by J. D. Mason
“Who paid you?”
Omar expected to hear Tito, or Lance Whitman, or maybe even Randall Brewer’s name.
“Mr. Brown,” he finally said.
* * *
Omar called the police, who showed up ten minutes later to haul this kid off. Jamal was his name and he was Ciara’s boyfriend. Omar didn’t mention Brown’s name to the police. Jamal would likely tell them who’d paid him to fire those shots, but until then, Omar wanted to confront this one on his own.
Brown wasn’t hard to find. The fifty-seven-year-old man was at his house, clad in a bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers and sipping on a cup of what looked like tea, when he answered the door. And, yes, he was surprised to see who it was. Omar didn’t wait to be asked inside and Brown didn’t protest when he pushed his way in.
“Obviously, your boy missed,” Omar said, glaring down at Brown, who couldn’t have been any taller than Lola.
Brown looked disappointed, but not ruffled. “Obviously.”
“Jamal doesn’t strike me as the secretive type or the type that would take one for the team. So I suspect that the police will be showing up here soon.”
He nodded shuffling his way into the living room. Omar followed.
“He was the best I could do on such short notice.” Brown half smiled as he sat down.
“Mind telling me why?”
He sighed heavily. “At the time it seemed like a good idea.”
“Killing me is a good idea? That’s it? On a whim you just want to have a brotha shot?”
“Ciara told me that you were acting suspicious.”
“Acting suspicious shouldn’t get a man killed, Mr. Brown.”
“She didn’t burn down that mall. Neither did Tito.”
“Let me guess. You burned it.”
He nodded, and then sat and drifted into the recesses of some memory, some introspective thought, some spiritual revelation. Omar didn’t know, but Brown had truly surprised Omar.
“Lola liked to think that she was looking out for all of us, but really, she was only looking out for herself.”
“She didn’t hold a gun to your head to make you stay there.”
“We stayed because we loved her. We believed in her.”
“But you blame her for that?”
He looked thoughtful. “Yes.”
This fool was absolutely cold.
“You knew she was inside?”
“I saw her car. I even looked inside through the door, and saw the light filtering from underneath the storage room door. I knew she was there.”
“And you set that fire anyway?”
He took another sip of his tea.
“Who paid you to do it?”
“Lance Whitman paid me money, which I shared with Ciara and Tito, because we all deserve it. We’d have all ended up with nothing because of her.” He took another sip from his cup. “We loved her, but she didn’t love us enough.”
A knock at his front door told them both that the moment of truth was here. Brown stood up and went to answer it. It was the police.
* * *
Lance was scheduled to fly out later that afternoon. Thankfully, he would never have to come back to this stink hole of a town. His work here was done. The store would be completed in six months, but by then, Lance will have moved on to his next project. He’d just finished his breakfast when a knock came to his hotel room door. Omar Reid came inside looking like his usual fresh, crisp, and clean self.
“Oh, by all means, Mr. Reid,” Lance said sarcastically. “Won’t you please come in?”
He closed the door behind Omar, and the two men faced off in the center of the room.
“I believe our business is done,” Lance said.
“No.” Omar shook his head and stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. “Not yet,” he said with a smirk.
“Did I forget to sign something? Do you need fingerprints? A blood sample? My firstborn?”
“I need you to cut Lola Knight a check.”
Lance waited with a smile because surely, somewhere in that statement was a “just kidding,” “psyche,” or a “gotcha.”
Omar never said any of those things.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said with a smirk. “Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Reid said casually. “And you’ll feel better because of it.”
Lance shook his head. “Doubtful, in both cases. You know where the door is.”
“Mr. Brown was arrested last night,” Omar continued.
Hearing those words almost made him regurgitate his breakfast. He turned to Omar.
“Maybe he’ll tell them about the money you paid him,” Omar said. “Maybe he won’t. In any case, Star Industries is probably not going to appreciate the negative publicity that’s likely to come from this. Not to mention, the potential for a huge lawsuit that Ms. Knight could bring to the corporation. Hell, she could actually end up owning the mega-mart if Star Industries isn’t careful.”
