Michelle fell to the ground and immediately started choking on the heavy fragrance that dwarfed her. Rather than assisting Michelle, the woman stood over her, brooding, showcasing her Manolo pumps that were visibly poised to strike. Michelle sprang to her feet, and the two engaged in an epic visual battle worthy of a heavyweight boxing ring. The hostility in the air was so thick that the large, three-tier parking garage felt like a broom closet. Ol’ girl’s purple contacts did little to dull the razor-sharp edge of the daggers she threw in Michelle’s direction. Though she was taken aback by the animosity, Michelle stood her ground.
She had not lifted a finger to strike anyone in her life, but she was prepared to hit this chick, if necessary. The menacing glare painted on ol’ girl’s facial landscape hinted at the aggression waiting to be unleashed on Michelle, but surprisingly, she rolled her eyes, issued an awkward apology, and continued on her way. Michelle did not respond. She stood, transfixed, with a look of shock and confusion on her face. Why did this woman give her the evil eye? She took some deep breaths to regain her composure and inhaled another dose of the lingering fragrance the woman wore, which ignited a coughing fit all over again.
With slow, steady steps, Michelle made her way to the elevator leading up to her condo. Her breathing returned to its natural rhythm as she tried to make sense of the exchange. As she reached out to press the button to open the doors, the answer suspended her movement. She took a deep breath and inhaled the familiar scent. It was Armand’s signature Polo Double Black cologne; ol’ girl must have bathed in it. Images of ol’ girl and Armand flashed through her mind, searing her memory. Michelle realized why she had looked so familiar: she had viewed her mug several times in the surveillance footage of her condo.
The realization hit her with the force of a sledgehammer. Michelle now understood why she had looked at her that way . . . She must have recognized Michelle from the various pictures hanging around the home. The same home that was leased to Michelle; the same home she shared with Armand. The same home she must have exited only moments before. The fine hairs on her arms stood in response to the swell of anger rising within her. She turned in a huff, nearly knocking to the ground a gentleman who had been patiently waiting behind her, sprinting back into the main area of the parking garage. She searched for the video vixen but could not find her. Livid, she took the stairs up to the condo and confronted Armand. Michelle’s fury intensified as the scene replayed in her mental theater.
“This is not up for discussion,” she seethed.
Armand found himself in an untenable situation. He did not want to lose Michelle, but he did not know how to repair the damage without blowing up the spot. Sheila was not supposed to confront or have any contact with Michelle. He had been explicitly clear on that point. All she had to do was arrive, be seen, and leave from the front door. Any qualms she had about that should have been addressed before she accepted his cash. He had gambled and lost. He was out of a thousand dollars, but more importantly, Michelle was up in the air. He never had a woman push his buttons like Michelle did; never had a woman that made him care. He didn’t want to risk losing everything by telling her the truth too soon, deciding, instead, to let things play out and hope for the best.
“MK, I am trying here, but you knew my situation, and you said you could handle it.”
Michelle collapsed into the plush, plum-colored chair and stared out the window into the street, refusing to meet his stare. She was amazed at the absurdity of the situation, ultimately resigning herself to the truth of it. She did know the kind of man he was, but she still expected some decorum. Michelle knew Armand would be trouble for her from the first moment she laid eyes on him coming out of Club Karma. Every step he made toward her spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E in slow motion. Michelle was not the club type. She was pumping gas at the 7-Eleven across the street and found herself staring shamelessly at this man. Armand was a six-foot-two blend of French aristocracy and African rhythm. With his curly hair shaped by a fresh tapered fade, piercing light gray eyes, and a commercial-worthy smile, Michelle was helpless to defend herself. Though that night they only spoke long enough to exchange contact information, they had been inseparable ever since. That was two years ago.
Armand sat on the chaise directly across from Michelle, hoping to at least get her to reason with him. “I didn’t know she would try to come at you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better, Armand? I need you to leave.”
“MK . . . Nothing happened. I need you to trust me.”
“Leave. Now. This isn’t working, Armand. It doesn’t feel right, and I need some space.” Michelle was done talking and wanted to be alone.
“MK, will you please look at me?”
Michelle rejected his appeal. His gaze was laced with kryptonite, and she did not want to grow weak beneath it as she had so many times before. Armand exposed a vulnerable layer in her that not even she was aware of, and she grappled with what it meant each time she felt its power. He opened her mind, journeyed the length of her person, and planted some part of himself deep within her soul. She enjoyed their closeness but despised it at the same time.
She continued staring out the window and into the street. The sidewalk was unusually crowded for this time of the evening, but the black sedan was eerily visible. She had seen the same sedan parked out there, in various places along her street, for the last several months, trailing her to the supermarket, the mall, and other random places. The sedan, which seemed to have no owner, no tickets, and ultimately, no history whatsoever. She wished she didn’t have to do this with Armand right now. She could really use his help.
“Just go. Please leave. I need some space.”
