“Wow, I wasn’t sure you knew, and I didn’t want to bring it up if he hadn’t.”
“Heck, he even told me he’d planned to kill you.” She started laughing, but I guess she could tell by the look on my face that she’d gone too far.
“He tried to kill me?”
“Oh, shit.”
I didn’t know Mrs. Ramsey well, but I did know enough to know she rarely cussed. “Wait, I don’t understand. Is that some kind of a joke because if it is, it isn’t funny.” I was ready to kick her and her husband out of my house. I didn’t care who she was, she had to go.
“Damn, my husband said my mouth was going to be the death of me, and that I wasn’t capable of holding water. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I should have let Moses be the one to tell you.”
“What are you talking about? Why would Moses want to kill me? And more importantly, why did you find it funny?” It took everything in me not to haul off and smack his mother. Moses on the other hand would not get off so lightly. I was going to call that motherfucker and tell him to kiss my ass. Me and my baby would be gone by the time he got home from work.
“Hold on, before you run off half-cocked, let me explain. When Moses first told me what he’d planned, I was as outraged as you are. However, he wasn’t thinking clearly. Tilo had messed up his mind, and that is the main reason he is so intent on finding her.”
“Here we fucking go again. What the fuck does Tilo have to do with this? You know what’s wrong with me? I’m so frigging tired of hearing that woman’s name every single day! To hear y’all tell it, she is the devil herself. I don’t think so.”
“I don’t know Tilo from a can of paint, but she is responsible for putting the idea of killing you on Moses’ mind. She had him believing that you played him and suckered him into a relationship. She told him the baby wasn’t his and that you were lying the entire time.”
“She did what? She didn’t even know me.” I didn’t know who I was madder at, Moses or Tilo.
“I know it sounds crazy, but she convinced him to shoot something into your IV at the hospital, and he honestly thought he’d killed you. He regretted it right away. But once he did it, he couldn’t take it back. But Tilo tricked him, she didn’t give him a drug to kill you, it may have been water in the syringe for all he knows. She did plant enough doubt and hatred in his heart to make him want to do you harm. He told me that when he found out you were alive it was the happiest day of his life, but he was so scared he’d lose you if he ever told you the truth.”
I sat back down. This was a lot to dump on a person at one time, and I felt like my head was about to bust with the implications. How could I ever trust my husband again, especially if he allowed a total stranger to convince him to commit murder? Shit, what was he going to do if I did something else to piss him off? Would he kill me in my sleep? And how could any of them rest at night knowing he was capable of murder? This whole family was nuts and I wanted to get as far away from them as I could. It was perfectly clear to me that I didn’t even know my husband at all.
“I can’t deal with this. Moses was right. I can’t live looking over my shoulder and not knowing if and when it’s going to be my last day on earth.”
“Child, none of us know if this is our last day on earth. That was what I was trying to say to you earlier. God doesn’t promise us anything when it comes to that. When He’s ready to call us home, He’ll call. The love Moses has for you prevailed, so please don’t do anything foolish now.”
“Foolish, are you kidding me? You just told me that the man I’m married to tried to kill me. That’s not like saying I got a booger hanging out of my nose. He wanted me dead, and I take offense to that.” Tears were practically blinding me. As I struggled to leave the room, Mrs. Ramsey grabbed me.
“Stop, Verónica, I thought for sure that Moses would have told you by now. That boy picked a fine time to listen to me. I normally don’t like secrets in a marriage, but this was an exception to the rule. He really didn’t want to kill you. Believe me. It’s not in his nature, but he was so upset when he thought LM wasn’t his. I told him that if he really loved you, he was going to have to accept your son as part of the package. But when I saw the pictures of LM, I encouraged him to get a DNA test because he looked just like Moses when he was born.”
I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach and busted in the head at the same time. Moses had my son tested without my knowledge or permission? Who the fuck did this motherfucker think he was? I broke free of Mrs. Ramsey’s arms and raced to the door. It was high time I had a conversation with my soon-to-be ex-husband, and it would be best not to have this conversation in front of his parents.
“Verónica, where are you going? Oh God, you didn’t know about that either? Me and my big mouth. Honey, I am so sorry. Seems like I’m doing more harm than good.” Mrs. Ramsey was also crying. She knew she said more than she should have. Whatever the case, it had nothing to do with me.
“I need to have a conversation with your son. In fact, I think it’s long overdue.”
“You shouldn’t be out there driving when you’re this emotional. Why don’t you wait until you’ve had a chance to calm down?”
“No, I need to go now. It won’t take me long to say what I have to say.” I slammed the door behind me as I fished around in my purse for my keys. At a time when things were finally falling into place for us, I learned this. This explained the changes I’d noticed in Moses’ behavior. I reached in my purse for my cell phone to call my sister. I was hoping that she would be my voice of reason, especially since she was the most cynical person I knew. She would give me her honest opinion whether I asked for it or not, but she didn’t answer her phone. It went straight to voice mail. I tried to sit still for a minute so she wouldn’t be able to tell I’d been crying from the sound of my voice.
