by Shelly Ellis
“What new evidence? What the fuck are you talking about?”
He watched, bewildered, as the attorney pulled a sheet of paper from the stack in the manila folder. The attorney stared down at the paper as he spoke. “Prior to telling Detective Morris that Evan Murdoch was the person who shot you the night of July the eighteenth, did you provide him with another name for the possible shooter?”
Dante stilled. He frowned uneasily. “What . . . what do you mean?”
“I meant exactly what I said, Mr. Turner.” The prosecutor then leaned his elbows against the table and interlocked his stubby fingers. He peered into Dante’s eyes. “Did you or did you not provide the detective with a different name? Did you initially claim that someone else had shot you?”
Dante’s throat went dry. His palms began to sweat. “I don’t . . . I don’t recall.”
“You don’t recall?” The prosecutor raised his brows. “Fair enough. Let me see if I can refresh your memory.” He stared down at his papers again. “According to a deposition provided by the defense, you told Detective Morris in September that a former romantic acquaintance . . . a Renee Upton . . . yes, that’s her name. You claimed it was she who shot you. You claimed that Ms. Upton did it for revenge after you dumped her. But by December, you told the detective that it was really Mr. Murdoch who shot you.” He looked at Dante again. “Why did you change your story?”
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t change it!” Dante sputtered. “I just . . . I j-j-just better remembered what . . . what happened. That’s all!”
“I see. So one month you believed the shooter to be a five-foot-three-inch, one-hundred-fifteen-pound woman, and a few months later you believed that same shooter to be a six-foot-one-inch, hundred-eighty-five-pound man.”
“It was dark that night,” Dante explained feebly. “The garage was poorly lit. I could barely see anything in there! Forgive me if I made a mistake at first.”
He watched as the prosecutor pushed himself back from the table. The other man sighed tiredly. “Please don’t play games with me, Mr. Turner.”
“I’m not playing games with you!”
“You knew you provided the detective with false information,” the attorney charged. His pale, wrinkled face was grim. “That was bad enough. But you were actually willing to commit perjury on the stand. You tried to make a mockery of this case and send an innocent man to prison. As an attorney yourself, I would think you’d know better. You could get disbarred for something like this!”
Dante gave a cold chuckle. “Now I know for sure that you’re on the Murdochs’ payroll. That’s the only reason you’re spouting this bullshit.”
The prosecutor closed his folder.
“Besides, you can’t prove that I lied! This is all conjecture! This is all stuff you pulled out of your ass! You have no—”
“Evidence?” the prosecutor asked, raising his gray brows. “Oh, to the contrary, Mr. Turner . . . I do.” He then turned toward the conference room’s glass door. “Ryan, could you come in here please?”
A few seconds later, the door swung open revealing a bookish-looking young man holding a laptop.
“Thanks, Ryan,” the prosecutor said as the young man set the open laptop beside him on the table. Ryan nodded, then walked back toward the open doorway, shutting the door behind him.
“What the fuck is this?” Dante snapped as he watched the attorney type a few keys.
“It’s the evidence you claimed I didn’t have. Again, provided by the defense,” the attorney said before clicking the mousepad.
When the media player clicked on, voices filled the conference room. Dante blanched. He literally felt sick to his stomach, had the overwhelming urge to vomit right there on the linoleum table. But that nausea was quickly squelched and replaced with fury.
That bitch, he thought as he listened to Charisse’s recorded laughter. That fucking bitch!
She had recorded him while they were in bed together. He knew he never should have trusted her. Oh, he was going to make her pay for this one, if it was the last thing he did.
* * *
“Open up!” he yelled as he pounded his fist on the front door of Charisse’s condo hours later. “Open the goddamn door, you bitch!”