Lance stared at the man.
“How much is a reputation worth these days?” Omar asked.
Lance swallowed. “I’ll have to ask,” he said sheepishly.
He’d worked this deal with Brown sort of under the table. What’s done in the dark … He was going to lose his job. If he wasn’t careful, he could lose his freedom.
“You do that,” Omar said, starting to leave. “I’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When Lola found out that Mr. Brown had been the one to set that fire, and that Ciara and Tito knew about it, of course she didn’t want to believe it. The magnitude of what he’d done wasn’t driven home until she actually saw him, sat across from him in the jail waiting to be sentenced, and looked into his eyes.
“We deserved to get something, Lola,” he said unemotionally.
There wouldn’t be a trial because he pleaded guilty. He never said a word about Ciara or Tito, though. Never mentioned that they knew about it, or had anything to do with it, and they never found the money either. And he never even implicated Lance Whitman or Star Industries, for reasons that only he knew. As far as the prosecuting attorney was concerned, Brown had started the fire in the hopes of getting some of Lola’s insurance money.
Lola stared at him with tears in her eyes. “If y’all had just said something,” she said in disbelief. “I thought you wanted what I wanted.”
“You didn’t care what we thought. It was all about what you wanted, and if anybody’d said anything, you’d justify it away.”
She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t have.”
He stared unemotionally at her. Was he right?
Lola swallowed before asking her last question. “Did you really want me dead?”
“At first, perhaps I did. In that moment, I might have. But then, who do you think called the fire department?”
* * *
“We can’t stay in bed all day, Omar,” she said, trying to push away from the man, who had her wrapped in those octopus arms of his.
“Another hour,” Omar insisted, kissing the side of her neck, which he knew drove her crazy.
Lola squirmed. “If you don’t stop!”
“I only need an hour, baby.”
“You’ll have me speaking in tongues in an hour,” she snapped, and finally jerked free of him.
He laughed. “Yeah.”
There’s nothing worse than having to eat crow because it tastes like shit. As soon as she’d found out that Mr. Brown had confessed to burning down her building, she had to gird up her loins and pay Omar a visit to apologize. He waited patiently, albeit smugly, while she did, and then told her everything that she hadn’t heard from the news, like about how Brown probably gave all that money to Ciara and Tito, and of course about Lance Whitman’s role in all of this.
As soon as she finished saying, “I’m sorry, Omar, for not believing you,” he pulled her into his arms, kissed the mess out of her, and she’d been his plaything ever since. But there were worse things t
hat a woman could be in the world.
She hurried to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, pulled back her hair, and splashed water on her face. “I can’t be late on my first day,” she said, rushing from the bathroom to the closet to find something to wear. Lola pulled out a dress, held it up to herself, and turned to him. “What do you think?”
He smiled.
She reached for another one and did the same thing. “Well?”
Omar smiled again.
She sighed in frustration. “You’re not helping me.”
He stared longingly at her. “You know I think you look beautiful no matter what you put on.”
It was hard not to like him when he said things like that. But Lola had started moving past just liking him a long time ago. She could feel herself being hurled like an asteroid in space, moving fast toward the other “L” word, but she wasn’t ready to tell him that yet. Maybe in a day or two.
“You’re coming, right?” she asked, concerned.
“You know I wouldn’t miss it.”
“You’re going to put on clothes?” she teased.
“I will if you give me just one more hour alone with you.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “See, Omar. Why do you do things like that to me?” she whined, shuffling over to the bed.
He reached for her hand and pulled her down on top of him.
“You know I can’t say no to you. Not very well.”
“I know. I know. Boy, am I glad I know that.”
* * *
Lola couldn’t believe the turnout she’d gotten. Lola’s Life Spa was officially open and it was Blink, Texas’s, first and only spa. In fact, it was the only spa in the surrounding counties and folks came from all over for the grand opening. Lola had shelves lined with all her beauty products, candles, and accessories. But she also had manicure and pedicure stations, brow threading, and in the back, she had four massage rooms, two facial rooms, and even a waxing room.
