“Pandora and Horus,” Louis shrugged.
Detective Manny nodded. “The story gets even better if I believe what Delilah told me.”
“What?” Louis asked.
“Celica is really Horus Baptiste the younger brother’s biological daughter,” Detective Manny said. “So that would mean Jean Baptiste and Celica Baptiste are biological brother and sister, same father and same mother.”
“Whew!” Ulysses exclaimed. “Louis did you follow along with all of that story?”
With a puzzled look Louis shook his head. “About as good as you did Ulysses.”
Talk about complicated family relationships. That one is a blockbuster,” Ulysses said.
Louis cast a sideways glance at Detective Manny. “Was Jean Baptiste living at home when Pandora and Horus married? I mean was he raised with Celica and Delilah?”
“Jean is a few years older than Delilah. As a matter of fact, he was away at college when his father married Pandora. For what I learned, he hardly came home except for holiday visits and the like.”
“Hump,” Louis said. “What about all that money Delilah inherited. Did she get it right away?”
“No Delilah had to wait until she turned twenty-one. She lived at home until then. They say she made a big production about moving out. Complete with a party at the San Jose Hotel, where she’d bought the top floor suite and made it resemble an ancient Roman house. She’s lived there ever since.”
“Hmm,” Louis said thoughtfully.
Detective Manny stared between the two men and continued. “I learned that Horus and Pandora Baptiste were in a car accident five years after Delilah moved out. Horus died at the scene, but Pandora died at this hospital. Celica was with her when she died. Their son Jean Baptiste was married to Pauline by then. He and Pauline took Celica in and raised her, along with a woman called Aunt Dolly Baptiste. She is Pandora’s sister.”
Ulysses’ eyes clouded over with disappointment. “So that’s about it? It sounds like normal family stuff.”
”Well I haven’t finished. I learned that Celica hates Delilah because she’s been in love with Monty Wildhorse several years. And no matter what she did. Monty wouldn’t give her the time of day. He didn’t love her back. Anyway, to make a long story short, Celica put the drug in the Champagne. We found a kit in her home complete with bottles of Monty Wildhorse’s private label unopened champagne bottles. Celica owned some corking equipment.”
“Expensive equipment,” Ulysses said shaking his head. “I’m a wine connoisseur.”
“Really?” Louis blurted out with a deep expression of shock. “I always thought you were a straight bourbon man.”
Ulysses shrugged. “Very funny.”
Detective Rebrand scratched his head. “You know the most amazing part. I wouldn’t have figured it out. I mean thinking that Celica had done it. I had never suspected her. I had suspected Delilah of putting the drugs in the champagne.”
“What made you change your mind? About considering Celica as your suspect,” Louis asked with a puzzled expression.
Detective Manny took a deep breath. “Celica called me and asked me to come to her room. She told me she wanted to tell me something. When I got there she kept staring at the wall like someone was standing there,” the color drained from his face.
Suddenly there was a relative silence as Louis and Ulysses stared back at him.
Detective Manny’s face looked stricken and there was a level of fear in his voice. “The next thing I knew, Celica started talking to thin air. I thought it was the drugs she had taken,” his eyes glassed over dazed. “But then a cold air brushed past me and I felt like I was looking at the room through a fog.”
Louis and Ulysses cast glances between them. The moment was awkward.
All at once Detective Manny jabbed his hands in his pockets shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts as he continued. “I’m not one for going in for believing all of that Louisiana hocus pocus stuff. But there was something strange happening in Celica’s room,” he said staring off into space. “I don’t know, but it was really strange and creepy, the way Celica kept staring at the wall. She kept saying she had a change of heart and that she couldn’t go on hating Delilah because Delilah had been a motherless girl who had to do what people around her made her do. She said Delilah was her sister and that love was stronger than hate. She then told me it had been her plan to make it look like Delilah had drugged their drinks.”
“What?” Louis and Ulysses said in unison.
Detective Manny turned and gave Louis and Ulysses a serious look. He let out a sigh of frustration. “I’ve been puzzling over whether or not I should tell anyone this. For the record fellas, this one is off the record. You see I did ask Celica what she was looking at and she told me it was a lady. Then she described to me what the lady looked like. She said she was wearing a white tee shirt and white jeans and that she had a mass of curly jet black hair and deep luminous blue eyes. She said the eyes were what made her tell me the truth that she’d done it. She said the woman’s eyes looked just like Delilah’s,” he murmured, his voice held a mysterious tone as he continued. “You see, for a minute I thought I might have been hallucinating or something, because all of a sudden I saw the woman Celica said was in the room with her. She didn’t look like a hallucination at all. In fact she looked like an angel, an angel who looked exactly like Delilah.”
