To Love & Betray

by Shelly Ellis

  “Let’s see my brother get married,” she whispered.

  * * *

  The moment Paulette and Antonio arrived at the sunset ceremony, she looked around her and breathed in audibly. She had never seen anything so gorgeous—including her own wedding. While Paulette had chosen a church overflowing with roses, hydrangeas, and freesias in every pastel color imaginable for her own wedding day almost three years ago, Terrence and C. J. had chosen a design that was much more understated but just as awe-inspiring.

  They had set up the ceremony at the top of a hill overlooking the Chesterton Country Club’s golf course, under a grand old oak tree that was draped with hanging candles, crystal pendants, and white wisteria. A single crystal chandelier hung from the largest branch where the minister and Terrence now stood in between two stone podiums also featuring candles and white roses. A trail of white rose petals served as the runner. A string trio played a soft melody for the hundred or so guests who waited patiently in their Chiavari chairs for the ceremony to begin.

  Paulette took her seat in the front row next to Evan and Leila. She squeezed Antonio’s hand.

  “I did not expect it to be this nice,” she whispered into his ear, making him roll his eyes and chuckle.

  She leaned toward Leila. “Okay, admit it. You helped her with the décor, right?”

  Leila turned to Paulette and shook her head. “Nope. C. J. did it all by herself. She didn’t even use a wedding coordinator.”

  “That’s impossible! I thought she wasn’t the girly type, but it all looks so . . . so feminine! So perfect!”

  Leila shrugged and grinned. “People can surprise you.” She then turned, leaned toward Evan, and kissed his cheek before wiping at the pink smear of lipstick she left near his goatee.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Paulette mumbled with a laugh. Just then, the string trio changed its music from a soft melody to the “Canon in D Major,” signifying the start of the wedding march. Everyone rose to their feet for the bride’s entrance. C. J. appeared, and Paulette’s chin almost dropped to her chest.

  The young woman stood alone at the end of the aisle. She had pinned her curly hair back from her face with delicate diamond hairclips and wore makeup, taking her from her usual plain-Jane self to a show-stopping beauty. C. J. was a vision in white, wearing an empire waist charmeuse and lace gown with caplet sleeves and a cathedral length veil that trailed behind her.

  Paulette did a double take. Was that the same dress C. J. had worn at the bridal shop—the wedding gown that Paulette and Aunt Ida had shamelessly ridiculed? Ida had even said the dress reminded her of the doily her grandmother had kept in her foyer.

  It looked like, despite their vocal disapproval, C. J. had worn the dress anyway.

  Good for her, Paulette thought as bride drew closer. She reluctantly had to admit that C. J. had made the right choice; she looked amazing in that dress.

  Paulette watched as C. J. held her hand out to Terrence, and he took it within his own. Paulette’s gaze locked onto her brother’s face. She expected him to be smiling ear-to-ear. She was in for a surprise.

  Instead, Terrence was biting down hard on his bottom lip, trying to hold back his tears but failing miserably. One trickled down, then another. After a few seconds, the floodgates opened. He released a hiccup, and the tears poured from his eyes and down his cheeks.

  In all the years she had known him, Paulette couldn’t remember Terrence openly weeping. Not “cool as a cucumber” playboy Terrence Murdoch. Half of the audience stared in shock. A few of his buddies began to laugh openly. C. J. grinned and reached up to wipe the tears from his face.

  “I love you too, baby,” she mouthed, and the tears came even harder. He was damn near sobbing! He wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

  “Oh, damn,” Antonio murmured. “Did anyone tell him that they haven’t even said their vows yet? Is he gonna make it through the ceremony?”

  Paulette elbowed her husband in the ribs and stifled a laugh. It was embarrassing but sweet to see her brother like this. The tears and snot showed the truth: he really did love C. J. He obviously adored this woman! And Paulette could see the same adoration reflected in C. J.’s eyes as she gazed up at Terrence.