“MK, you know how much I care about you. Don’t push me away.”
Armand did care a great deal about Michelle. Her soft vanilla coating perfectly accentuated her five-foot-seven, slim frame. She had long black hair that came to rest just above her small, tight derrière. Michelle was a true beauty, but that’s not what kept Armand around. She was the only woman that he could trust. He shared things with her that he had never said aloud to anyone. She was all the family he had. Armand simply couldn’t give Michelle what she was asking for, at least, not yet.
Michelle rubbed her hands nervously along her pant leg, struggling, but eventually resolving to say what she felt. Feeling confident in her decision, she turned to face Armand and adamantly stated, “If you love me as you say you do . . . leave me alone until you are ready to be the man you pretend to be.” With that, she stood and disappeared into the bedroom.
Armand strangled the urge to protest and thought that perhaps this time he could finally give her what she wanted. He loved her just enough to do it . . . even if it cost him his life.
Chapter 3
Michelle lay across her sleigh bed, lost in her feelings, wrapped in her lavender-colored feather comforter awaiting Armand’s departure. She closed her eyes and gave way to the blackness resting just behind them, while the unconventional nature of their connection perforated her sensibilities and forced into question her judgment. This process, with more miles than she would like to admit, was not an unfamiliar one. The effort she exerted trying to make sense of it, their wayward love affair, left her with a kind of emptiness. A void that, she reasoned, would take much more than an ordinary viable explanation to even attempt to fill. It was not her beau’s improbable infidelity that caused her emotions to swarm. The video footage from the security cameras substantiated his claims of innocence and had long thwarted any urge she had to end things prematurely. His bizarre desire to conduct himself as though he weren’t innocent, however, that kept up the emotional upheaval within her.
Michelle considered herself to be a reasonably level-headed young woman but had somehow gotten finagled into being a willing participant in the insanity that characterized her love life. She could only imagine the number of Emmys she could have collected over the last year for her performances. Like the parade of women suggesting Armand�
��s unfaithfulness, Michelle’s hurt, the anger, and to some degree, even the distrust, was all for the stage lights. The fact that he needed this argument, this dysfunction, and this girl had infuriated Michelle.
Michelle had decided that ol’ girl would be the first—and last—interaction she would have. Her demeanor had not exuded amity, and there was something in the way she tried to drill holes into Michelle’s being that provided provocation for Michelle to attack the situation with an alacrity she lacked before. Moderation had been paramount in her ability to manage her reactions and affording her patience. Armand seemed to know intuitively where the boundary was and never crossed it, but this interaction was the tipping point.
The abhorrence colligating in the pit of her stomach confirmed her decision. It was time for her to focus on getting to the root of the issue and put an end to the charade. Armand was hiding something, and Michelle’s investigative nature superseded her feminine instinct. She opted to play the part of the disheveled, unsuspecting girlfriend to find out what it was. Uncovering secrets was her business, her bread and butter, and there was no way she was going to let Armand keep his.
Armand was a pretty boy by most standards, and women fawned over him everywhere he went, whether it was the grocery store, gas station, or a trip to the Dumpster. Michelle was accustomed to getting the occasional hate, but the degree that these women took it to was ridiculous. She has had her car keyed, tailpipe stuffed, tires slashed, and had even been accosted in a bathroom at a restaurant. The craziness took some getting used to, but after a few self-defense classes, trips to the gun range, and some additional security features to her home, Michelle was fine. As much as it may have pained her to admit, she loved Armand LaCroix and was willing to deal with his psychotic groupies to be with him.
Pop. The main door slammed shut, confirming Armand’s departure. Michelle emerged from the large bedroom and entered the room across the hall. She had converted the bedroom into a home office of sorts.
The expansive apartment had been her first grown woman move. She returned home after graduating from Rice University with a B.A. in journalism and spent months scouring the city for the perfect residence until she had finally settled on this one. She did not consider herself an interior designer by any stretch of the imagination, but she was pleasantly surprised at the amount of fun she had covering the walls of the three-bedroom townhome with art pieces capturing the Harlem Renaissance era. The likes of Jacob Lawrence and other notable artists of the time, such as Charles Alston and Henry Bannarn, adorned her walls.
Her father had referred to her as an “old soul,” and she supposed that must be true. She had a quiet fascination with the past, especially the creative aspects of it. Artistic expression seemed completely unrestricted. There was an element of freedom present in the work of a creative mind that was not limited by moral constructs or capitalist motivations. Michelle sought to surround herself with their beauty. To taste, even in small doses, that liberty. She fancied herself akin to them and consciously tried to emulate their lives.
She wanted to mimic, not the manner in which they lived, but the essence of it, at least what they captured in their works: to live without inhibition. Her office housed her massive book collection, consisting of nearly 600 books amassed since childhood. She loved to read and research. The pages of a book kept her company during her adolescence and had been more faithful than any friend she could think of. Her profession, both as a journalist and an investigator, had been a natural path for her.
