Love's Deadly Masquerade

by The Author- Yani

  As she drifted off into a deeper sleep, she began to think of her father. Her dream began as a memory of the two of them at Temple University’s track running laps. Her father, Darryl, was training her for the upcoming track season at Central High School. They were taking a break, talking and laughing when Darryl noticed someone standing by his car.

  “Vanna, I want you to jog down the straight away until you get to the curve and then I want you to sprint. Do the same on the next straight away and then sprint around the last curve. Walk a lap to get your breathing back and then I want you to do it again except this time jog the curves, sprint the straight away. I need to talk to someone real quick, I’ll be right back,” he said to his daughter.

  “You’re not going to run with me?” Vanessa asked with big, sad eyes.

  “I will in a bit. I just need to have a talk with a very distraught young man who just lost his parents. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.” Darryl stood there a moment as Vanessa began to run the way he instructed her to. He then walked over to his car.

  “What are you doing here?” Darryl asked, trying to mask his annoyance with the individual.

  “You told me if I needed to talk, I could come to you anytime. So here I am,” the young man responded.

  “During office hours. I’m out here with my daughter. You don’t just show up…”

  “It’s a public place. I was actually considering running some laps myself and noticed you out here as well and figured maybe we could talk. You have a beautiful daughter,” the young man said with a slight smirk on his face.

  Darryl looked at him with cold eyes. “I will be back at my office tomorrow. If you need to talk then, I will have my secretary pencil you in around 12 and we can talk through lunch. But not here, not today. Understand?” he then stood closer to the young man. “If you ever come near me while I’m with my daughter again, I won’t see you as a patient. I will see you as a nigga on the street and treat you accordingly, you got that?”

  “I noticed you said daughter and not family as though your wife isn’t included in this. Does either of them know you were fucking my mom? Was that apart of your little therapy sessions?”

  Darryl grabbed the young man by his collar and pushed him up against the car. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I suggest you get the hell out of here or…”

  “Or what?” the individual smirked again. He looked behind Darryl. “Your daughter is watching us.”

  Darryl looked over his shoulders and noticed his daughter was standing in the entry way of the track field. The young man yanked away from him and chuckled. He then waved to Vanessa.

  “How you doing, sweetheart?” he spoke sweetly.

  Darryl gave him a slight shove. “Get your ass out of here, now.” He then turned to his daughter. “Go back onto the track field baby-girl, I’ll be right there.”

  Vanessa hesitated as her heart raced, wondering what was going on between her father and the other person. She looked at them a moment longer and then went back inside as her father instructed when she saw the other person walking down the street.

  Darryl looked at him for a moment longer and shook his head. He hoped like hell his daughter didn’t hear any of the conversation between the two of them. He went back over to his daughter and knelt down to adjust his shoes strings.

  “Dad, who was that? Why’d you two look like you were going to fight?” Vanessa asked her father.

  Darryl hesitated for a moment before answering her. “Usually I don’t share patient information with outsiders because it’s against the law. But he’s not really a patient so…” He blew out air and shook his head. “This young man just recently lost both his mother and father in a murder suicide and he blames everyone except who was directly responsible for what happened,” Darryl explained.

  Vanessa’s heart pounded in her chest. “Oh no, someone killed his mom and dad and then killed themselves?” she asked with wide eyes.

  “No baby, his father killed his mother and then turned the gun on himself. She tried to leave him because he was abusive. The young man found them both when they wouldn’t answer the house phone.”

  “Aw man, that’s crazy! What do you have to do with anything? It’s not like you pulled the trigger?”

  “You’re right. But, his mother was coming to me for therapy and guidance. I helped her gather the courage and the strength to leave her abusive husband. So I guess that’s why that young man is putting the blame on me.”

  “Well then he’s dumb. If he should blame anybody, he should blame his dad for not knowing how to keep his hands off of a woman. His dad was a coward even to his end so, he needs to just get over it.”

  Darryl smiled slightly and hugged his daughter close to him. “I love that you’re such a head strong young lady. It’s make me proud to see that I’ve been doing my job as a man and as a father, and am raising you right. Just make sure that you never let a man come in and try to stomp that strength and make you weak. Any man who tries to do that isn’t a man. He’s a coward, just like you said,” her father schooled her.

  “I won’t, daddy. And even if he tries, I’ll just get you to beat him up.” Vanessa looked up at her father and winked at him making him laugh.

  “And you know damn well I will, too.” He patted her on the arm and took off running. “Too slow!” he yelled at her. Vanessa took off running behind him and they finished doing their training that afternoon before getting strawberry and banana smoothies and vegan burgers afterwards.

  Less than a week later, Vanessa remembered she had just gotten out of the shower and had put her night clothes on. She reached in the stand that contained many DVDs and pulled “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” a movie that she and her father discussed watching when he came home from work. Their doorbell rang and just like she always did, she stood at the top of the steps and looked down to see who it was. She was baffled when she saw that it was two policemen. She couldn’t hear what was said but she could tell that whatever it was had her mother upset.