  Finally, after another awkward minute, Evan rose from his chair and handed Terrence a tissue. He whispered something into Terrence’s ear before giving him a congenial slap on the back. He then sat down again next to Leila.

  Paulette didn’t know what Evan had said to him, but Terrence immediately wiped his eyes and blew his nose before tucking the tissue into his tuxedo pocket. He pushed back his shoulders and nodded.

  “I’m . . . I’m ready now,” he said, clearing his throat.

  The minister then began the ceremony, nodding and letting his eyes sweep across the crowd. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses, to join Courtney Jocelyn Aston and Terrence Xavier Murdoch in holy matrimony . . .”

  * * *

  Paulette and Antonio jostled for space on the crowded dance floor, grooving with the other couples under the twinkling light of the reception tent to the popular R & B hits the DJ played. She and her husband had been dancing for the past two hours, downing several glasses of champagne and working up a sweat while they were at it. Paulette suspected that if she headed to the ladies’ room, she’d see herself in the mirror and find oozing makeup and sweated-out edges, but she didn’t care. She has having too much fun!

  Antonio didn’t seem to be turned off by her bedraggled appearance, either. Quite the contrary, her husband couldn’t keep his hands off of her. He grinded her from behind and kissed her bare shoulder.

  “I hope Nate sleeps the whole night because I’ve got something planned for you later,” he whispered seductively into her ear, making her smile.

  Paulette glanced to her left and spotted the bride and groom doing their own bit of grooving and grinding. C. J.’s arms were draped around Terrence’s neck. His arms were wrapped around her back, though his hands now drifted to her bottom as a slow song kicked on the stage speakers. C. J. returned his hands to her waist. She started to playfully chide him just as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her words died on her lips, and she tightened her hold around him.

  Staring at them knowingly, Paulette suspected that she and Antonio weren’t the only couple that had big plans tonight.

  I just hope they pace themselves, she thought with a chuckle.

  As Antonio continued to grind behind her, she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. Even though she had called to check on Nate and wish him good night three times, all her calls had gone to voice mail. She glanced down at the glass screen to see if Miss Claudia had gotten her messages and finally called or texted her back. She hadn’t. Paulette’s smile disappeared.

  “What’s wrong?” Antonio asked as she turned around to face him.

  “Still haven’t heard back from Miss Claudia!” she said, shouting over the music.

  “Are you starting to get worried?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, I’m sure it’s no big deal. I bet she got tied up with something or was putting Nate down for bed and didn’t want to wake him up to answer the phone. Besides, it’s already eleven o’clock! She probably fell asleep on the couch and forgot to call us back.”

  Antonio eyed her. He linked his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “You say that, but the look on your face says differently. Be honest. Are you worried?”

  She sighed. “Okay, maybe a little. We should head home now anyway. It’s getting late.”

  He nodded and stopped dancing. “Let’s say good-bye to the newly married couple and call it a night.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  * * *

  “Don’t fall asleep yet. We’re almost home,” Antonio said during the drive back home.

  Paulette turned away from the passenger side window to look at her husband. Even in the darkened car compartment, she could see him smiling. “
I’m not asleep, honey, but I am tired.”

  “I’m tired, too.” He yawned. “I know I said I was gonna tear that ass up tonight, but I may need a rain check on that one. Guess I can’t hang like the old days.”

  She smiled and lay back against her leather headrest. “I won’t hold you to it. We can always try again tomorrow.”

  She sat forward in her seat as Antonio turned onto the side street leading to their colonial, eager to see their baby boy and get a good night’s sleep after such an uplifting day. All she wanted to do was ask Miss Claudia how the evening had gone, go to the nursery, give Nate a kiss on the cheek, and go to sleep.

  As they approached their driveway, Antonio suddenly braked, making the car lurch to a stop. Paulette had to brace herself to keep her forehead from colliding with the dashboard.

  “Damn, Tony!” she shouted. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Where’s her car?” he asked.

