by D J Parker
They tried to step around Megan, but she stepped in front of them. “My patient just woke up. I have to make sure she’s stable first.”
“This is a homicide investigation.”
“And this is my unit and my patient. Now, I’m going to have to ask you and your partner to leave. You’re more than welcome to leave your card and when Ms. Johnson is stable with legal representation, she will call you.”
The men looked at the nurse practitioner who refused to back down. Detective Smith reached into his pocket and pulled out his card. He tossed it on the foot of my bed and glanced at me before leaving with his partner following him.
When she turned around to face me, I asked, “Were you an attorney?”
“I still am. I was an attorney before I decided to go to nursing school.” She reviewed the machine. “And I know you are the district attorney in this city.”
“Homicide unit.” I repeated the thought out loud. “Keith can’t be dead.”
Megan looked at me for a moment like she wanted to say more but held back. She walked over to the sink and washed her hands. When she turned back around, she grabbed two gloves from the glove box hanging on the wall.
“I’m going to complete a full head to toe assessment with you. Unfortunately, when you arrived, you were unconscious. Therefore, we were unable to complete it. We established a base line as far as your respiratory rate, urine output—”
“Urine output?”
“Yes, you have a catheter attached to you. Everything seemed to stabilize during the night, but I’d feel more comfortable establishing subjective and objective data. Is that okay with you?”
I nodded and allowed the nurse practitioner to complete the assessment.
Reign
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes with hope it would ease the headache forming over my left eyelid. Between hearing Daddy’s braying and having to repeat what had taken place at my house last night, I was ready to check myself into the psych unit of Mount Sinai Hospital. I was brought here a few hours ago and though I was cleared to be discharged, I was too scared to leave.
“It’s time you give up this rebellious lifestyle. Haven’t you dragged this family through the mud enough?” my mother asked in the background. “You must resign!”
I gripped the hospital phone tightly as I tried to contain my rage. “Keith is dead. I know you both hated him, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that he was—”
“I know, baby girl.” Daddy’s voice dropped down to a soothing whisper. “I know. What your mother is trying to say is that she’s worried about you.”
“I never trusted Keith around her. Suppose she was home when this happened? We’d be getting a different phone call. Reign always has to make a hard bed for herself.” My mother continued talking in the background.
I inhaled and sunk my teeth into my fist. “Daddy, I gotta go.”
“Hang on, Reign.” His voice became softer.
This was the exact reason I lagged telling my parents anything personal about my life. I would’ve taken my time telling them this too had it not made the front-page news. I figured they’d caught wind of the news by the time I called them. And I was right. A few of their friends had called. My parents had tried calling me nonstop and when I didn’t pick up, they’d ended their trip early, leaving my sisters, their husbands, and my nieces and nephews in Aruba.
They were in Florida, waiting for their connecting flight to board in the next hour. I tried to assure them that I was okay and had been hospitalized because I’d had a panic attack and fainted, which they’d correctly assumed had been my body’s traumatic response. By the time I met with the clinical social worker, I was given a clean bill of health to be discharged. I had called Carter, who was no better than my parents, to see if she could pick me up from the hospital.
I could hear my mother’s voice fade into the background and become completely quiet the moment the door shut. I assumed Daddy had escaped into another section of the airport.
“You know your mother just wants the best for you,” he finally said.
I exhaled a ragged breath. “I know, but maintaining the family image is more important.”
“You can’t fault her for how she was raised,” he defended. “Maintaining the legacy of this family is all she knows.”
I know. My grandparents didn’t exactly leap for joy when my mother turned up with Daddy at her side. She’d been the only daughter of the great Walshes, a prominent black family that had earned its fortune through the oil business. They doubled their money by investing in properties and corporate buildings. While my uncles were being groomed to take over the family business, my mother was trying her damndest not to be anything like her mother. Eventually, destiny got its way because she turned out to be exactly like her mother. And the fight was then passed on to me. Out of my two sisters, I was the one frowned upon. My ideals were different.
But that was beside the point. Keith had been murdered in my apartment, and I had yet to accept that he was truly gone.
“Daddy, Keith had stage four bladder cancer.” When silence was all he offered me, I continued. “We were planning to go back to D.C. that night. But I had to tie up some…”
Guilt filled my chest. While I was too busy getting fucked down by Nicolai, Keith was back at my place getting murdered. Had the hit been for me? Why had he been targeted? Nothing about his murder made sense.
Images of Nicolai appeared in my thoughts. Like my parents, I was sure he’d heard the news already. And even though he was one of the phone numbers that I remembered by heart, I refused to call him. It was bad enough that I was going to have to tell the police I had been having an affair. I had seen too many similar cases over years to know that the spouse was always the number one suspect when their spouse turned up murdered or was missing. It was a protocol I had been all too familiar with and supported, up until it was my turn.
The shoe was on the other foot and I felt more like a criminal than a victim. I purposely avoided calling Detective Smith and his partner, Detective Mitchell, because I hated the way they’d entered my room with accusatory stares. Plus, I knew my rights.
