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She looked me up and down and lowered the bat, deciding I didn’t look like a criminal.
“Something bad happened in there last night.” She whispered the words, like she was afraid of being overheard even though I was the only person in the hallway.
I pointed at Brina’s door, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. “In here? This apartment?”
She nodded her head. “Something real bad!”
With that, she slammed the door in my face. I stood there, paralyzed with fear. What the hell did she mean by that? I started banging on the old woman’s door, but she didn’t answer. “What do you mean, something bad? Ma’am? What are you talking about?”
My first instinct was to call Jason. I rummaged through my purse for my cell phone. After dialing the first five digits of our home number, I started laughing and turned the power off. This was ridiculous! That old woman was probably senile. For all I knew, she was making the whole thing up. Brina was just fine. She had to be. I’d just seen her ass the other day, after all.
I retrieved the extra key and stormed inside her apartment. Her living room was dark, but everything seemed intact. There was a light emitting from the cracked door of her bedroom. The music was coming from in there also. I’ll never forget the song that was playing. It was Billie Holiday’s version of “God Bless the Child.”
I went into Brina’s bedroom. I couldn’t breathe. At first, my eyes refused to register wh
at they were seeing. Ten seconds later, my screams began.
To this day, I’m still confused about the chain of events that happened next. It didn’t really matter who ran in there, who called the police, who picked me up off the floor, who called Jason to tell him to come and get me, who did this and who did that. We were all too late. Brina was gone, and my life would never be the same.
I remember Jason rushing into the super’s apartment, drenched with rain. At some point, the drizzling had turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm. The homicide detectives set up the super’s place as their base of operations so the coroner’s office and forensics team could do whatever it is they do when someone is brutally murdered in Brina’s apartment without other people traipsing in and out. Jason joined me on the couch and almost had to slap me silly to get a response. I could only manage to wail, sink into his warm, muscular arms and pray for the whole nightmare to go away.
But it didn’t go away. It seemed like we were there for hours while I answered all fifty million of their questions. Some of them I knew the answers to, and some I didn’t. I told them they needed to go talk to that old heifer down the hall who didn’t bother to call the police the night before when she heard something bad going on.
I described to them how I walked in the apartment and found Brina laid out in a funereal position on her bed, with her hands draped limply across her chest. All the bedding had been stripped away except the floral-patterned fitted sheet and mattress cover. I cringed at the thought of all the blood. There was blood everywhere. On the bed, on the carpet, even on the walls.
A forensics technician barged into the room to inform the detectives he’d counted eighty-seven stab wounds, as if he was proud to be able to count so high. Jason spoke the words I was thinking: “Why does Zoe have to hear this? Don’t you guys have any compassion?”
One of the detectives obviously agreed. He took the insensitive bastard out in the hallway so he could finish relating his findings. I resumed giving my statement, what there was of it, telling them everything I knew—what Dempsey looked like, where Brina had met him, what I knew about the beatings, how I’d pulled my switchblade on him once to make him leave, and how I’d taken Brina to the hospital a few days before her death to get medical treatment.
After they were reasonably sure they’d gotten everything useful out of me, they told Jason he could take me home and assured me they would track that rabid dog down at all costs.
My mother was there with the kids when we got home. They were already snug in their beds. Thank goodness it was one of the regular nights she kept them. Jason was able to come to my rescue right away, and I was grateful for that. If I had to face all of that alone while he waited for someone to come over to baby-sit, I would’ve really been a basket case. Having my husband by my side during the ordeal was the only thing that kept me from slipping over the edge. Jason is my love, my life, my everything.
The next few days were pure hell. My mother practically moved in so she could treat me like a baby, bringing me mugs of warm milk, running my bathwater, and combing my hair like I was a complete invalid. Jason was a sweetheart. He took some time off from the office and handled Brina’s funeral arrangements. Brina’s mother was just as devastated as I was. She even sobered up for a few days to wallow in her grief. She couldn’t deal with picking out caskets and a dress any more than I could. My baby did it all. He even arranged to pay for everything, since Brina had no insurance and her mother was barely making ends meet.
The weather was beautiful the day of the funeral. I was very thankful. Brina had very few friends and never stayed at a job long enough to make lifelong attachments with coworkers. For that reason, Jason arranged to have the funeral graveside. He’d selected a beautiful white coffin and a huge bed of pink roses to be laid over it. He held my hand and comforted me throughout the entire ordeal.
That’s when I knew it was over. That’s when I knew I could beat my sexual addiction. Jason was all I ever needed. If I had to live the rest of my life curbing my sexual desires in order to be with him, then so be it. That was one sacrifice I was more than willing to make.
While we were walking back to the black limousine provided by the funeral parlor, I stopped him in his tracks just to give him a hug and a passionate kiss. “I love you, Jason!”
“I love you too, Zoe, and this is forever!”
I managed a smile for the first time since Brina’s death. “Always has been! Always will be!”
chapter
twenty-two
I didn’t go back to work for another week after Brina’s funeral. I just couldn’t deal with making decisions. I delegated different tasks to several senior members of my staff and spent quality time with my husband and my kids instead. How foolish it had been of me to risk everything I had to sate my sexual urges. I’d lost so much valuable time screwing around, time I could’ve had with the love of my life and the beautiful little people we made together.
When I did finally return to the office, most of the business issues were cleared off of my desk, but I still had a huge pile of phone messages. I wasn’t all that surprised. I knew the majority of them were from my lovers before I even read them. My secretary had been suspicious of my extramarital activities for a long time. I’m sure the three of them ringing the office phone off the hook during my absence had only cleared up any lingering doubts she may have been hanging on to. I didn’t really care what she thought or knew. I already had enough people woven up in my web of deception.
I fingered through the messages and ended up ditching-them all in the wastebasket beside my desk. It was time for all the bullshit, lies, and stress to be over, and there was no time like the present. I told my secretary I would be back later that day, after having spent only ten minutes in my office. I had been away from the office for over a week already. A few more hours wasn’t going to make a drastic difference.
I got out on the sidewalk, took in a deep breath, and exhaled. I was ready to get the drama over with and my life back in order. I was going to end all three affairs in one damn day, go home, and make love to the one man who held the key to my heart. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but never in a million years did I expect the shit to hit the fan as hard as it did.
I decided to go discuss matters with Tyson first because he was the most temperamental. I figured if I dealt with the worst of it and worked my way from there, I might end up with one hell of a migraine but with everything else intact. It was only about ten in the morning, so I had to go to the garage where he worked in order to talk. That was fine by me. Safety in numbers and all that jazz.
