My second stop was the closest post office. They were closed, but I used the package drop to mail my evidence package to my bank.
My third stop was the Atlanta Rescue Mission. For ten dollars, one of the guys hanging around outside made a phone call from a pay phone to my house.
My last stop was a Holiday Inn off of I-20 on the west side. I got a room for the night and called Selena. I told her we needed to talk and asked her to meet me at the bar in the lobby.
“Am I going to be attacked again?” Selena demanded quietly as she sat down across from me.
“Probably, Veronica likes to cover her tracks,” I replied.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she hissed.
“Veronica. She convinced you to murder Terrance. I’m pretty sure you had some help from some of his other victims, hopefully all of them, but I can’t prove any of that,” I was grinding my teeth as I explained things. “I don’t think the police will be able to prove it either, unless one of you gets stupid and starts talking. Terrance deserved to die, so I’m not particularly upset that I can’t prove anything, but I think your life is in danger.”
She stood up and turned away, heading for the door. I had no intentions of stopping her, but I had to fight my instincts and then some.
This was where the rubber met the road, and I knew I was taking a chance that I might have been wrong about the whole damn thing. But all the pieces fit, and they all began to point in Selena’s direction, among countless others. I was just pissed that I couldn’t figure out the link to the other people that helped her in her final task to Veronica. And for that matter, why they all felt like they had to protect her?
Selena hesitated, and then walked back to the table and sat down again. She waited for me to continue.
“Veronica participated in setting you up. She cooperated with Terrance to make it easier for him to brainwash you. So I asked myself, ‘how does a strong-willed, angry woman forgive something like that?’ The answer was that Veronica had convinced you that she was a fellow victim. That just being sorry wouldn’t be enough. Certainly not enough to have you call her ‘an angel’. No, she did more than that. I happen to know that Veronica has money. So I’m guessing she financed your rescue of the other women. You’d know where to find them, after all. Your shelter was a good cover, a good place to hide them.”
Selena rubbed her hands as if they had some gooey gunk on them that she needed to rid herself of. I’d seen it many times before; she was ready to pop, she just needed that last little push over the edge so it wouldn’t seem like she snitched.
I kept up my assault. “Maybe Veronica was being genuinely altruistic. She hated helping Terrance, but she loved the control he exercised over her; it was like an addiction that she couldn’t stop. But Terrance went too far. He demanded that she get her husband to help him. And if Veronica has any absolute limits, that’s one of them. So maybe she convinced you and the others to kill him. I’m guessing she wasn’t even there for it. She went over later, after you’d called her. Probably told you she’d make sure no evidence was found, but she was really looking for Terrance’s video recordings of her.”
Her body language waivered, her eyes locked in with mine, as if she were waiting for some sort of glimpse that I might have been lying to her in some way. I saw tears form in her eyes, but she tried desperately to hold on to them, as if she didn’t want to give me the satisfaction to know that her ‘angel’ had turned out to be far less.
I was not in the mood to worry about her shattered images. The truth is much colder; much, much colder.
“The problem, now, is that you and the others are a link to Terrance’s death that can be laid at her doorstep. If you die, the problem goes away. I was wondering how Torres got involved in this; peaches got popped way too soon after going off the air,” I got closer to her so that no one would be able to overhear us. “I figured that was my fault, but he followed you instead of me after the meeting we had. I’m not sure, but I think Veronica was using the Dallas boys to clean up the loose ends. Torres is in jail, but there were others, that much I’m sure of, because they tried to get me at my house.”
She was a few more persuasive sentences from understanding why the caged bird sang. Her palms were sweaty; she rubbed them over and over again, like she really needed to get it off her chest. I knew she would crack.
I’m a cop to my core, and some things never changed. A witness to a murder, or a confession to a murder, was just on the horizon. I needed to play this right, to keep her from trying to spill her guts to me that would require me to testify in a court of law how I circumvented due process and violated her Miranda rights.
“I’ve taken some steps to shut the Dallas boys down, but so long as you’re alive, you’re a threat to Veronica,” I told her. “And there’s always the chance the police won’t get all of the Dallas boys. So my advice is that you and the others should relocate, and I don’t want to know where.”
“He was a bastard...” she began, in a hesitant voice.
But I cut her off.
“I don’t know jack shit, and I don’t want to know. Anything you say on this subject, to anyone besides an attorney, can be used against you. If you tell me and I don’t tell the police, then I’m an accessory after the fact. So if you tell me, I will tell the police. Don’t say anything, ever. Are we clear?”
She nodded mutely, stood, and walked out of the bar.
~Twenty-Two~
The meeting with Veronica was easily arranged; a phone call was all it took. I chose to meet at Hartsfield-Jackson International airport because it’s very public and guns go poorly with the security arrangements. She had at least one of her heavies with her, maybe more, but I only spotted the one that stayed about ten, maybe fifteen feet away as she walked over and sat down next to me in the food court inside of the atrium.
I passed over the original DVDs and the letters and pictures.
