Love's Deadly Masquerade

by The Author- Yani

  For the next three hours, he raped and beat Regina. After breaking her jaw and seeing her face bruised and battered, she was no longer appealing to him. He turned her over on her stomach and anally raped her before taking his belt and tying it around her neck, strangling her to death.

  Eric got up and casually left the room, using the stairwell to get to his hoopty. Inside was a large suitcase and a gym bag. He took them back up to the room. He carefully clipped her finger nails and dipped her hands in bleach to destroy any DNA she may have collected during her brief struggle. He did the same with her vaginal area, using an empty squirt bottle to squeeze bleach inside of her in the event that the condom broke. He then wrapped her body in a sheet, stuffed her inside of the suitcase, and left out as though nothing happened. Eric struggled to his car with the suitcase and put it in the back seat. With the help of a trusted friend who worked in law enforcement, he dumped her body on Belfield Avenue near a pile of trash and took the car to a chop shop where he paid handsomely for them to destroy it.

  When her body was discovered a few days later by the trash men who were picking up the load, Eric put on a performance that should have granted him an Academy Award. And while her family suspected he had something to do with her murder, or knew more than what he led on, there was no evidence, Eric insured he had a solid alibi and he made off scot free.

  “Regina Smalls,” Eric thought to himself again before drifting off to sleep.

  14

  Vera held the phone to her ear listening to her close friend and detective give her the details surrounding Arianna’s murder and the investigation. Her heart ached for Vanessa as she dreaded having to tell the young lady about her best friend’s murder.

  “Thank you, Jeremy. Keep me updated on the investigation. I want to know the minute they catch that bastard.” She hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment. She then picked up her phone again and dialed a number. “Derek, I need you to locate a young woman named Carmen. She’s in room four. Bring her to my office, please.” She hung the phone back up and began to rehearse in her head how she was going to let Vanessa know that her best friend had been murdered and that more than likely her ex was responsible for it.

  Derek made his way over to Carmen’s room. After their first encounter, he wasn’t too thrilled to see her. He tapped on her door gently and waited patiently for her to respond.

  Vanessa peeked out of her door. Though she was annoyed that it was Derek, she managed to keep a straight face. “Can I help you?” she asked flatly.

  “Vera wanted me to bring you to her office,” Derek replied in the same tone.

  “Again? What did I do now?” she pondered. Instead of asking any questions, she came out of the room and closed the door behind her and then walked with Derek to Vera’s office. Derek stole a few glances at her and immediately felt the same attraction to her that he felt when they initially crossed paths a couple of days before. Instead of trying his luck with her again, he remained silent as they walked to Vera’s office.

  “Come in,” Vera said when she heard the knocking on her door. Derek held the door open for Vanessa and she took a seat.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss. Vera?” Derek asked politely.

  Vera waved him off. “No, I’m fine. Thank you.” She waited for Derek to close the door behind him before beginning her conversation with Vanessa. She thought she had come up with a way to break the bad news to her about her best friend, Arianna. But with Vanessa sitting across from her, she was at a loss for words and fidgeted with a pen she had been writing with.

  “Did I do something?” Vanessa asked after becoming uncomfortable amidst the awkward silence.

  Vera shook her head quickly as though she had been snapped out of a daydream. “No, no you haven’t done anything. I just needed to talk to you.”

  Vanessa let out a sigh of relief but then noticed the sad look on Vera’s face.

  “Carmen, I called you in here because… well…” Vera was at a loss for words. She averted her eyes unable to meet Vanessa’s gaze.

  “It’s Arianna, isn’t it?” Vanessa asked quietly.

  Vera nodded her head. “I spoke to the friend I told you I would reach out to and he got back to me not too long ago. Apparently, about three nights ago there was an anonymous call to the police about a house in Kensington where there was a domestic disturbance…” Vanessa put her hands to her mouth anticipating what Vera was about to say. “They found Arianna inside of the house and rushed her to the hospital… she died before they could stabilize her and get her into surgery.”