The moment was eerie and silent.
Louis broke the silence. “Hump, that was creepy,” he shrugged feeling a shiver.
“Yeah, too creepy,” Ulysses muttered under his breath.
Chapter 38
A Wish
Days later Delilah Deauville sat in her hospital room waiting. She felt like a caged animal alone and frightened. For the first time, she realized how alone she was in the world. She rarely felt low times like this. She’d always kept herself busy. Because low times like this made her think of her mother, she felt a deep emptiness inside. It made her shiver.
Her half brother Jean Baptiste had promised to come and sign her out and take her home. But he hadn’t returned yet from getting Celica squared away at a treatment facility.
Jean Baptiste had instructed the hospital not to release her until he returned.
Delilah sighed and walked over to the window. “God I wish I had someone who loved me,” she murmured low against the window.
A moment later.
“Good morning are you ready to go?” A familiar voice called out to her.
“It’s you!” she blurted standing paralyzed in the spot where she stood.
The man closed the door behind himself as he walked closer into the room. He looked handsome, rugged and notorious. His wavy black hair was pulled back in a pony tail.
Slowly he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an eye glass case. He put on a pair of black rimmed glasses.
“Damn, Leroy Maddox Jefferson, you always look like a loveable Geek-King whenever you put on those glasses,” she said shaking her head. What do you want?"
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he closed the distance between them. “First I want to make sure I see you clearly,” he said. “Then I would assume it is obvious I’ve come to claim the girl that I love and take you home. Preferably to my place and not that Roman style tower mess you call a home.”
Delilah felt her senses reeling. She turned and looked at him. His eyes were filled with pain. “How could you still love me Maddy? Knowing what I am, what I…” she said her voice trailing off laced with deep sadness. “Not after all the things I’ve done to you?”
He made a soft sound as her words caught him off guard. “What about me? What about the embarrassing stupid stuff I’ve done over the years that ended up being in the news. I’m the most notorious Geek-KING Street-thug in Oakland. Some say, in all of northern California. But you never cared about what people said about me. It never stopped you from loving me.”
“Oh Maddy don’t you see. Every time you look at m
e you’ll hate me for what I’ve done. You don’t know what it is I’ve done this time,” she tried to tell him but the words wouldn’t leave her tongue.
“Oh Delilah,” a primitive groan came out of his throat as he said her name. “In all the years we’ve known each other haven’t I demonstrated that I love, respect, accept, cherish and desire you?”
“But this time is different,” she said. Her thoughts raced. How could she tell him what it was she had done? She stood there stunned, thinking about it.
He nervously walked over to the window and stared out. “I meant what I said Delilah, I don’t care. I’ve got way more important issues to deal with in this world than what it is you think you’ve done that’s so bad.”
Delilah watched him tormented and frustrated. He was the only man she had ever loved. His unselfish admiration, love, and kindness toward her was the one constant she could ever count on. He was the only man she had ever trusted. The only man she had ever loved. Even now her love for him was going stronger because she knew he carried their secret. No one else in the world knew about their secret but her and her Maddy.
From somewhere deep inside she had to say it. She put her hands over her face. “Oh Maddy, you know I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I do have some morals and values. Conrad slipped something into my drink just like Celica did. I’m not making excuses for my behavior. I should have known better. I don’t know why. I just have to say that to you. You forgive me don’t you?”
He closed the distance between them in one stride and took her in his arms. He held her close and said. “I knew you would tell me the truth and you know I’ve forgiven you. Besides, since we’re being honest, I want you to know I kicked Conrad’s ass for what he did. I kicked his ass real good.”
Delilah softly laughed. “I bet you did,” she said. “And I just wish I’d been there to see you tear into him. We are so much alike. That’s what I love about you Maddy. You’re always looking out for me,” she softly smiled.
She looked at the distress in his face. After a long pause she said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Look Delilah I have a proposition for you. I want us to get married. I’m playing all my cards out on the table. I love you and I want to grow old with you,” his voice trailed off. He cleared his throat and rattled on like a drowning man trying to save himself by whatever means necessary. “I’m tired of raising our little girl alone. She needs a mother,” Leroy’s lips quivered. “And if you are not ready to change, I’m going to sign over rights to our little girl to my sister Ming and let her raise her.”