“The company bill is in with them, and my business partner is not one to fuck with,” I told her. “You are one very dangerous woman, but you’re a lousy shot.”
The bitch had the nerve to look surprised. She kept looking at me, trying to figure out how I figured out that it was her. I wasn’t about to give up my hand, because I still had the ace in the hole to use if things really got ugly between us.
“We all have our limits,” she told me after a minute. “One of my boys wanted to do you, but that would have been too obvious, don’t you think?”
I nodded. “Murder is one of mine. I’ll be honest with you: I’m pissed off that I can’t prove you had Terrance or peaches murdered, Veronica, but I know you did. It does, however, please me that I can prove that you’ve been involved in some things the voting public really wouldn’t like.”
“So, let’s get to it, Law. What is it that you want?” Veronica gave me a look that let me know what could happen if I just said the word. “Are you trying to take Terrance’s place and be the man now? Maybe you’d like to have me, too? I’d love to belong to you, in exchange for you to make the evidence disappear, of course.”
I laughed. “You’re a funny woman, do you know that? If you were in the scene instead of just playing ‘spank me, I’ve been a bad girl’ bullshit games, you would know who I’m associated with, and he’s none too thrilled that you’ve turned his world on its ear just for your own shits and giggles. As a matter of fact, he sent me a message to deliver to you: your membership has been cancelled.”
The smile faded quickly.
Then it hit me; the Palace.
What was so upsetting to me was the fact that I hadn’t paid any attention to her membership before this very moment in time. I silently chastised myself for overlooking that minor detail.
Then I got a subtle clue that she actually did know who Ramesses and Neferterri were, and the true force of the words that I spoke began to take their damaging effect.
In fact, her smile turned into sheer panic, and I knew the reason why: I remembered the special
clause in the membership packet at the Palace that triggers when a member of the group commits a crime. That clause triggers a seven figure forfeiture payment, in the high millions, which was supposed to keep the membership in line. I had only heard of this happening once about a year ago, but this was the first time that I got a chance to see the pale white look on a member’s face when they realized that they’re on the outside looking in, and they’ve lost a small fortune in the process.
“Well, I guess that means you have a few other things to worry about, including explaining to your husband where all that money went,” I scoffed at her, not caring about the crocodile tears that were flowing at that moment. “This evidence will never see the light of day so long as you behave yourself, and maybe I might convince my business partner that you should be given another chance to remain in the circle. No more killings. I won’t tell you not to play dirty because your husband’s a politician. If you do, then I’ll take you down very hard, and very dirty.”
She studied me very closely and I thought I saw something new in her eyes; wanton lust and hunger. She acted like she could have given a second thought about the membership cancellation and the penalty. I don’t know if that pissed me off or turned me on.
After all, she was a powerful politician’s wife.
And membership still had its privileges.
“You surprise me, Mr. Law. I didn’t expect this of you.”
I nodded. “I seem to have the tendency to do that these days. Quite frankly, I’d rather see you burn for what you’ve done, but considering that you won’t be a part of the upper echelon scene anymore actually makes the cover-up seem not so painful to take now.”
“I really could give a shit about the scene now,” she said quietly. “I was thinking maybe we could arrange something more private later tonight, now that our professional business is done?”
The skirt that she’d worn for the occasion began to slowly rise up her legs. With a deft look, I could see that she was not wearing any panties, garters or stockings. She was completely open and willing for the taking. All that it would take was a word from her heavies, and a bathroom stall would be ‘sequestered’ because the Congressman’s wife wasn’t feeling too well and needed her ‘privacy’ for about twenty minutes.
Veronica, as discreetly as she could, opened her legs and placed my right hand under her skirt, inviting me to find out that, yes, she was as wet as Niagara Falls. The look in her eyes definitely let me know that this was not a trick, and yes, she was mine for the taking, no questions asked.
Thoughts of her heavies blocking the open entrance to the women’s restroom, listening closely to their employer being fucked like a whore on the countertop in every position imaginable, even taking it doggie style so she can watch the look of lust on both of our faces as her hair was being pulled and her face being made to see what a bad girl she was being for performing such a nasty act.
I wanted to lose myself in the moment, if only to get payback for the shit that she put me through, as a ‘job well done’ for keeping her and her husband out of the fracas, with the promise of repeating this type of clandestine meeting when I felt like it, regardless of where in the country she was.
All of this could be had, in return for my silence, of course.
If I was a lesser man, I would have taken her up on her offer quicker than a New York minute.
But then thoughts of my girls started to dance in my head. Even though, for all intents and purposes, I could do what I wanted and claim Master’s prerogative, there was no real way that I could look myself in the mirror and justify to myself of what I wanted to resign myself to doing.
The scales aren’t balanced were the words I could hear Ramesses in my head telling me.
And he’d be right.
She’s already damaged goods now.
No self respecting Dominant would touch her now. Not without risking termination of membership and triggering the clause.
Even though the darker side of my nature would give me grief for the foreseeable future, I smoothly took her hands and forced them to pull her skirt back down to a respectable length on her legs. Her eyes pleaded with me to answer the silent request in her mind to take her someplace and give her one last rough ride before she went back to her husband once and for all.