“I’m sorry, baby girl,” Daddy said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’ll talk to your mother.”
I looked up at the ceiling, trying to hold the tears back, but it was pointless. The floodgates had been opened and there was no way of avoiding the ugliness of my cry.
Daddy remained on the line. He said nothing, just allowed me to weep.
“Baby girl, I hate to cut it short,” he interjected, “but, we’re boarding the plane now.”
“Okay, Daddy,” I said between sniffles. “Y’all travel safely. I should be getting discharged in the next two hours.”
“Why don’t you wait for us? I’d feel more comfortable if we took you home.”
“Carter is on her way over here. I’m going to get my bag from the apartment and check-in to a hotel.”
“No, you need to be around family.”
“Daddy, I’d feel much safer if I was in a hotel.”
“We’ll talk about it some more when we touch down,” he said before ending our call.
I lay back down on the bed and stared out of the window. I could’ve been staring at the sky for a long time had a knock at the door not snapped me out of the daze I’d been in. I hadn’t noticed that tears were rolling down my cheeks until I turned my head to the door. It was Carter.
“Oh, honey.” She walked over to my bed with her arms stretched wide. I fell into her embrace, pressing my head into her shoulder as I wept for what felt like hours. She held me close, stroking my back.
When the cries finally subsided, I pulled away from her, wiping remnants of my tears with the back of my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She pulled my hand in hers. “I am so sorry for what happened to Keith.”
“Why him? Why us? Who would target us this way?”
A knock on the door caused both of u
s to look at the door.
I cleared my throat. “Come in.”
I hissed when I saw Detective Smith enter my suite. This time, he was by himself.
“Hi, Ms. Johnson. You’re looking better. We need to talk.”
“About what?” Carter snapped. “She just lost her husband.”
“Estranged husband.”
“A man she’d been with for over ten years.”
“Are you her legal counsel?” he asked Carter.
I grabbed Carter’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. “It’s okay, Carter. I’ll answer his questions. And you can stay as I do that.”
Detective Smith’s permanent scowl deepened as he shut the door behind him.
“What would you like to know?”
“Let’s start off with your day leading up to when you discovered Keith’s body.”
“My routine had been the same. I got up, got ready for work, and put my time in. We were getting ready to head back to D.C. I had taken a three month leave of absence and had work to finish up before I left.”
“Why were you leaving work for three months?” Detective Smith asked with a suspicious undertone.
I swallowed the cry lodged in my throat before answering. “I needed to be with Keith as he went through chemo.”
“Keith had cancer?” Both Carter and Detective Smith asked in unison.
“Stage 4 bladder cancer. He was on the list to try this radical treatment that was currently on trial for terminal patients. The treatment was three months long and I had planned to be there for him the entire time.”
“When did you learn of his cancer?”
“A little over a week ago. Keith and I had been separated for close to five months. I was living up here while he was running his business in D.C.”
“What time were you supposed to leave?”
“I had every intention of leaving early while it was still early, but I had to pick up my clothes from a friend’s house. I ended up spending a longer time at my friend’s house, talking. I ended up taking a nap. By the time I woke up, it was nighttime.”
“I need to corroborate your alibi with your friend. What is your friend’s name?”
I hesitated for a moment before dropping his name. “Nicolai.”
“Nicolai, what?”
The question threw me off guard. What was his last name? “I’m sorry, his last name is evading me.”
“So you were with Nicolai for approximately how long, sleep included?”
“Maybe five or six hours,” I summed.
“And in that time, were you in contact with your husband. Did he know where you were at?”
“No.”
Detective Smith nodded and pulled out a notepad. “I need Nicolai’s address.”
“He lives in the penthouse at the Skyview Towers.” As he wrote the information down, I tried to remain calm. “I know that it’s early, but do you have any leads?”
“Like you said, it’s early,” he said, closing his notepad. “Did Keith have any enemies? Anyone he had problems with?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” I cocked my head to the side, ready to jump on the defense.
“Do you have any enemies? You’re a prosecutor. Maybe a perp has a problem with you. Felt like their sentence was—”
“Tommy Neglia,” I whispered.
“Excuse me?”
Flashbacks of Tommy’s face appeared. “Earlier today, I met with Tommy Neglia.”
“The kingpin on the news?” Carter asked.
“Yeah.”
Detective Smith opened his notepad again and jotted down what I presumed was Tommy Neglia’s name. “Tell me about the visit. Did he threaten you?”
“No. But, he wasn’t exactly happy that I turned down information in exchange for a reduced sentence.”
“What type of time was he looking at?” Detective Smith asked as he continued writing in his notepad.
“Fifteen years.”
He looked up from his notepad. “Fifteen years could make the sanest person want revenge. But did he actually thereaten you?”
“No he didn’t.”
“Is there anyone else who comes to mind that may have been targeting you?”