A little voice in the back of my mind urged me to go back in the house. If Moses had felt strongly enough to want to kill me, what would his mother do to my son, who was incapable of defending himself? I gave her a smoldering look when I walked back through the door. “Are you going to be okay with my son or should I take him with me?”
“Verónica, you are blowing this out of proportion. Moses loves you very much and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize what you have together.”
“I wasn’t speaking of Moses, I was speaking of you. You saw fit to keep this horrid secret, so now I have to question your motives as well.” A look that could only be described as indignation crossed her face, but if anyone should have been indignant, it should’ve been me.
Her mouth fell open and snapped shut again. She repeated this several times before she was able to get the words out she wanted to say. “I know you’re upset and that’s completely understandable, but this also sounds much worse than it is. He really does love you; and, yeah, he had a fucked-up way of showing it because he wasn’t thinking straight. None of you were.”
She made a valid point, and if I allowed myself to sit back and think about it, I’d probably even agree with her, but right now I was filled with a blinding rage. I remembered all of the sleepless nights I suffered through trying to figure out why Moses was so distant toward me. It tore my heart out every time he walked past our son and never picked him up or offered to play with him. The whole time I thought it was me, and it pissed me off to learn that he was the one with the problem.
So many emotions were flowing through me. I was confused as to what I was supposed to be doing. How could I ever forgive and forget his plan to kill me?
“Honey, shut the door. I really botched this whole thing. I can see it in your eyes. You are looking at me like I’m the enemy. If you give us all a chance, you will see for yourself how much we love you.”
I wanted to trust her. I needed to trust her because if I didn’t, then it would have meant everything was a lie and I refused to believe it, but something in the back of my head was warning me to tread lightly. I searched Mrs. Ramsey’s face and I saw her sincerity. She may ha
ve been guilty of withholding the truth from me, but I honestly believed she did it out of love. I was no longer afraid to leave my child in her care. I could feel her pain and her sincerity she had for me and my son. “I’m fine, but I would still like to go to my husband’s office to speak with him. I cannot allow something this big to go unaddressed. Please do not call him and let him know I’m coming. Will you please do that for me?” If she failed this little test, I would know not to trust any of them again.
“He will be fine. Go handle your business, but try to remember what I said, he does love you.” I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, but I held on to the small hope it was me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
TILO ADAMS
I woke from another crazy-ass dream—soaked with sweat—but this time it wasn’t Victória standing over me with a gun pointed at my head, it was Moses. His face was fiery, his eyes sharp as laser beams aimed at my heart. When I woke from the dream, I was shaking so badly, I wasn’t even able to make it to the bathroom. I peed right in the bed and sank back onto the soiled sheets, too tired to get out of my own piss.
“This shit is getting old.” My voice was hoarse; it felt like I’d been screaming for a very long time. Almost like when you go to a sporting event and your favorite team is winning. My body was beaten down and broken. I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since the murders, and I wasn’t eating. Every time I forced myself to eat something I threw it up in a matter of hours.
“I can’t keep doing this to myself. I’ve got to find a way to deal with this shit and keep it moving, or I might as well roll over on my damn self.”
I’d been having this same conversation with myself for months, but nothing was changing. I thought things would get better for me once I left Atlanta behind but that wasn’t working. I was also beginning to believe no amount of money was worth this shit. I’d much rather be broke and happy than wealthy and miserable any day.
“Get over it, bitch. It ain’t like you could give the shit back and things would magically go back to the way they were.” More and more I found myself talking aloud to myself, and sadly I was answering. The fact that I changed the face of an entire family and the inability to talk to anyone about it was slowly driving me insane.
“Fuck you. Why didn’t you think about this shit before you pulled the fucking trigger? There were other ways to handle it.”
“How? How the fuck do you steal money out of someone’s hand and get the fuck away? Oh, did I forget to mention they knew who the fuck you were?”
“Uh, we could have—”
“Bitch, please, you can’t even get the thought out of your mouth. That’s how stupid you sound right now. You and I both know that shit wouldn’t work. We had to shut the door on the investigation because the bureau wasn’t going to claim involvement. Killing them closed the investigation and you know it. There was no other way, trust and believe that.”
I leaned forward and placed my head in my hands, trying to calm the beating drum inside my head. Fragments of conversations would flicker in and out like tiny light bulbs in my head. I needed for the voices and the visions to stop. I knew that what I was feeling wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
“So what do you want to do about it? Go to some shrink and confess all of our sins? They’ll lock our asses up in a New York minute.” I started laughing. The irony of the statement was that I was in New York, and this was one city where it was okay to walk around talking to yourself because nobody cared. From what I’d seen on television, the people were so busy getting from place to place, they didn’t take time to see one another. This realization fueled me into getting up.
“I can be anyone I want to be in New York. Shit, I’m going fucking shopping.” I rose from the wet bed, my panties clinging to me like a second layer of skin. As I walked past the mirror, I avoided eye contact. Despite my new look, I didn’t enjoy looking at myself, not anymore. I turned on the shower, tossing my wet clothing in the trash. I had soiled so many clothes, shopping was not a want, it was a necessity because I was down to my last few pairs of panties. I turned on the water as hot as I could stand it and entered the shower, but no matter how hard I scrubbed, I could not undo my past.