It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon now. She had a meeting in half an hour, and, as custom dictated, she reviewed her notes a bit more to be sure she was prepared. She was not very fond of surprises, especially in her line of work. She accepted that there would be some here and there, but she never entered into a situation without giving every conceivable angle the once-over.
Michelle might have been a successful freelance journalist if she focused and wrote consistently, but she simply could not. Her fascination with solving mysteries sparked her interest in journalism, but she found that her small private investigation business, in operation for only two months, had captivated her attention like nothing else had before. Being twenty-three years young and financially secure allowed her the freedom to fill her days with things that invigorated her. She had yet to dabble in anything comparable to the lure of unraveling a good mystery. To date, most of Michelle’s cases were regarding adultery and nanny spying but never anything dangerous. She ran a simple ad on craigslist, which read:
I’ll provide the truth in pictures. Send your requests to [email protected].
Michelle got enough responses to keep her busy, and her rate varied according to the difficulty of the assignment. Recently, she received an e-mail from Brianna Mason, requesting her services regarding her boyfriend. She wanted to confirm whether he was seeing other women. Michelle had asked a few basic questions to get an idea of the type of person she would be working for. She had learned that Brianna, after interning throughout her college career, boldly started her own marketing company and had already landed her first high-dollar client. She was the only child of a rich, well-to-do family, and had been dating the guy in question for a few months. Michelle thought the request to be a little odd, considering they had only been together a short while, but Brianna had offered to pay three times Michelle’s normal rate. Michelle was not walking away from that money.
The prominent lesson Michelle had learned since the launch of her business was that the client, more than the subject, was likely to confound her tasks. Her last client had gotten physical with her because she declined to comply with a request. The incident had forced Michelle to be even more selective. Michelle was a professional snoop, but even she had boundaries. Following a husband suspected of “freaking deacons” into a public restroom to snap pics was definitely beyond them. This particular assignment seemed simple enough, though. Brianna did not strike her like the violent type, but she still needed to get a feel for her before she would accept the job.
Michelle grabbed her purse, iPad Air, iPhone 5, and headed to Panera Bread. The restaurant where she would meet her new client was only twenty minutes from where she lived, and she wanted to arrive before her client did. The traffic was light, and she managed to make it with ten minutes to spare. As soon as she opened the door, her senses were overwhelmed with the tantalizing scent of freshly baked bread and sweet apple pie. She hadn’t planned on ordering anything, but the slightly audible sounds of protest from her stomach changed her mind.
She stopped briefly at the counter, placed her order, and took her seat to wait for Brianna. She loved this quaint restaurant. It reminded her of her mother’s Southern undertones. Despite its being a national chain, it still produced a level of intimacy and personality missing from most. Michelle was in the midst of enjoying a warm cup of skinny café mocha when Brianna arrived.
Suddenly, Michelle rubbed her eyes and shook her head frantically. She had to be seeing things. She looked away—and then looked back. Terror brought her heart to a standstill. Uncertainty shadowed every thought. Michelle was watching what felt like a mirror image of herself walking into the restaurant, but how was that possible? Was this real? Was she having an out-of-body experience? Her sudden befuddlement left her without words. She looked fretfully around the restaurant to see if anyone else saw what she saw. She pinched herself and winced slightly from the brief sting. No, she was not dreaming; this was definitely happening. She watched the woman as she walked cautiously toward her with a facial expression mirroring her own.
Brianna, usually a social butterfly, could not utter a word once she spotted the woman sitting at the third table from the back, per their arrangement, and took her seat in the booth opposite her. She wanted to say something—anything—but her communication prowess had abandoned her. Finally, Michelle broke the silence.
“Are you Brianna Mason?”
Brianna, eyes wide with disbelief, nodded her head slowly in confir
mation.
Michelle’s mind was all over the place as she searched for some explanation, inwardly rereading her notes and skimming their e-mail correspondence, but found nothing that would have prepared her for this. Brianna’s e-mail wasn’t out of the ordinary. There was nothing in it that suggested that after meeting her, that Michelle’s world would be changed forever.
“You have my face,” Michelle whispered. She was not directing it toward Brianna but rather stating it as a matter of fact. She verbalized what they had both been thinking. She had been an only child for twenty-three years. Who was this woman? Michelle felt like a little child. She didn’t know what to do, say, or even how to feel. She placed her hands firmly under her buttocks. It was all she could do to keep them from stretching across the table to touch the unimaginable. This moment was the most tangible impossible had ever been.
Brianna was as bemused as Michelle. She hammered her fist on the table’s surface. The hasty clamor jolted Michelle out of her trance. She reacted too quickly and wound up banging her knees underneath the table. A customer stumbled walking by, nearly falling to the ground with a tray of food, also startled by the abrupt noise. Michelle scrunched her nose as the stabbing pain spread from her patella, down her femur, coating her toes, and back. She gave Brianna an even more perplexed look.
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