Virtuous Deception 2

by Leiann B. Wrytes

  “I got it but, yo, you runnin’ round like Sonny on the Godfather, yo. That little money you payin’ me ain’t shit if I can’t spend it.”

  “I need to save her, Simmy. I need to save her. Either you are going to help me, or you’re not. The decision is yours.” Frank released Simmy and walked back to his desk.

  “Baptiste, right? I’ll get him here, yo.”

  Frank nodded in gratitude. Simmy continued rambling something Frank could not understand as he left the room.

  “Aye, come here.”

  Simmy turned around, popping his head in the entrance of Frank’s office.

  “Lisa does not need to hear about any of this from you. Understood?”

  “Yeah, whatever, yo. I ain’t sayin’ nothing.” Simmy snailed his way down the hall to the kitchen.

  The concierge doctor would be arriving within the hour. Lisa’s health had continued to deteriorate with each passing day. He checked her stitches daily, and they looked fine, normal. Frank’s conversation with Dr. Brunti had reaffirmed for him that hiring a private doctor, as opposed to taking her to a hospital, was the right call. The hospital posed too many variables with so much beyond his control. She would be too vulnerable there, and Frank refused to make the same mistake twice.

  He had ramped up security at the house with a security team and a state-of-the-art alarm system. Simmy may have thought it all to be a bit excessive, but Frank wanted to keep Lisa safe. His actions were not borne of logic, but were those of a frightened, desperate man. He thought the measures he took would be enough, but they were no match for the attack her body had launched from within. He didn’t know how to fight that, and considering the lengths to which this killer went to take Lisa from him, he was not as confident in his personal army.

  Despite Simmy’s assessment, Frank was no mobster. He could only pull from film and flashes of his father’s dealings. He sat at his desk, pondering these things, agonizing over the truth his heart punctured his pride with. He needed reinforcements. The one advantage he had was the killer’s face etched into his mind. He had seen him every day for at least a week, and he remembered every single detail. Game on.

  Chapter 45

  She heard the door open and close. Her mother’s feet shuffled across the tile before they made the transition to the wooded floorboards that paved the way to the room where she now sat, waiting patiently. Seconds passed while she sat in the evening light, see-sawing over her decision to move back, temporarily, into her old room. The light flipped on.

  “Oh my gawd!” Sophie gasped, drawing her hand to her heart in surprise. “Michelle Kaye! I didn’t know you were here.” Sophie relaxed and entered the den, making a beeline for the mini bar. “Where have you been?”

  Michelle watched as her mother thoughtlessly grabbed a few ice cubes and threw them in a glass, covering them with vodka. “It doesn’t matter really.”

  She downed it effortlessly like it was something far less acidic, like it was water. Sophie poured another glass, quickly emptying its contents down her throat. Sophie gulped down a third glass before forcefully placing it on the mini-bar’s marble surface. The sound sliced through the silence. “It matters to me.”

  “I have been nowhere, Mom.” Michelle did not want to talk about Grayson, especially not while her mother was drinking like this. She watched Sophie erase a fifth shot and wondered how she managed to stand. It pained her to see her this way. Michelle had only seen her mother indulge a handful of times in her life before her father’s funeral. She guessed the behavior could be an expression of grief, which manifested in different ways, but this felt like something else.

  As she watched her mother pour a sixth drink, it occurred to Michelle what else she might be seeing. There was only one other thing that she believed could inspire a love for liquor so quickly: guilt. Her mother behaved like a woman whose conscience berated her so that libation offered the only plausible escape. Michelle could not know the exact date, but she knew that it had not been so prevalent a notion before.

  “Nowhere, huh? Well, I just left your house.” Sophie waddled over to her favorite chair in the corner by the small round table, falling into its embrace as the alcohol she consumed started to have its way with her.

  “You what?” Michelle stood in alarm.

  “That’s right. Your house. Where you left your fiancé, apparently.”

  “Mom, you are drunk. We shouldn’t have this conversation right now.”

  “Who is this guy you ran away with?”

  Michelle felt her anger rising to the surface. This was already starting off very badly. Perhaps this was not such a good idea. “I did not run away, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So, that’s who you are now? You just cheat on your fiancé?”

  Michelle let her browns roll into the back of her head. “Mom . . .”

  “What’s the plan? To ride off into the sunset without any explanation? Live happily ever after?” Sophie slurred her words. “Disney isn’t real. Can’t run from life, Michelle. Traipsing around with, with random men.”

  “Mom, stop this.”

  “That boy saved your sister! You, me, the whole world! And you repay him by cheating? For what?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I didn’t raise a whore!”

  Michelle flinched as the label her mother hurled at her landed. Tears immediately gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she refused to cry. “I cannot believe you just said that to me.”

  Sophie did not grasp what she had just done. She kept on badgering Michelle with her words. “You can’t do that to people, Michelle! Armand is a mess! I have never seen him like that.”

  “Mom, you barely know him! You only met him a few days before he brought—” Michelle could not finish her thought. Images of Brianna and Armand flashed through her mind.