I left the shower feeling rejuvenated and eager to cast aside my demons once and for all. My biggest threat was Moses. Although I didn’t think he would come for me, I had to be certain.
“Rome, can you talk?” I was using another disposable phone, which I planned to throw away once I received confirmation.
“Yeah, what’s up?” His voice was low as if he were trying to keep our conversation on the down low.
I immediately got suspicious and paranoid. It was becoming increasingly difficult to determine which emotion reigned supreme in my head. “Motherfucker, are you tryin’ to play me?” I demanded.
“Hold up, what the hell are you talking about? I ain’t got time for no bullshit.” Rome snapped back with a fire I’d never heard in his voice when he spoke to me.
This little bitch didn’t know who he was fucking with, and if he didn’t recognize it, I had no problem with writing another chapter to his life—the ending. “Bullshit? I think you’d better check yourself, motherfucker. I’m not the one. Why the fuck were you whispering?” Infused with anger, I hated the fact that cities separated us instead of miles because I would have handled his ass.
“Because I was in a motherfucking elevator and I didn’t want everybody listening to my fucking conversation.”
Damn, instead of me checking him, he checked my ass. I struggled for something to say after he reminded me that he wasn’t sitting on his ass waiting for me to call. “What’s the deal with the package you were handling?” I decided not to mention Moses to him. He had reason to suspect my judgment now, and I didn’t want to put the nail in my own coffin.
“Uh—”
“What the fuck does that mean? Either you did or you didn’t. It’s a simple motherfucking question.” I was heated again.
“Look, shit is kind of crazy around here. The narcs and Feds are everywhere so I don’t really have an answer for you.”
“And, what are you telling me?” I tried hard to keep the rage I felt racing through my blood out of my voice.
“I got the stuff, but I’m trying to figure out how to deliver it,” he said with a laugh that could only be described as nervous.
“Pussy, take the shit yourself. I’m trying to get ghost and I need my money.” I was angry, but since I still needed his help, I was trying to play nice. But when he delivered my goods, I was gonna make sure he never rose his voice at any other motherfucker in life.
“Tilo, I—”
“Bitch, didn’t I tell you not to call me that anymore? Fuck, you trying to mess my shit up?” I was enraged and ready to do damage. I flung a vase from the table at the paneled mirror and glass rang out through the air. Tiny shards of glass and ceramic pieces from the vase stuck in my exposed arms. I dropped the phone, covering my face.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Rome had to be shouting because I could make out his voice clearly, even though the phone was still on the floor. Obviously, flinging the vase wasn’t the smartest move I’d made all day. Not only was I going to have to spend the next hour or so picking glass and shit from my body, I would have to pay for the horrible mess I’d made of my hotel room. I picked up the phone with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. I felt like a junkie needing a fix, but I didn’t know what I should be taking.
“It’s nothing,” I lied into the phone.
“Nothing, it sounded like the motherfucking cops were kicking in your damn door.”
“Why you got to throw salt on my plate, wishing the cops on me and shit?”
“Ain’t nobody wishing shit. I’m just telling you how the shit sounded to me.” He was huffing and puffing like he was big shit, which only fueled my irritation with him.
“Rome, if you want to get anywhere close to my Colombia connection, you’d
better get me my money by the end of the week. I could probably find ten people who would like to make this connect if I wanted to, but I decided to offer it to you first. But it comes with a big price tag and time is of the essence. If you don’t sell the shit then you lose big time, because my ass is about to be dead for real and I’m taking my connect with me.”
“I’m gonna get the fucking money. Why you got to keep on threatening me and shit? I said I got you.”
In my mind, I could see his face. There was nothing like a grown-ass man pouting like a ten-year-old child. It was fucking sickening, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. “It wasn’t a threat.” I left the rest of the sentence unsaid. He knew.
“All right then,” he said as he hung up.
For a second or two I stared at the phone, unable to believe he had hung up on me. It was ballsy on his part because he never knew where I would be coming from. I could’ve been around the corner from him and he’d never know it.
Shopping normally made me feel good, and shopping with money in my pocket should have restored my soul. However, the voices in my head continued to fuck with me, and I wasn’t able to determine which voices were real. I stopped at my favorite store to shop for some underwear. I liked Macy’s selection much better than the highly publicized Victoria’s Secret. To me the silk felt richer, and I enjoyed wearing underwear that caressed my skin. I held up a panty set and rubbed the crotch over my lips. As I rubbed the pink panties over my mouth, I thought of Victória. My mouth watered as I sniffed the panties.
“You smell so good, baby,” I muttered as I continued to sniff them, lost in a pussy-laden fantasy. Good pussy was like a large lobster soaked in butter. After you cracked the shell and pulled out the meat, your tongue was in for a treat. I sniffed again and sighed.
“You know what I want, I’m gonna suck on your fat clit until I get it.” I was enjoying my personal vision so much I forgot I was in full view of everyone in the crowded store. I could smell her fresh scent and it was driving me nuts. I rubbed the panties over my chest, causing my nipples to peak against my blue tank top.
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