Love's Deadly Masquerade

by The Author- Yani

  “Nah, fuck that! I’m not going to be denied the chance of being in my child’s life. And I’m sure as hell not about to let another nigga play daddy to my child either,” Eric replied before taking a sip from his glass.

  “Is this even really about the baby or are you sore that Vanessa left you?” Tony asked.

  Eric looked at Tony with fire in his eyes for a space of heartbeats. He didn’t like what Tony was implying; that he was acting like a nut over some pussy that didn’t want to be bothered with him anymore. “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “I mean, no disrespect Eric, but if you did anything to her like what you did to the little honey back there in Kensington, it’s no wonder she walked out on you.”

  Eric sat his drink down and before Tony knew it, Eric had him hemmed up against a wall with his collar in a grip. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Huh?!” Eric seethed through clinched teeth. “I paid you to do a muthafucking job, right?”

  “Yeah but…”

  “Ain’t no buts, bitch. Don’t ask any questions. Don’t think. Because that ain’t what the fuck I paid you for. Do what the fuck I paid you for and we won’t have any problems.” He let Tony go with a jerk, partially knocking him into the wall.

  “You didn’t pay me to commit murder…” Tony said quietly.

  “No, I didn’t. But who says the bitch is dead?” They were quiet for a moment as Eric poured himself another drink. “I didn’t pay you to go to jail either. But if I get caught, you get caught. Capisce?” he replied as he swirled his finger around in his drink. He then peered up at Tony with a look on his face that was so cold, Tony caught a chill. “Trace the call.”

  Tony sulked over to Eric’s laptop and plugged Arianna’s phone in with a USB cable. Eric leaned into his table as Tony typed. Tony held the phone out to Eric.

  “Oh no, I want you to call her. If she answers and recognizes my voice, she’ll hang up before I have a chance to get her to tell me where she is and then she’ll probably change the number and I’ll never have the chance to find her. You call her.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to say to her?” Tony frowned.

  “Be creative,” Eric replied in a menacing tone.

  Tony wished like hell he never took this job. He took the phone from Eric thinking if he just did what he was told so he could leave, then he wouldn’t have to worry about much. He dialed the number and nervously waited as it rang.

  “No one is answering,” Tony said after the third ring.

  “Wait for the voicemail,” Eric replied. He was beginning to feel the same intense anticipation he felt when they were driving behind Arianna.

  After the fifth ring, Tony shook his head. “No voicemail, it’s just…” he stopped speaking when he heard someone pick up. He held his hand up to Eric. “Hello…?” he said when he didn’t hear anyone speak.

  “Who is this?” a female said into the phone.

  “Someone called me from this number a few weeks ago and I’m trying to get in touch with them. Is this Vanessa?”

  “You have the wrong number,” the woman said into the phone and hung up abruptly. Tony looked at the phone.

  “Was it her? Was it Vanessa?” Eric asked.

  “It didn’t sound like her. She said I had the wrong number,” Tony replied as he looked at the phone number that he dialed.

  “Give me the phone,” Eric said before taking it out of Tony’s hand. He pressed redial on the phone and waited for an answer. He wanted to hear the woman’s voice to see if it was Vanessa.

  “Maybe it was the wrong number, I mean we’re calling from her best friend’s phone. If it weren’t the wrong number, she wouldn’t have said that.”

  “Dumb-ass, we’re calling from her best friend’s phone but we’re not her best friend. Of course she’s going to say we have the wrong number,” Eric sneered.

  “Which begs the question; why is she ducking you so hard?” Tony mused. He kept his thought to himself.

  No one answered and there was no voicemail when Eric called, so he dialed the number again. This time, the phone was answered after the second ring.

  “Hello?” the woman answered.

  “Vanessa?” Eric said quickly. “Vanessa, if this is you, all you have to do is tell me where you are. I’m not mad, just tell me where you are.”

  “Sir, I’ve already told you, you have the wrong number. There is no Vanessa at this number, I’m sorry,” the woman said patiently.

  “She called me from the number,” Eric said.

  “Okay, listen…”

  “No bitch, you listen. You… hello… hello?!” Eric looked at the phone and slammed it on the desk. “BITCH!”

  Tony leaned into the desk pretending to be occupied with picking dirt from under his nails. If he had any second thoughts about Eric’s ill intentions should he ever get his hands on Vanessa, they were out the window. He was positive that if Eric didn’t do it himself, he had someone kill Regina, who was the last young lady he was hired to track down. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he helped Eric any further in finding Vanessa, he was going to do more harm than good.

  “Can you put a tap on that number?” Eric asked hastily.

  “Yeah but…” Tony started.

  “No buts. Tap that phone, monitor the calls. Anything coming in or going out about Vanessa, from Vanessa or to Vanessa, I wanna know about it. If that bitch orders a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich from a diner, I wanna know if she got a coke on the side with the shit. You understand me?” Eric barked as he poured himself another drink.

  “I can do it from here since the phone is already attached to the laptop. Her calls will be attached to a recording software and they can be listened to at any time,” Tony said nervously as he leaned over the laptop and began typing.