Soon after he’d left the prosecutor’s office, Dante began calling and texting Charisse, screaming into the phone and threatening to kill her as soon as he got his hands on her. Of course, she didn’t answer his texts or return his phone calls. But she couldn’t avoid him now when he was standing in front of her door, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“I know you’re in there, Charisse! I know why you’re hiding, you sneaky, double-crossing cunt! Open the goddamn door or I’ll go up and down this hall telling everyone what a whore you are!” he shouted, kicking the door with his foot and wincing at the pain in his toes. “I’ll . . . I’ll tell them how you sucked my dick and let me fuck you in the ass just so that you could—”
He stopped when he heard the sound of a lock being turned. A few seconds later, her door opened by a few inches. He could see Charisse’s big baby blues peering back at him through the gold chain.
“I have called the police,” she said primly, looking every bit like the rich, entitled, blond pampered princess that she was. “I suggest that you leave the premises, or you will be arrested.”
“Fuck you!”
She smirked, looking like she was holding back a laugh. “This is a nice neighborhood, Dante. It won’t take long for the cops to get here. With a big, hulking black man like you pounding on my door, it won’t look good. It won’t look good at all.”
“Yeah, well, before they drag my ass outta here, I’ll make sure I choke the shit out of you first!”
“I’m absolutely terrified,” she deadpanned. “Look, just give it up! I told you that you and I were more alike than you realize. You chose not to listen to me when I said it. I did to you exactly what you did to me! You got what you deserved, Dante. Move on!”
“Move on? Move on? You’re one to talk, you stupid bitch! You did all this to win back a man who doesn’t even want you! If you were on fire, Evan wouldn’t piss on you to put out the flames! He couldn’t give a shit about you, Charisse! Why? Because you’re one tenth of the woman Lee is!”
At his words, Charisse’s aloof veneer faltered. She genuinely looked hurt, maybe even angry about what he’d said, which only spurred him on more. He smiled maniacally.
“Lee never embarrassed him by being a drunken whore he had to hide from everybody! And she gave him the baby that you couldn’t!” he shouted, slicing into her like a razor. “She may not be his wife forever, but he certainly isn’t going to trade her in for you. You’re damaged goods, Charisse! Trying to win him back is a lost cause.”
She didn’t immediately respond to that. Instead, she blinked like she was fighting back tears.
Oh, look! She’s going to cry, he thought with amusement. It was a small victory that he was happy to take. But to his surprise, Charisse didn’t cry. She sniffed and pushed back her shoulders before staring at him evenly.
“You’re right. Evan will probably never take me back . . . but what I did to you wasn’t just about Evan. It was about us, Dante! When I was at my lowest, you deserted me. You threw me out of your office like I was a piece of trash,” she hissed. “And now you’re at your lowest. Once again, some grand scheme of yours has fallen through! Evan will move on to bigger and better things—and your life will continue to be the steaming shit pile that it is now. You are a worthless, pill-popping junkie who is a joke of a lawyer and, frankly, a joke of a man. So don’t think you can—”
She didn’t get to finish.
“I’m a joke? A fucking junkie?” he yelled as he slammed his shoulder into her door with all his might, causing her to scream in alarm. She stumbled back into her foyer. “I’ll show you what I am, you fucking bitch! I’ll show you!”
Dante felt like Jack Nicholson in the film The Shining. If he’d had an axe at that moment, he proba
bly would have hacked the door down. But he didn’t have an axe, so he had to settle for slamming his body into the door over and over again instead. He was propelled by rage, by blind fury. Charisse’s screams for him to stop only made it worse. With one more shoulder slam, he heard the gold chain of the top lock snap. The door swung wildly and slammed against the adjacent wall. Charisse continue to screech and backed against her foyer wall.
“Stay back!” she shouted, holding up her hands. “I mean it, Dante!”
But he stalked toward her anyway.
She had betrayed him and ridiculed him. With her lies and manipulation, she had handed Evan yet another victory. He couldn’t let this go unpunished; Charisse would pay the price tonight. And she had to pay the price for all the others—Evan, Leila, Terrence, and Paulette—who had thwarted him at every turn.
