Temptation: The Aftermath

by Victoria Christopher Murray

  Stepping into the hall, I moved quickly to the Quiet Room and peeked in. Again, my thoughts switched tracks for a moment — I wasn’t sure where Nicole had made her call, but when I saw that the room was empty, I stepped inside.

  Although it was after nine, I didn’t know anything about the working hours of police officers, but every time I’d spoken to Detective Green it had been in the morning. So maybe police worked in the same kinds of shifts.

  I tapped in the numbers quickly, dialing against all doubts. I need to know.

  That was what I kept telling myself. It only took one person and about two minutes to get me to Detective Green.

  “Mrs. Blake,” the detective greeted me. “Good morning.” His voice had far more cheer than the two previous times I’d spoken to him. “How did you hear the news already?”

  “News?”

  “Yes. About the arrest.” Then, he paused. “Wait. Let me roll up.

  Are you calling about the young man who shot your husband?” “No, not exactly.”

  “I apologize. I just assumed ….” His words trailed off, though his tone remained upbeat. “Well, I’ll give you all the details, but first, what were you calling about?”

  It felt like I’d been derailed and couldn’t get my words together for what I really wanted to know. “The man who shot my husband?” That was all I could get out.

  “Yes, we’ve made an arrest.”

  “Oh my God.” I pressed my hand against my chest and fell back, thankful there was a chair right beneath me. “Who did it? Why?”

  “A nineteen-year-old local troublemaker with a long rap sheet. He’s actually one of the organizers of these flash robs,” the detective said.

  “But why would he shoot Jefferson?”

  “Well, at some point, we’ll need a statement from your husband, but it seems like he made the mistake of getting in their way. Trying to talk to the mob, trying to stop the robbery.”

  Even though the detective couldn’t see me, I nodded. That was so my husband.

  “He tried to stop the wrong one,” the detective continued. “The leader, the one we have in custody, just fired and everyone dispersed. Seems like your husband did stop most of the robbery, but not the way any of us would’ve wanted. He was a hero.”

  A hero. Knowing Jefferson, that was not what he was trying to be. He was just trying to do what was right.

  “But the good news,” the detective’s cheer charged through my thoughts, “is we have the shooter now, and I’m sure that once we pull in a few others, we’ll get statements from them since no one will want to catch an attempted murder case. After we get the statements and are able to speak to your husband, the case will be closed.”

  The case will be closed.

  It was those words that brought me out of my stupor, making me remember the reason for my call.

  “That’s really good news, Detective, but what about the woman?

  What about the woman who was with my husband?”

  “We only wanted to question her because she was a potential witness,” he said. “We’re fine now. There’s no need to find her.”

  No! Thankfully, that scream stayed inside my throat. “But don’t you still need to talk to her?”

  “Getting your husband’s statement will be enough. We’re no longer looking for her.”

  “No, you can’t stop. You have to keep looking.”The words spilled out of me, one after another. I couldn’t stop myself. “You have to find her.”

  There was such a long pause that for a moment, I thought the detective had hung up. Then, “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Blake, but with the witnesses from the flash rob and your husband’s statement, there really isn’t any reason for us to spend any more resources on her. In fact, I doubt if this will even go to trial. The DA is already working on a plea ….”

  “But, I need to find her,” I said, praying that I didn’t sound as desperate to the detective as I sounded to my ears.

  This time, he didn’t hesitate to tell me, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Blake, but she is no longer any concern of ours.”

  That was cop-speak. In plain English, he was telling me that I needed to handle my own business.

  “We will want to speak to your husband once he’s well enough.

  We’ll be in touch with his doctors.” “Yes. Of course,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I hung up, feeling no further need to embarrass myself. Once again, I was in that place where I wanted to do backflips in celebration, but my stomach was somersaulting with dread. Thank God, they’d found the man who’d shot my husband but closing that left such an opening for me. An opening that I had to know. I needed to know, who was that woman. Was she Lola?

  Of course, I could wait until Jefferson could speak, but like Dr.

  Reid said, what would he remember?

  “Oh, God.” I covered my face with my hands.

  Never finding out was not an option. There had to be a way, but I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do.

  chapter 30

  Jasmine

  My feet were like bricks as I dragged behind the children and Mrs. Sloss down the hall, into the foyer and toward thefront door.

  “Mama, why can’t you walk us to the van?” Jacqueline whined. “‘Cause we need more time to work out all the songs for the playlist for the Christmas play.”

  “We finished it last night.” I paused to release a yawn.“We don’t need …”

  She cut me off like she was the mama, saying, “But I wanted one more review because ….”

  Now, I was the one who stopped her. “First of all, Jacqueline, what you’re not gonna do is interrupt me when I’m talking and ….”

  “I thought you were finished since you were yawning.”

  Today was not the day, and I was not the one. With all that I’d been through, I had no patience for an obstinate child.“Jacqueline!” The way I said her name made everyone stop, even Mrs. Sloss. The three of them stood by the door, looking at me like I was about to set it off.

  My gaze zoomed in on Jacqueline. “Now, like I was saying, we finished the playlist last night, it’s done, I’m not walking you to the van, and that’s the end of it. Do you understand?”