  “Good, show me how to listen to the calls so I don’t have to wait.”

  Tony waved Eric over to the laptop and explained how the program worked. He showed him what to do if he wanted to listen to a live call or if he wanted to listen to a call that had already been recorded. Just as he was done showing Eric, a green flashing light went off.

  “What’s that?” Eric asked.

  “Someone is making a call from the number we dialed.” Tony replied as he grabbed his set of Beats headphones so he could listen.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice was heard on the line.

  “Ms. Marcella, I think we may have a problem with one of our packages,” another woman said.

  “A problem like what?” Marcella asked.

  “I just received a call from someone looking for Vanessa. They said she called them from my number.”

  “Got damn it, Crystal! How many times have I constantly spoke of the importance of not leaving phones around when any of our packages are traveling through the network? How many times have I stressed the importance of that?” Marcella scolded the young woman.

  “I’m sorry Ms. Marcella. I normally always take my phone with me and I never let any of the women use it for any reason. It must’ve been the day that I went to Walmart before I dropped her off at the train station.” Crystal said as she thought back to that day.

  “Jesus, Crystal. That was almost three weeks ago! The minute you realized you left your phone in the car with her, you should have notified me so that phone could be dumped and another one could be provided to you. Even if you don’t see them using the phone, assume that they have!” Marcella shook her head before taking a puff from her cigarette.

  “What should I do if they call back?” Crystal asked feeling horrible over her misstep.

  “Nothing because immediately after we hang up, your phone will be deactivated and another one will be issued to you. Do not let this happen again Crystal, or you will be removed from the program permanently. Understood?” Marcella said firmly.

  “Yes, Ms. Marcella.”

  The call disconnected. Tony took the headphones off and frowned.

  “What did they say?” Eric asked.

>   “It seemed like they were talking in codes about a package and a network. But Vanessa was definitely associated with this number.”

  “They said her name?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah…” Tony said softly as his mind began to race.

  “What did they say? Did they say where she was or can you tell where the chick was that answered the phone?”

  Tony toggled a few screens on the laptop. “A small suburb outside of Baltimore, Maryland.”

  “Wait, what? What the fuck is she doing all the way the fuck out there?” Eric asked with a frown on his face. Tony shook his head as he shrugged his shoulders. And then something clicked. He didn’t need to listen to the recording again to understand the conversation even with them talking in partial codes. He knew exactly what was going on. Vanessa had not run off with another man. She was trying to get away from Eric and used the help of some women or some program for battered women to get away. He realized Eric was more than likely beating the hell out of Vanessa and whatever network she was traveling through, she compromised it by calling Arianna and he had possibly did even more damage.

  Tony looked at his watch. “Oh shit, I’ve gotta go. I have another job to handle,” he stammered as he grabbed his jacket and began to put it on.

  “Another job like what?” Eric asked.

  Tony hesitated. “It’s for a VP of a corporation. He suspects there’s been some embezzlement going on and hired me to check on some things and some people. Some real uh… tedious things I have to do but, we’re supposed to skype tonight and uh… I’m running late.” Tony was lying through his teeth. While he did have that particular job to handle, he had already done the bulk of the necessary research. He mostly wanted to get the hell away from Eric.

  “Alright man, well get back to me soon so we can close this thing out,” Eric replied as he gave Tony a firm handshake.

  “No doubt,” Tony replied, avoiding eye contact. He checked to make sure he had everything and then headed out the door to his car. In case Eric was watching him, he pretended to make a call as he walked down the drive-way and talked loudly. “Hey, yeah man… I’m running a little late, I got caught up with some work at the office. Give me about twenty minutes…” he spoke to no one on his phone. He got in his car and kept up with the charade for a few more seconds before driving away. When he got a few blocks up the street, he turned a corner and pulled over. He then put on a pair of rubber gloves and pulled his own burner phone from his pocket before dialing 9-1-1. “Yes, I want to report a domestic dispute… yes… I think I heard a woman screaming a lot and it sounded like a struggle.” Tony gave the address to the dispatcher and then disconnected the call. He then drove over to Spencer Arms apartment off of 10th and Spencer and threw the phone in the dumpster before driving to his house.

  10

  Tony paced back and forth in his home’s office unable to shake the evening’s events from his mind. He couldn’t believe the side of Eric that he had seen that night; heartless, cruel and cold. He suspected the last time he helped Eric out and things went badly that he was behind the young lady’s murder but to ease his conscience, he told himself that it was just an odd coincidence that the same girl he was contracted to locate for Eric turned up dead not even a week after he gave her location to him.

  Tony could still see Arianna laying on the floor as blood spilled from her head when he closed his eyes. He beat his fists against his head as he paced some more trying his damndest to shake that image from his mind. But it would not go away and was already beginning to haunt him.

  Tony’s phone went off and he saw that it was Eric. No way was he answering his phone call. He didn’t give a shit what he hung over his head, he was going to try his best to get as far away from Eric as humanly possible. Right after the ringing stopped, his phone alerted him to a voicemail that Eric left and then a text message populated on his phone telling Tony to call him as soon as he could.

