Cold

by Sha Jones

  “Yes. What about her?”

  I took a deep breath and another sip of my drink and said, “Well I knew her. We worked together at Jones law firm. We didn’t get along though, but I was devastated when I found out about the brutality of her death.”

  Darius bit his lip as if he was trying to hold back his words. He was silent so I began explaining again.

  “She called my husband and before he could see what she wanted, I grabbed the phone and hung up so I feel partially responsible and since then, I’ve been a little depressed. I had to take a break from my job because weird things were happening like my car getting broken into, and I’ve also been getting private calls like crazy. I woke up to twenty two private calls this morning.”

  I could tell by the look on his face that he was a bit overwhelmed by what I was telling him. He didn’t know me so he probably was scared as well. Before he could speak, I interrupted and told him about how my husband and I were being questioned by the police. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Wow Tiffany. You sure got a lot going in your life right now.”

  Putting my head down I replied, “Yeah I know so if you don’t want to ever talk to me again, I understand. I just needed to tell you that because the story you told me about Melanie was something I just couldn’t ignore.”

  The restaurant felt so cold. It was like it was just me and Darius there. The conversation we were having wasn’t really something you talked about over lunch. He reached across the table and grabbed my hand. His hands were warm and for some reason I wanted to cry. He brought some comfort to me.

  “Tiffany, it’s okay. You will get through this. I’m not sure if there’s a lot that I can do but I’m here.”

  My eyes started to water so I took a napkin and dabbed the corners of my eyes.

  “Thanks Darius.”

  After I told Darius everything, I felt like a new person. It was like a heavy weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I told him things that I never even told Michael, Carl, or Draya. This man was amazing. He made me feel important. He made eye contact with me every time I spoke and he complimented me. His conversation was better than sex.

  When we walked out of the restaurant, Darius walked me to my car. We stood there just gazing at each other. I wanted to just jump on top of him and tongue him down. He smiled and opened my car door.

  “When can I see you again?”

  Hell, I wanted to spend the night with him.

  “Maybe next weekend, just give me a call.”

  Before driving off, I watched him walk to a navy blue Porsche. ‘Wow,’ I thought to myself. I knew doctors made good money but damn. We both left the parking lot going on our separate ways.

  Chapter 21

  When I got home, I immediately took off all of my clothes and went to bed. It was 2:00 a.m. when Michael crawled into bed. He smelled like alcohol and the smell sent a sharp pain through my brain. I wanted to push his ass in the tub and scrub him down with a bottle of soap. I pretended to be sleep because I didn’t feel like being bothered. I was beginning to grow numb to my husband’s ways. The only thing he was giving me was good dick and a little four play. He wasn’t talking to me or trying to understand me. We didn’t laugh together anymore. When he notices that I’m mad at him, he tries to defuse the situation with sex. I was starting to see things for what they really were. I thought I loved my husband, but I was confused now. We never gave each other time to breathe. We hooked up when I was nineteen years old. Hell I was still a girl and hadn’t really gone out and experienced anything. I just saw a cute guy and wanted him. I didn’t take the time out to get to know him and that’s where I went wrong.

  All of these regrets started sinking in and I felt sorry for myself. While deep in thought, my phone buzzed and scared the crap out of me. I waited until the screen light went off and grabbed it. I put the cover over my head so the light wouldn’t alarm Michael. I opened my text from Darius and it read. “You better be in that bed.”

  The text made me giggle. As sad as it was, it was hilarious at the same time. I text back and said, “LOL thanks for meeting me today. I enjoyed your company.”

  Seconds later he replied, “Anytime gorgeous.”

  I smiled and put the phone under my pillow. When I thought I was going to lose my mind, God had a way of making me smile; even it was for a second. Draya called my phone and before I could say hello she said, “Tiffany cut on the TV and put it on channel 26.

  “Why? What it is it?” I asked in a panic.

  “Just cut the TV on.”

  I ran downstairs and cut it on. My mouth dropped when I saw the picture of Melanie on the screen. When the reported started talking, I stood in front of the TV and tried to listen to every piece of detail of her murder.

  “It’s been weeks since Melanie Scott was gunned down and stabbed. The killer still hasn’t been found and there are no clues that can bring this killer to justice.”

  They then showed a woman a press conference talking into a mic.

  “We still have no leads but based on the way Melanie Scott was attacked and the events that possibly led to her death we can give out a profile of the killer. This crime was personal and the killer was very angry with her. The killer is most likely a man because she was overpowered. The killer is also very educated and well spoken. The fact that he dropped her off at the hospital suggests that he wanted her to be found immediately. That is all we have so far until we can come up with more leads.”

  The reporters were going crazy. They were all over each other trying to get their questions answered. That was all I needed to see. I turned the TV off and with the phone still to my ear, my mouth was wide open.

