26
NEWARK AIRPORT
8:05 P.M.
Tracee made sure to bring only a carry-on bag so she wouldn’t have to check any baggage and be more annoyed than she already was. The new federal rules at the airports were becoming tiresome. “Terrorism, smerrorism,” she thought when she had to take off her shoes for the third time before boarding Flight 812 to Newark from Orlando. That’s just why she stopped flying so much.
“Next time I’m taking Amtrak,” she thought. “They don’t even check your bags on the train, and I could get some sleep and not suck back all of the recycled, bad filtered air.”
Tracee walked through the airy, glass-enclosed Newark Airport, passed Sbarro’s and all of the lovely new shops along food row. She avoided the conveyor belts that carried the simply lazy from Point A to Point B. Since moving to Winter Garden, Tracee learned to appreciate staying fit. She tried to run three miles every day around the grounds inside her gated community. While Tracee had always had a nice shape, she was extra tight now between running and swimming in her pool.
She walked briskly past the baggage claim area out to the ground transportation area. Ritz had said she would meet her out front near the taxis, and said she had a surprise. Tracee grabbed her Motorola Razr out of her Coach bag.
The time on her phone read eight-twenty. Ritz was supposed to be there by eight-fifteen. Tracee checked to see if there were any messages on her phone. None. She was surprised that Ritz hadn’t called. She always called when she was running late—which was always. Tracee decided to call to check in. Tracee was sent straight to voice-mail. She left a message.
“Hey, girl. It’s me. My plane just landed and I don’t have any luggage so I’m outside waiting for you.”
Tracee looked up and down to see if she could spot Ritz’s new Aston Martin.
“Now, what color did she say it was?” Tracee tried to remember. “Peanut butter something. To match her hair? That fool!”
There was nothing remotely close to a peanut butter–colored Aston Martin in sight.
The air felt exceptionally cold to Tracee after coming from the eighty-degree Orlando weather that she was now accustomed to. She looked down at her Nike Shox, which she had bought at the Nike outlet. She was pleased that despite being cold her feet were completely comfortable.
“Maybe she forgot the terminal,” Tracee thought.
She quickly grabbed her cell phone again, remembering that she had turned it off to preserve whatever small amount of battery life she had left. Her phone beeped letting her know the SIM card had reestablished. Sure enough, there was a message.
“Hi, baby, this is Chas.” Tracee smiled when she heard the familiar voice, but he didn’t sound like himself. He sounded tired. “Tracee, I need you to take a cab to Sixty-eighth Street and York Avenue when you get this. Please call me when you arrive so I can meet you outside. I don’t want you to be any more up—” Tracee’s phone died.
She felt panic run through her body. A panic she hadn’t felt since her days at the record company. What was going on and where was she meeting Chas? And why? And where was Ritz?
Tracee picked up her large Coach sack and walked to the cab stand, got in line, and waited for the next cab. Before she got in, she asked the line attendant if they accepted credit cards. Tracee almost never carried cash. And because she expected Ritz to pick her up, she didn’t have a significant amount of cash on hand—at least not enough for the eighty-plus-dollar ride into Manhattan. Her grandmother’s advice would have come in handy, had she heeded it.
“Baby, I don’t care where you go or what you do. If you go out, make sure you have enough cash to get home. I know you like the plastic. But cash will always be king!”
Tracee stepped into the yellow cab. It was dank and smelly in the back.
“Do you take credit cards?” Tracee asked, just to verify.
“Sure, sure!” the cab driver responded in a strong West African accent. He asked where she was headed.
Tracee gave him the address and tried not to let her imagination get the better of her. “I’ll kill Ritz if she tries to have me up in some club as tired as I am.”
“What did you say, ma’am?”
“Oh, nothing,” Tracee said. “I was just thinking out loud. I’m really tired.”
“Well, you don’t look tired,” the cabbie said. “I don’t want you to think that I mean any harm, but you look beautiful.”
