Just To Be Loved

by Lee, Vivian Rose

  “Can I call my father please?”

  “You can do that downtown.”

  At the station, she sat in a small room with nothing more than a desk and two chairs inside. The two detectives left her sitting there and it was quite a long time before they returned. When they did, one of them tossed a folder on the table in front of her. They had allowed her a phone call as promised, but when she tried to call her father, his voicemail picked up, and they would not allow her to make another.

  “Miss Trent, we have pictures and a recording of you ordering the hit on your father.”

  “I didn’t do this. Who told you this, what…”

  The detective opened the folder and slid some photos to her. Mya looked at the photos of her talking to David Harris. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes I know him, but not well. We have a calculus class together. He stopped me to ask me about an assignment,” she answered. By this time Mya was thoroughly confused. Who would take pictures of her talking to David? “Did you talk to David? Did you ask him what we talked about?”

  “I’m asking the questions here Miss Trent,” Detective Morgan interjected. He clicked on a tape recording.

  “Mya you don’t wanna do this.” The voice on the recording said. She had never heard that voice before in her life.

  “Yes I do. He has to go and I need to do this.” Although the voice sounded similar to Mya’s, she knew for a fact that it wasn’t her.

  “Do what?” Mya asked looking at the detectives.

  “Listen!” Detective Harrison snapped.

  “You can’t kill your father,” the male voice urged.

  “I can and I will. Can you help me?” The female voice asked.

  “Okay I’ll see what I can do.”

  The officer turned off the recorder.

  “That’s not my voice,” Mya responded. “I didn’t talk to him that long. And nothing on that tape says I ordered anything.”

  “Unfortunately, David Harris cannot be located to corroborate your story, but the evidence is right here staring you in the face,” Detective Harrison said in a heated tone.

  “What evidence? A picture of me talking to David and a fake recording of voices I’ve never heard before?” Mya shouted.

  “Miss Trent, the facts are the facts! Someone called our hotline and accused you of attempting to procure a hit, and we have evidence of a recording with pictures of you handing an envelope to David Harris!”

  “I have to call my father. None of this is true,” she said, her voice panicky.

  “We called your father and he’s on his way down,” Detective Morgan replied.

  Mya sighed in relief. “Good. He will clear this up.”

  As the detectives took their evidence and left the room, Mya dropped her hand to her face as the tears started to fall. “God help me, I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” she sobbed.

  Henry stared at the photos. No, Mya would not do this; not his daughter.

  “I’d told you Dad,” Hunter growled angrily. “I knew she was lying.”

  “Your mother is going to be heartbroken,” Henry said sadly. He looked up at the detectives. “Have you arrested her yet?”

  “Yes, but she hasn’t been charged yet. More than likely she’ll be charged with conspiracy to commit murder.”

  Henry rubbed his temples. “I want to see her.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise sir,” the detective commented.

  “I don’t care what you think officer, I want to see her.”

  The detective shook his head. “OK if that’s what you want,” he said as he left the room to get Mya.

  “Dad, I’m sorry,” Hunter said after the detective left them.

  Henry looked over at his son with red-rimmed eyes. “Son, you were right. Your mother and grandmother are going to be devastated.”

  “Dad I…,” Hunter began to say, but before he could finish the door opened and Mya walked in.

  “Dad, I didn’t do this, I swear I didn’t,” she pleaded.

  Henry stared at her. “Why Mya, why? I would have given you anything. I didn’t want to believe you were like your mother… but you are.”

  “Daddy I swear I didn’t…”

  “Shut up!” Hunter shouted.

  “Daddy,” Mya sobbed.

  “I am not your father!” Henry said through clenched teeth.

  Mya looked at Hunter and his eyes were like daggers into her soul.

  “Please, you have to believe me. I would never do anything like this!”

  “Miss Trent, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder,” Detective Harrison charged as a pair of uniformed officers came into the room.

  “No! No!” Mya looked at her father defeated. “I would never hurt you Mr. Trent, never!”

