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“Byeeee,” Crystal cackled. “I told you from the beginning I was getting paid to fuck him. The baby was supposed to be anextracome up, cause I thought I was dealing with Obama-level niggas. Now I’m out here fucking up my body for the same type of nigga I was dealing with on the streets. Can’t stay off the damn toilet either.”
Crystal laughed at whatever was said on the other end of the line. “No such thing as TMI hoe. But seriously – soon as I have this baby, the turn-up has to be… on some next level shit. Soon as my six weeks is up. Granny can have her replacement son, and I can move on. I don’t even give a fuck about the money from the will anymore. I got paid for what I did, and I’ve got my eyes on bigger and better. Wifey bitch can do whatever she wants.”
Wifey bitch? Seriously?!
“No, she’s actually cute. Like… bad bitch status to be honest. And all he ever did was complain about her weight, like he don’t realize big girls ain’t with the bullshit anymore. Homegirl is a baddie. And his ass could barely get it up half the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she reallywasfucking his old boss like he thought she was. He wassoobsessed with what she was doing, and I swear it didn’t seem like she was bothered. Until that day she threatened to kill his ass, and baby I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t let a nigga who could barely get his dick hard play me out either.”
The toilet flushed, muffling her next words, shortly followed by the running water of the sink.
“Uh, no bitch!” I heard her laugh, as she tore off paper towels to dry her hands. “I always said if I was going to wreck homes, it was going to come with a price, and I was well-paid, okay? And now, I’m about to get his mama to pay me for this baby, then I’m moving somewhere sunny, bih.”
The bathroom door clattered closed, and I stood there, reeling about what I’d just overheard. With all the other drama happening, it – strangely – had never even occurred to me that Crystal may have been paid to disrupt my relationship with Kellen.
But it made perfect sense.
And… it made me wickedly happy.
Kellen had beensoconvinced that she worshipped the ground he walked on, so to find out that her loyalty to him had been tied to a paycheck was delicious. And her long-term con, of getting Kellen’s mother to pay her off to keep the grandson she wanted so damned bad she was willing to drop me?
Ha!
My opinion of Crystal was suddenly so much higher.
I hurriedly finished my business in the bathroom, damn near breaking my neck from trying not to fall into the toilet while I hovered over it. I was excited, finally feeling like maybe this was a useful lead, and I transferred that excitement to Wick when I left the bathroom. My mouth was running at a hundred miles per minute all the way to his Tesla, and he pulled his tablet back out as soon as we climbed inside.
“Okay. Tell me what I’m looking for,” he said, fingers poised over the screen, ready to type.
I blinked. “Um… Crystal’s bank accounts. We need to knowwhopaid her to go after Kellen. And maybe once we know that, some of these things will start connecting. Amanda’s disappearance, Kellen stepping out… what was the catalyst?”
“Okay, let me start with the first thing – Crystal’s bank account. Whoa… she has one-hundred eighty-thousand dollars and some change. And it looks like she has expensive ass tastes, too, because she started a lot higher… fifteen thousand dollars a month, dating back for the past two years. No payment since Kellen died.”
“That’s a lot of damn money just to screw Kellen.”
Wick nodded. “Yeah, but it was more than just screwing him, right? You said yourself, it was like he was in love with this girl. Got her pregnant, was building a life. Whoever set this up, they wanted this to be insurmountable.”
“Right,” I said, processing his words, and trying to make them stick. “Can you see who that was?”
“Gimme a second,” Wick muttered, fingers flying over the screen for several moments before he came to a stop. “Asher. Again.”
That hit me like a blow to the chest. Even after all the drama of the other night, I’d been holding out hope that Asher would prove us wrong, that he really hadn’t been a part of anything crazy, but at this point… those odds were nonexistent.
“At the house, the other night… he said he’d exposed Kellen, but you stayed. Maybe this is what he was talking about,” Wick said, which made sense. He’d initially hired Crystal, probably planning to orchestrate me catching Kellen in the act with her. Only, I’d done that by accident anyway, and wound up deciding to stay.
It hadn’t worked.
“Okay, so we answered that. We know Asher paid Crystal to play that role. But she mentioned something else… she mentioned Kellen thinking that I was sleeping with his former boss, but that news is mind-blowing, to me. I’ve been around Brad Barkermaybeseven or eight times in the years that Kellen was atBarker Financial,and never,everalone.”
“That may be true, but someone convinced Kellen that wasn’t the case,” Wick said, shrugging. “And you have to admit it makes sense. You told me on multiple occasions, that you felt like he hated you. I know you think you committed some horrible slight against him by not babying his grown ass after he lost his job, but that never quite felt right to me. But this… this does. I mean, think about it – Brad Barker is a major player in finance – hell, evenIknow his name. Now, if I’m Kellen, and I believe that you’re sleeping with this guy, it’s setting off all kinds of questions in my head. Including, “is this the reason no one will hire me?”. Not only are you stepping out, you’re playing with my money, andthoseare reasons to start hating somebody.”
I pushed out a breath. “I guess it does make sense, but also… it doesn’t. What would make Kellen even believe something like that? And if he did, why wouldn’t he confront, or expose me?”
“That’s… a great question. One I don’t have an answer for really. Unless… maybe he was just biding his time. Kellen seems like he was a pretty calculating man, and he was being paid by someone atCanvastoo. If he confronted you about Brad, that’s it – the fun’s over. But if he’s working withCanvas, planning your demise, I could see that making him patient enough to kinda slowly whittle you down, and hit you with that last blow at the worst possible time.”
“Right…,” I murmured. “Someone else just got to him first. But I still wonder why he would even believe such a thing about me.”
“This might have something to do with it,” Wick spoke, bringing my attention to him. He leaned over the main console, pointing to something on the tablet screen. “You see this? When I looked at Kellen’s email history before, I didn’t go far enough back. But these right here? These are emails between Kellen and an encrypted account. Those attachments you see there? Screenshots, supposedly of texts between you and Brad.”
“I haveneverexchanged texts with that man,” I declared. But for all Wick – and apparently Kellen – knew, that was a lie, because those screenshots looked convincing. They lookeddamning, actually, since that was indeed my phone number.
