by Roy Glenn
Is he for real? Panthea thought. Could this all be a facade? Maybe he’s just being this good because this is only a part time thing for him. Panthea had been thinking these thoughts more frequently. She’d also been fantasizing about life without her husband, and she knew it was all because of the time she spent with Marcus and the way he’d treated her. Had she been told this a few months ago, there was no way she’d have listened.
After wrapping up meals of filet mignon & South African lobster tail, Panthea sat back waiting for dessert. “Their Crème Brulee’ is the best here. How was your steak, baby?”
“Everything was just perfect,” Panthea said enthusiastically.
“Good. I like perfect.”
When Marcus looked at her with such lust burning in his eyes, she wanted nothing more than to clear the table and crawl on top where she’d offer herself for his taking.
Panthea ate all of the dessert she could stand, and then moved the dish away from her on the table.
“Tony Danza is playing in The Producers. I’ve got tickets,” Marcus announced.
“How the hell did you snag tickets for The Producers?” Panthea wanted to know.
“Baby, it doesn’t matter how I got it done. All that matters is that I thought you might like to see one of the longest running shows on Broadway.”
The show was great. Panthea at times forgot that although they made up a couple by the sheer fact that they were together, the fact remains that she was still married and not to Marcus.
No married woman would ever conduct herself like this, Panthea’s alter-ego whispered hours later as she balanced herself on Marcus’s face. “Yes, baby, right there. Right there,” she cried.
Marcus’s hands reached up and caressed her thighs then her stomach and her bouncing breasts. She was riding his face like she wasn’t quite sure if pleasure like this would ever come her way again, so she had to make the best of what she had at that given moment.
When Marcus felt her body jerk, he started doing a nibbling move which caused her button to swell instantly. Her juices were flowing down his chin faster than he could sop it up. For the last fifteen minutes, Panthea had been switching between a high-pitched squeal to a belly-wrenching yell and the sounds just made Marcus want to suck up even more of her sweet nectar.
Panthea flinched and tightened her thighs around his head. “Oh yes—yes, baby, yes!”
When Marcus heard that high-pitched squeal this time, he knew she had arrived at that place. Now it was time for him to switch things up a bit. He worked his way up and grabbed a hold of her succulent ass and tilted it just so. With a mighty thrust of his hips, he shot his dick into her with intensity, she had to buck just to steady herself. He grabbed her shoulders to hold her in place and gyrated his hips.
“Come on baby.” Panthea wiggled her hips. “Don’t stop now. You’re close. I can feel it. Bring it on home, baby. Bring it!”
He plunged deeper for a few more minutes before he exploded with great force.
“I love you, baby,” Marcus whispered in Panthea’s ear. “I love you so much.”
17
There was a standoff of sorts going on in the Daniels household and Scott was tired of it. He didn’t understand why this debunked, rent-a-cop wanna-be was asking him all these damn questions in the first place. But a part of him felt better just to be talking about Abril, even if it was only in this capacity. “I’m just struggling with the fact that I wasn’t there when she needed me most.”
“So it’s news to you that she basically had a string of men who were financing various phony business ventures?”
“You drink Crown?” Scott asked, not even attempting to hide the irritation in his voice.
Garrett’s right eyebrow inched up a bit. “I can hold my own with the best of ’em,” Garrett said, answering Scott’s challenge.
“Well, I’m pouring myself a drink. Just making sure I wasn’t gonna be drinking alone,” Scott said as he walked over to the bar in his study.
He and Garrett threw back three rounds within a matter of minutes. Scott poured himself another then faced Garrett once again.
For the first time since arriving and talking with the man, Garrett recognized that smug look on Scott’s face was masking deep-rooted sorrow. Looking at Scott Daniels’ face was like looking at a man in mourning. His features were etched with worry lines and an expression that said he hadn’t seen happiness in a while and wasn’t sure when it would pass his way again. Was he just sorry she was dead or sorry he had killed her? Garrett couldn’t tell which.
Scott sighed. “You ever had the perfect woman?” He shook his head and sipped from his snifter. “I mean the perfect woman. I’m not talking about the most beautiful, most talented or even the best set of lips. But I mean just perfect.” He shook his head again, like he was testifying about something that no one else could begin to understand. “Perfect in every way.”
“I’ve had some pretty good women in my day,” Garrett etched him on.
“Abril was the perfect woman. She wasn’t going to win the Miss America title, but she was nice on the eyes. Her body was average, nothing too over the top. You know the type—just enough of everything. But man I tell you, she knew how to make me feel like a man. I mean like a real man.”
“So it’s an understatement to say you loved her?”
“I thought I had been in love before. I really did. I mean I’d experienced the butterflies and all those other simple things they try to convince us signifies love, but Abril was a real woman who wasn’t afraid to please her man.”
Garrett had seen and met Panthea, and from everything he noticed about her, she seemed perfect too. But he just wanted to keep Scott talking, so he nodded when he felt it was appropriate or asked a few questions here and there. As Scott continued to talk, Garrett could feel his anger building.
