“I must say that you have one hell of a right hook . . .”
It was John!
I instantly grew angry because I didn’t wanna talk to him. “Why are you calling me, John?”
He laughed. “I just wanted to see how you were since knocking Lisa out in one punch earlier today. I have to hand it to you, Vanessa, I didn’t think you had it in you to hit her like the way you did — you surprised me.”
“Yeah, well, she had it coming and she knows it. Why don’t you give me and all of the rest of us a surprise and turn yourself in for killing Natalie?”
He sighed. “And this conversation was going so well — why spoil it, huh? You know I’m never gonna do that so you need to stop asking me about it.”
“You know what you did was wrong, John! Just like what you did to me on Saturday! How the hell can you go on day-by-day and act as if you haven’t done anything wrong? I mean, you kidnapped me by gunpoint from a restaurant and then I almost half-kill myself escaping from you! You need to just save us all the trouble and just turn yourself in, okay?”
“I might as well tell you right now that Lisa told me that she’s really gonna let you have it when she sees you again for hitting her like that,” he replied, as it was obvious that he wasn’t trying to hear what I’d just told him.
“And I’ll let the bitch have it again if she raises her hand at me. She asked for it and she got it. I don’t know why the fuck the two of you are so insisted on trying to make my life miserable in that class by staring at me while talking about me — I’m sick of seeing it. I was in no mood today because of what you did to me on Saturday,” I said. But I didn’t wanna mention anything about what Marie told me about Lisa being in on the plan because I didn’t want him or Lisa hurting her.
“And I heard that wasn’t the only reason,” he said.
“WHAT?!” I asked in shock. I really wanted to know if he’d heard about me catching Brad and Ava having sex with each other.
“Yeah, I knew there was a reason why you threw those flowers as well as those gaudy, overpriced hooker shoes back at Brad. He cheated on you again.”
I let out a sigh. I didn’t wanna admit that the fucker was right because he was. “Look, John, I don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”
“We don’t have to talk about it — let’s talk about us.”
I gasped in shock! “John! There is no us so there is absolutely nothing to talk about! Why are you always talking as if I was your girlfriend, huh? I was never your girlfriend! You had a chance to be Natalie’s boyfriend but you decided to kill her and her unborn child instead!”
“I didn’t want that bitch as a girlfriend so what makes you think that I wanted a child by her?”
“John, you know you were very wrong for what you did to her!”
“Just like you were wrong for ending a secret relationship with me to be in one with Brad while he was still with Lisa.”
I sighed as I shook my head. “Why do you keep talking about the past, huh? It’s over! What’s done is done about that! I wish you would just let it go!”
“I’m not letting anything go, Vanessa — anything.”
This gave me chills, and it showed me for sure that he was not over me being Brad’s girlfriend and probably wouldn’t ever be.
“I’m not letting go of my future — that’s why that bitch and her unborn child had to go; and I’m gonna have to get rid of others, too, if anyone tries to get in the way of trying to ruin my future,” he warned.
“No one is trying to get in the way of your future, John! But you sure as hell ended any chance of Natalie and her unborn child of having a future! Don’t you have any shame or remorse for what you did?!”
“Not at all. This conversation is over,” he replied, and hung up.
I shook my head as I hung up. I let out a deep sigh as tears swelled up in my eyes again since I knew that John was pure evil, and him saying that he had no remorse for what he did to Natalie and her unborn child proved it. I knew that Brad, Ava, Marc, Marie, and me needed to really regroup and try to come up with a way to get his DNA because he officially made a threat to me about getting rid of anyone who was trying to get in the way of him and his future, and he knew that we were all trying to make sure that the only future that he would ever have would be in prison for life where he rightfully belonged — but this was far from his plans.
CHAPTER 40
It was Saturday night, that very next Saturday after Brad, Ava, Marc, and I had a great dinner at that fancy upscale restaurant, that same night that John kidnapped me from the restaurant and I almost killed myself trying to escape from him, and that same night that I caught Brad and Ava in one of his guest rooms fucking each other. What a night. But tonight was different, and I had to admit that I couldn’t believe that I was sitting here in Brad’s house in the rec room once again, along with Marc and Ava at that, since Brad wanted all of us to have a little get-together since Brad and Marc weren’t talking to each other and I wasn’t talking to Brad or Ava around this time last week. He also wanted to tell us something that had to do with school.
“Well, I just wanna say that I’m glad we’re all talking again; I didn’t think we all would be this fast,” Brad said with a grin.
We all laughed.
“Well, it’s water under the bridge,” Marc said with a smile as he looked at me.
“Please don’t say it like that, Marc. It reminds me of almost killing myself escaping from John! Remember, I jumped out of his car while we were on a bridge into a river!” I said.
“Oops! I’m sorry, Vanessa. That was a wrong choice of words,” Marc said with a smile.
Brad and Ava smiled at me.
“It’s okay — it’s a popular saying,” I replied with a smile.
“It is. Well, what I wanna talk about is that Rosemont is expecting some new students on Monday. In fact, it’s the largest amount that we’re getting in years,” Brad informed us.
“How many?” Ava asked.
“About twenty,” Brad replied.