  “Tiff, are you there?” Draya asked with a shaky voice.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After Melanie’s death, I stopped watching the news and I had my reasons. Things became real at that moment. This wasn’t a game and my fear was that I was next. I ended my call and headed out the door. I pulled up into a parking spot and walked into Michael’s job without warning. I walked up to the front and asked the lady at the front desk where my husband was. She pointed down the hall towards his office. I walked straight in his office without knocking, and saw the same white man that followed us the night we went to dinner with Carl and Tangy. I must’ve scared the living hell out of him because as soon as he saw my face he jumped back almost knocking a stack of papers off of his desk.

  “Tiff, what are you doing here?”

  I stood there with my arms crossed and stared at the white man.

  “I need to talk to you Michael. They talked about Melanie today on the news and they have a profile of the criminal.”

  Michael looked at the white guy and his eyes got wide, “Blake, can you excuse me while I talk to my wife. I will give you a call once I’m done.”

  He reluctantly got up and walked out the door. Before he closed the door, he gave me this cold stare as if I did something to him.

  “Tiff you know you’re not supposed to barge into my office like that, especially whiling I’m dealing with a client.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “Did you not hear what I just said?!” I yelled.

  He put his hand up and whispered, “Keep your voice down.”

  He walked over to a chair and leaned back.

  “So what exactly do you want me to do about it?”

  I was a little shocked because at first, he was so stressed out about it, but now he was acting like he didn’t give a shit.

  “What does that mean Michael?” I asked with a tremble in my voice.

  “It means that I have to get back to work and I can’t talk about it right now. I will see you when I get home. Please leave.”

  “Was I hearing him correctly?” I asked myself.

  This was not my husband. I shook my head and stormed out of his office. When I got to my car, this sickening feeling came across me. I no longer trusted my husband and not only was he a suspect to the police, he w
as also a suspect to me and I was going to do as much digging as I could to see what it was that my husband of seven years was hiding from me. When I got home, I ran upstairs and went through our closet. I checked all of Michael’s pants pockets hoping to find something that was out of place, but there was nothing there. I searched the closet floor and checked all of his shoe boxes. I even looked inside of his shoes but there was still no clue. I searched his side of the bed and looked in his dresser. There was a stack of papers in it. I went through each piece of mail and read every word.

  Finally, I came across a credit card receipt. It showed that he bought a bottle of wine the day he missed our anniversary. I sighed and put the receipt in my purse. I didn’t understand why he would buy a bottle of wine, but didn’t show up that night. I needed more proof than just a receipt for a damn drink. If a pair of stained boxers didn’t make him crack, then I knew a receipt wouldn’t do shit. I heard the door downstairs open and I hurry up and closed the drawer. Michael rushed up the stairs and got in my face.

  “Tiff don’t ever come to my damn job unannounced again. Anything you got to say to me, you call me first,” he yelled.

  “Have you lost your fucking mind?! Get the fuck out of my face!” I roared.

  This man was losing his mind. I was not about to stand there like a battered woman. I was going to stand my ground. He was acting like he wanted to put his hands on me, but I wasn’t about to play that shit. I was going to give him a run for his money. Bad enough, I was already allowing him to come in and out this motherfucker whenever he felt like it. I was staring at him so hard trying to drill a hole in both of his eyes. Suddenly his face started to soften up and he backed up. He knew I wasn’t playing.

  “Tiff why didn’t you just call me?” he asked in a softer tone.

  “Why do you keep asking me that? Is that all that you are worried about? Get over it Michael!” I yelled.

  “What did they say about Melanie?”

  I wanted to slap the taste out of his mouth. He was starting to act bipolar. I’m not sure if he was just showing out in his office or if he was showing his true colors.

  “Michael, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You should’ve taken the time out of your busy schedule to see what I wanted. I guess you’ll just have to wait until the cops take you in for more questioning,” I replied sarcastically.

  I grabbed my phone and walked out of the room. It was almost time for dinner but I didn’t cook shit. I wasn’t about to cook for no rude ass man.

  Chapter 22

  I still wasn’t done searching through Michael’s things so I waited until things calmed down, and when I thought he was asleep and tiptoed up the stairs barefoot trying to stay as quiet as possible. When I got to the room door, I slowly opened it and crept in like a thief. He was facing the door so if he saw me grabbing his keys from the dresser, I would be fucked. My heart was beating fast and a part of me wanted to say fuck it and leave the situation alone, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that my husband could possibly be hiding something from me so I slowly reached over and grabbed the keys and suddenly Michael opened his eyes and stared dead at me. I wanted to run out of the room and jump off the stair rail. I knew I had to act quickly so I leaned over and kissed him and said, “Sorry about earlier, I was upset.”