“It was like after a while; she knew just what to do to make me feel better. If the wife was giving me hell, Abril would work it out for me. She knew when I needed some ass or when I needed something else.”
Scott sipped his drink and closed his eyes. This gulp was bigger than the others were. “Yeah, I loved her because she knew how to become every fucking thing I needed before I even realized what I needed.” His eyes narrowed and he looked at Garrett. “Then to find out this shit was nothing more than a fucking game to her?” Scott’s voice grew loud and angry.
“Makes you mad, didn’t it?”
Scott nodded his head and got up to pour another drink. “Shit yeah it makes me mad! How the fuck do you think I’m supposed to feel?”
“I know I’d be mad as hell if some bitch was doing me like she was doing you,” Garrett pushed harder, trying to get a rise out of Scott.
He shook his head. “You don’t know how it feels to be a sucker until you been one."
Garrett decided to back off and give him time to let the thought sink in. When he felt it safe to move forward Garrett continued with his questions. “So what about the restaurant?” he asked. Garrett had learn from the investigation that Olivia had done, that at the time of her death, Abril Arrington had been getting money from Scott to open a restaurant.
Scott sighed again then shook his head. “Yeah, the infamous restaurant. When you love somebody and she’s ambitious, has goals and dreams and you can help make things happen, shit you do what you can to help.”
Garrett nodded, signaling his agreement. “So how did you help?”
“First it was twenty-five thousand to help get things off the ground,” Scott admitted. He drained his glass and winced at the liquor that sent a blazing trail as it ran down his throat. He got up to pour another shot. “Maybe a month or so after the twenty-five, it was ten to do some work to bring the building up to code.” Scott sat down and tilted his glass toward Garrett. “You want more?”
“Nah, I’m straight,” Garrett assured him.
“So here I am, a man, shit a fool in love. Am I gonna let a little ten grand stand in the way of my woman and her dr
eam—the woman who brought romance and passion back into my life?”
Garrett didn’t say so, but he could see Scott’s point. Here he thought he’d found someone who genuinely loved him, of course he wanted to help her out.
“Ten turned into an additional five then two weeks later there was the emergency pipe incident, another fifty-two hundred.”
Garrett was doing the math in his head, but he didn’t want to make the man feel any worse than he suspected he already felt.
“I’m not a filthy rich man, not by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, I’m comfortable, maybe a little more than comfortable, but I earned my money the old fashion way. I believe in hard work. Once that woman got a hold of me, I swear, she could’ve had just about anything she wanted. Unfortunately for me, she just saw me coming. Just another sucker and she wanted nothing but money.”
“At anytime did you suspect or think something could’ve been wrong?” Garrett asked.
“I knew something wasn’t right. I mean excuse after excuse regarding this restaurant, the shit just wasn’t adding up. I may have been stupid in love, pussy whipped even, but shit, I still had some fucking common sense.” Scott held his glass out to Garrett, like that might help get his point across better.
“When did you learn the truth?” Garrett asked.
“Which truth?” Scott wanted to know. He shrugged. “I mean which truth are you referring to?”
“When did you learn the truth about the restaurant?”
Scott took the snifter up to his lips and chuckled. “Oh, yeah that one. I just learned that she was running game on my ass. Funny too, because a couple of days before she was killed, I had told her I needed to go see this damn restaurant for myself. I wasn’t about to be footing a bill for something I hadn’t seen or touched with my own two hands.”
“I’m sorry you had to get it that way man,” Garrett said sincerely.
“When she comes to me in my sleep, everything is all right. None of that shit about needing more money, nothing about what’s wrong with the damn restaurant, she just wants to love me. I loved her, still do, and I want this investigation to wrap up so I can clear Abril’s name, she’s nothing like you think. And after that, I want to get Panthea the hell out of this house,” he said.
“So you gave Abril upwards of fifty thousand dollars to help with a business that didn’t exist. That must’ve really pissed you off, huh?”
“I’ve given Abril a lot more that fifty thousand dollars. I’ve bought her diamonds, earrings, tennis bracelets, clothes, whatever I thought might make her happy, and for a while she had me feeling like it was enough to please her, but all I was doing was maintaining my position with her. I feel sick when I think about how she was just using me all along.”
“You heard about the others?” Garrett asked.
Scott’s eyes began to pool, and he swallowed something without even taking a sip. “I heard about them,” Scott spat out.
“The way it’s all shaking out, she was doing the same thing to all of the men she was involved with. Making them think she loved them just to get their money."
“Yeah, I heard that too.”
“I know you're pretty mad about it, I’m guessing their probably feeling the same way,” Garrett said and Scott looked away. “You think any of these other men could’ve been mad enough to kill her?” Garrett asked.
Scott looked at Garrett before saying another word. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that if the others could’ve done it, then he too could’ve been lumped into that same category. And that was one group he didn’t want to be a member of. If the suspect pool was growing, Scott Daniels wanted to make damn sure his name wasn’t being added to that list.
“I don’t even want to think like that.”