I laughed. She honestly thought I’ve been a private dick long enough to fuck my clients after ‘business’ had been completed.
She’s got another thing coming.
“As much as I would love to take my frustrations out on you in return for trying to kill me, I’m not going to scratch your itch. Besides, I’m seeing someone,” I proudly stated, knowing that it was two someones that I was seeing, not just one. If I had my way, they would both be at home making sure they took the brunt of my building sexual frustration that this woman had just brought out of me.
“Pity,” she sighed. “They are quite sexy; it would have been fun to play with them both. Why not just take me down if you’re so concerned I might hurt people?”
“I have a number of bad reasons,” I shot back at her, trying to keep my anger in check. “Tangling with you is just too messy. Too many bystanders would get hurt. You can trust me not to use this information to blackmail you or your husband so long as I can trust you not to kill anybody.”
I got up close and personal for one last warning. “Leave my slaves out of this, and I promise you that you won’t have to sleep with one eye open in D.C. while you sleep next to your husband in your estate in Alexandria.”
She gave me a long hard stare, followed by the first genuine smile I’d ever seen on her face since our first encounter, and then stood up and walked away from me, trailed by her goons.
Game over.
I waited for an hour and then caught the train back to the city. I didn’t think Veronica would try to have me killed in the airport parking lot if I had taken my truck, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I figured I had enough time to get to the bank and put the originals of that package into my safety deposit box and still make it back to my place in time to meet Natasha and Niki.
“It’s over,” I told Sinsual a week later. We were having tea at her home. “The police have arrested most of Aris’ partners in Dallas and, I’m informed, a couple of the prostitutes have agreed to testify against them. It’s already Metro news rather than the A section.”
“I am, believe Me, Dominic, glad to hear this. But You haven’t answered My question: who killed Aris?”
“I don’t know,” I told her with the staunchest poker face I could muster. I knew, of course, thanks to Jenna, but I wasn’t going to talk about that.
What good would it do?
If I was right and I proved my suspicions then all I’d manage to do was heap more misfortune on Aris’ victims. In the balance of things, I thought I could live with letting some brutalized women get away with murder rather than getting ‘justice’ for a despicable piece of shit.
Yeah, I’m trying to convince myself as much as I’m trying to convince you.
To quote Niki, ‘my ethics were itching’.
Life’s a bitch sometimes. “The police seem to be working on the assumption that Aris was killed by his partners because he was planning to go into business for himself. Apparently they got an anonymous tip about that,” I said.
It was weak, and I know I would have a hard time believing it if it were being told to me. I guess that’s why I wasn’t surprised when Sin gave me an incredulous look.
“You’re not telling Me everything,” Sin declared, fixing me with that stare her boys dread and desire.
“No, He’s not,” Niki said as she slid into the booth beside me, “but He’s not telling me everything either,” she added.
“Do you really want to know?” I asked them both. “I mean, it won’t cost you much, just your sanity.”
“No,” they both replied.
I shrugged. “It’s not a problem then.”
“I dislike anonymous tips,” Niki said. “Th
ey’re too pat, too cowardly, too likely to be the work of someone with an axe to grind.”
I shrugged again. “Anonymous tips are part of investigation. You know that, Niki, we used to get them all the time at the P.D. Frankly, I’m mostly satisfied with the results of this case: Aris is dead and the pimps are out of business. I’d like to know what happened to Aris’ victims, but the Dallas police are in a better position to investigate that than I am.”
A little lie, professionally acceptable.
They’ll get over it; that one went in the file that Ramesses had marked “G-14”.
That is, if you believed in conspiracy theories and that sort of thing.
“I am curious about one point,” I turned around and glanced at Niki, casually, as if her presence at the South Fulton munch wasn’t my biggest surprise of the month. “When you were arresting Me, what did Sin tell you on the phone that made you blush?”
She blushed again, which is one of the delights of my life. She wasn’t thinking about Ariel or Veronica anymore, either. She would, of course. She’s a police officer, a soon to be assistant D.A. as well, and a woman, so she’d think about those two and want more information.
But not right now.
“She said i should pull Your dick out and criticize it and You’d tell me whatever i wanted to know,” Niki said.
“My boys love that,” Sin said. “Have You ever seen a grown man cry while involuntarily ejaculating? Marvelous!” She couldn’t help but be tickled at her own images.
I, on the other hand, didn’t find that shit so funny.
“Yeah, I dare her to try it, because she knows what will happen if she did,” I boldly stated. “Neither she nor Niki would like the aftermath of that at all.”
“Oh, lighten up, Dominic,” Sinsual placed a hand on my forearm, which amazingly calmed me. “You can’t take Yourself too seriously. Besides, I can tell that these girls adore You.”
I gave a look of confusion because I didn’t remember telling Sin about Natasha, until I felt a warm pair of petite hands grace across the nape of my neck, followed by a peck on the cheek.
Deviant Intent: OBSESSION Page 19