  Vanessa burst into tears. She cried harder than anytime she had ever cried after being beaten by Eric. Though Vera was talking, she couldn’t hear anything. Every bone in her body ached as she let out shoulder trembling, gut wrenching, soul shaking cries. Her best friend for over ten years who had been there for her through some of the best and worst moments of her life was dead and she couldn’t help but feel responsible.

  Vera was trying to console her, but Vanessa suddenly felt sick to her stomach. Before she had a chance to make it to the trashcan, she vomited all over the floor.

  “It’s all my fault!” Vanessa bellowed as she sobbed.

  “No, no sweetie. Don’t ever think that. Don’t tell yourself that. You are not responsible for the person who was callous enough to end her life. That is not your burden to carry,” Vera assured her. She grabbed some tissues and gave them to Vanessa, but it began to sound as though she was hyperventilating.

  “Derek! Derek, I need you in here!” Vera called out. Derek came back into the room and saw Vanessa gasping for air as she continued to cry. He knelt in front of her and talked to her softly while Vera searched for a paper bag. When she found one, Derek helped Vanessa put it to her face and instructed her to take slow, deep breaths in between reassuring her that everything was going to be okay.

  “You’ve gotta calm down before you make yourself sick. You have a baby to think about, now. Calm down and relax, okay?” Derek said to her softly. Vanessa continued to sob as she calmed down. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, pulling the bag away from her face once she had her breathing under control. Derek stroked the back of her head and looked up at Vera.

  “What happened?” he mouthed quietly so Vanessa could not hear him. Vera shook her head as she looked down at Vanessa sorrowfully. She felt in her gut that Vanessa’s ex-boyfriend was responsible for Arianna’s murder and steps would have to be taken to make sure the program along with the people who helped Vanessa along the way were not jeopardized.

  After Vanessa had calmed down, Vera passed her a small cup of water. She sipped on it and then looked up at Vera with tear drenched eyes.

  “No matter what you say, I know it’s my fault. If I hadn’t called her, he wouldn’t have attacked her.” She lowered her eyes. “I can’t even go to her funeral to pay my respects or apologize to her family. I never should have left.”

  “You listen to me,” Vera said as she knelt in front of Vanessa. She cupped her face in her hands and looked her in the eyes. “If you’d never left, it could be you that Arianna is paying her respects to. If you’d never left, he could have beaten you and caused you to lose your baby, disfigure you, injure you beyond healing or even worse, kill you. Is that what you want?” Vanessa shook her head as more tears flowed down her cheeks.

  “Derek, take her back to her quarters please and sit with her for a little bit while I take care of some things,” Vera instructed. “I will speak to the counselor to see if we can schedule an emergency session.” Derek nodded and helped Vanessa stand before walking her back to her room. Vanessa stopped him after she opened her door.

  “Thank you for helping me back there. But you don’t have to stay with me. I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure? It’s really not a problem,” Derek double checked.

  Vanessa nodded her head and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

  “You’re welcome,” Der
ek said quietly before walking away to get back to work.

  15

  Eric was meeting with another PI that he worked with. This was a back-up that he started using when he began to suspect that Tony might fold under pressure the night that Arianna was killed.

  “Yeah, he’s shown he can’t be trusted. Good thing you hired me as back-up,” a man said to Eric as he sat in his office.

  “I had a feeling he was going to crack under pressure,” Eric smirked. “Paranoid little bitch.”

  “So what do you want to do about him?”

  Eric thought for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “Kill ‘em. Fuck ‘em,” he said blandly as though he was giving an order to scramble his eggs instead of ordering a business associate to be killed. “Make it look good. A freak accident, a robbery gone wrong, a home burglary. Whatever. Just make sure you’re efficient and the shit doesn’t trace back to me.”

  The man Eric was talking to snickered as he rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I would hate for you to be having a similar conversation about me with someone else.”