As he walked toward her, he imagined wrapping his hands around Evan’s neck and choking the life out of his brother. He envisioned watching Leila gag and claw at his hands as he squeezed, much like Charisse would be doing a few seconds from now. In Charisse’s face, in her look of horror and fright, he saw all of them.
This bitch is gonna die tonight, he thought as he lunged for her. But his fingers latched onto air, not her slender neck. He felt someone grip him around the shoulders.
“Nuh-uh, fella! I don’t think so,” the cop yelled as he yanked Dante back into the hall where another office waited, holding out handcuffs.
“Let go of me! You fucking let go of me!” he shouted while the officers slammed him to the ground.
“Stop resisting! Stop resisting!”
“Fuck you!” Dante yelled again as she tried to shove them off of him, as he tried to rise to his feet.
Meanwhile, Charisse stood in the doorway, watching them almost with fascination.
“I said stay down, goddamnit!” the other officer ordered.
But Dante managed to slip out of his grasp. He got to his knees and leaped forward, causing Charisse to jump back.
“That’s it,” the one with the handcuffs muttered before taking his Taser out of its holster and zapping Dante with forty thousand volts of electricity, wracking Dante’s body with paralyzing pain, making him shout in agony.
Chapter 24
Paulette
“I’m finished cleaning up, so I guess I’ll head out now, Mrs. Williams,” Miss Claudia called out to Paulette as she walked out of the kitchen into the living room.
Paulette sat on the couch, scanning a magazine, while Little Nate played with his plastic blocks on the Afghan rug to the sound track of Dora the Explorer.
Paulette closed her magazine, looked up, and smiled. “I told you that you don’t have to clean up. I can do that myself.”
Miss Claudia waved her off and grinned. She stretched her arms. “Oh, Little Nate and I made a big ol’ mess today making those chocolate chip cookies. I didn’t want to leave you with it. Any mess I make, I clean up myself! That’s what everybody should do!”
Paulette shook her head in awe. “I swear you’re the best, Miss Claudia!”
The older woman shrugged as she walked toward Little Nate and scooped him into her arms. She planted a kiss on his plump brown cheek. “It’s nothing, honey!”
“No, I mean it! You really are amazing! Thank you so much for taking care of Nathan.”
She had been working for them only for a couple of months now, and Paulette couldn’t imagine their lives without her. She had such a calming presence in the household—unlike Reina. Even Antonio had finally admitted that Miss Claudia was a much better fit for them, since she caused less friction. And it went without saying that Little Nate adored her. Paulette would smile whenever Miss Claudia entered the door, knowing she was leaving her son in good hands.
“Oh, I like watching over him!” she said, kissing his cheek again. He wriggled restlessly in her arms, so she lowered him back to the floor. He toddled a few feet away, back toward his building blocks. “Being around him brings joy to my heart. He reminds me so much of my boy when he was his age.”
Paulette watched as Miss Claudia’s face changed. Her wide grin disappeared, and her brow wrinkled. She grew solemn as her eyes stayed locked on Little Nate while he began to bang two blocks together. “It would’ve been my son’s birthday last week.”
“Oh, my . . . I . . . I’m so sorry to hear that!”
Miss Claudia suddenly turned to look at her. “Sorry to hear what?”
“That your son’s birthday was last week and I didn’t know. That must have been a hard week for you. I would’ve . . . I would’ve . . .” Paulette’s words trailed off.
“You would’ve done what?”
Paulette went through the catalog of things Miss Claudia had done the previous week—from cleaning up Little Nate’s vomit on his high chair and the kitchen floor to taking out the trash with her when she went home at the end of the day. Paulette never would have let her do those things if she had known she was wrestling with the memory of her dead son. But Paulette couldn’t say that. So instead she said, “You could’ve taken the week off. Really . . . we would’ve understood.”
“Why would I take time off when I told you I feel good just being around him? Just looking at that beautiful face brings me so much joy . . . joy that I haven’t had since my son was killed.”
