Reserve My Curves 3

by BM Hardin

  Something still just wasn’t right.

  “I’d seen you a time or two, downstairs, at the hotel before approaching you that day at the café. And then one day, I saw your information and photo added to the thirteenth floor database and I found myself staring at you for what seemed like hours. And then that day you showed up at the outside café, I figured that maybe I could get to know you. At first I wasn’t going to say anything, but I just couldn’t help myself. I just had to have you,” Silas admitted.

  I smacked him again as the last words came out of his mouth and I could tell that this time, he wanted to hit my ass back.

  He balled up his fists, but after staring at me for a minute or so, he relaxed.

  He should have just left me the hell alone!

  I was doing just fine.

  I was lonely, but I was fine.

  “So all of this, everything between us was a lie?” I just had to ask.

  “No. My love for you is real. It was just a bad situation.”

  Tell me about it.

  At this point, I didn’t believe anything that Silas had ever said to me.

  Everything that had ever come out of his mouth was suspect.

  Maybe he was telling me the whole story now, since the hotel operation had been shut down, but I wasn’t even sure if I could trust or believe everything he’d just said.

  So, now I had to figure out my next move.

  Horizon was with Josephine, so I figured that I could get a few of our things together and head back to my old house; parent’s house.

  I was so thankful that I hadn’t decided to get rid of it. Now all I needed was my money.

  What in the hell had Silas done with it?

  And why had he moved it in the first place?

  And how did he know about the other two hiding places?

  Nosey ass.

  “Silas, where is my money?”

  “You’re not leaving me Envy.”

  “Yes I am. What are you going to do? Make me stay?”

  “If I have to.”

  What?

  He couldn’t make me do a damn thing that I didn’t want to do.

  I stood to my feet and Silas stood as well.

  I damn near ran back to our bedroom and started to tear it apart looking for my bags of cash again.

  I had hardly ever touched it, so I couldn’t even begin to estimate how much it was.

  I was always spending Silas’s money, or if I needed small things, I would spend the small check that I got from the hotel as though I was still a regular maid.

  “Silas give me my damn money!”

  “It’s gone.”

  I looked at him as though he was stupid.

  Gone?

  Where the hell did it go?

  “Silas, I’m not playing with you. Where is it?”

  “It’s in a safe place. You can have it back after the wedding.”

  What?

  Wedding?

  There wasn’t going to be a damn wedding!

  Our entire relationship had been built on nothing but lies.

  His lies, my lies, everybody’s lies and he still thought that I was going to marry him?

  Yeah right!

  “I can’t believe that marriage is still on your mind. At this point, I can’t see myself marrying you Silas, like ever. Not after all this. And how did you even know to take my money and hide it or whatever you did with it anyway?”

  “Carmen told me what you did.”

  Well of course she did.

  She must have told him once she’d discovered that I’d stolen the paperwork.

  Being that Silas was one of the bosses that explained why she hadn’t come to my house to cause a scene.

  But why would she give him a heads up?

  She was going down and he was going to get away, since he and Grant had someone to pay the time for their crimes, so why was she so damn dedicated to him?

  “So, she gave you a sort of head’s up?”

  “Of course she did.”

  “Why Silas?”

  “Why not Envy?”

  “So after the divorce and the affair that you’d had with her sister, her own flesh and blood, she still has some kind of feelings for you? And furthermore, after all of that, she still wanted to work for you at the hotel? And you allowed her to? Why? What’s the real story with you two?”

  “Business is business. She did her job well and she wanted to continue doing it, so I let her stay. It didn’t bother me none. Carmen owes me her life and so I know in return she’ll always be loyal.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  How did she owe him her life?

  What because of the money?

  No, I was sure that wasn’t it.

  “You and Carmen have had something going on this whole time haven’t you?”

  “What? Hell no. Carmen is sick.”

  Oh yes, that’s right, Carmen had HIV.

  Immediately I looked at Silas suspiciously.

  “Who did she get the HIV from Silas huh?”

  He looked at me as though he was surprised that I actually knew the piece of information.

  He looked at me as though he’d wanted to tell me that it was none of my damn business, but he knew better than to say that.

  “I don’t know Envy. Her personal life isn’t my business. I can remember her telling me about a bad date or two, but she and I have never talked about anything more. We mostly talked about business. I only know about the HIV because the news of it damn near drove her crazy; well, it made her even crazier than she already was. After the news, Carmen was never the same. She’d always been a little off, well not just a little. But she turned into someone else. Someone vicious. She’d always been mean but she turned pure evil.”

  I’d stopped looking and sat on the edge of the bed as I listened to Silas.

  He went on to explain more about the real relationship between he and Carmen and he’d also said something very interesting.

  He’d told me the truth about the start of their relationship.