“Well, thank you, sir.” Tracee was drop-dead beautiful but never played the part. Most people thought her beauty started with her thousand-watt smile. Tracee was paper-bag brown with thick, naturally curly hair and beautiful almond-shaped eyes. The beauty didn’t stop at her face; her body was also perfect. She could body double for Janet Jackson—the fit Janet. The body Janet had on her “All for You” concert tour. Despite her adult gifts, Tracee had a childlike way about her that everyone loved. However, the most beautiful thing about Tracee came from the inside. It was rare to be a complete beauty.
Tracee wondered why Chas had sounded so serious. “There was truly a first time for everything,” she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
“We’re here, ma’am. Ma’am?”
“Oh, okay. Yes. Yes, okay,” Tracee said as she quickly opened her eyes and struggled to seem alert.
Tracee handed the cab driver her platinum American Express card and tried to figure out exactly where she was. The only thing across the street was a park and this building that looked like a hospital.
What was going on?
27
After the church meeting, Pastor Edwin Lakes returned to an empty home. His wife, Patricia had taken the kids and left. She was staying with Kim, who was more than happy to squeeze the Lakes family in with her own.
Patricia had told Edwin she needed some time and space to think. He didn’t argue. How could he? He had ruined her life, too. He lied to her by not telling her everything about his past. But what would he say: “Oh, yeah, by the way, before coming home to take over the ministry, I had a homosexual love affair that I really enjoyed but left because I needed to be responsible. I think about him from time to time and every now and then I even get an urge to explore that side of me again, but I pray about it and I pray about it and then I look at you and our children and those urges just go away.”
Maybe he could have gotten away with that. But more than likely Patricia would have never gotten involved with him in the first place. But maybe he should have told her anyway. Maybe.
Edwin sat in the family room. It was his favorite spot in the four-thousand-square-foot home in Millburn, New Jersey. The family room was just off the kitchen, and he could eat and watch videos with his wife and kids and fall asleep on the plush sectional. He loved to cook and he loved to eat and he loved spending time with his family.
Edwin designed the home and paid extra-special attention to the family room and kitchen. He wanted that space to be almost seamless. The kitchen had a Jenn-Air stove with a built-in grill, where he loved grilling burgers and salmon steaks. There was an island in the middle of the kitchen with a warm granite top and bar stools with matching stools at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the family room. He loved to gather with his wife there with four-year-old Edwin III at the table and little eighteen-month-old Ashley in her high chair as they talked over waffles and sausages.
Edwin didn’t feel much like eating. And he didn’t feel like going upstairs to the empty bedroom, either. So he plopped onto the sectional, grabbed the remote, and started flicking.
He sat there feeling really low. The UPN 9 News came on and Brenda Blackmon had a special report: “New York shock jock Ritz Harper has been gunned down on Park Avenue. She’s in critical condition. There are no suspects. Police are investigating.”
Edwin was stunned.
Brenda Blackmon kicked it to a reporter who was outside of the hospital. It seemed like a circus atmosphere. According to the reporter, they didn’t know whether she had survived the shoo
ting.
Edwin sat on his sectional and said a silent prayer for Ritz Harper. As angry as he was at Ritz and Ivan, he asked God to forgive Ivan and he prayed that Ritz would survive.
“I believe there is hope for her, Lord.”
28
Delilah Summers was curled up in a California king-size bed with her Pottery Barn faux-sheepskin blanket covering her. Since she lost her job two years ago, she found it hard to get out of the house and, on most days, even her bed. Making the television millions for all of those years left Delilah with more than enough money to live for the rest of her life simply vegging out. But she wanted to get back in the game. More than anything, she wanted to get back at Ritz Harper.
It was because of that “bitch” (which was the only way Delilah would refer to Ritz now) that she had lost the job she absolutely loved. She lost her career. Delilah Summers lost her life.
“That fucking bitch!” was the constant thought that Delilah had playing over and over and over again. “She will get hers!”
