by King, Deja
“Estelle should be down in a minute, she can get you whatever you want.”
“Water would be fine, do we need to wait on the maid for me to get that?”
“If you want it then yes. That is her job.”
“Of course.”
“We have a lot of things to do so what exactly did you want to speak to Justina about?”
“For one I wanted to see how she was doing. Justina, I haven’t seen you since you first got out of the hospital. You look great.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m concerned about you. It must be difficult accusing your best friend of murder and trying to take your life too.” Justina remained nonresponsive and Chantal rubbed her hand as if to console her. “What did Aaliyah say to you before she shot you?”
“Huh!” Justina looked up at me for the first time and her eyes widened as if surprised by my question. “What did Aaliyah say before she pulled the trigger? I’m sure she said something . . . like why she wanted you dead.”
“I don’t remember. It all happened so fast.”
“I understand. You probably went into shock.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So did she kill Sway first and then shoot you or did she shoot you first?”
“She shot me first, I mean Sway and then me,” she said shaking her head.
“What are you doing . . . trying to cross examine y daughter?”
“Of course not. I’m just trying to understand what happened. Aaliyah and Justina were best friends, how did that turn into attempted murder. It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe if I knew what Aaliyah said right before she tried to kill you I would get a better understanding.”
“I don’t remember what she said right before she shot me. But we were arguing earlier about Amir.”
“As you know, your daughter was trying to get Justina’s boyfriend in bed. What type of best friend is that?” Chantal snarled.
“Speaking of boyfriends, why were you in Aaliyah’s boyfriend’s hotel room?” I countered, ignoring Chantal’s comment.
“Sway invited me.”
“So what were you doing when she shot Sway?”
“I told you I don’t remember. All I know is we argued about Amir. “
“So you’re saying that you believe Aaliyah tried to kill you because of Amir?”
“That’s exactly what she’s saying,” Chantal barked, answering for her daughter. “Is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Yes it is. As a matter of fact I don’t believe it at all.”
“Are you calling my daughter a liar?”
“Justina, isn’t it true that Amir wanted to be with Aaliyah too so why would she need to get rid of you. You weren’t the competition.”
“You liar! Amir is committed to Justina.”
“Am I lying, Justina? Why don’t you tell your mother the truth?”
“I know the truth. Like mother like daughter. The same way you think you’re entitled to anything you want, Precious, your spoiled daughter feels the same way. But this time Aaliyah couldn’t get what she wanted. Amir chose Justina and Aaliyah couldn’t handle it.”
“So if it was about Amir, why kill Sway?” Silence loomed, as neither had an answer.
“Would you stop grilling my daughter?”Only if you stop speaking for her and let her answer the questions.”
“She’s my child. I have every right to speak for her.”
“If she’s grown enough to accuse Aaliyah of murder then she’s grown enough to answer some simple questions.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“I’ll leave but trust you’re not getting rid of me.” I turned to Justina who was trying to maintain her sweet and innocent demeanor. “Justina, you may have your mother and father fooled and even the prosecutor but I know how to spot a snake. See you remind me a lot of someone I know. My ister Maya.”
“How dare you! Justina is nothing like that twisted woman.”
“But she is. Just like Maya wanted to walk in my shoes and take my life that’s exactly what you’re trying to do to Aaliyah but you’ve picked the wrong girl. Aaliyah is my daughter and I promise you’ll never get away with this. Check my stats, I am not to be fucked with.”
“How dare you speak to my daughter like that! You’re nothing but a lowlife hoodrat.”
“Chantal, shut the fuck up. I know all about your past. The fake suicide attempt, spending your entire pathetic life scheming and scamming for a come up with a man. You finally lucked up and hit the jackpot with T-Roc but you’re still a miserable bitch who raised a miserable daughter. So call me a hoodrat if you like but this Brooklyn Bitch is going to bring your daughter down and if you get in my way I’ll take yo’ ass down too. Now I’m leaving,” I spit, grabbing my purse and making an exit.
After I slammed the door, I turned around tempted to go back inside and slaughter mother and daughter but I knew this wasn’t the time for me to be sitting in a cell next to Aaliyah. What I also knew was not only was Justina lying but I believed she knew a lot more than what she was letting on, now I had to figure out how to prove it. As I got in my car I felt my phone vibrating and it as Quentin.
“Hey, Quentin, what’s going on?”
“Are you home? I wanted to stop by and talk to you about something important.”
“Actually I’m leaving Chantal’s house. I just had an interesting conversation with her and Justina.”
“Don’t they live near Nico?”
“Yes, only about fifteen minutes away.”
“Then meet me at Nico’s place. I can discuss this with both of you at the same time.”
“I’m on my way.” Before I hung up with Quentin I saw Lorenzo beeping on the other line but I ignored his call. Part of me wanted to hear his voice because I knew he would say all the right things to make me feel better but that feeling would only last for a moment. Since beginning my affair with Lorenzo almost a year ago he had become my ultimate high and also represented how low things had become in my life. With all the chaos surrounding me right now Lorenzo would only be a distraction I didn’t need.