“Damn! That is a lot — especially in the second semester and we’re months into it. Are any of them seniors?” Marc asked.
“Yeah, one — a girl. Her name is Meadow Wells. She’s eighteen and coming from the northern part of California where it snows a lot — I don’t know what city, though. Winston said that was all he knew at the moment, but he’ll let me know more this weekend,” Brad said.
“Meadow Wells? Her name sounds like something out of a romance novel!” Ava said with a laugh.
We all laughed.
“Yeah, it does!” I said. “Well, baby, I hope you tell her about what happened at our school with Natalie and all.”
“I’m sure they all know since it made national news, but just in case some of them don’t know, I’m having a meeting with all of them before first period to talk to them about it. I wanna tell them so bad that John killed her, but I don’t want them scared and end up transferring. All of them could’ve went to other schools but chose to attend our school, and after what happened at ours, I wanna keep having students enroll at our school even though we’re all gonna be graduating in a few months,” Brad said.
“Yeah, and hopefully John will be in jail and won’t be graduating with the rest of us,” I said.
Marc and Ava nodded in agreement.
“You’re right, baby. That’s our goal. He thinks he’s won and thinks that we’ve all given up on trying to get his DNA — he is far from the truth when it comes to that. We’re gonna get it from him because somewhere down the line he’s gonna get sloppy with something and fuck up somewhere and that’s when we’ll get him,” Brad assured us.
“I believe that, man!” Marc said with a nod.
Ava and I smiled at him as did Brad.
“I’m just very happy that there is no statute of limitations on murder, so no matter how long it may take us to get that fucker’s DNA, he’ll still go down for what he did,” I said.
“Absolutely,” Brad replie
d.
Ava and Marc nodded in agreement.
“So, with everything that’s been going on, has anyone thought about prom?” Ava asked.
We all looked at each other and grinned.
“I’ll be the first one to say it . . . no,” Brad said.
“Neither have I,” Marc said with a grin.
“I’m with them,” I replied, since I honestly hadn’t. “Maybe I should, though, even though it’s still a little more than three months away. I need to start thinking about the kind of dress that I wanna wear.”
“Me too,” Ava said with a smile.
“Thank God that we don’t have that problem!” Brad said with a laugh.
“For real!” Marc laughed.
We all laughed as we nodded in agreement.
“Well, it’s gonna come sooner than we think so I better start getting my look together,” I said.
“Pick out whatever dress you want, baby, I’ll pay for it,” Brad told me.
Ava and Marc smiled.
“WOW! I was hoping you would say that because I’ve seen some beautiful ones for the past couple of months, but I don’t even know if they’re still available. I want us all to look great and have a great time — hopefully we’ll have John’s DNA by then and he’ll be sitting in jail instead of being at prom, and then we’ll really be able to celebrate!” I said.
“Yeah, hopefully — but I doubt it,” Brad replied honestly.
We looked at him.
“Brad, do you think we’ll ever get his DNA? Come on, baby, be honest with me,” I said.
Ava and Marc stared at him like the way I did as we waited for him to answer. He stared back at me with a look that was unexplainable. I knew that he had a lot of guilt about not making sure John was really dead that day that Marie had shot him in the woods, and not taking the bag with the can that contained all of the DNA that we needed for him to be put in jail, but since we all thought he was dead that’s why he left it there, so there was nothing that we could do about it now. We knew that we couldn’t go back and he knew it, and he seemed to have felt very bad about it.
“Brad! Answer me, baby. Do you think we’ll ever get John’s DNA?” I asked him again.
Brad continued to stare at me without saying a word, and that said it all to me. He honestly didn’t know, but was too afraid to admit it to me.
Suddenly, Marc’s phone rang. He looked at it, got up, and walked out of the room as he answered it. A few minutes later, he came back into the room with a look on his face that I’d never seen before, and it had me very concerned.
“What’s up, man? Who was that?” Brad asked.
Marc sighed as he sat back down on the couch. “That was Detective Bates, the one that I talked to when we all went to the department to talk about Natalie’s murder,” he informed us.
Brad, Ava, and I looked at each other, and then looked at Marc.
“Well, what did he want?” Brad asked.
Marc continued to stare at the floor. He let out another sigh. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this shit, you guys, I just can’t fuckin’ believe it.”
“Believe what, Marc?” Ava asked.
“Yeah, what’s going on? Why did he call you?” I asked.
Marc looked at me, and then at Brad and Ava. “Look, I need to know before I tell you all this that it doesn’t leave this room.”
Brad, Ava, and I looked at each other once again.
“You got our word, man, you know that,” Brad assured him.
Ava and I nodded in agreement.
Marc looked at each one of us; he lowered his head again. “Detective Bates told me that Natalie’s baby’s DNA was a match . . . to me. I was the father, not John,” he informed us.
We all gasped in shock!
“No fuckin’ way, man!” Brad said.
“I had no idea, guys. I’m so sorry,” Marc said, as he tried to control the tears that were swelling up in his eyes.
“It doesn’t get any more fucked up than this! John was not the father after all so he killed Natalie for no fuckin’ reason! No fuckin’ reason at all!” I said. Everyone nodded in agreement as I happened to glance at my phone as a text came into it . . . and it was a secret text! Thought I went away? Talk 2 U soon . . . .