I searched for names, faces, interactions, but found nothing that stood out. “No one else comes to mind.”
“What time did you leave work?”
“I left early.”
“What time?”
“Four o’clock.”
He went back to jotting notes in his notepad. “Can anybody attest to that?”
“Twelve people can attest to that. Plus, I have the reciept for my parking ticket.”
“I’ll need to get their names.”
“If you have an email, I’ll email you the list of names.”
“Did you go straight home after work?” he asked, raising his eyes up to look at me. I sensed he was trying to detect deception.
Any icy chill ran down my spine. “No.”
“Where did you go?”
I knew that the next set of words could easily make me suspect number one, but there was no way of getting around the truth. “I was having an affair.”
“An affair?”
“Yes, when Keith and I seperated, I started seeing someone.”
“So you went over to his place before you went home?”
“Yes,” I answered, trying to contain my shame. “When Keith told me he had cancer, I ended my affair. The only reason why I went to his place after work was because he asked me to pick up my stuff.”
“And did you do that?”
I dropped my eyes from his. “No. We ended up having sex. I went to sleep and when I woke up, he was gone.”
“What time did you wake up?”
I ran my fingers through my hair as I thought about the time that I left Nicolai’s apartment. “I don’t remember. It was late.”
“Do you have any idea what time he left?”
“No. I was sleeping.”
He jotted a few more notes down before asking, “What was his reaction when he learned that you were going back to your husband? I imagine that didn’t go over too well.”
“It went fine,” I lied. “He understood and respected my wishes.”
“Was he aware that you were married or that Keith was in town?”
“He knew I was married and seperated from my husband. As for if he knew that Keith was in town, no. He didn’t know,” I lied again.
Detective Smith stared at me for a few seconds longer than normal before he went back to writing again. “I’m going to need his last name and address.”
“I’ll email that to you as well.”
“Okay. Thanks for answering my questions. I’ll be in touch.” Detective Smith looked between Carter and I before leaving the hospital room.
Carter turned to me. “Do you think Nicolai had any—”
“Please don’t.” I refused to think that he had anything to do with Keith’s murder.
A few hours later, after being discharged from the hospital, I returned to my apartment and gathered items that I was allowed to take from the list Detective Smith had given me earlier. I was able to take my car and decided to check-in to a hotel in Hoboken, New Jersey. Carter drove behind me even though I insisted that I would be okay. But there was no convincing her otherwise. After settling into the bedroom, I was hoping that Carter would leave, but she made herself right at home as if she planned on spending the night with me.
“I can’t believe you’re really staying in a hotel,” Carter said as she plopped down on the bed. “How the hell did I let you convince me that this was a good idea?”
“I’ll be fine and safer knowing that I’m not putting anyone in danger.”
Carter rolled over to her side to face me. “But Reign—”
“No, Carter.” I shook my head. “I mean it. I already convinced my parents. Please don’t give me hell for this.”
“You
need to be around family.”
She’s right. But, I refused to let anyone else die because of me.
“Just give me tonight,” I pleaded as I rolled off of the bed. “If it’s bad, I’ll call you.”
Tommy Neglia’s name kept resurfacing in my thoughts. Could this really be retaliation? God, Keith got murdered because of me. I swallowed the cry lodged in my throat. I refused to break down in front of Carter for the fifth time today.
“Go home. I promise I’ll call you.” I turned around to face her. “I love you and couldn’t have gotten through today without you.”
Carter shook her head as she dragged herself out of the bed. “I don’t feel comfortable about this.”
“But, you’re going to do this because you trust me,” I said, pulling her into my arms to hug her. “It’s getting late. You should be on your way back to Brooklyn.”
She inhaled and exhaled before releasing me. “Fine. But you better call me.”
“I will,” I promised as I opened and closed the door behind her.
Once I was in the suite by myself, I pulled out my cell phone. I had gotten tons of phone calls from everyone except for Nicolai. He hadn’t even texted me. So much for assuming he cared. I didn’t know why it bothered me at that moment, but it did.
Before I allowed my emotions to consume me, I did a breathing exercise that Megan had taught me that could help me treat early physiological and somatic cues of the onset of a panic attack. Surprisingly, it worked.
I took a shower and tossed on a T-shirt and boy shorts before sitting down with my laptop in front of me. I opened up the laptop and began looking up information about Tommy Neglia. Besides the articles that covered his recent case, there was nothing about the kingpin. I leaned back into the mountain of pillows I’d propped up behind me and began drumming my fingers on the laptop.
Flash drive.
The thought popped into my head. I put my laptop to the side and crawled off the bed to grab my purse that I’d left on the counter. I dug inside and pulled out the black flash drive that Victoria Spillmore gave me a couple of days ago.
I plopped back onto my bed and pulled my laptop back into my lap. I inserted the flash drive into the slot. A drive popped up immediately. I opened the tab which opened a file titled La Cosa Nostra. My finger hovered over the file before I finally decided to click on it. Five individual folders had been labeled with Italian last names.