Delilah actually hadn’t spent the entire time in bed. She had been plotting, planning, orchestrating her next move. She was too smart and too savvy to be down forever, and she understood a few things about her business. The most important thing: Everyone can make a comeback.
They—the media and the people—loved to build you up and knock you down. On the other side of that equation: They loved to see a comeback. They loved to see Vanessa Williams lose her Miss America crown because of those Penthouse pictures only to come back to be a huge star in music and film. They loved to see Halle Berry get caught in a hit-and-run scandal and failed marriages only to come back and win an Oscar. They loved to see Martha Stewart become the first female billionaire in America, get caught lying to the feds, and go to jail only to come back to see her business return to its old glory.
“Delilah Summers will be back!” she told herself every day. “And Ritz Harper will have her day, too.”
Revenge seemed to be the only thing keeping Delilah Summers afloat, that and a good accountant who had invested her money so wisely that she could maintain her multimillion-dollar penthouse on the Upper West Side of Manhattan without one shred of worry.
Delilah might have lost many of her so-called friends following the scandal uncovered by Ritz Harper. But no one really had any friends in her business. She did, though, have a few favors owed to her, and it was time to call them in.
Delilah had gained about fifteen pounds. She knew she would have to get off her ass and get back into the race soon.
“I’ll start my diet next week,” she reasoned.
Until then, her nightstand was piled high with empty Häagen-Dazs containers, empty potato chip bags, bottles of Pepsi and Arizona Iced Tea. She propped herself up on three pillows and settled in to watch the twenty-four-hour news programs on Fox, MSNBC, and CNN. She was a news junkie still and missed being at the center of it all.
“I’ll be back!”
CNN had a news flash: “Radio personality Ritz Harper has been shot. It is unknown whether she has survived, but according to our sources, she was shot four times. Stay tuned for further details as we get them.”
Delilah grabbed a sheet of paper from under a bottle of Pepsi on her nightstand. The paper had a list with numbers next to them. Delilah grabbed a pen and put a line through the first item on her list.
“One down, five more to go,” she whispered to herself as a huge smile crossed her face.
29
The cab driver gave Tracee her card back but before he could get out to open the door for her, she was out and striding toward the hospital. The cab driver blew his horn and sped away but Tracee hadn’t noticed. She looked up and down the street hoping to see Ritz or Chas, but all she saw were a lot of television trucks and what looked like paparazzi huddled around the emergency room entrance. Tracee felt uncontrollable heat rising from her neck. She knew the evening would not end without a migraine.
Tracee walked past the press and into the hospital, straight to the security station. She didn’t know what to say or what to ask the hospital security. She was lost.
“Can I help you?” the attendant asked.
Tracee’s voice cracked but she was able to finally get the words out. “I don’t know. I’m looking for a friend. I’m not sure what he’s wearing but he’s a tall black man and, and . . .”
Tracee felt crazy. This was not at all what she planned for this trip.
“Tracee! Tracee!” It was Chas.
“What’s going on?!”
“Ritz. She’s been shot. I don’t know how many times. I don’t know what her status is. I don’t know anything really. Now you know as much as I do.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God! No!” Tracee was practically screaming at the top of her lungs. Chas pulled her into his arms and she cried uncontrollably. Chas rested his chin on the top of her head, holding her tight for his own comfort as well as hers.
A redheaded doctor walked out of ER and over to the nurses’ station. The emergency room nurse pointed to Chas, and Chas didn’t wait for an invitation to walk over. Tracee was right beside him holding him hard.
“Are you the brother of Jane Doe?”
Ritz was originally listed as a Jane Doe because she had no identification on her when she arrived in the ambulance. The media knew she was Ritz Harper because an eyewitness called it in. But she had not been officially identified. Her fifteen-thousand-dollar bag had been stolen along with her Gucci frames and her new diamond ring.
“Jane Doe?”
