* * *
“I hated him all my life,” she said to me the night before the funeral. I had taken her to the lakeside again. Her mother hadn’t been herself in the three days since her husband had died. So I had taken Tynice away from home for a while just to get out of the continuous gloominess around her. “But now that he is gone, I have this empty spot in my heart.” She pointed at her chest. “I hadn’t realized how important it was that I had a father in my life. Even if he wasn’t the best dad in the world. At least he was there. Now I know that vacant spot will never be filled,” she said in a flat voice. It made me think of my own mother. She was all kinds of a horrible parent but I wouldn’t want as cruel of a death as Tynice’s dad had. I don’t know how she lived with it; having his smashed face in her dreams. Hell, that image was haunting me since then.
When I thought nothing worse could happen in Tynice’s life, I was mistaken. It was his funeral. We were in the church and rituals were being done. Tynice was sitting next to her mother in the front row. Her grandparents were there too. They had arrived just for the funeral earlier that morning. Mrs. Johnson’s condition wasn’t stable. Anyone could see that.
She was having these timed emotional fits. She would begin crying, sometimes loud and sometimes quiet sobs. Or start laughing like crazy. She would go beyond herself. She was in no way able to deal with the loss of her husband. And Tynice, she was being whatever help she could be to her. But what was she? She was just a fifteen-year-old girl. She wasn’t supposed to face all of this. She wasn’t supposed to handle this so early in her life. I could tell she had grown at least twenty years in these three or four days. The worst part was, I couldn’t help her out.
When four of the cemetery guys were laying Drake Johnson to rest, I looked at Tynice. She had no tears in her eyes. She was just looking at her dad’s coffin being lowered into the ground. She looked so vulnerable and so lost. Just when they began covering the grave, Tynice’s mother cried, “No, do not take him away. I love him. I can’t live without him.” She leapt and got hold of one of the guys. A few people caught her and dragged her back but she kept crying hysterically and kept struggling. “Let me go. Drake, take me with you, honey. ”She fell on the ground and clutched her face in her hands.
“Thea, get a hold of yourself. He is gone and he is not coming back,” Tynice’s granddad said to Mrs. Johnson. His tone was cold and stern. It seemed like he wasn’t really sad for losing his son–in–law. And then she came down flat on her stomach. No more movements, no more words. Complete silence. “Thea? The old lady, Tynice’s grandmother, bent down to her and straightened her. Her eyes were closed and she was still, very still.
* * *
Mrs. Johnson was in cardiac arrest. They had taken her to Springfield immediately from the cemetery. Three days and I heard no news of her or Tynice. It became my usual routine to walk to her street every morning and when returning, to see if she was back or anything. But three days went by in complete silence.
It was the fourth day of Tynice’s absence and I was at my summer job. Things were back to normal in Williamsville. Drake Johnson’s death was gossip of the past and Thea’s heart attack gossip had cooled down.
“Hey, Adrian! You’re coming with me to get Britt’s chest?” Henry, one of the workers at the warehouse called me.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute,” I said to him. I couldn’t wait for the day to end already, my migraine was giving me a hard time since last night. Britt was selling his old wooden chest that Henry thought could be brought to the warehouse and refurbished. By the time we loaded that mean thing on the truck, my back was yelling along with my head.
The good thing was that it was already five thirty by then. We were driving back when we passed through the residential streets and reflexively my eyes turned to see when Tynice’s street came. A car was standing outside her house. I jumped in my seat. Was she back? I did what I had to do at the warehouse and left as soon as I was done. I walked back to Tynice’s house to see the car was gone. I still went to her house to see if she had returned. I pressed the doorbell and waited.
“They are not coming back,” I turned to see her neighbor, Mary, saying.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, Tynice came by to pick a few things up with her granddad. She just left. They’ve left Williamsville.”
“Thanks.” I said to her and started walking back to my house.
She left. Just like that? Without any word or goodbye? Asking myself all these questions, I reached my house. “Adrian.” I looked up and saw Tynice sitting on my doorstep.
“Tynice!” I engulfed her into my arms. “How are you? How’s your mom? I thought you left. Mary just told me that you left Williamsville.” I was blabbering.
“I am leaving, Adrian,” she said. I pushed her back enough so that I could see her face. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t teasing. She was serious. “I'm going to live with my grandparents.” She looked over my shoulder. I turned to see who she was looking at. That same car from earlier was there with a very grumpy old man tapping his foot impatiently.
“You're not going to come back, Tynice?” I asked her.
She just shook her head. “I came to say good bye to you,” she said. “I’ll miss you, Leggy.” Stepping away she gave me a sad smile.
“Tynice.” I looked at her with what felt like a solemn expression.
“Do follow your dreams, Leggy. Be a cowboy. A hot one,” she said as a stray tear left her eye.
