Lisa was a vision in her long ivory silk gown and robe flowing behind her as she left and disappeared into the darkness of the living room. The image was chilling and sent a shudder down his spine.
My First Love
Fatema couldn’t fall back on being intoxicated this time to use as a reason to see her ex-husband. She was stone cold sober, and well, she missed him. Lately Drew had come through for her in a big way, reminding her of all those sentimental reasons she fell for him in the first place.
“Do you think you might be able to stop through for a bite to eat?” Drew was in his car, no doubt on his way home to his girlfriend, but Fatema didn’t even bother to ask.
“You cooking?” He sounded shocked.
“I can,” she said reluctantly.
“Chinese or Greek?” he asked.
She smiled. That man knew her all too well and it filled her with tons of warm fuzzies. “Chinese.”
She felt awkward the moment he got there and Fatema suddenly wished she had a good buzz going. Inviting him here was crazy, but it was also a relief. A crazy relief—that was one hell of an oxymoron. They ate in silence for the most part, smiling politely at each other, then burying their faces in their plates to avoid conversation.
It was Drew who broke the silence first. “So, what? You want me to take you back or something?”
Leave it up to him to know exactly what to say. Relief quickly set in and Fatema felt like her old self again. “Hell, no! I just wanted some Chinese food and I knew I could sucker you into bringing me some.”
Drew almost choked on his sesame beef, he laughed so hard. “Bullshit! You want me, woman. Admit it so that we can both move forward.”
“Somebody in this room already has moved forward. How’s whats-her-name anyway? Still anorexic?”
“She’s fine, and bulimic—thank you very much. But at least she’s in shape which is more than I can say for you, cutie. Getting a little wide in the hips there, aren’t you?”
Fatema threw her napkin at him. “Fuck you, Drew.”
He leaned forward and gazed longingly into her eyes. “Absolutely, baby. Any damn time you want.”
She rolled her eyes. “You make me sick sometimes.”
“But not this time. Right?” He looked too smug for his own good.
As hard as she wanted to be, Fatema couldn’t help herself and something vulnerable rose up inside her. “No. Not this time.”
He looked relieved all of a sudden. “How you been?”
She shrugged. “I kinda lost my job.”
“You got fired?”
“Kinda. And I kinda quit too.”
“Why the hell would you do something like that?”
“Well, Todd got mad at me, and—”
“Todd is always mad at you. He’s never kinda fired you over any of the shit you’ve pulled. I thought you were his golden girl.”
“I’m no golden girl, Drew.” Melancholy set in. “I just—I don’t know what I want anymore. And that’s fucked up because my whole life I thought I had it all figured out, and my life’s a mess.”
“It’s not a mess. A little chaotic, but—”
“But it’s a mess. My career is stagnant. My best friend who I neglected for the last year has been killed. I lost my job, and a long time ago, I lost my husband and my other best friend.”
“Strike that. You may have lost your husband, but you will never lose your other best friend.” He reached across the table and laced his fingers between hers. “I’m a phone call away, Fatty. You know that.”
“Stop calling me that. You know I hate that.”
“What? It’s a term of endearment.”
“Coming from a personal trainer who lives in the gym, Drew, it’s an insult.”
“But you’re not fat, Fatty. You’re fine, Fatty. I wouldn’t call you Fatty if you weren’t fine—Fatty.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. She’d never thought she ever wanted to ask him this question out of fear for what his answer would be, but she decided that she needed to man up and just come out with it. “Do you love her? Do you love Bulimia Woman?”
“I care for her.”
“But do you love her, Drew?”
“What difference does that make now, Fatema?”
“I just want to know.”
“Because?”
“I just want to know.”
“Because—why?” he asked, coaxing her to say what she didn’t want to say. “Come on, baby. Say it.” Drew smiled knowingly, as if he could read her mind. “We’ll say it together. Because I,” he spoke slowly, hoping she’d chime in. “Want—you—to—take—me—back—Drew—darling.”
“Why’s it have to be you taking me back? Why can’t it be me taking you back?” she huffed.
“Because you’re the one who told me to get out.”
“After I found out you had a girlfriend!”
“Ah, but I didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“Liar!”
“She wasn’t my girlfriend until after you threw me out, thinking she was my girlfriend,” he explained.
“So you say. Why should I believe you, Drew? Why should I have believed you then?”
His expression turned serious. “Because I told you, Fatema. And it was the truth. And by virtue of me being your other best friend, you should’ve believed me.”
The man was downright convincing and it panged her to think, that just maybe, he really had been telling the truth. “It was more convenient not to believe you,” she responded quietly.
“Yeah.” He looked hurt. “Nobody knew better than I did, how much of an inconvenience I could be to you sometimes.”
“I was preoccupied—and obsessed with my career back then. I wasn’t a good wife.”
“Yeah, well, my ass was too damn needy—back then. And I just wanted you to want to spend time with me. Talk about an unreasonable demand.”
“Not so unreasonable, Drew. And certainly not needy.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “Besides, as hot as you are, I need my ass kicked for not spending more time with you and them pecs. My goodness!” She laughed.
He flexed his pecs right on cue. “Let’s do it.”