  Eric ignored his last comment. “So what do you know about the number Vanessa called from?”

  “Well, it was a burner phone and it’s already been dumped. However, I was able to do a trace on the location that the call came from when the chick reached out to uh…” he hesitated as he looked through something on his phone. “…a Marcella. She was calling from Bethesda. I’ve got the address.”

  Eric grinned like the cat who had just caught the canary. “I like how you do business, Alex.” He looked at the address on the phone his partner had. “And the address on Marcella?”

  “Yeah I have that too,” Alex replied as he pulled a paper out of his pocket and handed it to Eric.

  Eric took the paper and looked at it briefly as he walked over to his desk drawer. He pulled out a thick white envelope that was folded over and handed it to Alex. “Here’s the first 25k. You’ll get the rest once Tony is taken care of.”

  “No problem, boss. I’ll call you when it’s final.”

  Alex left the house and Eric looked over the information he had for him. Knowing that he was close to locating Vanessa aroused him. Imagining what he would do to her just as he had done with Regina excited him even more.

  16

  Tony was cooperating with the police in the murder investigation for Arianna. He was scheduled to call Eric in a couple of days pretending to have information on Vanessa’s whereabouts. In a meeting with Eric, Tony was to wear a wire and get Eric to incriminate himself in the murder of Arianna. That meeting would never happen.

  He was on his way to meet up with a friend in South-West Philadelphia and was getting on the expressway off of Wissahickon Avenue. As usual, he weaved in and out of traffic wanting to hurry and get to his exit at Montgomery Drive. Just as he was coming past the City Line Exit, a car merged into his lane, suddenly. Reflex caused Tony to hit the brakes and swerve to another lane. His car didn’t slow down.

  “What the fuck?” Tony panicked as he kept stepping on the brakes. He swerved in another lane with cars honking, braking and swerving out of the way as well. One car didn’t move out of the way in time and Tony slammed into him, setting off a chain reaction.

  “Oh shit!” Tony exclaimed. And those were his last words. An 18 wheeler hit Tony sending him spinning towards the over-past. The car skidded to the over-past at almost 90mph and flipped over it, crashing down below before bursting into flames…

  The Schuylkill expressway was chaotic as traffic was backed up for miles on both the east and west side. Multiple ambulances, fire trucks and police cars had the dark night lit up as they worked feverishly to get the injured to the hospital and conduct an investigation into what could have caused such a gruesome accident. There were four fatalities in all, which included Tony.

  “Un-fucking-believable,” Detective Felix said as he stared at the multitude of cars stuck in the traffic jam. Their head-lights and brake lights lit up the highway above them.

  “This shit looks like a got-damn Greek tragedy,” Detective Michaels replied. “What the hell happened out here?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Felix replied. They continued collecting evidence and getting information on what happened as rescue wagons began to move the injured to nearby hospitals.

  A uniformed officer came over to the two detectives and shook their hands.

  “What do you have for us?” Michaels asked.

  “Well witnesses say the guy in that Cadillac CTS swerved out the way of one car, slammed into another car and next thing you know, a bunch of other cars began crashing around them like this was Final Destination or something. Then the 18 wheeler slammed into the CTS and he went over the edge. One of our guys ran his plates. His name was uh…” the uniform hesitated as he looked at the notepad where he wrote his information down. “…Antonio Vasquez.”

  The two detectives looked at the uniformed officer and then looked at each other with their mouths gaping open.

  “Coincidence or naw?” Michaels asked sarcastically.

  “That would be a pretty big fucking coincidence. Twenty bucks says this was a set up,” Felix said before stepping over some debris and heading over to where they were loading Tony’s body into the coroner’s truck.

  “A set up? Don’t you think if someone wanted to off him, they would have just put a bullet in the back of his head or something? A wreckage on the expressway that not only took him out but three other people, that’s pretty fucking thin. Maybe ole’ Vasquez’s time was just up. Shit happens. Cased closed.” Michaels said.