  “Nah, fuck that… We ain’t got nothing…” Tony was cut off when he happened to glance at the TV and saw Arianna’s photo pop up on a split screen next to the house in Kensington which was lit up with lights from police cruisers and TV news stations interviewing people and filming the scene.

  “Tonight, police were alerted by an anonymous caller of a struggle in this house behind us. When police arrived, they found a woman who was severely beaten in the home. She was rushed to Frankford hospital where she died moments ago. She was identified as 23 year old Arianna Stone. At this time, outside of the anonymous caller, police have no leads, suspects or a motive…”

  Tony stared blankly at the TV screen unable to hear anything else that the news broadcaster was saying. The ringing in his ears drowned out everything else including his phone which was ringing again.

  “We killed her…” he mumbled to himself. “I knew I never should have tried to help him find Vanessa. Fuck…!” Tony panicked. He began moving through his house, grabbing a few of his items to throw in a duffle bag along with some money that he had stashed. If Eric had seen the news and heard of the anonymous caller, he knew that Eric would immediately suspect him. And while they were both professionals in what they did, he knew the consequences of snitching. Tony definitely knew that he had to get away as soon as possible.

  Tony was rushing to his front door when he saw the flashing red and blue police lights in the front of his home.

  “Oh shit…” Tony said as he stopped dead in his tracks. He wondered why the cops would be at his home when he called from a burner phone that he always kept handy. After he made the call, he took the battery and sim card out and tossed it in separate trash cans, blocks away from one another. He then had a thought that maybe Eric flipped on him.

  He heard the three rapid and loud knocks on his front door before a loud and intimidating voice spoke from the other side with tremendous base.

  “Mr. Antonio Vasquez, open the door. We have a few questions for you,” the officer said.

  Tony turned from left to the right trying to decide where to put his bag. He didn’t want them to see that he was preparing to leave because that would surely make him appear guilty. He quickly pulled the clothes from the bag and threw them in a closet and tossed the money back in his safe.

  “Just a minute…” he called back to the officer, stalling for more time to get himself together.

  He straightened his clothes and took a deep breath to calm himself before opening the door. “How can I help you?”

  “We would like you to come down to the station with us to answer a few questions,” the officer said to him.

  “A few questions about what?” Tony asked calmly.

  “Sir, it would be a lot better if we have this conversation at the police station,” the officer replied.

  “Am I under arrest for something?”

  “All things considered sir, we could arrest you right now since we have probable cause. But if you come willingly, and answer some questions, that might help you out in the long run.”

  Tony weighed his options as he looked the cop over, noticing that his hand rested loosely by the butt of his service revolver. He knew he had no wins up against the four police officers who were outside of his home. He sighed deeply and stepped outside, closing his front door behind him and followed the officers to the police car.

  11

  The sweetest sound ever heard by Vanessa’s ears rang out inside of the delivery room. It was the sound of her precious baby girl crying after entering into a new world and taking her first breath. Vanessa cried tears of joy as her heart filled with more love than she ever knew she was capable of having for another person. Arianna held the small bundle of joy with a broad smile on her face as she made crooning noises at the precious little one. She passed the baby to Vanessa and her heart felt as though it would melt once she laid eyes on the baby.

  “My God, if I didn’t just go through all of that pain pushing her out, I would have sworn she was your baby!” Vanessa joked in a light voice.

  Ariann
a planted a lingering kiss on her forehead. “That’s just God’s way of making sure I’m always with you,” she said in return. But her voice sounded as though she were a million miles away.

  “Wha… what do you mean?” Vanessa asked. She looked up and Arianna was gone. In a blink of an eye, the doctors were gone as well. She looked around frantically and jumped when she heard slow hand claps coming from the doorway. She struggled to sit up.

  “Who’s there?” she asked hesitantly.

  Eric stepped forward from the shadows scaring the living hell out of her. She scooted back on her hospital bed and held the baby closer to her.

  “You did good, V-Dot,” Eric said to her as he walked over to her slowly.

  “No,” Vanessa said in a soft voice. She then said it louder. “No! You can’t have her! You stay away from her! You stay away from me, you sonuva bitch!”

  “Carmen! Carmen!” a woman said as she shook Vanessa lightly, waking her from her sleep. Vanessa jumped after opening her eyes, looking as though she was going to knock the fire out of someone. She breathed heavily as she looked around and then lightly touched her stomach which held a very small bulge. She closed her eyes as she tried to shake the bad feeling that the dream had left her with.

  “Are you okay?” the woman asked her.

  Vanessa shook her head feeling groggy. She hated the nightmares that she periodically had about Eric. They all scared the hell out of her. But that one, the way Arianna seemed so far away and what she said, left a knot in her stomach and she felt the need to cry.

  “I’m okay…” she mumbled.

  “You sure? You were talking in your sleep again. Would you like for me to schedule you an earlier session with Dr. Reynolds?” the woman asked her as she looked her over with genuine concern.

  Vanessa shook her head as she sat up. “No, I’m fine. It was just a dream.”