18
Garrett slammed his car door and walked into the precinct that he once worked in. It was, as it always was when Garrett had business there, a bittersweet experience. It all started when three members of the drug task force that Garrett was assigned to, officers Barnett, Ridgewood and White came to arrest suspected drug dealer named Terrence Melson. When Garrett arrived on the scene, Melson had been shot in the head. He didn’t die from his wound, but he was paralyzed. While Melson was awaiting trial, Ridgewood was caught trying to steal over 600 pounds of seized cocaine from a police locker. When that happened the entire team went under the microscope.
In exchange for a lighter sentence, Ridgewood offered testimony against his fellow officers. He testified that Melson was unarmed and shot in the head while he was lying on the floor in handcuffs when White shot him. Barnett, who was the senior officer, ordered them to plant the gun.
That investigation led to a probe of what the review board considered unjustified shootings. After that, five officers were relieved of duty, and more incidents surfaced as the internal scrutiny continues. Although Garrett wasn’t implicated in any of those cases, he was accused of taking a bribe from a suspect. With Marcus’s help, he was cleared of the charges, but he had enough of the bullshit at that point.
“What’s shaking, Harold,” he said, greeting the desk sergeant.
“Same old same, Mason. What’s going on with you?”
“Here to see Detective Silver. Is he in?”
“Haven’t seen him, but that don’t mean he ain’t here. You can go on back. How’s Paven?”
Garrett took a step closer to the desk. “Me and Paven separated over a year ago,” he said softly.
“Damn, Mason. I’m sorry to hear that,” Harold said, thinking that maybe he should call on her now.
“I miss my kids,” Garrett said and he pushed his way through the double doors that led back to the section of the building that housed the homicide division.
He made his way through the rows of desks and stopped at Detective Silver’s. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Lieutenant. I’ll get right on that,” Silver said with the phone between his shoulder and his ear. He motioned for Garrett to sit down. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Lieutenant?”
Garrett took a seat in the chair next to the desk and waited as detective Silver took the tongue lashing his lieutenant was dishing out. After talking with Scott Daniels and Pascal Larrieux, he was anxious to see what information Silver had on this new identity they had uncovered for Abril Arrington.
“That one. I understand now,” Silver said into the receiver once more before slamming it back into its cradle.
“Stevenson?” Garrett asked.
“That’s Lieutenant Stevenson, and yes, that was him, and before you ask, yes, he is still an asshole. Now what can I do for you, Mason?”
“Abril Arrington.”
“She’s dead. What about her?”
“Then you don’t know. I mean, I thought you guys would have been way ahead of us on this one.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Abril Arrington was using an alias.”
“Alias? What alias?”
“She was going by the name Adina Banks.”
Silver sat back in his chair looked at Garrett and then stood up. “Let’s talk outside,” he said and headed quickly out of the building with Garrett one step behind him. Once they were outside in the parking lot, Silver stopped and leaned against a car. “Too many ears inside.”
“So I guess you knew about this?”
“Not exactly, Mason. I suspected something wasn’t quite right about her. Due to the background check I ran, I figured Abril Arrington wasn’t her real name. But the fact was she was still dead no matter who she was. Lieutenant told me to follow up on it, but I caught another case, and to be honest, I never followed up.”
“Damn, Silver, that’s fucked up,” Garrett said. He understood the pressure to clear cases, so he could understand Silver not going the extra mile on a case that he’d already closed. Garrett considered the possibility that Silver could have purposely overlooked information because it would damage his case in some way. That possibility made him optimistic that they were on th
e right track.
“I know. That’s why we’re talking out here.” Silver had known Garrett for a long time, trusted him, but he wasn’t taking the chance of anyone over hearing their conversation.
“You gotta make this right, man. I’m not gonna go into the whole, a woman’s freedom thing with you, but damn, didn’t you think that who the woman really was, was important to the case?”
“At the time, no I didn’t. Like I said, the fact that Abril Arrington wasn’t her real name didn’t change anything. The fact was she was still dead, and the Daniels woman killed her,” Silver said in his defense. “But I guess you’re here to tell me why I should have.”
“Well for starters, over the last six months Abril Arrington a.k.a. Adina Banks was involved with Daniels and at least four other guys we know of.”
“How did you get this?”
“My operative, through her own sources, was able to obtain copies of Abril Arrington's cell phone records.”
“Her own sources?”
“Naturally we’ve got a subpoena for them now.”
“Go on,” Silver said. Since this was all information that he should have known before he arrested Panthea Daniels, he would have to play catch up now. He understood that his neck was on the line. He paid close attention as Garrett told him everything that they’d learned. “Anything tie these people together?”
“The one thing they all had in common, other than Abril Arrington was money. Scott Daniels was in construction, one guy was an investment banker. She had a movie producer on the hook and a couple of local chumps. One of them operated three Subway franchises; which is why she stopped fucking with him. His money wasn’t long enough for her.”
“So you’re saying this broad was some kind of gold digger?” Silver asked, a little embarrassed that he had missed all of this.
“No, she was better than that. She set up a phony business, I say phony because she never goes to her Dunwoody office, but anyway,” Garrett continued. “She got these guys to fall in love with her, and then she would get them to invest in a fake start up business.”