“No!”
“That’s why you invited me over here, isn’t it?”
“I’m not drunk this time, Drew. Go home to your woman, and thanks for the fried noodles.”
“Aw, c’mon, Fatema,” he begged. “Girl, I need you. I got blue balls just thinking about your ass. You know what happens when a man gets blue balls and don’t get any.”
Fatema grabbed his jacket, helped him up from his chair and escorted him to the door. “That blue balls shit hasn’t worked on me since I was fifteen, Drew.”
“You told me I was your first.”
She smiled. “Night, Daddy-O.” Fatema kissed him softly on the lips, and smiled up at him. “And yeah,” she finally admitted, “I think I do want you to take me back.” She closed the door, and felt good for the first time in a long time.
Jigsaw
“I’d have stopped him, but I thought they was—I’d a beat his ass down.”
“Who, Lazarus? Who did you see?”
“He could’ve gave me a five. Rich ass—came up off a dollar like he was really doing something.”
“Who? Lazarus? Who did you see?”
“I saw ’em all! Every last one of them bitches!”
“Time’s up, Fatema.”
“I saw all of ’em, Sweet Thang! He gave me a goddamned dollar like it shoulda meant something and that mothafucka cried like he gave a damn about what he did to that woman! He can’t see in the dark, Sweet Thang! But I can!”
Detective Baldwin played the recorded conversation between Fatema and Lazarus over and over again, looking for answers to a murder from the ramblings of a confused old man. He sat in the room with Fatema and Paul Woodstone, the department psychologist, hoping that among the three of them, they could find key information in something he said.
“In this convers
ation, Lazarus has no sense of time,” the psychologist explained. “The past, present, future, all run concurrently to him, and his speech reflects that. He could be talking about something that happened now, or something that happened ten years ago, all at the same time, but to him, it’s all here and now.”
“Yeah, but there are times when he’s coherent,” Fatema interjected, “And I can sit and have a conversation with him like I’m having with you now.”
“Well, we know that he saw something.” Baldwin scratched his head. He played a segment of the tape again.
“. . . that mothafucka cried like he gave a damn about what he did to that woman! He can’t see in the dark, Sweet Thang! But I can!”
“You think he’s talking about the murder?” he asked, looking at Fatema.
“I want him to be talking about the murder, detective,” she admitted. “But with Lazarus, it’s hard to tell.”
“That one in the bottom, though. I think she need me bad.”
“He kept saying that he thought they were lovers,” Fatema interjected. “That one on the bottom . . . could’ve been Toni.” She looked from Baldwin to the psychologist. “I’m just guessing.”
“Lazarus more than likely did witness this murder,” Paul said conclusively. “But honestly, whether or not you’ll ever get anything conclusive enough to actually go on to help solve it is highly unlikely, Detective.”
The psychologist left and Fatema and Baldwin took the conversation to the coffee shop around the corner.
“That fact that Lazarus has seen this man before is key, Bruce.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s a mess. It’s like dangling a piece of meat in front of my face and never letting me take a bite.”
“But you have to think, who does he see on a regular basis that he would recognize?”
“Fatema, the man is a panhandler downtown. That limits it to a couple of thousand. Lazarus has been seen everywhere, including the 16th Street Mall all the way over to the capitol and even the city and county building. We found him wandering the back alleys of Lincoln Avenue. He’s like a fucking roach.”
Without thinking, she slapped him across the face, then gasped, shocked by her own actions. “I’m sorry.” Hell, she’d just assaulted a police officer.
Baldwin glared at her in disbelief.
“I’m so sorry, Bruce. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I could lock you up.”
“I know. I know and I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, Lazarus isn’t a roach to me. He’s a sad man who is guilt ridden over killing a child. Don’t ever call him a roach in front of me. Please?”
He composed himself, and then pointed at her. “Consider this a freebie.”
“Yes, sir,” she said amicably. “I just reacted. I’m sorry.”
“You said that, already.”
Uncomfortable silence loomed between them, until Baldwin finally said out loud what he’d been thinking ever since he laid eyes on Lazarus.
“What if he did it?”
“Who?”
“Your man, Mr. Ball of Confusion,” he said, acutely.
Fatema started to laugh, like he’d told a joke, but the look on his face told her that he was dead serious. “You’re kidding. Right?”
Baldwin shrugged. “No, I’m not.”
“He’s an old man, Bruce,” she argued.
“A strong old man. Took three cops to get the cuffs on him.”
“He wouldn’t do this!”
“How do you know? You said yourself that he lives there. He’s always there. And we’re sitting around here questioning him on who he might have seen do this. Well, maybe the reason he can’t tell us is because he’s too out of it to tell us it was him.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped.
“Why? Why is it ridiculous? Because he’s a nice old man who shared coffee and a fire with you one cold night years ago? I’m beginning to think I may have just let my number one suspect walk the hell out, Fatema!”
“Sounds to me like a desperate attempt to pin this murder on the person most likely to get your ass off the hook.”
Baldwin was offended. “You haven’t given me one good reason why I shouldn’t arrest him for this.”