She stared at him dazed. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Maddy, you’d use blackmail on me?”
His lips tightened. He instinctively knew he had played all his cards. There was no turning back. “Yes!” he assuredly said.
“And you are insisting that I marry you?” she asked.
“Yes!” he yelled.
The moment was tense.
“Leroy Maddox Jefferson, I was going to say yes when you said you loved me. You didn’t have to lay all your cards out on the table. I know it has been hard for you raising our daughter. But you know I’m going to say yes because I don’t want Ming or anybody else raising my daughter, but me.”
He drew her close to him as his lips kissed hers.
“Promise me Maddy you’ll always be there for me and our daughter.”
“I promise”, he whispered softly kissing her.
The End
Coming in Fall of 2013….
A Geek, an Angel, and a Bowl of Gator Gumbo
A Geek, an Angel, and a Bowl of Gator Gumbo is a contemporary bittersweet romance tale revolving around two star crossed lovers Lacey and Kienan. After growing up they grew apart. Kienan Egan dumped Lacey during college.
Gorgeous Lacey La Cour lost her hopeful playful spirit after Kienan dumped her. Now an adult she is strong and independent. Her life is perfect. Except her manipulative, selfish older brother Nicholas loves money. He’s spent his and he needs more. He plots and schemes his way into getting others to do his bidding. Then tragic forces are unleashed as Nicholas opens up doors to the past. The past were the dead never dies.
Come and enjoy the panoramic views of the breathtaking Mount Hamilton in Silicon Valley to the magical pull of San Francisco and Oakland California. Geek, an Angel, and a Bowl of Gator Gumbo an extra ordinary tale of the real and the surreal.
About the Author J.A.JACKSON
J.A.JACKSON is an author who lives in an enchanted little house she calls home in the Northern California foothills with her husband and Big Sally an American scent hound. She fell in love with writing as a small child. She was born in Arkansas and comes from a family rich in story tellers. She spent over ten years working in the non-profit sector where she wrote grants, press releases and contributed many stories to their newsletter. She was their Newsletter editor for over ten years. She loves growing roses, a good pot of hot tea, chocolate, magical stories, suspense stories, ghost stories, and reading Jane Austen again and again in her past time. Please write her at P.O. Box 62323 Sunnyvale, CA 94088.
This Novel written by Jerreece Ann Jackson
PSEUDONYM: J. A. Jackson
P.O. Box 62323
Sunnyvale, CA
Email Address: [email protected] or [email protected] [email protected]
Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1 The Grand Isles Ball……December 1987 Players, Mischief Makers & other underachievers
Chapter 2 Running Amok and Asking for a Favor…
Chapter 3 Old Friends the Mondragon Family & the Baptiste family
Chapter 4 Spoiling the Evening ….The Nasty People
Chapter 5 Wait a minute an embarrassing situation
Chapter 6 Wait a minute an embarrassing situation
Chapter 7 A little problem
Chapter 8 Grandmothers and other Holy Things
Chapter 9 Public Television wants an interview
Chapter 10 Falling for a Dancer
Chapter 11 A Blast from her past
Chapter 12 Sisters bonding, exes and other riddles…
Chapter 13 Lips Tension Relief
Chapter 14 The Perceptive Watcher
Chapter 15 Junior Royal Court
Chapter 16 The Crush
Chapter 17 Confessions, Mixing Love & Pleasure...
Chapter 18 Misunderstanding & other riddles
Chapter 19 Sparkling Eyes
Chapter 20 Smug arrogance
Chapter 21 The Womanizer, Blame it on alcohol
Chapter 22 I’ve got a plan
Chapter 23 Memories don’t leave like people do
Chapter 24 An Embarrassing Situation
Chapter 25 For old times’ sake show some love ….
Chapter 26 I’ve been looking for her…..
Chapter 27 And the winner is …..
Chapter 28 When your lies catch up with you
Chapter 29 An Embarrassing Situation
Chapter 30 Calm in the throngs of chaos
Chapter 31 The Truth & the Whole Truth… I swear
Chapter 32 There are those who meddle
Chapter 33 Never drink with your worst enemy…
Chapter 34 Your worst enemy…
Chapter 35 At last my lover has come….
Chapter 36 Home at last….
Chapter 37 A victim of circumstance
Chapter 38 A Wish
About the Author J.A.JACKSON
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