The following day, Ruth woke up to a few surprising messages on her work cell. The first one she opened was from Monte's unsaved number, which read "Good morning Doc, I'll be looking after some things today for our days together, be good. 143." By reading this, it made her heart flutter, as she had flashbacks of their silly banters. When Ruth had just met Montgomery, she was a soft-spoken sweetheart who would sometimes shy away from expressing the way she felt about him, and so they came up with '143' which simply meant "I love you", with each letter representing the amount of letters in each word. I (1) Love (4) You (3).

Monte had a way with words and unusually kind gestures, he was already a powerful man who made sure the aspiring therapist knew that he wanted her. Money wasn't an issue and he had a creative mind, but Ruth confessed that he won her heart not by any of the extravagant gifts or dates that most people dreamed of. It was the way he listened to her, how he protected her heart and left no room for insecurity, and most of all the way he knew exactly how to please her. For Monte, he fell in love with Ruth because of the way she held him down in his weakest moments, and the fact that she embraced his ugliest parts when they were inevitably revealed.

Finally, she had pulled back the covers and stopped scrolling aimlessly on her cell. There were a few other messages inquiring about her availability for the coming week as well, in exactly one day her practice would come to life, but she had explained to her potential clients that she was fully booked for the first week and they reluctantly agreed to set appointments for the week after. After waltzing about the apartment in her bed robes, Ruth made breakfast which had to include a glass of wine next to her coffee.

"May this glass of wine give me the patience of dealing with Monte for the next three days."
She mumbled to herself before indulging hoggishly. Moments later she heard a knocking on her front door and the voice of a woman calling "Ruth! Ruth!".

"Who the hell..." she wondered frantically.

As she opened the door her jaws fell to the hard floor as she was astonished by another surprise visitor.

"What are you doing here?" Ruth asked, the woman standing before her was Caitie, her former associate and a present police informant.

"Can I talk to you for a few minutes? It's about Monte." The slender fair skinned woman asked.

"I haven't heard that name in a while, Caitie, why has something happened?" A clever Ruth responded.

"Kinda, do you have five minutes?" She persisted.

Ruth nodded in agreement as she tried to keep her cool, she had her differences with Caitie back then that caused waves of disturbances in her relationship with Monte. Monte and Ruth met Caitie and for a while they were all friendly with each other, however, Caitie was going through a rough time which prompted Monte to be there for her even at times when he wanted to be with the woman he loves. Once he had to race over to Caitie's home to save her from an overdose. Ruth understood Monte as the protector and caregiver he was but slowly he began to sacrifice his own happiness at the wrath of Ruth's tolerance.

She invited her into her home office and offered a drink of water.

"Well, what's going on Caitie?"

Caitie sipped from her glass just enough to wet her lips, before she started squealing.

"Something happened, Monte did something bad last year and now the police want to find him. They caught me with a gun that belongs to him and I've been interrogated with no mercy for weeks."

"A gun?! What happened, Caitie?"

"I don't know if he told you everything, but Monte has organized and carried out some of the best high profile robberies in the last few years, these apartments he owns are just investments made out of the harvest."

"Wow," Ruth said, without saying anything at all she already suspected Caitie was no real threat as she didn't know her background with Monte. "This can't be true, I don't believe it... so what happened, did somebody get hurt?"

"Monte killed a man, with the gun the police got from me, the ballistic report was a match. But there's some missing money involved and the police want to find it before they arrest him."

"Money, huh? ...this is crazy, well like I said I haven't seen or heard from him in a long time, I kinda moved on you know?"

"Yeah, right." Caitie answered in a sad tone. "Well I'm out on bail for the time being, but please let me know if you hear from him, this could help me a lot. I didn't bargain for any of this, Ruth"

"Of course, anyway, I have to get ready for a special client this week.. leave your number and I'll show you out."

Ruth was proud of herself for maintaining her composure, so much that she couldn't wait for Caitie to leave so she could call Monte. When she finally contacted him she told him all that transpired.

