Tiger Cate: A novel by B.E. Jackson

Author:B.E. Jackson [Jackson, B.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B.E. Jackson
Published: 2023-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

September 6, 2000, New York City

Cate awoke on a bed of roses. Pale yellow blooms with blushing edges. A vague memory came, someone giving them to her, of holding them in a bouquet, of leaning forward to smell their elegant fragrance. Now they were scattered across the bed with abandon, their petals bruised and wilted, even as the scent lingered.

Moving her legs, she realized with a start that she was completely naked under the sheets. There was a sharp pain between her legs and warm liquid seeping down there. When she lifted the covers, the welts and smears of blood brought her to a sitting position, wildly scanning her surroundings. Oh, my God, where am I? What happened?

Her head throbbed as she strained to remember the night before. The last thing she could recall was sharing the back seat of a black town car with Joseph Russo. The clink of champagne glasses. A toast to their second date and to her “eighteenth” birthday. Then nothing until she awoke just now. What had he done to her? As she twisted around to search the room, she felt the pain inside her — raw and bruised … violated. Her head pounded. The wine. Her stomach lurched. The pasta. Now she remembered there had been a candlelit dinner.

Where was she — a locked room in someone’s house? The sudden thought sent her out of bed. The door opened onto a lit hallway and she heard the faint hydraulics of an elevator. An apartment? A hotel?

Back at the bedside, a folded card stood upright, bearing a hotel name and location on the Upper West Side. She was still in New York, at least. A wave of relief gave way to nausea and she headed for the bathroom. Drinking water straight from the faucet, she ignored its off taste as her parched mouth hungrily grabbed for more. Without thinking, she turned on the shower and let it run to hot.

Last night, Joseph had taken her out on a date, supposedly to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. It was her birthday, all right, her seventeenth. And this wasn’t how a date should end. She knew what her mother would have called it.

When Cate had arrived in the city, three months earlier, she’d been cautioned about people who would smile at you, convince you to come closer, then steal things out of your pocket or grab your purse. Joseph’s smile had been endless on their second date. More than he had ever done as a customer at the bistro.

When they’d first started spending time together, it was just fun walks around the village after her shift ended, swapping stories and laughing easily. Once she’d called him Joe, only to be corrected sternly. Joe Russo was an uncle whom he despised. He would only answer to Joseph. Cate liked the name because it made her think of the Bible story of Joseph and his many-colored coat.

He said he was planning to go into real estate, make a ton of money, and “own this town.

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