached her…her hand gripping the large object in her sweatshirt…waiting…ready to make her move…

  Suddenly, Michelle turned around. “I know who you are, Ava.” She pulled a .38 caliber gun from the drawer and pointed it in Ava’s face—

  Surprise!

  Ava was stunned. “Hold on a second, I—”

  “All of you fucking whores are the same! Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t know you’re fucking my husband? I can see it in his eyes every time I mention your name!”

  “Michelle. Please—”

  Her lips quivered. “Don’t bother lying to me! I saw your cell phone number on his caller ID, you home wrecking bitch!”

  “Michelle, I—”

  “Then I find out from Lilly you keep calling him at the office. And when he came home last week after staying out all night, I could smell your whorey perfume and cigarette smoke all over him!”

  Ava realized the gig was up. “Michelle, I never wanted to hurt you,” she said in her native accent.

  “Wow. You’re not even from Georgia are you? You’re a fucking liar! Just like he is! And then you have the nerve to get knocked up and try to become my friend so you can take my place? Never! I will never let some cunt like you give birth to my husband’s child. I’ll kill you first!”

  “Michelle! Calm down. You have it all wrong. I can’t even have children.”

  “Stop fucking lying to me!” Michelle lunged closer.

  Ava changed her tune. “You have no idea who the fuck I am or what I am capable of. So you better back the fuck down before someone gets hurt.”

  The phone RANG in the kitchen. Michelle trembled.

  Ava stared straight into the gun barrel without moving a muscle. “You picked the wrong cunt to fuck with, Michelle. I can assure you of that.”

  The phone RANG again. Michelle answered it abruptly, still holding the gun.

  “Yes, Wesley.”

  “Hey, you okay? I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. Everything’s fine.” Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Are you sure? You sound weird.”

  “I’m fine, Wes, take your time.” She looked into Ava’s hypnotic eyes. “I’ve got a few things I need to do before you come home, so no need to rush.”

  “Okay, I’m finishing up here soon…I’ll see you in a while.” He hung up the phone.

  The dial tone played.

  Michelle’s face crumbled as she spoke back to the empty line. “I love you too, baby.” The phone fell from her hand as she sobbed, water dripping down her leg.

  Holy shit, her water broke!

  Ava took advantage of the situation and lunged for the gun, easily pulling it out of Michelle’s hand—throwing it to the floor.

  Michelle quickly regained her strength, punching and scratching
Ava. “You evil bitch!” she screamed wildly.

  Refusing to fight a pregnant woman, Ava held onto Michelle’s flailing arms, letting her exhaust herself in the struggle.

  Michelle fought back with all her might. As the amniotic fluid gushed down her leg, she twisted and twirled, breaking free, trying to pull Ava down to the floor with her. She bent backwards, slipped on a puddle of fluid on the tile… and

  BAAAM!

  The back of her skull hit the blunt corner of the granite countertop. And just like that—only hours from giving life—Michelle’s body fell to the floor with a THUD.

  The room was eerily silent. It felt as if all the birds outside had stopped singing at once.

  Ava bent over to feel her pulse.

  Nothing.

  “Shit.”

  In her mild panic, she pulled out the large item from her pocket—a blue baby rattle with a bow around it—and placed it on the counter. She grabbed the cordless phone, struggling to remember a number by memory. 404-501-???…Dammit.

  Finally, she remembered. “Hey, it’s me. There’s a serious change in plans.” She glanced at the lifeless body on the floor then towards a knife block on the counter top. “No, I need you to send them here right now.”

  She hung up the phone.

  She pulled a small paring knife out of the wooden block.

  She bent down and lifted Michelle’s black blouse, covering her face.

  Her stretch-marked belly was now fully exposed.

  She placed her hand over the bulging torso.

  Just then, baby T.J. kicked back…making her smile.

  ***

  Detective Zhao approached Wesley, who had moved to the restaurant entrance to get better cell phone reception.

  “Everything good at home, Wes?”

  Wesley hung up the phone. “Yes, everything’s fine. Please go on.”

  Zhao slugged the rest of his beer and placed the empty bottle on a dinner table beside him. “Well, there are still too many unanswered questions. For example, why did your mother wait fifteen years to pay Ava? Why not pay her off right away and be done with it?”

  “I guess my mother wanted to stretch it out so my father wouldn’t notice the money was missing.”

  “But the cash came from her family trust account. I doubt your father even has access.”

  Wesley shrugged. “Look, Detective Zhao, avoiding public disgrace meant more to my mother than anything else in the world. Maybe by spreading out the payments she made sure Ava wouldn’t go back on her word.”

  “But here’s what really gets me, Wesley. Why would Ava agree to wait that long? What was in it for her?”

  “That I don’t know. The whole arrangement was between them…” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “More importantly, have you found any evidence yet? Like DNA or fingerprints proving she’s behind this? How long do we have to wait?”

  Zhao’s eyes darkened. “Wesley, I went to Le Masquerade last night. I showed your picture to one of the waitresses there, and you know what she said? She said that you and her girlfriend, Ava, left the club together and had a threesome at their place Tuesday night.”

  Wesley’s face froze mid-sentence.

  “Goddammit. I hate to be lied to—”

  “Wait a second, Ava made me go there, and without my knowledge she drugged my—”

  Zhao pounded his fist. “Maybe I was looking at the wrong Scarborough all along! Your father’s not the only person to benefit from your mother’s death. Were you aware that she changed her will two months ago? That thirty million dollar trust fund now passes directly to you!”