  He’d told me that initially, he’d met Nicole, his deceased wife and Carmen’s dead sister.

  He’d said that Carmen’s sister was an employee at the bank that he’d used back then and they’d always been a little flirty with each other.

  But on the visit that he’d finally told himself that he was going to ask her on a date, he learned that she’d recently quit and was gone.

  A few months later, he ran into Carmen and almost confused the two. He’d initially approached her because she reminded him of Nicole, but he said that Carmen had a little something extra.

  He said he loved her brains and her beauty and he said that they started to date, and soon ended up getting married.

  He’d said that Carmen had lied and told him that her whole family was dead, but one day, after they were already married, they ran into Nicole, and they identified each other as sisters.

  Silas said immediately he’d recognized her but he was already in love with Carmen and for the most part, it was too late.

  Nothing was ever mentioned and all was well.

  Silas said that he and Carmen were happily married for a while, but he said that it didn’t last long.

  Carmen and her ways became unbearable and he found out a few of her secrets.

  The truth about Carmen was scary.

  She’d not only killed her father, as she’d told me, oh no, she’d left out most of the story.

  Carmen had killed her whole family, except for Nicole because she was actually the youngest and a baby at the time.

  She’d stabbed her father, mother and her other siblings, repeatedly, while they slept.

  According to what Silas had found out about her, she’d been hospitalized several times for severe anger issues, paranoia, and even depression at such a young age, before the incident even occurred.

  There were suspicions of foul play and of abuse; both verbal and maybe even sexual but not from her father as
Carmen had said…but from her mother.

  The records showed that every time Carmen had to be hospitalized, after a few days, her mother always came and got her, and from observations it appeared that Carmen was terrified of her, but that the mother had some kind of obsession with Carmen.

  She wouldn’t even let her get the help that she needed from wanting Carmen in her space.

  And then one night, in Carmen’s early teens, she killed them all, except for the baby that was sleeping in the crib beside her parents bed.

  She’d gotten off with insanity and mental illness and served years institutionalized.

  She’d only been released a year or two before meeting Silas.

  Silas said he knew something was wrong with her after he caught her screaming and threatening her reflection one morning in their bathroom mirror, so he went digging, and paid a few people, who paid someone else, and that’s what he came up with.

  Silas explained that he found it amazing with how good she was with business affairs and logistics considering that she wasn’t always in her right mind, but he said that Carmen was darn near a genius.

  He called her the smartest person he’d ever known.

  He’d offered to get her more help once she started acting out and became worse, but she refused and he’d said that he’d given her an ultimatum.

  If she didn’t allow him to get her the best treatment and hospitalization that money could buy, he would divorce her.

  Long story short, she really thought that she didn’t need help, and he divorced her without thinking twice about it.

  He’d said that he’d kept Carmen’s truth from Nicole, being that she had no idea what Carmen had really done.

  She’d always been told that her family had been murdered, but not by her sister. They’d told her that she hadn’t been touched and that Carmen only survived because she had been in the hospital at the time.

  She said that she never bothered to try to find the truth and that she’d only wanted to know where Carmen was.

  She always kept some kind of communication with Carmen once she was old enough, and before the issue with Silas and Nicole, Silas said that Nicole was probably the only person that Carmen had ever truly cared about.

  He’d said that he and Nicole still just happened and he still said that he didn’t regret anything that they’d shared.

  He’d really felt as though it was true love.

  I was speechless, confused, appalled, and everything else in between.

  This was the worst relationship experience…ever!

  “Carmen knew you were up to something for a while. She didn’t know what, but we were prepared. I was the one that really got the papers out of your purse,” Silas said.

  What?

  I asked him that and he’d said no…old lying bastard!

  “I gave them to Carmen and she was supposed to take them back home, but I’m starting to think that she took them back to the hotel on purpose. She wanted to get caught. She and I were both tired. And with all of Carmen’s issues, psychological issues, hospitalization history and more, I’m sure that she probably won’t even stand trial. At the most she might be sentenced to be institutionalized, again, but even they wouldn’t keep her this time. Carmen pays the entire board of the local mental hospital, faithfully, just in case she was ever sentenced to go back there again.”

  Damn.

  These folks were just paying folks for everything!

  They thought that their money made them above the law and above all of the rules.

  And apparently it did.

  Carmen knew what she was doing.

  She’d expressed to me numerous of times about being tired of the hotel so I believed Silas on that and I wouldn’t doubt that Carmen wanted to get caught, just to get out.

  And thinking about her smiling as she was being led to the police car in handcuffs and winking at me as they drove away, I was sure that she was positive that she was going to walk away from it all; which meant that she was still going to be a problem.

  But she was Silas’s problem, not mine.

  I was done with this.

  Silas had said more than enough and I knew that there was nothing left for me and him to discuss.