  He stayed silent for a minute and nodded his head and rolled over. I hurried and grabbed the keys and walked out of the room. The suspense was killing me. I felt like a teenaged girl who was sneaking out of her parent’s house. I sat on the couch and tried to brace myself. I needed to collect my thoughts before I got back up. I put my phone on silent and walked to the garage. I walked up to the car and closed my eyes as I squeezed the key alarm to unlock the car. The last thing I needed to do was set the alarm off. When I finally got in the car, I took a deep breath and opened the glove compartment and a whole stack of letters fell out. I quickly scattered through them and there wasn’t much there except for court papers and receipts. I stuck my hand further in the glove compartment and felt something heavy. I pulled it out and realized that it was a watch and suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The gold Michael Kors watch I was holding was Melanie’s. I knew it was hers because she wore it every day for work.

  Suddenly, I heard a noise. ‘Oh my God,’ I thought to myself as I tried to stuff all of the letters back in the glove compartment. I grabbed the watch and slid out of the car and crawled over to mine and hid on the side of it. The car light was taking forever to cut off. The whole time I was slumped over on the side of the car, I just kept praying that I wouldn’t be caught. I wasn’t afraid of my husband, but at the same time I didn’t want him to catch me doing something like this. I didn’t want him to know that I didn’t trust him. The car shut off at a perfect time because moments later, I heard the door open and I could see Michael’s feet as I looked under the car. I thought I was going to shit on myself. He stood there for a minute and walked back in the house locking the door. I smiled and said thank God. I waited a few minutes before crawling back over to his car. I was too scared to do anymore searching, so I opened the glove compartment and adjusted the papers in it as neatly as I possibly could. When I went to the door, I stood there with my mouth wide open. It had dawned on me that I left my keys in the house.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I said to myself as I jiggled the door.

  I couldn’t believe that I was locked outside my own house. Luckily, we both kept a garage keypad in our cars. I unlocked Michael’s car and grabbed the keypad. I didn’t know if it was just me but the garage doors sounded extremely loud as they opened. My nerves were so bad. I slid under the garage door and looked around making sure nobody seen me. I walked to the front door and tried to figure out how I was going to get in. I walked to the backyard and tried to find a window that was open. I walked over to the patio door and slid it and to my surprise it was open. Stepping in the house was like coming up from a pool of deep water. I gasped and held my chest. I closed the patio door and walked to the garage. This time I made sure I left the doors open. I closed the garage and put Michael’s keypad back in his car.

  When I made it back to my room in one piece, I saw Michael rolled over snoring. I quietly put his keys back on the dresser and got in the bed. I was so thankful to be back in the house. I’ve seen a lot of scary shit, especially in my career but nothing beats what I had to go through tonight. An hour had passed and I was still a little shaken up. I couldn’t sleep, especially after discovering Melanie’s watch in Michael’s car. He was either sleeping with her or knew more about her death than what he was telling me. Although his behavior was suspicious and I knew he was hiding something, I still wasn’t convinced that he was the one that actually killed her. He just wasn’t that person. I refused to believe that I was lying in the bed with a killer.

  As I was getting sleepy and about to doze off, Michael’s phone rang and scared the hell out of me. He raised his head up and reached on the dresser for his phone. He took one look at it and then turned to look at me. I pretended to be sleep. He got up and walked to the bathroom. It sounded like he was brushing his teeth. It was still dark, so I knew that he wasn’t getting ready for work. Minutes later, he returned and put on his clothes, grabbed his keys and left the room. As soon as I heard the front door close, I walked over to the window and saw Michael driving away from the house. Where the fuck was he going, I wondered to myself. I looked at the time on my phone and it was 4:07 in the morning.

  Chapter 23

  Any chance of sleep now was impossible. I sat up in bed all morning waiting for Michael to return he still hadn’t showed up. He didn’t even call me. It made me wonder if he’s done this before. There are times when I sleep so deep that when I finally wake up, he’s gone. I decided to call him but he didn’t answer. I reached under my pillow and grabbed Melanie’s watch. I held it up to my heart and tears started pouring from my eyes. I didn’t know if I was crying because of Melanie or if I was crying because I was hurt by Michael.
I cried until my eyes were puffy and there were no more tears to cry.

  Moments later, Darius called me. My nose was stuffy from all of the crying that I could barely talk.

  “What’s wrong sweetheart?” he asked in a low concerned tone.

  “Nothing I’m fine,” I lied.

  Darius sighed and replied, “Tiffany, I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t have to lie to me. I’m here for you and right now, I don’t like the way you sound.”

  I closed my eyes and let out a deep sigh.

  “Darius I’m just going through a lot.”

  He paused and replied, “I tell you what, let me take you to the beach. We can just talk, drink and relax. I know you’re a good woman and I wouldn’t dare take advantage of that. I just want to take you away from your problems for a couple of hours.”

  Without giving it a second thought I said, “Okay.”

  When we got off the phone, he texted me his home address. I got myself together and left the house. When I finally arrived to Darius’ house, I was amazed. I got out of the car and heard a voice yelling from the sky.

  “Up here!” Darius yelled.

  He was standing on the balcony of his three story home. On the outside, his house looked like a castle. He disappeared and minutes later, met me at the front door.

  “Nice house,” I said as I walked behind him.

  “I try,” he replied as he winked at me.