My eyes watered, but I knew I wouldn’t cry. Not in front of the doctor. Not in front of Mrs. Ellen, and definitely not York or Zola.
“You are such a special person,” Dr. Stein said as I stirred in my seat. “Hunter, you’ve grown into a great young man. You should be proud of yourself. You should be happy and excited for the future, and most of all, you should love with no fear and seek friendships that make you smile.”
My hands shook as I thought of that memory.
I didn’t know why so much of the past had decided to rise in my head. I hadn’t thought of Dr. Stein in many years.
She’d showed up to my boot camp graduation along with Mrs. Ellen, York, and Zola. She’d retired and only volunteered at substance abuse programs when she felt up to it. We’d all celebrated at dinner that night, and I’d paid with my little military pay I’d been so proud to earn.
Dr. Stein laughed the whole time and almost every ten minutes, she told me how proud she was. She might’ve sipped a little more wine than she needed and proclaimed that I was her unofficial grandson.
The next week, I’d arrived at my training facility in Washington. Apparently, the area had perfect terrain for learning how to fight—mountains, lakes, desert, wetlands, and valleys. I’d landed, called Mrs. Ellen, and had been hit by horrible news.
Dr. Stein died in her sleep. No pain. No suffering. She’d just gone.
In that moment, I realized I loved Dr. Stein more than I’d ever admitted to myself.
And, her death had hurt. It hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced in my life. More than what my mother ever did to me. Loving someone and losing them hurt more than a slap across the face or a punch in the jaw, a cigarette burn on the chest, or even a knee to the groin over and over until I begged my mother to stop.
And Dr. Stein left everything she’d owned to me—house, money, and stock. That made the pain worse, realizing in the end how much she’d really cared for me too. I saved all that money, and years later used it to open my security business—office locations, high tech equipment, accountant, lawyer, and more guns than my old unit had in the Army.
As I sat there thinking, Nakita’s face flashed in my head.
Poor Baptiste…I can’t lose Zola that way.
For some reason, ghosts had begun haunting me—Mom’s phantom, Dr. Stein’s spirit, and Nakita’s cold, empty grave. We never found all of Nakita’s body parts, just enough to put in a box and bury her in a hidden place in Jamaica.
Get this shit out of your head.
I returned to my notes and scanned them, searching for the red flags that pointed to a possible stalker—a history of violence. Narcissistic parents. Abusive childhood. Police reports. Victim Complaints. Restraining orders.
Trigger was twenty-five. He came from a middle-class household, nice place with a fence and a yard. His father was a reverend that was kicked out of his church for impregnating three women in the choir. His mother committed suicide shortly after. The reverend founded a church in another town, married again, and now ran a mega-church with over five hundred people in the congregation. Meanwhile, Baptiste had found that the father had several complaints in the past years from parents or females claiming that Trigger’s father had improperly groped their daughters or themselves. Nothing had been done, and those women and families were later excommunicated by his church.
But how much is Trigger like his father?
Baptiste found nothing concrete on Trigger besides a few passages from an ex-video dancer’s tell-all book where she claimed the rapper slept with his thumb in his mouth and sometimes peed in the bed.
I could see Trigger as Zola’s stalker, but I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced.
I went to Alexander. Takako had been right. Alexander had a sugar daddy, for several years. There were also several complaints from male models as well as a few restraining orders against Alexander. His credit was bad, and he appeared to have a small gambling addiction.
Takako was correct about CiCi too. Baptiste described several times where she’d gotten a modeling contract or acting role after sleeping with the director or photographer. But Baptiste went further with his investigation and discovered that CiCi had gone fully into using her body to get ahead.
For the past year, she’d been a high-end escort. Apparently, her pimp was named Mr. Moon. No one knew what he looked like or his real name. Even Baptiste had no idea, and my friend was highly proficient.
Regardless, CiCi had been recruiting for Mr. Moon as well. She’d befriended several models and hung out with them. Weeks later, those same models entered the sex game. It was a well-kept secret that only the deviant and highly affluent knew.