  When the officer put the handcuffs on her and led her away, Mya shut down. What did it matter now? She was taken to central booking where she was fingerprinted, body searched, told to change into an orange jumpsuit, had a mug shot was taken, and was placed into a cell. She sat on the small cot dry-eyed with her head down as she rocked back and forth. She didn’t know how long she sat there staring at the brick walls. A few minutes later, a female officer came to her cell and told her to get up. The officer handcuffed her and led to a small room where she then ordered her to sit, and then handcuffed her to a chair. After the officer left, a young black man in a gray suit entered the room and sat across from her. He opened his briefcase.

  “Mya Trent, I’m Roger Collins your public defender. Now I need you to tell me what happened here.”

  At the sight of Mr. Collins, Mya’s spirits lifted. For the first time since this nightmare began, she knew she had a chance to fight this. “I don’t know what happened. The police said that someone called their hotline and accused me of putting a hit out on my… Henry Trent.” Mya caught herself. She didn’t want to make the mistake of calling him father ever again. “They had pictures of me talking to David Harris who I have only spoken to that one time. Then there was this recording saying that I ordered a hit on Mr. Trent, but I swear I didn’t do that. I don’t know anything about any of this.”

  “Okay Mya,” Mr. Collins said with a heavy breath. “I’ll look into everything.”

  Mya stared at him. “Is that it?”

  “Yes… unless you’re not telling me everything.”

  “I have nothing else to tell. Can you help me?”

  “I can try,” he said, rising to his feet. “Now after the arraignment tomorrow they’re going to move you to the county detention facility… unless, of course you can post bail.”

  “Bail? I don’t have any money.”

  “Okay, we will see what happens at arrangement. I will try to see if I can get you bailed out. See you tomorrow morning.”

  After the officer led Mya backed to her cell, she lay on the cot realizing that her life was over.

  Henry stood in his study with Hunter. Both men were quiet with their own thoughts after returning from the police station. Hunter poured a glass of scotch for himself, and handed one to his father who tossed the liquor into his mouth. He needed to feel the fire racing through his body to prove he was not as numb as he felt. Why would his daughter do this? He took her in and was more than honored to be her father, but all this time she was plotting to avenge her unstable mother. Henry glanced at Hunter who was deep in thought as well. He had it right to suspect that Mya had an ulterior motive.

  “Damn her!” Henry blurted out.

  Henry was hurting because he came to love Mya very much. He would have given her the world. What hurt him more than anything however was that he had to tell his wife about Mya's betrayal. Sylvie had come to love her like her own daughter and accepted her without question or remorse. He rubbed his hand over his face and turned to Hunter.

  “Your mother and brothers will have to know.”

  “Yes I know,” Hunter said absently, now standing at the picture window. Oh, how he wanted Mya to prove him wrong about her, but all she pr
oved was that his suspicions about her were right. Guilt and hate coursed through him. Hatred at Mya for her attempt on his father’s life and guilt because he still craved her. What amazed him were the times that they made love, and how well they were together, although it was not love on his part, just pure lust. The sex was fast, furious, and wild. It seems the only truth about her was that she was a virgin. He hated that he had been attracted to her from the moment he saw her, and that she had them all fooled, except for him. Mom was going to be devastated.

  “Call your brothers and have them here right away,” Henry ordered. “I’m going to call Marvin Taylor; I don’t want this in the paper.” Marvin Taylor and Henry were friends since high school and he owned the city newspaper so Henry knew that he could trust him. Hunter called his brothers while his father spoke to Marvin.

  Hunter and Henry were standing by the mantle when Chance and Bryan arrived, and a few minutes later, Sylvie joined them.

  “Honey I came as soon as I could,” she explained as she breezed into the room huffing and puffing. Sylvie paused a moment to kiss her husband. “When you said right away, I came as quickly as I could. The committee for the gala can handle things without me. Okay, so what’s going on?”