  “My daughter is 16. Can she stay here while I come with you, I mean I won’t get into any trouble with social services, will I? If it is him, I don’t want my daughter to see. I’d rather just tell her in my own words,” Karen said as she tried to keep her composure.

  “She’s old enough to stay home ma’am and if you would like, we’ll keep a unit outside of the home until you are brought back.”

  “Yes, please.” Karen fumbled as she grabbed her jacket from the coat stand by the door. She called up to Vanessa but was startled when she saw that her daughter was near the bottom of the steps behind her.

  “Mom, what’s going on?” Vanessa asked as she looked from her mother to the two officers behind her.

  “Nothing sweetie, I just need to do something real quick and I’ll be right back,” Karen said to her daughter.

  “But mom…” Vanessa said.

  “I’ll be right back,” Karen closed the door before she could say anything else. Vanessa ran to the door and looked out the window. She watched her mother get into the cop car and they drove her away.

  It was two long hours before Vanessa’s mother returned. Vanessa was on the couch and had begun to nod off when she heard her come in. She was confused as to why her father wasn’t with her.

  “Mom… where’s dad?” she asked as she looked her mother over and could immediately tell that something was wrong.

  Karen opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. She snatched her daughter close to her and burst out in tears, sobbing loudly.

  “Mom, what happened? Where’s my dad? What happened, mom?! What happened?!” Vanessa practically yelled as she tried to pull away from her mother.

  “They killed him, baby! They killed him on his way home from work. Someone shot him and he’s dead!”

  “What… no… that can’t be! Mom…” Vanessa said back almost in hysterics. She screamed for her father, demanding that God send him back to her because he obviously ma
de a mistake. Of all the horrible people in the world that he could have easily taken, why would he take her father?

  It was that night that she lost her faith in God feeling as though if there was one, he didn’t know how to really be a God when the good were dying or getting killed at a young age while all of the bad people got to live and enjoy life.

  “Daddy…” Vanessa mumbled in her sleep as tears slid out of her eyes. “Why…? Why daddy…?”

  Derek heard her and tapped her on her shoulder trying to wake her. He tapped her a little harder and she jumped up startling him.

  “Carmen… are you okay?”

  Vanessa frowned as she clutched her chest. The dream made her miss her father terribly. She could still see his face so clearly from the dream, and hear his voice. She could even smell his cologne. She burst out in tears feeling the loss due to him being murdered all over again. Derek sat next to her and put his arms around her.

  “What’s wrong?” Derek asked as he wiped her face. “Were you dreaming about your dad or something?”

  Vanessa nodded her head. “I wish he was here. None of this would have ever happened if he was still here,” she said as she became choked up.

  “You wanna talk about it?” Derek asked. He knew how leery she was to talk about her past but hoped that after what happened today and after she was able to share her abusive past with him earlier that she would be able to open up more to him.

  “They never found the person who killed him. They questioned people and had a suspect, but nothing ever panned out from it,” Vanessa said with a sniff.

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “All I know is what my mother told me. She said he was on his way to his car when someone tried to rob him and they shot him. He died on the way to the hospital.”

  “Damn…” was all that Derek could think to say. “Did you ever look into it, like try to find information about his murder on your own?”

  A flash from the dream came back to Vanessa of the young man her father was arguing with. He looked familiar but Vanessa wasn’t sure. Derek noticed the confused look on her face.

  “Carmen?” he called to her.

  “No… I was so mad after it happened, I just threw myself into my school work. I quit the track team and I just… I don’t know. But I never thought to look anything up. I guess I was always scared that my father would have gotten a small little paragraph on the side of a page in the newspaper and that was it.”

  Derek rubbed her back as she rested her head on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if he should push the issue or let her decide what she wanted to do, so he asked her. “What do you wanna do?”

  Vanessa thought for a moment and then looked up at him. “Do you have a laptop?”

  “I got a MacBook. Hold up a second.” Vanessa sat up while Derek went down the hall to his bedroom to get his MacBook. He came back and sat on the couch next to her. Vanessa’s heart raced with anticipation as he opened up a browser. “Alright. Let’s start by doing a general search on his name to see what comes up.”

  “Darryl Malik Lofton,” Vanessa replied.

  “You didn’t have his last name?” Derek asked. He then remembered that she had her name changed. “Never mind.”

  He typed the name in and the results came up. The small practice that he shared with two other people along with the clinic that he did group sessions in twice a night came up in the search. They scrolled down and saw that there was a memorial page for him on Facebook. Derek clicked on it and they browsed the photos, many of which included Vanessa and her mother. Vanessa shared brief memories of the photos they looked at and for once, Derek was getting the chance to get to know the woman he had become fond of and was starting love.

  “You look just like him,” he told her.