  “Brought your sister home? That’s right, he did. He saved her because he loves you! Do you know what I would give to have someone love me like that? To put it all on the line for me? What is wrong with you?”

  “Fuck him! I don’t care!”

  “Michelle Kaye Lewis! You will not—”

  “I’m serious. You need to let this go. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I would know if you told me, but you don’t talk to me anymore. I hardly hear from you.”

  “Save your tears, Mom. I cannot do this with you.”

  “Michelle . . .”

  “This is your fault! All of this is your fault! I don’t even know why I came here! This was a mistake.” Michelle stormed toward the doorway of the den. Sophie raced after her. Michelle could hear her bumping her way down the hall.

  “Take responsibility! I didn’t make all the right decisions. That is true, but that is no excuse for you to start whoring yourself out! For you to start . . . behaving this way!”

  Michelle made an about face in the middle of the kitchen. “My father is dead! I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

  Sophie, with very careful steps, made her way to Michelle. She grabbed Michelle’s hand. “I am so sorry about that. Can we just talk?”

  Michelle snatched it away. “Talk about what? About how my father has barely been in the ground a full month and you’ve already moved on? Talk about how you never reached out to your parents, my grandparents, like you stated you would? How many lies have you told, Mother? How many more do I have to uncover before you volunteer the truth?”

  “Michelle, I am not denying that I haven’t made some questionable choices, but I love you. You are my daughter. I raised you.”

  “You used me. You used me to appear far less morally corrupt than you are. You cannot hide behind me anymore. Face yourself, Mom. I see you, and I have never been more disappointed.” Michelle stormed out of the kitchen, leaving Sophie to bathe in her tears.

  Chapter 46

  Pain rippled through her body. Every fiber of her being
seized and convulsed. She could not believe what had just happened. Michelle was gone, really gone. She did not say that she would never return, but if felt that way.

  Forever hurt. Regret rained from Sophie’s eyes without pause. This was far from the first argument that she’d had with her daughter, but none had ever felt like this. The words she had let escape from her lips tore her soul from her. Michelle was no whore, never was, and Sophie could not believe she had spoken that way.

  Michelle may never forgive her this, and she couldn’t blame her. How many mistakes could any one person be expected to forgive in such a short period of time? Why didn’t she just tell her that she was happy to see her? Explain how relieved she was to see that she was safe and back home? She did not do those things. Finding her fear to be completely, utterly unnecessary had allowed rage to assume its place.

  Frustration, stemming from the emotional distance between her and Michelle, mixed with the guilt of having betrayed her, scripted Sophie’s part in their dialogue. The softness Sophie needed to invoke to open the lines of communication with Michelle to even enter into their conversation seemed sabotaged from the first words out of her mouth. Sophie rarely lost control, but lately it did not seem as though she had any at all.

  She had not seen Lewis’s ghost in a week or so, and she wanted to claim that as a sign of things to come. The promise of second chances had washed over her situation, bringing a tide of change, resulting in a momentous shift upward. The morning sent her to find a disheveled Armand, wallowing in filth, faulting the loss of his love to another. She did not know what to make of that, but she could personally attest to how different her daughter seemed to be.

  Michelle had not really dealt with everything as far as she could tell. She had buried her head in work as usual and ignored the world shifting around her. Sophie watched Michelle carry on this way all her life. Any attempts to force Michelle into dealing with things before she was ready had always ended in catastrophe. Sophie was prepared to offer friendship to her daughter, to give counsel. She had learned it was the most effective way to assist Michelle, but she did not do those things. She attacked her, viciously and ruthlessly, like she was some stranger on the street and Armand had been her child.

  Ding dong, boomp, boomp, boomp . . . Ding dong, boomp, boomp, boomp . . .

  Sophie pulled herself up from the floor, dragging her body through the hall to the front door. Her eyes were too puffy to see anything through the peephole. She didn’t bother looking.

  “Who is it?” she whimpered.

  “Police, ma’am. Please open the door. We need to ask you a few questions.”

  Sophie gulped. Wiping her blue eyes with the back of her hand, she opened the door. “What can I help you with, officer?”

  “Step aside, ma’am. We are executing a warrant to search your home.”

  Sophie expertly disguised her increasing panic as innocent confusion. “Search my home, but why?” She laughed. “What is this about? May I see a copy of the warrant, please?”

  While the officer produced a copy of the warrant, she looked beyond him to see Michelle’s car leaving the driveway. She fought the urge to burst into tears all over again. The officer handed her the warrant. As she looked over the details, the scales tipped as the pain of possibly losing Michelle forever was eclipsed by the very real probability of prison. Her house was being searched as part of an investigation into a potential homicide. It did not name her nor Lewis, but it was not hard to deduce what was going on here.

  She couldn’t think straight. The foyer started collapsing around her. She sped toward the den, grabbed the phone, and dialed the first number that came to mind.

  “Hello, Peter? Peter . . .” Sophie whispered, cradling the base of the phone in her hand to amplify her voice into the receiver. “Peter, I need you to come here, now.”

  “Luce?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Can you come over?”

  “I cannot come right now. What’s wrong?”