  “Whose car?”

  “Miss Claudia’s! Why the hell are all the lights off?”

  Paulette turned away from her husband to stare at their house’s exterior.

  Antonio was right. Miss Claudia’s gray Toyota Corolla wasn’t in their driveway, and every light was extinguished, excluding the exterior light that they usually kept on when they knew they would be arriving home late.

  Paulette instantly got a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had called Miss Claudia twice tonight and had gotten no answer. Maybe something really had happened. Maybe she had fallen ill and had to be rushed to the hospital with Little Nate in tow. Maybe she had gone on an errand, taken Nathan with her, and gotten into a car accident.

  Paulette didn’t wait for Antonio to pull into their driveway or turn off their SUV. She threw open the passenger side door and ran up the walkway. She could hear her husband shouting behind her, calling her name, but she ignored him. Her hands shook as she removed her keys from her purse and then opened the lock. She stepped into her pitch-black foyer, then turned on all the lights, filling the space with blazing light.

  “Miss Claudia!” she called out frantically. “Miss Claudia, are you here?”

  There was no answer. She rushed into the living room, only to find all of Little Nate’s toys still strewn on the carpet. A magazine Miss Claudia had been reading still sat open on the coffee table.

  It was like a moment frozen in time.

  “Miss Claudia, where are you?” she yelled, feeling her heart pound like a snare drum in her chest. She opened her purse to remove her phone and started to dial the woman’s cell number just as she heard Antonio call out to her again.

  “Baby! Come in here!” he called from the kitchen.

  She ran the distance between the two rooms, dodging around furniture, and listening to the line ring in her ear.

  She found Antonio sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, staring at a sheet of paper.

  “Oh, thank God!” she cried with relief, hanging up her phone as the line once again went to a voice mail message. “She left a note! Did she say where they are?”

  When Paulette saw the look on Antonio’s face and the tears in his eyes threatening to spill over, she went numb.

  “What?” she cried hysterically, reaching for the sheet of paper. “What did she say?” she asked, as she snatched the note from the table.

  Then she read it.

  “This letter is for Mr. and Mrs. Williams but in particular, you, Paulette, because you are a mother and you will understand my words. There is no greater pain than having your child taken away from you. This I know for sure. I think about my baby every single day, ever since you took him away from me. I don’t know for sure how you did it, but I know in my heart that you did, even if the police won’t believe me! Now you will feel what it’s like. You will feel my pain. Nate will be safer with me than he ever will be with you. I will never get my son back—but being with Nate has been like being with him. He does look so much like his daddy!

  “Paulette, if you ever want to see your baby boy again, you know what has to be done. Tell the world the truth. Tell them all what you did.”

  When Paulette finished reading the note, she started trembling.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t understand,” Antonio said feebly. “Why did she take him? What does she mean?”

  Paulette now realized why Miss Claudia had seemed so warm, why the older woman had seemed so familiar when she first met her. She remembered her now, though she had only met her once before.

  She had been lying on Marques’s bed back when they were sixteen, back when he was her first real boyfriend and she had not yet discovered what a low-down user and manipulator he really was. She remembered lying back on his Spider-Man bedsheets while he kissed her collar bone and her neck. Suddenly, his bedroom door creaked open. A dark-skinned woman had stood in the doorway, haloed by the hallway light. Seeing that they were no longer alone, Paulette shoved him off of her and scrambled to cover herself.

  “Damn, Mama! Can’t you knock?” Marques had asked, sucking his teeth.

  The woman had smiled. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t know you were having company.”

  “Well, I am,” he’d snapped.

  “It’s . . . it’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Whitney,” Paulette had whispered as she tried to button her shirt.

  “It’s Rhodes, honey,” his mother had said. “And it’s nice to meet you, too.”

  She’d then shut the door behind her.

  “Miss Claudia is . . .” Paulette paused. “She’s Marques’s mother.”