Omar grimaced at the notion of waxing. “You put this where?” he asked as he held a jar of some kind of cream in his hand.
She took it from him. “Don’t worry about that. Just know that you absolutely love it.”
A courier had showed up at her door one day and handed her a package. Lola had opened it and inside was a check for $700,000.00. When she had showed it to Omar, he just nodded and smiled. He never said anything about it, except, “That’s nice, baby.”
But she knew that if it hadn’t been for him, this day would’ve never happened.
Read on for a sneak peek of
The Real Mrs. Price
by J. D. Mason
Available May 2016
Copyright © 2016 by J. D. Mason
Ed hurried back into the room with Lucy. When he didn’t see her there, he checked the back door and caught her as she was just getting ready to bolt.
“No … no … no, sweetheart,” he said, his lips grazing her ear and his arms wrapping around her waist, carrying her back inside.
Ed didn’t like the look on his neighbor’s, Bruce’s, face and he didn’t want to take any chances that Bruce might decide to play hero and call the police.
Lucy fell limp in his arms and started to cry. He gently sat her down on the sofa and knelt at her feet. “I can’t stay, sweetheart,” he said, sorrowfully. Ed’s life was forfeit. He had no choice but to disappear. “You can’t say anything.” He adamantly shook his head. No. She couldn’t. Lucy was the only one who knew. As long as she stayed quiet, then maybe, just maybe … “But you need to keep your mouth shut,” he told her, putting his hand underneath her chin and raising her face to his. “I won’t go to prison. Not for him. He deserved it, Lucy. He deserved exactly what he got. And if you say anything, then I’ll…”
Could he do it? He’d done it before. But could he do it to her? If Ed let those words pass his lips, then he’d have to mean them. She’d have to believe that he meant them.
“I will kill you, Lucy.” Ed said it, and sighed. Yes. He would do it. “If anybody ever finds out about Chuck Harris, I’ll know you told, and I’ll be back, and your life will end, baby, do you understand that?” Ed asked with earnest.
From the look in her terrified eyes, Ed knew Lucy understood perfectly.
Ed packed the things he knew that he couldn’t easily replace. Lucy sat slumped on the sofa, staring straight ahead at nothing, numb and empty. His beautiful Lucy was a shell of the woman he’d married, and he hated himself for what he’d turned her into. But she should’ve minded her own fucking business instead of snooping around in his.
“Remember what I said,” he reminded her on his way out of the house. Ed needed to drive this point home with her. She was terrified of him and wounded by him, physically and emotionally. She needed to cling to this last memory of him as if her life depended on it, because, literally, it did.
“As long as I have my freedom, as long as I’m alive, you’ll be fine. You’ll be safe and you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
What is a wife to do when her husband has been missing for six months and she starts to look like the prime suspect?
Don’t miss
The Real Mrs. Price
by J. D. Mason.
About the Author
J. D. MASON is the author of Crazy, Sexy, Revenge; Drop Dead, Gorgeous; Beautiful, Dirty, Rich; Somebody Pick Up My Pieces; Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It; That Devil’s No Friend of Mine; You Gotta Sin to Get Saved; This Fire Down in My Soul; Don’t Want No Sugar; And On the Eighth Day She Rested; and One Day I Saw a Black King. She lives in Denver, Colorado. You can sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY J. D. MASON
And on the Eighth Day She Rested
One Day I Saw a Black King
Don’t Want No Sugar
This Fire Down in My Soul
You Gotta Sin to Get Saved
That Devil’s No Friend of Mine
Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It
Somebody Pick Up My Pieces
Beautiful, Dirty, Rich
Drop Dead, Gorgeous
Crazy, Sexy, Revenge
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Excerpt from The Real Mrs. Price
About the Author
Also by J. D. Mason
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STORMY KNIGHT. Copyright © 2016 by J. D. Mason. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
e-ISBN 9781466853805
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: March 2016
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