SNEAK PREVIEW
OF
SCHOOL, SEX and SECRETS III
CHAPTER 1
Brad, Ava, and I sat in an indescribable shock as we all stared at Marc, but this was not the only thing that was now on my mind. I tried not to think about it as I focused back on Marc and what he’d just told us because we couldn’t believe it, and it was obvious that there were a lot of secrets that he was keeping from us when it came to his involvement with Natalie after they broke up.
“Well, start talkin’, man — we’re listening,” Brad said.
Ava and I looked at Marc as his head continued to hang in shame. I really wanted to know what he had to say about this because all I could remember was him telling us that he had absolutely no involvement with Natalie after they broke up, and now there was obvious proof that he’d lied about this.
Marc let out a sigh as he still stared down at the floor. “She wouldn’t leave me alone, guys. She kept calling, texting, and emailing me about wanting to talk. At school, she would even pretend like she was one of my friends just to get me out of class so I could talk to her, but I never fell for that because I knew it was her because of the way she wrote in her texts. One day, I decided to go over to her house and talk to her and I only did so I could tell her that I had no interest in getting back together with her. We talked and had a few drinks, I admit, but I wasn’t drunk and she wasn’t, either. She started crying and saying that she never wanted us to break up and wanted me to give her a second chance, and I told her that I just didn’t feel the same way about her as she felt about me. She then went hysterical and started taking off all of her clothes and saying she wanted me to make love to her one last time and that if I did this with her then she’ll never bother me again about wanting to get back together . . . so I gave in. I swear, you guys, she did not tell me that she was pregnant; I had no idea so I especially had no idea that the baby was mine. This is fuckin’ crazy!”
Brad, Ava, and I continued to stare at him. We could tell that he was telling us the truth.
“Marc, you didn’t have to lie to us about never having any involvement with her after the two of you broke up. A lot of people who break up end up having sex with each other after they do,” I said.
Marc nodded. “I know, Vanessa. Had I known that this shit was gonna happen, I would’ve told the truth. I didn’t think it was gonna be a big deal. Now I feel so bad because she’s dead for no reason.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but this is why girls need to know about their body. It was obvious that she probably had sex with John after she had it with you, and then she found out that she was pregnant and just assumed that it was John’s since he was the last guy that she had sex with. A lot of girls think that they’re pregnant by the last guy that they had sex with when it could’ve been the guy before that or before that — you just don’t know,” Ava said.
“You’re absolutely right, Ava. The only way a girl knows that it’s absolutely the guy that she claims that it is if he’s the only guy that she’s had sex with, and we all know that most girls don’t fool around with just one guy — just being honest. Girls need to get more educated about their bodies because this shit is gonna continue to happen if they don’t. We’re some of the very few that know that it’s not necessarily the last guy that a girl was with that she could be pregnant by, and unfortunately, that’s what Natalie obviously thought . . . and it cost her her life,” I said. I sighed as I shook my head.
“Us men need to get educated, too, and I especially do after this,” Marc said with his head down. “This really makes me wanna get John’s DNA more than ever now because even though he was not the father, that was my baby that he killed and my ex and I’m fuckin’ mad as fuckin’ hell about it!”
“Calm down, man,” Brad said. He walked over to him. “Look, I don’t think you should mention that you were really the father to John or to anyone, okay? Let’s just have John still think that he was because it doesn’t matter if he was or wasn’t, he’s still gonna go to prison for killing her and her unborn child. DNA may have cleared him of being the father of Natalie’s unborn child — even though he hasn’t given his — but it didn’t clear him of murdering them and it’s not going to.”
“Exactly!” I said.
“That’s right!” Ava agreed. “Marc, just out of curiosity, what if Natalie told you it was yours instead of John?”
“I would’ve wanted her to have it like what I knew that she wanted to do, and that I would’ve supported the child, but not her. No, I still would not have wanted to get back together with her, and I think she would’ve accepted that than have me kill her just because she was pregnant with my child — like she did this shit alone when it took the both of us to make something happen that we knew could’ve happened because we didn’t use anything. I’m really fuckin’ mad about this, you guys. I can’t promise now that I won’t hurt John.”
Ava, Brad, and I looked at each other. We all knew that Marc was serious and this concerned us all.
“Marc, remember, man, you didn’t know that the baby was yours. John killed her because she told him that it was his when all he had to do was wait to get a DNA test done to see if it was his — he just took her word for it that it was his and killed her because of it. This is proof that he’s crazy and doesn’t wanna take any chances on someone ruining his life, as he said,” Brad said.
“Yeah, all he cares about is himself — he makes that very obvious,” Marc said.
“Oh, and he continues to tell me that so I won’t forget it,” I said. “Well, he’s still gonna go to prison for what he did to Natalie and her unborn child because murder is murder and I think the case against him is getting stronger about him being a fucked-up narcissistic psychopath. You may have been the father of Natalie’s unborn child, but you’re not the one who murdered them, Marc.”
School, Sex and Secrets II (School, Sex and Secrets #2) Page 27