Between thinking about Lorenzo, replaying the conversation I had with Chantal and Justina, and wondering what the hell Quentin had to talk to us about, I seemed to arrive at Nico’s estate in a matter of a few minutes. When I turned onto Frick Drive, the first thing I noticed when I pulled up was there wasn’t a security guard posted in the front and the gate was open. I figured they were in the middle of a shift change and I continued on the long spiral heated stone driveway until I reached the colonial styled mansion. Nico and Quentin were standing out front when I arrived so I wasted no time walking towards them.
“I hope you all haven’t started without me because I’ll be pissed if you have.” I gave a slight smile, letting them know I wasn’t completely serious but a tad bit.
“No, we were discussing some other business until you got here. But I must say that was rather fast,” Quentin commented after eyeing his watch.
“You know I like to speed plus I was anxious to find out what you needed to tell us.” I paused and looked at Nico realizing I hadn’t spoken. “How are you?”
“I’ve seen much better days that’s for sure.”
“Besides everything that’s going on with our daughter is there something else bothering you?”
“Business is extremely shaky right now but we can talk about that later. I want to hear what Quentin has to tell us, but let’s go inside. It looks like it’s about to start pouring down,” Nico commented, looking up at the dark clouds that were forming in the sky.
“A little water has never hurt anybody,” I giggled, following Nico and Quentin inside. Entering Nico’s crib always felt like the first time to e and my initial thought was this place is too fuckin’ beautiful for him to be living here alone. Nico lived in the nation’s wealthiest zip code at least according to the Forbes list. Whether true or not, his 20,000 sq. ft. American masterpiece was the quintessential Alpine estate. We ended up
in the banquet-sized dining room and before we even sat down Quentin cut right to it.
“Nico, remember when I told you I had a close associate investigating some leads into Aaliyah’s case?” Nico nodded his head. “Well he came back with some very interesting information.”
“Like what?” I quickly asked. Feeling some sort of hope an emotion that had been eluding me for some time.
“Since we know Aaliyah wasn’t the shooter, whoever was, got into that hotel room without damaging the door. I figured nobody let them in so they must’ve had a key. That means they had some inside help. I had him run a check on everybody that was working that night.”
“And what did he come up with?” Nico questioned, leaning forward on the black marble table.
“Three people piqued his interest but one person stood out in particular.”
“Why?”
“After checking her bank records and speaking to a few people that live in her building, she went from barely being able to pay her rent each month to having new furniture delivered to her apartment, wearing designer clothes, shoes, purses, and for the last four months sizeable deposits being made into her bank account.”
“Get the fuck outta here! Does she still work for the hotel?” I asked as my heart raced believing that finally we found a lead.
“She quit a little over a month ago. Not that she’s needed the job. I believe she was trying to play it safe not to raise suspicion. But now after all these months have passed she feels it’s no longer necessary to keep up the charade.”
“So what is she doing now?”
“My guy has been on her day and night for the last week. He wanted to see if she would meet up with whoever is involved with the shooting. But no such luck. All she’s been doing is shopping, partying and going out to eat with her friends. She’s living her life like she ain’t got a care in the world.”
“All while Aaliyah has been sittin’ in jail for months. Yeah, somebody’s paying that ass off real good for the service she provided and it ain’t no sugar daddy. If we find out who that is I guarantee it’ll point to our shooter.”
“Were you able to trace the account to see where the money is coming from?” Nico wanted to know and so did I.
“Whoever is making the deposits is using cash and there’s no way for us to trace. We’ve checked er cell phone records and if she’s in contact with the person they using bullshit or throwaway phones to talk.”
“So what are we gonna do? Aaliyah goes to trial in a few weeks and shit is critical right now! I would say let’s take this information to the cops but I know they’ll fuck this shit up.”
“You damn right! They have it out for Aaliyah. They believe she’s the perp and they ain’t tryna hear nothing else.”
“Yeah, thanks to Justina and after my conversation with her today she has no plans to change her story. I swear I wanted to fuck her and her mother up today.”
“I still don’t understand how Justina could lie on Aaliyah like that. They were best friends. They practically grew up together. You know how many times she has spent the night at this house with her. I mean damn. I treated that girl like she was my own daughter and for her to turn on Aaliyah . . . I’ll never understand.”
“Nico, its called jealousy and it makes people do some fucked up shit. Justina has always been jealous of Aaliyah but that Amir situation just sent her over the edge. The one thing she felt she had that Aaliyah didn’t was Amir. When she found out they had feelings for each other all bets were off. Somehow in her twisted mind she thought if she blamed the shooting on Aaliyah she could get rid of the competition for good and Amir would be all hers.”
“You telling me that she’s ruining our daughter’s life for some boyfriend shit? These young kids today, I just don’t understand.” Nico shook his head in disbelief.
“Listen,” Quentin spoke up wanting our full attention. “I think it’s time we confront this woman. I think we can all agree the cops won’t be any benefit to us right now. Technically this woman is an accessory to murder. She’s not going to willingly admit to anything because she could be facing a shit load of time behind bars. But we just need to let her know we’re not interested in turning her in. All we want is a name and we’ll handle it from there and leave her out of it.”