  Trevor rushed in. “Sorry, I was with a client.”

  Henry invited them all to sit down with a sweep of his hand while and Hunter remained standing. He took a deep breath and shook his head.

  “Where’s Mya?” Sylvie asked. “You didn’t forget that she’s part of this family…”

  “This is about Mya,” Henry interrupted. She nodded with a smile, and took a seat beside her younger son, taking his large hand in hers.

  Henry leaned against the front of his desk and folded his arms across his chest. He was an emotional mess as he wrestled with the thought of his daughter, whom he had taken in without question and loved, wanting him dead. He wasn’t sure if he was more hurt or angry.

  “This is not easy for me… partially because I blame myself.”

  “Henry you’re scaring me,” Sylvie replied looking into his eyes.

  Henry took a deep cleansing breath. “A few hours ago I was called down to the police station on an urgent matter. The police informed me someone had put a hit out on me.”

  Sylvie gasped and covered her mouth as his sons sprang to their feet. “Oh Henry! Who would do such a thing?” Sylvie said as she rushed to his side.

  Henry didn’t want to say her name. He dropped his head shaking it, but Hunter had no problem speaking up. “It was Mya,” he said, feeling vindicated.

  “What?” His brothers said at the same time.

  “Mya? Our sister Mya?” Trevor asked in disbelief.

  “No, I don’t believe it! I don’t believe any of this!” Sylvie said, looking intently at her husband.

  “I’m sorry honey, but it’s true. I saw the pictures and I heard the recording of her making the deal.”

  “How was she caught?” Sylvie asked, still refusing to believe it. She knew Mya was not like that.

  “Well, apparently someone called the crime hotline to notify the police and later a box arrived at the police station with all the evidence inside. So while Mya was making plans to have me assassinated, the police think the accomplice turned her in.”

  “No, no I don’t believe this,” Sylvia repeated.

  Henry wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered before pressing her face into Henry’s chest and weeping.

  Hunter continued. “Mya has been arrested and will be arraigned tomorrow. Dad and I did see her, and of course she insisted she was innocent.”

  Tears fell from Henry’s eyes as he helped his distraught wife from the room, and when he returned, he and his sons thought it best they keep this from their grandmother until she had returned from her cruise. Henry decided that the only others who would know of Mya's betrayal were his brothers, and he informed his sons that he was going to see to it that Mya didn’t make bail. He would call the DA and give him a history of Mya’s and her mother’s background. Being that the DA was a good friend of his, that information should be enough to ensure that the daughter Ione Taylor received no bail and stayed in jail, right where she belonged.

  Mya walked slowly with her head down into the courtroom because of the shackles on her ankles and wrists, and was led to a chair beside her public defender, Roger Collins. After her charges were read, the lawyers spoke.

  “Your honor, Ms. Trent has no criminal record and I asked that she’d be released on bond,” Mr. Collins stated. He didn’t have much to go on in Mya’s defense, but he still put forward a good argument.

  The prosecutor spoke next. “Your honor, Miss Trent is the daughter of Ione Taylor, and approximately twenty-seven years ago, Ione Taylor shot Mr. Henry Trent, the defendant’s father. She then fled the area to avoid apprehension and was never arrested for her crime. Miss Taylor has passed away now, and her daughter tracked down Mr. Trent in some kind of twisted attempt to act out her and her mother’s revenge. The state thinks she is a flight risk and will flee apprehension just as her mother had done many years ago. We would request that no bail be offered.”

  After both men argued why Mya should or should not be released on bail, the judge was ready to make his ruling.

  “No bail,” he said indifferently. “Mya Trent will be taking to the regional detention facility until her court date.”

  He banged his gavel indicating that the arraignment was over, and the guards lifted her from a chair and led her from the courtroom.

  Mya arrived at the regional detention facility the next day. She was quiet and at this point didn’t care what happen to her. She was placed into another cell only slightly larger than the one at the Little Rock police station, and when the bars to her cell opened, she was pushed inside where a pair of guards removed her shackles and handcuffs. Lying on the bed across the room, a large mannish looking African American woman stared at her.