“Oh, Tynice.” I closed the distance between us and hugged her again. The honk of the car horn made her stiffen and she pulled herself away.
“Goodbye, Adrian.” She wiped her tears away and turned to the opened back door of the car. And then she was gone. Tynice Johnson was gone from my life.
Tynice
June 2014, Springfield, Illinois
I dialed Kelly’s number as soon as I had checked into the hotel and had my luggage was sent to my room. “Good morning, Ms. Johnson.” The woman had some serious nerve. She knew what kind of a night I had and she still thought I could have a good morning. Well, you did have a good night. You were in Adrian’s bed. My subconscious threw a comment which I wisely ignored. I had no time to go into those details right now.
“Tell me you had a good talk with the rental car agency representative,” I said to her, making my way to the VIP lounge where my meeting was scheduled with Jason Parker’s ex-manager, Jack Tripoli, whom I had especially asked to meet up with for the Parker case.
“I did. They will refund the charges and are offering to provide you another ride, free of charge, during your stay in Illinois, Ms. Johnson.” Kelly said.
“Tell them I need a driver and the best of their damn cars. Have you mailed me the stats I asked about Parker’s assets?”
“Yeah, I sent it to you last evening.” Probably when I was driving to save my life.
“Alright. That’s it. Have David call me as soon as he comes in.” I ended the call and took a deep sigh before entering the lounge. Jack Tripoli wasn’t going to be an easy man. That much I had figured out because the man had refused to talk on the phone or fly down to Seattle long before the hearing was shifted to Illinois. So one way or another, I had to come to Springfield just to talk to this guy and I had a gut feeling he wasn’t going to be easy.
I was right. That man was as uptight as one could be. He was brusque and cold and he wasn’t keeping any reservations to show me that he wasn’t wailing to give me the answer I wanted. I spent a whole twenty minutes with Jack Tripoli and at eight fifty on the dot, while I was in middle of asking him if he knew why Jason excluded William from his will, he stood up and excused himself from the meeting, saying he had to be at his office. That too without saying anything about my question.
“Asshole!” I threw the napkin on the table and cursed. I had planned to get a few answers out of him about the reasons behind Jason and William’s cold relationship but I wasn’t sure if I had gotten anything out of this twe
nty-minute meeting except for his resentment over dragging the Parker family matter into the public eye.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath in and counted to five to gain my composure back and then released. “I’ll have another coffee, please. If you can send it up to my room, 9802,” I said to the waiter and then stuffed my tablet back into my briefcase and stood to leave.
* * *
My second meeting was with my client, Nancy Parker. One of my associates, Rick, had flown down to Springfield early this morning and was accompanying me to meet her. “Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for coming all the way here to Springfield,” she said to me as we sat in her lavishly decorated living room.
“That’s what you are paying me for, Ms. Parker,” I said, stowing my cell phone inside my briefcase after putting it on silent. Rick stood behind me.
“Please, call me Nancy.”
“Very well, Nancy. To start with, I asked you to call the maid who served Mr. Parker during his illness. Is she here?”
She nodded and then called, “Bree?”
A young girl entered the room. “Mistress Parker.”
“Bree, can you please call your mother?” The girl bowed her head and left the room from where she had entered. “Her mother was there with Father in his last days,” Nancy explained.
“Have they been working for you long?” I asked.
“Yes. Bree’s grandfather worked for my grandfather. They have been with our family since then.” Rick was making notes as I asked a few general questions of Nancy. After ten minutes, a middle-aged woman entered the room. She was short and had tan skin. Her hair was knotted in a braid. She greeted Nancy.
“Margaret, this is Tynice Johnson, she is my lawyer. She needs to ask you a few questions.”
“Questions?” The look on Margaret’s face was panicked as she looked at me with wide eyes. “What sort of questions, Mistress Nancy?” she asked Nancy.
“She wants to know about Father.” My eyes remained on Margaret’s face and the change of her face’s color didn’t go unnoticed from my eyes.
“What about him?”
I cleared my throat and then stood up. “How about you start from the days when you started taking care of him? When exactly was that?” I walked to where she was standing. She looked into my eyes and swallowed. “It…it was when he had a heart attack,” she said.
“And when was that?” I asked her.
“I already…” Nancy began to speak but I raised my hand to silence her. Margaret’s eyes traveled from my face to my raised hand and then back to me.
“So, Margaret, when was it that Mr. Parker suffered cardiac arrest?” I repeated.
“Uh, last fall or so. I don’t exactly remember the date, ma'am,” she said.
“Right. What about after that? What were your duties?” I questioned her further.
“I took care of his basic needs. Clothes, meals, etcetera.”
“Medicines too, I am sure?” I asked her and she nodded.
“Margaret, do you remember Mr. Parker talking to you about things? Like generally.”