  “That’s what everybody used to say. They would tease my mom and tell her I looked like my father spit me out and my mom had no parts of my creation.” She laughed out loud and shook her head. They scrolled down a little further and was able to find a link that led to a news story about her father’s murder. She was shocked that it was more than just the tiny paragraph she was expecting him to have.

  Derek and Vanessa read through the article on Darryl Lofton and followed links that went to other stories about his murder. It was the last link that had Vanessa feeling like she might lay down and die from a heart attack.

  “35 year old Darryl Lofton dedicated his life to doing what he loved most- helping people. But was it his love and passion for helping others that cost him his life in the end? His secretary, Donna Stewart speaks with us exclusively in a tell all interview sharing what she believes is what led to the fateful night where Lofton’s life tragically ended just a few feet from his place of work”

  “Mr. Lofton was an extraordinary man,” 29 year old Stewart spoke candidly of her former boss. “He had a gift for helping people, for getting them to turn their lives around and make the right choices for their own benefit. But one of the last women that he helped, I think he became too close to her, too personal.”

  They skimmed through the article that told of a woman Darryl was helping by the name of Diane Washington, who was in a terribly violent and abusive marriage to Kevin Washington. Vanessa’s heart raced as she read through the article, her dream coming back to her more and more.

  “There was suspicion that Mr. Lofton was having an affair with Diane because of the amount of time he was dedicating to her. Sometimes he would reschedule other clients so he could have private sessions with her. We didn’t want to believe he would ever cheat on his wife because he was very openly devoted to her and his daughter. But the relationship he shared with Diane seemed a little more personal than professional.”

  “That bitch is lying,” Vanessa hissed angrily. Derek looked at her wide-eyed unable to ever recall a time where she used profanity. “My father wasn’t a cheater. He never would’ve touched another woman, he loved my mother!”

  “Let’s see what else the article says first, Carmen. Don’t trip yet. You know people always doing shit for their 15 seconds of fame,” Derek replied.

  They continued to read on. “We began to dismiss the idea of them having an affair once Mr. Lofton began adhering to his schedule like he normally would. However, he seemed overly pleased that Mrs. Washington was leaving her husband. Not too long after she made that decision, Mr. Lofton learned that she had been killed and her abusive husband killed himself as well.”

  The room swam as Vanessa thought of her dream and the young man that her father said blamed him for the death of his parents. The last name Washington made her gasp.

  “Oh my God…” she said.

  “What?” Derek asked her. Vanessa didn’t respond. She pulled the MacBook into her lap and exited out of the article. She then typed in Kevin Washington and Diane Washington. She scrolled through the results that came up in the search engine until she got to a news story link.

  “Murder-Suicide claims the lives of a married couple and rocks a South Philly Neighborhood,” she read aloud. She skimmed through the opening paragraph as butterflies filled her stomach and her heart raced. “What neighbors are saying was an unsettling but not surprising end have police busy tonight as they investigate what appears to be a murder suicide in the 2500 block of South 25th and Montrose Streets. The body of 42 year old Diane Washington was found in her kitchen, dead from multiple gunshot wounds, and her husband 47 year old Kevin Washington was found upstairs in the bathroom with an apparent self-inflicted gun-shot wound to the head. The bodies were discovered by their only son, Eric Washington who decided to come home after calling both of their cell phones numerous times but unable to reach either of them…”

  “Oh…my… GOD!!” Vanessa practically screamed.

  “What?” Derek asked. Vanessa jumped up and began to pace as her mind raced, briefly showing flashes from her dream of the young man her father was in the heated discussion with all the while hearing a jumbled combination of her father explaining why the y
oung man was upset with him, the words from the interview with Donna Stewart, and the words from the article about the murder-suicide.

  “The world can’t be this small. The world can’t be this fucking small!” Vanessa said as she paced back and forth. “Oh my God…! That… that motherfucker killed my father!” Hearing herself say it out loud made her sick to her stomach. But the rage boiling inside of her prevented her from vomiting up her dinner. “All this time… all this fucking time he’s been right there in my face. That sick fucking… that fucking…” Vanessa stopped dead in her tracks when everything became clear.

  “Carmen, talk to me. What are you talking about?” Derek asked. “Sit down before you make yourself sick.” He took her by the hand and brought her back over to the couch. Her eyes looked around wildly as she replayed the memory from her dream and tried to gather her thoughts so she could explain everything to Derek.

  “Okay, I had a dream about my father. But it was more like a memory. We were at Temple University’s track field back in Philly and he was helping me train. All of a sudden, he sent me to run without him so he could go talk to this guy that was standing by his car. I noticed that the conversation didn’t look too friendly, so me being nosey, I went over to the opening gate to the track and watched. After the guy left, my dad told me what the deal was, that basically the young man blamed him for his father killing his mother and then killing himself,” Vanessa explained.

  “So the guy that you saw talking to your dad is the guy from the article? You think he killed your dad?” Derek asked her.

  “I know he did,” Vanessa said in a matter of fact tone.