  “Hey baby,” the rough voiced woman said.

  Mya looked at the woman and turned away, trying her best to ignore her. She flinched when she heard the clang of the jail cell bars closing, and in that instant a rage that she had never felt before suddenly welled up deep inside her. Everything was so final now; what did she have left to lose?

  “Hey! I’m talking to you bitch,” the large woman from the bed said, grabbing Mya and turning her to face her.

  Something inside Mya snapped. She didn’t think, she didn’t get scared. She growled like a caged animal and jumped on the woman, swinging and screaming as she beat on the woman until she fell to the floor. Quickly straddling the stunned behemoth, Mya used both hands to grab the woman’s hair, and banged her head into the concrete floor repeatedly. Somewhere in the distance she could hear running feet, but she did not stop. She held onto the woman and kept fighting, and even after she felt the guards hitting her on her shoulders and back with their sticks, she still she didn’t stop. She didn’t stop until the guards stuck a stick across her throat and pulled her off the woman. As she screamed her fury at the top of her lungs, four guards handcuffed and shackled her. She was gripped by two of the guards under arms and dragged down to solitary where she screamed until she had no voice. She sat on the floor staring at nothing in the darkness, and after a week in solitary, she was taken back her cell. The guards unlocked the bars allowing her into it, and her cellmate, a completely different woman, backed away when she saw her. Mya Silently curled up into a ball on her cot and turned her back on her, and as the days turned to weeks, she kept to herself. Three more time she had to fight to prove that she was not going to be bullied by any of these women, and three more times she was sent to solitary. She didn’t befriend any of the women, and when they went to the mess hall for their meals, she sat at a table by herself. No one bothered her.

  She spent a lot of her time in the prison library, reading anything that caught her interest, and after her third week in prison, her lawyer Roger Collins came to see her. He informed her that
he was still investigating her case, and their expected court date would be in three months. He also informed her that he still hadn’t located David Harris, but he wasn’t giving up.

  As Mya lay in her bed, she thought about Henry Trent and tried her best not to let her heart harden against him. She also thought about Hunter and wondered if he was the one who set her up, but what did any of that matter now that they already found her guilty? Lastly, and with much fondness, she thought of her grandmother Ghani and Sylvie, and wondered if they believed the lies, she knew that Mr. Trent and Hunter told them.

  A few weeks had passed and his family was still trying to cope with the devastation caused by Mya’s betrayal. Hunter visited his parents daily to check on them, but his mother was still in denial and didn’t mind voicing her opinion about the decision his father made. Each time he entered the house he could swear that he inhaled her scent. She came into their lives and ruined their happy household, and because of that, his father seemed to age overnight. His mother, on the other hand, was quiet and depressed. His brothers were just as angry as he was, but they all kept going. Mya's name however, was not mentioned in the house. Ghani was still on her cruise, and still unaware of Mya's incarceration, because they all knew that once she found out the shit would hit the fan. He was due to see Heather tonight and thought that since Mya's arrest, he could start dating Heather again and this time maybe take the relationship even further.

  Hunter sat quietly at his parent’s dinner table while Heather Bunton dominated the conversation. Although he had broken up with Heather, she didn’t give up on him. Suddenly ready to settle down, he proposed to her and they would be married in late August of that year. Of course, it had to be a grand affair, which was fine by him. All he said to her was not to include him in the planning. Yet she continued to drag him to every society party Little Rock held so that they could be seen as a happily engaged couple. His eyes met his mother’s. He knew she didn’t agree with his choice of bride, but Heather was just as good as any other. He was thirty-three years old and it was time for him to settle down and have some children. His Cherokee grandmother asked when he would settle down every time he visited her as did Ghani, and quite frankly, he wished they would bug his brothers the way the bugged him. So, here he was engaged, and now none of the females in his family were happy with his choice. He just couldn’t win.