  “Peter. Peter . . . this is urgent.”

  “I have a few errands to run. Might be able to come by later.”

  “But the police are here. I need you.”

  “The police? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. They’re looking for something. I don’t want to be alone, Peter.”

  “Luce, just stay calm. I’ll be there as soon I can.”

  “Please hurry.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay . . .”

  An officer opened the door, ventured in, and began to sift through her things. She took that as a cue to leave. She couldn’t stand to watch them dismantle her home, violating her privacy. She walked swiftly to her room, softly closing the door behind her. The search had not ventured into that part of the house yet, and she was certain it would not be long.

  She walked to her dresser, retrieved the ring, Peter’s ring, hidden amongst her undergarments, and slid it on her finger. She wondered what Peter needed to do that could possibly be more important than being here for her, but she did not have long to ponder an answer. Peter was correct. She needed to calm down and think her way through this.

  She took a deep breath to let her mind work. Slipping into her bathroom, she fished out the manila envelope taped underneath the bathroom sink and slid it sideways into her pants. Checking herself in the mirror, she noticed her bottom looked unnaturally flat. The folder was obvious. She slid it around the side, rubbing its sides until it took on the shape of her thighs.

  Satisfied with the results, she threw some water on her face, grabbed a towel, and began patting her face with a towel as she emerged from the bathroom.

  “Ma’am, what were you doing in there?”

  Sophie smiled uncomfortably. “Oh, I just needed to brush my teeth, wash up. My daughter and I had a horrible fight. I had a few drinks before you came. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Of course. That was your daughter leaving?”

  Sophie looked down sheepishly. “Yes. She didn’t even come back to check on her mother. So, I guess you can imagine how bad the argument was.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I need to look around in here.”

  “Yes, I am leaving.” On her way out of the room, she rested her hand on the young officer’s arm. “Please, be sensitive. These are my most intimate items.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sophie slithered through the sea of officers, through the French doors of the kitchen, and into her car. She sat there for a minute contemplating her next move. She really did not have anywhere to go. She wanted to pay Ernest, the medical examiner, a visit but couldn’t imagine how that would help her defense. He was the only other person with knowledge that something other than suicide had happened that night, but the ruling was his decision. She had not asked that of him and doubted very seriously that he would venture any information that would earn him an orange jumpsuit. Besides, she hadn’t told him everything, either.

  Her weasel of a lawyer probably had some hand in this. His absence now made perfect sense. She had not been able to reach him prior to him informing her about the date for the hearing. She could not even be certain there ever was a hearing scheduled. Who knows when they may have gotten to him? Something about him did not bode well with her from the start, and fortunately, he did not have any information that would incriminate her. He only knew that she desired cremation following the funeral services. The request was unorthodox but one she could easily explain. She had not entertained a detective or fielded any questions from the police department beyond the initial report taken the day the coroner came to retrieve Lewis’s body.

  From that day until her lawyer called to inform her of the injunction stopping the cremation, things had gone as expected. This search, though it would not uncover anything, was a very serious hiccup. It alluded to the fact that there were variables that she had not accounted for. It was possible that her lawyer embellished, creating suspicion where there was none, offering his own fictional account of what had happened. She co
uld not determine why he would have done that, though. Breaching the lawyer/client privilege would mean the end of his career and possible jail time. What advantage was it to him to create an issue for her?

  But what else could it be? A judge had signed off on a search warrant, granting the police access into her home. There had to be sufficient reason to support that decision—something to suggest that a homicide had occurred. The only other person who knew the truth besides her was cold, waiting to travel through the coroner’s oven. No, someone else was in play here, but who?

  Chapter 47

  Peter put his phone on silent mode. His nerves were bad enough without adding any more interruptions, least of all from Sophie. He did not know what kind of crisis she had managed to get herself into, but after the confession she had made the last time he was there, he had to guess that it probably had something to do with that. She would be fine until he could get there. She had lived with her decisions for twenty-something years; a few hours weren’t going to kill her.

  He pulled up in front of the apartment he gave to Brianna. Peter had done quite well for himself. Not only was he one of the few doctors with his specialty in the area, but he was also the owner of several rental properties, one of which was an apartment building in Plano. It was not upscale by any means, but his managers kept it up, and he was able to provide homes at an affordable price in an otherwise pricey residential area.

  He had been surprised when Brianna called him a few days ago asking if he could help her find a residence. She would not go into details, but she no longer wished to stay at her sister’s and did not feel comfortable at her mother’s. Peter was happy to help her. He made a few phone calls and found that he had a vacant apartment. If she had declined, he would have paid for her to stay elsewhere, but she accepted his offer.

  She did not have much to move, other than a few clothing items. Within a few hours, the apartment was fully furnished with a new living room suite, bedroom furniture, brand new appliances, and he brought in a home interior designer to give it that “model house” look. Brianna resisted initially but conceded after Peter explained that he could use it to attract future residents. The thought put her at ease with things. Peter knew that she had a difficult time accepting help or trusting any assistance offered to her, and he knew what she needed to hear. The idea was not a complete lie, but the truth was . . . he did it for her.