  With poked out lips, she muttered, “Yes,” and then she glared at me with a look that made me wonder if she was trying to figure out how she could beat me down. Then, she opened the door and stomped out.

  The moment she did that, Zaya held up his arms. “Mama,” he said, welcoming me into a hug. When I embraced him, he held me for a few longer moments, his way of diffusing the situation. “Bye, Mama,” he whispered into my ear. “I hope you have a good day.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  I said goodbye to Mrs. Sloss and told her not to rush back. She had a doctor’s appointment after she dropped the children off at the van, and my hope was that she’d stay away until Jacqueline and Zaya came home. Because right now, I didn’t want to be around anyone, not even the people I loved the most — my husband, my children, my best friend ….

  My best friend. Mae Frances.

  The thought of her made me forget how tired I was and now, I was just pissed. She was the reason I hadn’t slept well last night. After closing the door behind the children, I marched back into the kitchen and grabbed the tea kettle. Thoughts of yesterday and Mae Frances and Lola still flipped through my mind. As I sat waiting for the water to boil, I went through it all in my mind once again:

  “Oh, my God, Mae Frances. What just happened? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me come all the way over here?” Those questions rolled off my tongue before we reached the bottom of the steps to the brownstone.

  Mae Frances didn’t say a word; she just held up her hand and in a few seconds a cab stopped. She opened the door and I waited for her to get in, but she motioned for me to slide across the seat first.

  As I did, she gave my address to the driver.

  That made me smile. The kids hadn’t seen her in a few weeks — they’d be thr
illed when they got home from school. But before they got there, Mae Frances and I could have a long talk about what had gone down.

  But she didn’t get in the cab. She leaned down and said, “Go home, Jasmine. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Before I could get my mind wrapped around her words, my cab sped off. From the back window, I watched her walk away, heading east as my taxi traveled west.

  I punched in her number on my phone, pressed the phone to my ear, and waited. But, one ring … and then it went to voicemail.

  Ugh!

  Was she doing that again? I called her back, again and again. And the same thing kept happening. I kept dialing, she kept sending me to voicemail. By the time I walked through my front door, I was fuming. What in the world was Mae Frances up to?

  Even at home, I kept up the insanity of doing the same thing with the same results. We did that dance all through the evening, and finally near midnight, I gave up. But that made it difficult for me to rest. Yes, Mae Frances had saved me from Lola, but why didn’t she want to talk to me? Why was she avoiding me? Was there more to this story?

  It was now after nine in the morning, and I had the same questions. But today, I wasn’t going to do what I did yesterday. I wasn’t going to keep calling Mae Frances, trying to track her down like she owed me something. Whatever was wrong with her, if she wanted me out of her life, I was out, I was done, it was over.

  The tea kettle whistled just as the doorbell rang and the combination of the sounds, startled me. I turned off the flame under the kettle, then dashed to the door. I hadn’t picked up any packages from the concierge over the last week, and I was sure it was one of the doormen making a delivery.

  But when I swung the door open, I stared into the face of Mae Frances … and then, I just slammed the door. I didn’t bother to lock it; it wouldn’t have mattered if I did because Mae Frances had a key and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it — which was exactly what she did.

  “Jasmine Larson, I know you don’t have an attitude with me.” I didn’t bother to answer her. Just marched into the kitchen, grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with the boiling water. Mae Frances stood under the arch that led to the kitchen, watching me. And I dipped my teabag in my cup, ignoring her. “So you’re mad at me? Why?”

  Finally, I looked up. “Let me count the ways.”

  She laughed, tossed her purse onto the chair next to where I sat, then went to the cabinet, pulled down a mug and poured her own tea. “Wow, you must be really upset if you’re quoting Shakespeare.” I didn’t change my expression. “You got a problem with that?

  What? You knew Shakespeare, too?”

  My words were meant to be a jab, but you couldn’t jab a moving target. Because all she did was sip her tea, then answer, “No, I didn’t know Shakespeare ….”

  I smirked.

  She said, “But his great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson and I back in the sixties when we were in Stratford-upon-Avon ….”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Really? Are you going to come over here and talk to me about another one of your mysterious connections after what you did to me yesterday?”

  Her eyes widened with innocence. “What did I do, Jasmine Larson, except for help you?”

  “Yes, you did, but then you left me and didn’t explain anything.”

  She took another slow sip. “All right. What do you want to know?”

  I folded my arms. “First, where were you last night? Why didn’t you answer my calls? Heck, why did you just put me in a cab and not explain anything?”

  She nodded as she listened to my questions and kept nodding even after I finished. Finally, she said, “Well, first of all, Jasmine Larson, I wasn’t aware that I had to explain anything to you.”

  I glared at her.

  She said, “I choose to share things because I love you, but don’t get it twisted. I report to no one.”

  I pressed my lips together. Had I said all that to her?

  “But I asked you what you wanted to know, and I’m choosing to answer your questions. Where was I last night? I was with Bubba.”

  It was shock that made me drop my arms.