  “Silas, just give me my money so I can go.”

  He didn’t move or say a word.

  “Carmen told you that something was about to go down and you take my money to try and use it to make me stay?”

  “Trust me, you won’t be going anywhere,” Silas said.

  Oh really?

  Well I could show him better than I could tell him.

  I walked out of the room and headed to the living room.

  I grabbed my purse and my keys and headed out of the door.

  I locked the doors once inside of the car as I watched Silas head in my direction.

  Putting the car in reverse, I backed out of the driveway. From the street, I glanced back at Silas who was now on his cell phone, as I drove away.

  My mind was racing and my heart was pounding.

  I tried to remember everything that he’d said but I just couldn’t get my thoughts together.

  Silas and Carmen were both like a bad dream.

  The drama surrounding them just never seemed to cease and I was right in the middle of it.

  With everything that Silas had revealed, I’d definitely made the wrong choice by going back to the hotel.

  I shouldn’t have turned back.

  No matter how desperate I was, I shouldn’t have gone back.

  And Silas had given me so many signs that something wasn’t right with him, but I hadn’t taken them or my way out.

  I hadn’t taken them for what they were and got away from him like I should have a long time ago.

  No I couldn’t change the past.

  But I could change the present and the future.

  And I wanted Silas and Carmen out of my life…for good!

  He was like a Devil with a big ass bank account and I didn’t know what to call Carmen.

  She’d killed almost her whole family?

  She’d been institutionalized?

  And she’d been sexually taken advantage of…maybe?

  And on top of all of that, she was sick, and from the sound of it all maybe it wasn’t by consensual relations?

  And I thought that I had it bad!

  I’d known that something was really wrong with Carmen all along, and I’d been right.

  But she had some serious issues and though I couldn’t stand her, learning all of that, I kind of could see how she could be just a little messed up.

  Genuinely, I hoped that somehow, someone made her get the help that she so desperately needed.

  And she really, really needed it.

  But according to Silas, she’d pretty much paid everybody in charge of the mental hospital to make sure that she didn’t get any better, at least not at that one she wouldn’t.

  Maybe she liked being psycho.

  Maybe Silas and the hotel made her worse.

  Maybe getting away from it all she would help her get better.

  I don’t know, but one thing I did know was that Detective Wiley is going to have a damn fit if, or more like when she walks.

  This entire bust would have basically been for nothing.

  Sure he got the credit for a major take-down, but Carmen was what he’d wanted most, his whole point of going after the hotel in the first place. And I had a feeling that he still wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

  I’d warned him that he couldn’t be sure of the type of power, money, and people in connection with Carmen, but I was sure that he was about to find out.

  Entering the highway, I had about an hour or so to get back to my old house, so that left me with plenty of time to think.

  Silas had all of my money.

  My bank account didn’t have hardly anything in it but a few hundred dollars, so I needed my money.

  He couldn’t keep it.

  He had no right to tou
ch anything that was mine.

  He must’ve searched for the other two bags while I was at the police station the day before, or while I was watching the hotel bust.

  I wondered what Carmen had said to him about me taking the papers from her office.

  Had I been thinking, I would have taken the money out of the house that same night, after discovering that Silas was a boss, but I hadn’t.

  I was too busy debating as to whether or not I was going to confront Silas or if it was in my best interest to pretend as though I didn’t know.

  Thinking of it, my behavior probably gave it away too. I was salty as hell and trying to bite my tongue while being in his presence had me as hot as hen’s piss.

  I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep it to myself, but I figured that it was probably better to wait until the bust had taken place before I opened my mouth.

  Unfortunately, Silas still had the papers, so I guess there goes my evidence if I ever changed my mind.

  But it was what it was.

  I just wanted my money and my life back.

  As Silas had stated, I too just wanted to be normal.

  A normal life would do just fine.

  While I drove, I couldn’t help but think about Grant too.

  It’s always the quiet ones that you had to watch out for.

  Never would I have guessed that he would even want to be involved in something that involved sex and other women.

  I swear it just didn’t seem like him at all.

  And now what was I supposed to do about it?

  How could I keep something like this from Josephine?

  But how could I tell her something that would surely mess up her marriage?

  I was sure that she would flip all the way out, but was telling her really necessary?

  Was it really worth it?

  Hell, it wasn’t like he was going to still be running the thirteenth floor, or even going to jail for it, so maybe mentioning it would be a bad idea.

  Maybe it was pointless.

  Whoo! I was giving myself a headache!

  It was just so much to deal with all at once.

  But there was a tad bit of good in the midst of all of this.

  I was done with the hotel.

  And I’d avoided going to jail.

  Not to mention that Carmen was behind bars, at least for now.

  So, I did have a few things to be grateful for.

  Now, I just needed my money and I needed to get missing.