“Yes. The young woman arrived here with no identification and just the clothes on her back.”
“Her name is Ritz Harper. Ritz Harper,” Chas said.
“It would help if I can ask you about her medical history so we can know if there are any precautions we should take or if there are any allergies to any medication,” said the doctor. “Right now I can tell you that she is in critical condition. She was shot three times—once in the shoulder, once in the chest, which punctured a lung, and the last bullet passed through her side. Right now the only thing we can do is wait and pray.”
Tracee began to cry again and ask why.
“Can we see her?” Chas asked.
The doctor led Tracee and Chas to the ICU. They were able to stand outside the glass and look at her.
“Why is her head bandaged?” Tracee managed to get out between sniffles.
“She seems to have suffered a concussion and a huge gash when her head hit the concrete.
Ritz looked not only like had she been shot but she also resembled Mike Tyson after his fight with Lennox Lewis. Her eyes were swollen closed and tubes seemed to be coming from every part of her body.
Tracee’s stomach lurched; she had to leave immediately. Chas turned to the doctor and said they would be back.
Tracee and Chas went to the family lounge. Tracee needed to sit before she fell. A migraine had started to work its way through her head, shredding her frayed nerves to pieces.
“Chas, who could have done this?”
“Tracee, take your pick on that one,” he said. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“I can’t believe this!” she said. “I never thought people would take what Ritz does for more than entertainment.”
“Tracee, what Ritz says on the radio is as serious as the stuff that killed Tupac and Biggie,” Chas said.
“Oh, no!” Tracee said. “Did you call Ritz’s aunt and uncle?”
“I don’t even have a number for them.”
“I’ll call them. I just hope that they get the news from me and not from the television.”
The doctor told Chas and Tracee that there wasn’t much for them to do at the hospital, and he advised them to go home. But Tracee wasn’t leaving Ritz. She and Chas went outside to get some fresh air and were met by a throng of reporters from every major newspaper, magazine, supermarket tabloid, and television news outlet.
With the lack of concrete news, it was turning into a media feedi
ng frenzy. Everyone was trying to be the first with the next update.
“Excuse me! Did you say her parents are on vacation?” said one NY-1 reporter who had managed to sneak inside and was standing behind Tracee and Chas the whole time, eavesdropping. It took every ounce of strength for Tracee not to slap the shit out of her.
Seeing Tracee’s anger, the reporter moved away without asking another question. Chas grabbed Tracee’s arm and ushered her back to the lounge area.
As they sat waiting, a tall, handsome man in a nicely fitted suit walked over to them with authority. “You two come with me.”
“Who are you?” Tracee asked, worried.
“Please, ma’am, I’ll tell you everything, just come with me.”
Detective Tom Pelov walked briskly down the corridor with Chas and Tracee. They went through two large white doors. Beyond the door there was little movement except for the occasional passing of a nurse. Pelov stopped and introduced himself.
“My name is Detective Pelov. I’m with homicide, and I have been assigned to this case.”
Tracee screamed.
Acknowledgments
I am going to keep this simple. I want to thank my husband, Kevin, and my son, Kevin, who give me a reason to keep doing what I’m doing. To my mother, father, sister, and brother, who are always there for me, I love you very much.
Thanks to Steve Lindsey, who keeps me fab-u-lous!
Thanks to my very competent and wonderful writing partner and friend, Karen Hunter.
Thanks to everyone at Harlem Moon/Broadway for believing in Ritz Harper and making it happen.
And last but not least, I want to thank my radio fans for staying with me this long and for embracing my fertile imagination. I love you all for listening . . . and now reading!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
WENDY WILLIAMS, a top-rated syndicated radio host, has published two New York Times bestsellers—Wendy’s Got the Heat and The Wendy Williams Experience. In addition to her books and radio show, she also hosts a television show on VH1. Wendy lives in New Jersey with her husband, Kevin, and their son. This is her debut novel.
Drama Is Her Middle Name Page 15