"Fuck! Ruth!" He yelled in her ear.

"What?! I'm telling you she didn't suspect anything." She assured him with pure absolution.

"She already knows, Ruth, my guys told me that they saw us together yesterday while we were headed to the cabin. She's going right back to them to tell them how well you lied."

Ruth was speechless, "what am I going to do? They'll be here themselves next time for sure. I swore I was the one playing her and not the other way around"

"Ruth, baby, I'll take care of it. I'm sorry you keep getting dragged into this"

"What does that mean?" She asked.

"The damage is done, they are going to interrogate you now whether we like it or not, but the good thing is you'll be away from civilization for a few days. We just have to let them think Caitie ran away to avoid prosecution. When you come back at the end of the week there will already have been a request for you to go in for interrogation, so you'll turn yourself in and explain that you went on a brief vacation, I'll have witnesses ready to corroborate your alibi."

Ruth was shocked and yet, not really surprised.

"I'm still amazed at how well you think on the spot, however, information unclear! what do you mean by ..make them think she ran away?"

"I'll handle it, in the meantime I want you to go to the mall, find somewhere quiet and smash your phone to pieces, cut the sim card in two.. then report it stolen."

"Why the mall?"

"They'll be able to tell where your cell was last located geographically, it aids the whole stolen story. Anyway I gotta go, see you tomorrow."

As the call ended she acted on his requests, somewhat worried about what would become of Caitie. She grabbed her credit card to make a few purchases as well, thinking it'd be beneficial to have receipts to show her whereabouts that day.
Meanwhile, Caitie was making her way downtown to report to the precinct. It was like Monte had said, she was out on bail but also with a specific task to try and find out where the money was, and she knew that Ruth knew a lot more than what she let on. Whilst a few blocks away from her destination, she was stopped in her tracks by a text message on her cell.

"It's me, let's talk. Meet me at our favorite spot."

She wondered, could it really be him, and after a few seconds of vacantly staring at her phone she turned around and started to head to the old pier a few miles down from Flootersville High School. The boardwalk was about 70 meters long and at the end there was a bench and two rusty city view binoculars. This was where she and Monte spent a lot of time together when they needed to get a clear head, the scenery and atmosphere was therapeutic and until this day, unstained. Caitie arrived and saw him waiting on the bench, his head straight and his eyes locked in a trance.

"Monte?"

She said cautiously, he turned his head slightly to the left and looked at her before smiling.

"Hello Caitie, you look good, come sit beside me."

Reluctantly she sat down and wondered if he would tell her about the money, or whether he was there to bribe her into not saying anything else to the police.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out, "what was I supposed to do? I had the gun Monte, they would have pinned the murder on me, I had to give you up."

There was a lack of emotion of Monte's face, instead he took her hand and said, "I understand," followed by a sigh of contentment, "Caitie, I've gone through a lot with you, right here on this bench, I've sacrificed a lot for you too... I've seen first hand your selfishness and your cruelty many times before and I still stood by you. So it is of no surprise that you told them everything you know about me in the last few weeks.. you've told them things that don't even connect with this investigation."

It was clear to her now that he wasn't there to offer any answers, so she wondered why he wanted to meet at all.

"So you would just let them put me behind bars for something you did?"

"I would have taken care of it, I always do, but you have no loyalty Cait. I love you, and I'm sorry."

"Sorry for wha.. ah!" She let out a sharp grunt as she felt the blade of a long gritted knife impale her from the side.

Monte grabbed her close and while breaking down in tears he whispers again, "I'm so sorry," covering her mouth with his left hand and twisting the blade that had punctured her lung. He removed it and stabbed her repeatedly until she stopped moving completely. Looking around on the pier there was no one to be seen for quite a distance, save for some boys swimming in the water down on the beach about 100 meters from where they were. Taking off his jacket he covered Caitie's lifeless body and had her sit up in that position while he went for the car and eventually transported her body to another location.


© kxng.auteur