Page 14 of Deserving Cora
Cora stopped, and Pipe could tell she was thinking back on her own hardships. His hands clenched in his lap. He hated that this woman had obviously suffered. That she’d had to be tough and look after herself since childhood. Being in the foster care system wasn’t easy, and he recalled the pain in her voice when she’d talked about being rejected by family after family.
“I wanted to meet him, but every time we planned to hang out, his plans suddenly changed. And not just a few times, but over and over for weeks. But Lara continued to sing his praises. And to be honest…he simply soundedtooperfect. Good looking, rich, completely devoted to Lara after just days…not that I think she couldn’t attract a guy like that, and she certainly deserves one. But when I looked him up on social media, there wasn’t much there. And the little I did find consisted of pictures of him with beautiful women, or posing alone in front of expensive cars and boats. Look, I get it, social media isn’t real life, but there was nothing there that made me think he was anything but a playboy, let alone a good match for Lara.
“I also thought it was a bit weird that she fell for someone who wasn’t sticking around. Apparently he travels a lot, and he was here on a project for his dad. That didn’t seem like the best set-up for a long-term relationship, especially when Lara’s job was here.
“I was already suspicious of his feelings for her, but by the fifth time he’d had something come up unexpectedly when we were supposed to go out for drinks, I knew something wasn’t right. Most men who want more than a casual fling would want to meet their women’s friends, wouldn’t they? But he was going out of his way toavoidmeeting me. It didn’t sit well, but Lara kept making excuses for him and reassuring me that hedidwant to meet, but the timing never worked. She was head over heels in love with this guy by this point, and she had serious stars in her eyes.
“He finally agreed to go out for dinner with us shortly before Lara disappeared from town. Believe me, I honestly wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, because Lara had nothing but great things to say, and she was crazy about him. But meeting him face-to-face didn’t make any of my concerns dissipate. If fact, it only made me more sure that he was a total dirtbag.”
“How so?” Pipe asked.
“He wouldn’t meet my eyes, not even when he shook my hand. His phone kept going off with notifications and texts, and he wouldn’t put the damn thing down to talk to me or Lara. He made a few off-color, inappropriate jokes, and he subtly put Lara down. She didn’t even notice, but I did. I’d lived with my share of foster parents who did the same thing, so I recognized what he was doing right away—a power play. Everything he did and said was about control.
“And to top it all off, when our waitress came to the table, he couldn’t take his gaze from her tits. The guy made my skin crawl, and I honestly hated everything about him. I couldn’t believe Lara didn’t see any of it.
“Of course, right before our meals came, he got another text and told Lara that he was sorry, but he had to leave. He didn’t say why, just simply got up and left.”
“Please tell me he paid for your meal on his way out,” Owl muttered.
“Of course he didn’t,” Cora snorted. “I could tell Lara was upset that he’d left, but she pretended everything was fine. Told me he was a very busy man with a lot of important deals he was working on.
“When we got back to her place…we had a fight,” Cora said softly. “I told her that he was no good, that he was going to hurt her. Lara very rarely raised her voice, especially to me. But she yelled at me that night. Told me I was just jealous, that she wasn’t going to let my bitterness ruin the best thing that had ever happened to her. It hurt. I don’t think we’d ever fought like that before. And Iwasn’tjealous. If she found someone who honestly loved her like she deserved to be loved, I would be pushing them together. Would do everything in my power to help that relationship along. But this guy…no. He was self-centered and immature and a womanizer, and I didn’t want my best friend anywhere near him.”
“What’s his name?” Owl asked.
“Ridge. Ridge Michaels. I tried to do more research on him, but most of the stuff I found online was about his rich parents. I discovered where he went to high school, and saw a ton of pictures of him in tuxedos at one fancy event after another, but nothing really substantive.”
“Can you describe him?” Pipe asked.
“Of course. He’s younger than us, maybe around thirty? He’s tall; about the same height as Lara, so five-ten or so. Short dark brown hair, brown eyes. His nose has been broken at some point because it’s a little crooked. He’s built, muscular, not fat at all. The night we went out for our unsuccessful dinner, he’d dressed casually in a pair of brown slacks that had perfect creases and a polo shirt. He looked like a successful businessman, but…” Her voice trailed off.
“But what?” Pipe asked.
Cora shook her head. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”
“No, we won’t,” the men said at the same time.
Cora’s lips twitched before she sighed. “I’m not sure that he actually works at all. I mean, according to Lara, he allegedly owns some kind of technology company…she wasn’t sure of the details…but he didn’t seem to know how to use some of the features on his own phone. Hell, Lara had to show him how to adjust the font size when he complained he couldn’t read his texts.
“Anyway, our fight was on a Friday night. I didn’t talk to her all weekend, I was still too upset that she wasn’t taking my concerns seriously. That she wouldn’t even listen to me. By Monday morning, I was anxious to see her. To apologize, even though I didn’t think I had anything to be sorry about. I wanted to have a rational conversation about Ridge. Spell out my concerns and make her understand that they were coming from a place of love and concern, but she didn’t show up for work.”
Cora looked at Owl, then Pipe. “You have to understand, Lara very rarely misses work, and then only if she’s sick, because she doesn’t want to pass any kind of illness to the children. She lives and breathes her job, and she has something like three months of vacation time built up. I immediately knew something was wrong. The office told me there was nothing to worry about, that there was an email sent Saturday morning to HR about her taking a leave of absence. I immediately knew that was bullshit. Lara wouldn’t just leave without talking to me.”
“But you fought,” Owl reminded her.
Cora shook her head vehemently. “No! I mean,yes, we did, but there’s no way Lara would have just left work without arranging it well in advance. She’s too responsible. I immediately texted her, and she responded, but the wording was wrong on her reply.”
“How?” Pipe asked.
Cora looked away briefly. “She didn’t use punctuation,” she said quietly. When Owl gave her a skeptical look, she straightened. “And before you tell me that’s not proof, you don’t know Lara like I do. She got a hundred and four percent in her advanced English class in high school. And in college, she continued to get A’s in all the classes where she had to write papers. Look, I’ll show you,” she said almost desperately.
She pulled out her cell phone and clicked on a few buttons before practically thrusting it at Pipe. He took it and scrolled through the messages on the screen.
“If you go back, you’ll see that before she took this so-called leave of absence, she used periods, commas, exclamation points every now and then. Her punctuation is always perfect. It’s a point of pride that I’ve teased her about for years. But in her more recent texts, there’s nothing. It’s justnotlike her.”
Pipe had to admit she had a point. He handed the phone to Owl.
“I went to the cops. They said she was an adult woman and could decide to take a spontaneous vacation with her boyfriend if she wanted. The fact that she was still texting me was enough for them to conclude she was fine. They dismissed me as if I was just being paranoid. I’mnot. This Ridge guy kidnapped her. He’s not letting her talk to me. And I’m scared to death that he’s going to do something awful to her, if he hasn’t already.”