  “That may be the case. But what if the plan wasn’t to have him wipe out on the expressway but to just have him crash his car somewhere,” Felix replied.

  Michaels chuckled. “Come on, man. You make it sound like someone had a remote control to his car and made him steer the shit into the path of other cars and then pitched his ass over the edge.”

  “No, but who’s to say that someone didn’t tamper with the car like his brakes or steering column?” Felix stated. Michaels was quiet for a moment and then began to think maybe his partner was on to something.

  “I want this car impounded and fully inspected; lights, turn signals, brakes, the whole she-bang, you understand? If there’s anything wrong with it, I want it checked, double checked and then checked again. Let’s go, people.” Michaels said to the people who were working. “Y’all asses finna get some serious over time on this one.”

  Felix rubbed the hairs on his chin as he began thinking. His partner noticed the serious and focused look on his face.

  “What’s on your mind, partner?” Michaels asked.

  “Nothing,” Felix replied even though it was quite the opposite. His colleagues might not have given much thought into Vasquez’s story about being hired to find some girl which led to Arianna’s murder, but for Vasquez to be dead now only two weeks after sharing that information with the cops, this was more than just a car crash. He decided he would do a little digging on his own to find out what Vasquez was working on and see where that would lead him.

  16

  Marcella was in a hurry to get home after the long day she’d had. As a courtesy to Vanessa, she went to Arianna’s funeral to pay her respects and obtain an obituary for her. She then went to countless meetings and wanted nothing more than to go home and take a hot bubble bath before relaxing for the rest of the night.

  Marcella was an older woman in her late 40s standing at 5’6 with skin the color of honey and short hair that was neatly twisted in the beginner stages of locs. While she was a well off woman financially, she presented herself as “Plain Jane” dressing moderately in jeans, skippies, a shirt and blazer. She rarely ever wore make-up outside of lip balm. The only thing flashy she owned was a 2014 Mercedes Benz.

  She had done well for herself as a social worker and had used money willed to her after her father’s death to start a program for women against domestic abuse. The program was like a secret organization t
hat worked the same way as the “Underground Railroad”. Various safe houses across the country were put into place and women were hired to escort women who were trying to escape abusive relationships, from point A to point B. The idea for the program came into play after her daughter had been killed by her abusive boyfriend. The abuse had been going on unbeknownst to Marcella with her daughter hiding her bruises and fears very well. It wasn’t until a month before her daughter Octavia was murdered that she began to suspect something was not right with the man she initially thought was perfect. On a rainy Saturday morning, the police showed up to her door to inform her that her daughter had been found dead in her car from one single gunshot wound to the head. Her boyfriend and killer was in the passenger seat also dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. It was viewed as a text book murder-suicide. Marcella swore the day she buried her only daughter that she would do her best to provide a safe way out for any woman who needed help escaping an abusive lover. The program thrived for more than ten years with little to no interference… until Vanessa.

  Marcella was half way home when she realized she didn’t have important documents that she needed to sign and drop off to a client 8am the next morning. She was exhausted and tempted to just leave out a little earlier the next morning, get the papers and sign them, but decided against that, feeling like it would be seen as unprofessional. She made a U-Turn on Ridge Avenue near 29th street and headed back to the office.

  The closer she got to her office, the more Marcella got a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong. She ignored that feeling as she parked her car and used her key to get into the building.

  The door squeaked loudly as it opened and closed slowly behind her. She twirled her keys around her finger as she made her way down the hallway. The nagging feeling in her stomach grew stronger and stronger with every step she took towards her office. Marcella stopped in front of the door with the key in her had. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong and it wasn’t the nagging feeling that had her stomach in knots that led her to believe something was wrong, it was her own common sense. Every day that she left her office, she always locked the door behind her because of the sensitive information she kept in her office. But today, her office door was not only unlocked, but slightly cracked.