  She then set the note back on the kitchen table and crumpled to the floor.

  Chapter 30

  Paulette

  When Paulette opened her eyes, Antonio was huddled over her, gently shaking her shoulder. “Baby, wake up. Wake up!”

  For a fleeting moment, she’d convinced herself she had been dreaming. She hadn’t come home to an empty house and hadn’t discovered Little Nate missing, after all. Antonio hadn’t discovered the letter from Miss Claudia explaining that the older woman had taken their son in revenge for murdering her son, Marques. Paulette was waking up in her bed the morning after her brother’s wedding to realize it had all been a horrible nightmare induced by too much champagne, a bad hors d’ oeuvre, and sleep deprivation.

  But she quickly realized she wasn’t lying in her bed but on kitchen tile and, from the stricken look on Antonio’s face, she knew it hadn’t been a dream. She was still living a real-life nightmare.

  Paulette slowly pushed herself up from the floor as Antonio eased back. “We . . . we need to call the p-police,” she said, rubbing the spot on her head that she’d hit when she’d fainted. Tears pricked her eyes again. Panic seized her in its viselike grip, clearing her malaise. “She took our son, Tony! They have to find her! We—”

  “We will call the police, but before we do, I need to know what the hell is going on,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.

  She nodded as she slumped back into one of the kitchen chairs. He pulled out the chair facing her and sat down. “What you said before you fainted . . . that Claudia is Marques’s mother. Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Yes, I’m sure! I didn’t remember her before, but I sure remember her now. She looked different back then. She was skinnier . . . younger, and . . . and she didn’t have dreads. But when I read the letter and what she said about Marques, it all fell together. It all made sense!”

  How could she have been stupid enough to trust her? Why hadn’t she put the pieces together before?

  “And she knows what happened to him. She knows that I . . .” Antonio hesitated and looked away. “She knows how he died.” His eyes flashed back to hers. “Did you tell her?”

  “No! No, Tony, I would never do that!” she shouted, furiously shaking her head. “She must have figured it out from the investigation. Maybe someone said something to her . . . one of the detectives must have. But I never did!”

  “Okay. Okay,” he said calmly, nodding. “At least there’s that.” />
  Paulette stared at her husband, unnerved at the fact that Antonio wasn’t hysterical like her but very cool, almost reserved. His son had just been kidnapped. Shouldn’t he be more emotional? Shouldn’t he be more concerned?

  “So if she doesn’t know for sure that I killed him, she can’t go to the cops with that info unless she has some—”

  “Tony,” Paulette said, reaching across the table and grabbing his hand, “she took our son. Every hour that goes by means more distance between her and us. It’ll make it harder to find him! Why are we sitting here talking about this stuff when we should be calling the police or—”

  “No, she took your son,” he said, yanking back his hand, making her fall silent. “Not mine. That’s what that whole letter was about, right? She took her grandson because she didn’t think you deserved him, and she refused to let him be raised by the man who murdered his father.”

  “But he is your son, Tony!”

  Antonio shoved back from the table and walked away from her. He braced his hands on the edge of the farm sink and stared out the kitchen window. “No, he isn’t. I . . . I accepted Nate like he was my own. I love him. I would’ve done anything . . . anything for him! But I guess I . . .” He lowered his head. “It just . . . it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Just wasn’t meant to be?” She stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying, Tony? Are you saying we shouldn’t try to find him? We should just . . . just let her kidnap Nate? So I’m supposed to sit by and let her steal our baby!”

  “Paulette, I’m a murderer, and you’ve been lying to cover up a murder! What kind of goddamn parents are we anyway? Life is telling us that I don’t deserve to be that boy’s father!” he argued, showing his first sign of tears. He ran his hand over his face, choking back sobs through gritted teeth.

  “No, it isn’t!”

  “Then why is this happening?”

  “Because she lied to us! Because she’d intended to do this shit all along, and I was too stupid to realize who she was and what she had planned. That’s why!”