  Wesley was taken aback. “Whoa, you are on the wrong track, Detective. You don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “It’s a brilliant plan. Kill your mother, send your father to jail, and you—the only child—walks away with everything. And who better to help you than the woman who hates your mother more than life itself. But you two little lovebirds had one problem: the friends who knew about your past together. So you wiped them out and now you’re trying to get rid of your girlfriend by pinning the whole thing on her.”

  “My God. You have this all wrong.”

  Zhao’s body pitched forward. “I hate to be fucked like a bitch, Wesley!”

  “This is bullshit. I’m out of here.”

  “I’m on you like white on rice, boy. You better watch it!”

  Wesley approached the exit, then turned around one last time. “You know, you probably should have stayed on the rape beat because your instincts here are all wrong!”

  He stormed out the door.

  Zhao remained. And judging by the faces of the dinner patrons surrounding him, the entire restaurant overheard his dramatic Shakespearean soliloquy.

  “Sorry. Please resume your eating. No problems here.”

  Meanwhile, outside, Wesley dug through his pockets and pulled out a small key—the one that opens his top-secret desk drawer.

  Shit, I gave Michelle my car keys.

  He stepped out into the light drizzling rain and hailed a red gypsy taxi.

  ***

  Zhao drove his Ford Crown Victoria along the city streets, struggling to find the missing piece of the puzzle. Come on, Ava. Why would you wait fifteen years? And you, Miriam. What were you so afraid of? Come on ladies, tell Big Daddy the truth…

  He thought back to his argument with Wesley at the bar…

  “You know, you probably should have stayed on the rape beat because your instincts here are all wrong!”

  He thought back to a night years ago…one of the many nights he’d sat in a hospital room with his good friend, Doctor Jennifer Morris…

  A younger Zhao pulled out his notebook. “So, what do we know?”

  “Well, we only know three things at this point. Her name is Ava DeSantis, she’s a student at Anniston University and she’s originally from Atlantic City. I was able to locate her father earlier today, so he’s on plane right now.”

  “Who brought her in?”

  “Two of her classmates. They were acting very strange. They said they found her lying naked in the road, next to her car, but my gut tells me they’re lying.”

  Zhao leaned in closer, examining the mummy-wrapped body. “They really screwed this one up, didn’t they?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “All right. Just call me if she ever wakes up.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Back in the car…

  Zhao jolted in his seat. The statute of limitations for rape is fifteen years!

  “You lying, little prick!”

  He quickly turned the car around, screeching his tires in the process…

  And sped off towards Wesley’s home in Buckhead.

  ***

  Wesley was about to reach for the doorbell when he noticed the front door was slightly ajar. Dammit. I told her to set the alarm.

  He entered his home. It was pitch black.

  A strange soft rumbling noise permeated the house. What is that?

  “Michelle?”

  It was so dark, not even a streetlight funneled through a window.

  “Michelle? Are you here?”

  Something with claws JUMPED on Wesley!

  He flipped the lights on. It was a huge black cat.

  He grabbed its leg and threw it to the floor.

  “Michelle!”

  Dozens of gray, black and orange cats filled the foyer, meowing together like a chorus of evil waiting for their master to arrive.

  He rushed into the bedroom. More cats.

  “Michelle! Where are you?”

  He charged back into the living room. More cats.

  “Michelle!!! Answer me!”

  His heart was now in his stomach, fearing the absolute worst.

  He slowly walked into the kitchen…

  There he saw five tiny white kittens…now red-faced and stained…from licking a fresh pool of blood on the floor.

  “Oh, my God.”

  He spotted a wide blo
od trail leading into the walk-in pantry.

  God, NO!!!

  He approached the pantry door…

  His heart pounding harder and harder as the chorus of cats meowed louder and louder.

  Tears rolled down Wesley’s pale, stone face.

  “Michelle?”

  He reached for the door and gently pushed it open…

  And there lay his wife’s butchered cadaver on the floor…Her legs bound together with rope…Her midsection ripped opened like a cored out tomato…Her pink and tan organs lying beside her…There was no fetus. Only a discarded placenta and umbilical cord remained.

  “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

  He dropped to the floor, unable to move.

  Lying there, breathless, until his anger consumed him.

  His lust for vengeance powering him off of the floor.

  He ran back into the kitchen.

  He picked up the gun.

  He leapt over the cats, grabbed his keys and ran out the entrance…

  Leaving the door to his home—and his entire life—wide open.

  ***

  Detective Zhao yelled into his police radio. “I need you to send a squad car to the sex club on Fourteenth and Belvedere, and demand a home address for one their employees. It’s an emergency. Her life is in danger.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “First name Alpha, Victor, Alpha last name Delta, Echo, Sierra…”

  ***

  Wesley barged into the marbled lobby of Ava’s building. He held the gun tightly in his tweed coat pocket as he walked briskly towards the elevator landing.

  “Sir! You need to check in first, ” said Lucky the doorman.

  Wesley stopped. “I’m in a rush. It’s an urgent matter.”

  “I’m sorry. Building policy. All visitors must check in.”

  Wesley recognized him. “Wait. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Yes, sir. I was here the last time you visited.”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “I bet you’re here to see Miss Ava in penthouse C again. In fact, I just saw her go up a few minutes ago.” Lucky grabbed the visitor log. “Can I get your last name?”

  Wesley was explosive. “Scarborough.”

  Lucky looked down the visitor log. “Let me check the pre-approved visitor list…”

  Wesley looked up at the security cameras. Nothing would stop him.