“Killed?” Paulette breathed in sharply. “B-but you said he . . . he died. I didn’t know he was murdered!”
Miss Claudia shrugged. “Well, it ain’t exactly something you advertise, is it?”
“I . . . I guess not. But I just thought—”
“I didn’t tell you because my son did some . . . well, he did some illegal things when he was alive. The police say that those things might be the reason why he was killed, but I don’t think it was. I told them I think I know who did it, but they wouldn’t believe me!” She sighed. “My boy didn’t deserve to die. He wasn’t perfect, but he . . .” Her voice trembled a little. She lowered her head and sniffed. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
Paulette leaped from the couch and walked toward the crying woman. She wrapped her in her arms. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
She felt Miss Claudia ease back, and she immediately released her. Miss Claudia looked at her and nodded.
“It’s all right, honey. God will see it through. I know he will. The good get their just reward . . . and the bad won’t go unpunished. I have faith that the Lord will make it right!”
I’m not so sure of that, Paulette thought as she pursed her lips, though she didn’t voice it aloud.
It had been her past experience that sometimes cruel, conniving people went unpunished. For every Marques Whitney who finally got his just desserts for his evil deeds, there was a person like her half-brother Dante who continued to operate in the vengeful, reckless way he always did with no repercussions.
“Working with Nate brings me peace. It brings back all the good memories I had when my son was little.” Miss Claudia’s eyes drifted to Little Nate again. “He looks so much like my boy.”
“I’ve always thought Nate looks a lot like his dad,” Paulette ventured hesitantly.
“Of course, he does! Why wouldn’t he?”
At those words, Paulette dropped a hand to her chest. She felt a wave of relief that settled into her core and almost made her burst into tears. She still remembered how Reina had said Nathan didn’t look a thing like his father. It always left Paulette with the worry that everyone else could see what Reina claimed to know: that it was all a farce. No matter how good a father Antonio was to Nate, it was as clear as day that Nate wasn’t his son—in the world’s eyes. She worried that people were silently going tsk-tsk or snickering behind her and Antonio’s back, something that her husband didn’t deserve. It made her paranoid and ashamed.
“I’m so happy you said that,” she gushed. “Someone . . . someone once told me that he didn’t.”
“Who on earth would say that to you?” Miss Claudia asked, scrunching up her nose.
<
br /> My mother-in-law . . . also known as the biggest bitch on the Eastern seaboard, she thought.
“A . . . a relative,” she mumbled.
“But why would your relative say that?”
Paulette hesitated again. Though she liked Miss Claudia, she hadn’t known her for that long. A confession like this was highly inappropriate and risky. But the older woman radiated so much warmth. The look on her face was of beatific understanding, not hostility or judgment. And Leila had been the only person to whom Paulette had ever revealed all that had happened in the first year of her marriage. Now that Leila was a mother of a new baby, starting a new business, and remarried, she had her own life to focus on and couldn’t always be a sounding board for Paulette.
I don’t have anyone to talk to anymore.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “When . . . when Tony and I first got married, things were . . . were a little rough. I was lonely. I was scared. I made . . . I made lots of mistakes and I—”
“You cheated on him,” Miss Claudia blurted out, gazing at Paulette evenly.
Paulette closed her eyes and nodded.
“So you really don’t know for sure who’s Little Nate’s father?” she asked, looking genuinely surprised.
Paulette slowly nodded again.
“Well, the answer is pretty plain to me, but I guess you can only know for sure if you get the baby tested. Any reason why you haven’t done it?”
Paulette opened her eyes. “Because Tony says it doesn’t matter to him, so I—
“But it does matter! It does matter to you, at least, or you wouldn’t be this upset about it! You wouldn’t be talking about it with me.” She tilted her head. “Seems to me that it’s about time you found out the truth, don’t you think?”
Paulette didn’t respond. Instead, she watched as Miss Claudia leaned down and grabbed her purse from where it sat near the couch.