Fatema picked up her purse to leave. “How about evidence? You don’t have any more on him then you do on anybody else, Baldwin. And I swear, if you go after him, without a shred of evidence, I’ll print some shit that’ll ruin what’s left of your career and make you look so shit faced, your own mother won’t be able to tell which end is up.”
Fatema drove home fuming and racking her brain about who in the world Lazarus had seen before who could’ve killed Toni.
Baldwin’s statement haunted her. Lazarus has been seen everywhere, including the 16th Street Mall all the way over to the capitol and even the city and county building.
The city and county building. Mayor Shaw worked in that building. Wild ideas started to run through her head. They scared her.
“No way he could be that dumb,” she muttered, referring to Lucas. Absolutely not and she felt like an idiot for even letting herself go there. Sure she didn’t like the man. But to think he’d risk everything he had to cover up an affair by killing someone was just crazy. Not to mention, it was way too clichéd. Toni had broken it off with Shaw, though. Unless she was threatening to tell his wife about the two of them, there was no reason for him to kill her. Unless. “Unless he didn’t want her to break it off,” she muttered again. Shaw reminded Fatema of one of those men used to getting everything he wanted. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would take no for an answer either. What if the fool found out she was seeing someone else? Would he stoop so low as to kill her over it?
“Come on, Fatema,” she said out loud. “That’s so Lifetime movie-ish it’s ridiculous.” Or was it? Was it possible that he could’ve killed her over something else? “Unless she knew something about him . . .” For a man like Shaw, mistresses could come a dime a dozen. Toni’s fixation with the kidnappings kept coming to mind, and Fatema was starting to wonder, if maybe, just maybe, Lucas Shaw might’ve somehow been involved.
There she was again, letting her imagination run wild. Fatema sighed deeply, then concluded that maybe Todd was right. Maybe she should write a book to release all this pent-up creative energy she had coarsing through her veins. Imagine, the Mayor of Denver, head of a human trafficking ring.
Fatema couldn’t help herself and laughed out loud.
Demons
Lucas couldn’t sleep. And after the incident with his wife, he felt it best to stay as close to home as possible—dutiful husband and father. He was a man obsessed by perfection and his whole life, everything about him from his thoughts to the way he spoke and dressed had all been carefully thought out and meticulously planned. He’d been a steady train on a straight and narrow track and there’d been few incidents in his life that had been unplanned.
Rigidity was second nature to Lucas, and until he met Toni Robbins, he’d been satisfied with that. She shook things up, though. She coaxed him off that track and showed him the excitement of spontaneity and taught him that rule breaking was not only intoxicating, but necessary.
He was drawn to her from the moment he saw her, but of course, she resisted because she knew his situation. To this day, Lucas had no idea what kind of spell she’d cast over him, but he was a man fixated and obsessed with getting to know this beautiful young woman, even if the affair had to be brief. In fact, he expected it to be. He counted on it. Lucas stepped up his game. He had to if he wanted to break through the barriers his marriage and position placed between them, and in time, his charm wore down her defenses and it all started with a kiss late one night in his office.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that?” he asked her.
“As long as I’ve wanted you to,” she whispered. “But I can’t do this, Lucas. I wouldn’t want it done to me, and I won’t do it to her.”
He believed she meant it,
and if he had one chance to make love to her, then he decided to make it happen right then and there. He lifted her up on his desk, kissed her drunk, and slid her panties down to her ankles. She freed him from his pants and guided him in between her soft folds and they made love slowly, thoroughly, as if they both knew this would be the one and only time.
But addictions are hard to break and once wasn’t enough for either of them. It was the first time he’d ever cheated on Lisa, and it was like a drug, and he knew that he would never be the same man she married again. He took chances with Toni, sneaking out of the house late at night after his wife fell asleep, taking her on out of town conferences and speaking engagements. They’d even made love in his Mercedes, and in Lisa’s. Toni would feel shame, but he felt exhilarated and rejuvenated like he was alive for the first time, ignoring every rule he’d ever lived by.
Toni bought him to life, and eventually unleashed a monster. He got to the point where he needed more than Toni. There were some things she wasn’t willing to do. Some acts she refused to participate in, and he began to suspect her interest in him waning.
The first time he stepped outside of his relationship with Toni was at a speaking engagement at a law professionals’ conference in Chicago. Lucas retired to his suite and he was restless. Toni had refused to come along on this trip. He felt anxious and overwhelmed by his desire. Lucas ached for a release, but not the tame kind. He didn’t want to be considerate or charming. He didn’t want to know the woman’s name and pretend he cared. He wanted to get his nut, and he wanted it without the burden of caring one way or another how he got it.
He turned on his laptop and began surfing the Internet for porn sites. With each one, he became more aroused and more frustrated. He cursed the thought of jacking off, and his mouth watered for the touch and taste of a female. Somehow he landed on a compelling site that intrigued him. The website listed advertisements where a man could purchase what he needed. There were even pictures. He came across one in particular that caught his eye, of a young woman. Her age was advertised as eighteen. She was Hispanic, lean yet soft. She wore a pair of thin lace bikini panties, and a cutoff white tee-shirt that revealed the slight curve of her breasts.
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