“Uh… Yes. Some of the time.”
“What exactly, if you can remember?”
“He talked about his lady. Mistress Nancy’s mother.”
“That’s it? Nothing else.” I tilted my head a bit.
“Sometimes about Mistress Nancy as well. About her childhood times.” She glanced nervously at Nancy.
“And what about William? Did he talk about William?” Margaret’s face paled in fear. “Tell me Margaret. Did Mr. Parker talk about William during his days of illness?” I repeated with a bit of force this time.
“A… A few times,” she confessed.
“What exactly did he say, if you can remember?” I asked.
“He… he wasn’t very happy with Master William.” I drilled a few more answers out of her. She answered with reluctance but did give out the details when I probed. The last question I asked her was if William visited Mr. Parker in his last days or not. “A son’s got to meet his father when he is dying, milady.” She excused herself after that and left the room.
“She knows something, doesn’t she?” Rick asked me as we sat in the back of the Lexus CT200h. Yeah, that rental car agency had sent me a hybrid Lexus to make up for the other car with the faulty brakes.
“She definitely does. But if I had asked today, she wouldn’t have given us anything,” I said to him covering my eyes with my aviators.“Oh damn,” I cursed when I remembered that David was supposed to call me. I pulled out my phone and unlocked the screen. Five missed calls were waiting for me along with three messages. One of the calls was from David and the rest of them were from Zach. Shit, I had gotten so busy sometimes I forgot that I had a boyfriend as well. I ignored the texts and calls as I dialed David’s number.
“Heard you had a rough night, boss,” his words greeted me.
David and I went a long way back so we had more than just a lawyer and associate relationship. I briefed him about the meeting with Margaret in discreet words and told him about the brief encounter with Jack.
“Have you heard anything from Ramsey?” he asked me.
“Not until tomorrow.”
“Guess we got to pull out things from this maid too. Won’t be surprised if William had some role in the sudden death of Parker.” I ended the call with him a few minutes later and then opened the texts Zach had sent.
You said you’ll call once you're at hotel. I am still waiting for your call. Z.
The second one said:
Why is your phone off? I have been trying for twenty minutes.
And then the third one:
Tynice, are you okay?
I rolled my eyes at his messages and dialed his number. He picked at the second ring. “Tynice?”
“Hey.”
His voice was still hoarse from sleep. “I was worried about you. Where were you?”
“I had an unexpected night.” I didn’t want to burden Zach with the details of previous night. “My battery died so I couldn’t call you last night.”
“I'm glad you are okay. I miss you.” he said.
“I’m fine, Zach.”
“I guess I’ll let you do whatever you are doing.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.” I hung up and stared outside.
It was seven thirty when I finally made it back to my room. The day had gone hectic on me and now I wanted to get into a hot bubble bath and let all the tension of the day wash away. I dropped my briefcase and plugged my phone into the charger. Then I stripped out of my clothes and filled the bath tub with warm water and some extra bubbles. I relaxed into the welcoming water and then closed my eyes as my muscles began to let loose.
“Tynice.” I opened my eyes to see Adrian sitting on the edge of my bath tub.
“What…” I slipped more under the bubbles to cover my nakedness. Some parts of me jumped into ecstasy.
“Ssshh.” He placed his finger on my lips and all my tongue wanted was to taste it. I slapped down the urge. He stood up and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Adrian…” I began to say but as the shirt unveiled his chest, my eyes were on it. He had the most well-built and well-sculpted chest I had ever seen. He dropped his shirt on the floor and then his hand went to the metal buckle of his jeans and he snapped it open. I was no longer speaking, just mesmerized by his movements and his spectacular body. He shrugged out of his jeans and he was as naked as he was born. Oh my. I couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Move forward, Tynice. Give me some room too.” He said in a low husky voice and I moved forward in the tub robotically. He stepped in behind me and put his long legs against mine. I shivered as his legs touched mine and I was wet. Dripping wet. “Come.” His arm snaked under my arms to my stomach and he pulled me back against his chest.
“Adrian,” I started to speak again. I wanted to tell him to get out of here because that was the right thing to do but I found myself nuzzling against his shoulder because n
othing in the world had felt this right before.
“Tynice, I missed you.” He ran his nose along my shoulder and then pressed a kiss on the nape of my neck and I moaned. “Did you miss me, baby?” He traced his tongue along the length of my neck and then sucked my earlobe. Holy shit. He was sucking my earlobe. And it was totally hot. His hands roamed around me; on my stomach, my arms, my thighs.
“Adrian…” I moved up to his body and tilted my head to give him more access. And then I felt something hard on my back. Holy shit. He was hard for me. I had never been this turned on in my life. He was sucking my other earlobe and his finger was playing with my belly button, while his other hand was holding one of mine. I began to squirm.
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