“Sounds like a plan. Where does she live?” I waited for Quentin to give us the address and I put it in my phone. “You all ready to go now?”
“Hold up. My guy is keeping tabs on her and right now she’s not home. He’s going to call me as soon as she’s on her way back to her apartment. We want to catch her when she’s alone. As soon as he calls me, I’ll call the two of you so be on alert.”
“Let’s do this. I’m headed to Manhattan right now. I got the address, I’ll be sitting right in front of her apartment building until you tell me we can go in,” I said, grabbing my car keys off the table. I was anxious to confront the woman and couldn’t et across the bridge fast enough.
“I’m with you, let’s go,” Nico chimed in. “Precious, you can leave your car here and ride with me.”
“That’ll work.”
“I should be calling you within the next hour or so with an update. Then I’ll head into the city and meet up with you at the apartment.”
“We’ll be waiting for your call, but Quentin, the moment you hear anything hit us up. I want to be aware of everything that’s going on. I wish you would’ve came to us sooner with this information.”
“Nico, I didn’t want to get you all’s hopes up if this turned out to be a dead end. I wanted my investigator to get some sort of concrete proof that this woman was somehow involved before bringing it to you and Precious and that took time.”
“I get that but I could’ve had some of my security men following her too. Or checking on some things your man might’ve missed.” Nico paused in the middle of the all white marble foyer locking eyes with Quentin before he continued to vent, “I know you mean well but this is my daughter and this is her life we’re talking about. She’s been sitting in a jail cell for months and if somebody can get her the fuck out then we need as many people on it as possible. I got plenty of security men that need some shit to do,” Nico popped as he opened the front door, stepping to the
“Speaking of security, I noticed you didn’t have any at the front gate when I was pulling in.”
“You sure about that?” Nico asked with a quizzical stare. “So how did you get in then?”
“The gates were open?”
“Get the fuck outta here! You telling me these muthafuckas bullshitting on the job . . . slack ass niggas.”
“I thought maybe they were between shifts.”
“Nah, two men supposed to be posted up at the gate at all times,” Nico barked looking down at his watch and then getting on his cell phone. “Hold up, let me see what these clowns are doing before we leave.”
“Precious, I’ll be in touch shortly. Let me go handle a couple things before I meet you all in the city,” Quentin said, before heading to his car. But right as he turned to leave it was as if a hail of bullets replaced the rain falling from the sky.
It seemed everything went blank in less than thirty seconds. Within a few moments I saw two
Suburban trucks pull up with men wearing black skimask spraying shit up. Normally in these situations time would seem to stand still as the chaos erupts around you because you’re in shock but shit was moving extra fast like I was pressing the expedite button. It was like boom the sounds of machine guns were filling the air, then boom Nico grabbed a gun from the back of his slacks and some of his security men came running out the house blasting off and then boom I was out cold.
The next thing I remember was my chest feeling weighted down and I was having difficulty breathing. Then I felt this excruciating pain on the back of my head, as my eyes tried to open. But my eyelids were heavy and kept shutting back close as I was fighting to open them up. The rain was coming down on me and between the thunder and lightning I heard a faint
voice speaking but all I could understand was they were calling out my name. As I struggled to gain some sort of balance I kept thinking I must’ve been shot, that’s why my chest felt like a ton of bricks was weighing down on it.
“Precious, are you okay?” I heard the voice call out again but this time I recognized it, it was Nico. I tried to mumble something but it didn’t come out as clearly as I hoped. I tried to relax my mind and body and I finally managed to keep my eyes open for longer than a second and I was horrified by what I saw. Quentin, my father was the heavy load I felt on my chest. His body was on top of mine and he wasn’t moving. I could see the blood pouring down around us mixed with rain.
“Precious, stay calm. The paramedics will be here any minute. Are you hurt . . . were you shot?”
“I think I’m okay. What about Quentin?’
“He’s not responding but I can feel a slight pulse.” To my relief I could hear the ambulance getting closer. There was still a chance to save Quentin and I was praying they were able to do that. Nico held my hand as my eyes began to close again. My head was throbbing and the pain was excruciating. Before I could say another word it was lights out for me.
Aaliyah
I kept rereading the last letter Amir had wrote me. I was looking for clues that he was ready to abandon me like he did a couple of days ago but there were none. The letter was upbeat, sweet and full of hope, something he took away from me in a matter of one conversation.
“What you reading?” my cellmate asked me as she was getting her stuff together.
“Oh nothing,” I said balling up the letter and tossing it on the floor. “I know you’re excited to be getting the hell out of here,” I smiled, wanting to get Amir off my mind if only for a few minutes.
“You know it, girly! I’m so over this dump. I can’t wait to get back on these streets where I belong and make that money.”
“Well I hope you have a plan.”
“Of course! I already got shit lined up. My people got me setup lovely,” she bragged.
“Good for you! I want things to work out ‘cause I def don’t want to see you back up in here.”