  She said, “Remember that text that I got while we were with Lola — or whatever her name is? Well, Bubba was at the airport in Little Rock, waiting to hear from me.”

  “He’s in New York?” I asked, totally forgetting the reason for my fury with my friend.

  She nodded. “And that is the answer to your second question of why I didn’t answer your calls.”

  All I could do was shake my head. Bubba — I didn’t even know his last name; I assumed it was Jackson — was in New York. With Mae Frances.

  Oh, my God!

  “So, all I can say is that if you had a romantic night going on with Hosea, I wouldn’t begrudge you a thing. So I expect the same from you.”

  I was still pissed when I said, “Well, you could have told me ….” “I told you, I don’t answer to you.”

  “Dang it, Mae Frances, when you love people, you let them know what’s going on. Supposed something had happened to you.” She shook her head. “You know that ain’t the reason why you’re all up in my business. Ain’t nothing going to happen to me. So, let’s get to the real reason why you’re mad.” I paused.

  She said, “Let’s talk about Lola.”

  She was right. I was totally pissed about that. “Yeah, ‘cause you had all of this information on her and didn’t tell me.”

  My friend raised an eyebrow like my words surprised her. “I didn’t tell you? Or maybe it was that you didn’t give me a chance. You had already handled it.”

  “But you let me go to the bank ….”

  “I didn’t know you were going to do that.”

  “Okay, but then you let me go over to her place and give her the money.”

  She nodded. “Well, it was the best way to teach both of you a lesson. She won’t ever mess with my friends again, and you learned that you better listen to your friend.” Mae Frances shrugged. “I don’t want to be spending all of my time fixing your situations now that Bubba is in my life. I got other things to do.”

  Mae Frances’s tone softened. “Look, Jasmine Larson, you knew when you came to me that I was going to handle it. I’ve helped you handle every single situation you’ve ever gotten yourself into and you need to understand that instead of moving ahead of me. You really could have messed this up by not waiting until I was ready.” She lowered her head and her voice. “It made me feel bad that you didn’t trust me enough.”

  Her shoulders slumped, the ends of her lips drooped — and it was all an act. I knew that, Mae Frances knew that, but still, I did what she wanted me to do — I apologized. “I promise, it won’t happen again.” And, I meant that because Mae Frances was right. I could have saved myself a bunch of heartache if I had just waited for her.

  She was grinning by the time she raised her head. “Great,” she said. Then, after a pause, she added, “But we got her good, didn’t we?”

  Now, I was smiling too.“Oh, my God,” I pressed my hand to my chest, “was all of that stuff that you said true?”

  She nodded. “Every bit of it. She’s made quite a good living hanging out at conventions picking up married men. At twenty five thousand a pop, she makes decent money … probably about a quarter mil each year.”

  I blew out a breath and thought about that for a moment.“I still can’t believe I was part of her set up.”

  “That’s the way it goes. When a scammer finds their mark, they don’t walk away after they’ve put in all the work. They’re gonna get their money, somehow, someway.”

  I gave my friend a side-eye glance. “You sure seem to know a lot about this.”

  “What else is new, Jasmine Larson? You should know by now that I know a lot about everything.”

  Well, that was true. I said, “She’s lucky you didn’t have the police waiting outside for her.”

  Mae Frances shook her head. “Oh no. I’m not tr
ying to mess with her gig.” Her tone changed a bit. She almost sounded like she had some sympathy for Lola when she added, “That girl is lost and she’s just out there trying to make it. I get that because I’ve been there.”

  It was during moments like this, when Mae Frances was reflective that I was reminded of how little I knew about my friend. If I’d had to guess, she’d had a rollercoaster of a life, filled with lots of lows, but I suspected, just as many highs. Last year, she’d considered writing an autobiography and although, at the time, I thought it was the dumbest idea because my friend never told any secrets about her life, now I wondered if I should encourage her — just so I could answer that universal question … how in the world did Mae Frances know everybody?

  Reaching over, I covered her hand with mine. “You’re a good person, Mae Frances.”

  She smiled at me for a moment, before her face contorted into her signature glower. “No need for sentimentality, I just do what I have to do.”

  Standing, I kissed her cheek anyway. “I don’t care what you say, you’re good and I love you.” But then, I straightened up and sighed. “The only thing — I don’t know if what we did with Lola really solves everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” I began, pacing behind her, “Lola may be gone, but she’s left a lot of questions — for Kyla. I can imagine all that’s going on in Kyla’s head about this woman.”

  Mae Frances frowned and tilted her head as if she were trying to remember something. “I thought you made up a story for her about Lola.”

  “I did, but the police keep bringing her up to Kyla and no matter what Kyla says about how she believes in and trusts her husband, I know her and she has questions. So when Jefferson wakes up, he better have answers.”

  “Well, he’ll tell her the truth.”

  “But if he was going to pay her money, then, Jefferson thinks he had sex with Lola. And if he thinks that … and if he tells Kyla that ….” I sighed. “It’s not going to be a pretty picture. Maybe I should go to Kyla and tell her what I know.”

  “No!” Her tone was so emphatic, that I backed up a little. She added, “Jasmine Larson, stay out of it from this point.”