AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I didn’t know you could be so devious. To be honest, it’s a little scary.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “Then find a woman who isn’t facing life in prison. She’ll be the person I was before that cell door slammed on me.”
His arms were around me in an instant. “Hey there, girl. Take it easy. You’re the only woman for me, and I’ll help you with this plan, even though I think it is far too risky. Right now, Tiffany Nixon is just trying to sell papers. If she gets angry on a personal level, she could make things rough for you and really damage Keith’s reputation.”
“It’s a chance I’m going to take. An acquittal just isn’t good enough for me, Paul. I want Annabelle’s sister behind bars and my own name cleared.”
“Fine. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us, but let’s just try to relax tonight.” He gestured toward the bag at his feet. “I picked up She’s Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Jungle Fever. We’ll have our own Spike Lee Film Festival, okay?”
“Paul, that’s eight hours’ worth of movies!”
“Do you mean to tell me that a young woman like you can’t stay up all night?”
“Nope! I’m not that young anymore. So pick one.”
He laughed.
“Hey, wait a minute! What kind of Spike Lee Film Festival is this? You forgot Mo’ Better Blues and Malcolm X!”
He threw up his hands. “No way. You’ll forget that there is a living, breathing man in the room with you. I’m far too smart to even try and compete with Denzel Washington.”
That was funny. “So, which one are we watching?”
“I choose She’s Gotta Have It.”
I shook my head and spoke around a mouth full of seafood. “No way. Too sexy. Let’s watch School Daze.”
Paul smiled wryly. “I went to Morehouse, remember? Pick again.”
We settled on Jungle Fever.
What a wonderful evening! We talked, laughed, ate ourselves silly, drank two bottles of champagne, and got into the movie like neither one of us had ever seen it before. We didn’t talk about the ca
se and after a while I didn’t feel like a murder suspect.
But that night, my dreams shattered our peace.
My hands were wrapped around Annabelle’s slim, white throat. Her silky blond hair was turning red as blood spurted from the top of her head and flowed through it, yet she was still able to scream, “Astrid gets the job—ha ha ha ha ha,” in a taunting, singsongy, little-kid voice. I squeezed tighter, and her eyes bugged out but that didn’t stop her from shrieking, “All about Moms! All about Moms!” over and over again.
I woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Paul and I wrapped ourselves around each other and talked quietly. We didn’t even try to go back to sleep.
28
PAMELA SILBERSTEIN
Paul was as good as his word. Within a week, all the furniture from my old apartment had been moved into the brownstone. The place now felt like home.
Every time I turned around, Jamal Hunt was on television talking about what a raw deal the media was giving me. Of course, he always managed to work the title of his current novel into the conversation. As a result, it hit The New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for six weeks.
Keith continued to stonewall me. He refused to tell me everything he had under his fingernails or talk to me about the strategy he would use in the courtroom. He just kept saying that he was satisfied we had more than enough reasonable doubt to win an acquittal.
The only way my own plot could fail was if Tiffany Nixon had never done anything wrong in her entire professional life—how many people can honestly say that?
I needed one of the editors to get me a dossier on Nixon. There was no point in asking Joe, and I’d never really trusted Dallas. It was clear that Nixon’s motive had always been to score points among powerful conservative factions in order to advance her career, so she wasn’t likely to cozy up with Elaine or Alyssa. I needed a white editor whom I could trust. I needed Pam Silberstein.
It was the first week of May. She agreed to meet me at our old haunt, Café Un Deux Trois on 44th Street. I took the subway uptown and every straphanger who gawked at me received a cold, direct stare in return.
I saw Pam’s red hair as soon as I walked into the eatery. She was seated on a stool at the crowded bar. She had saved a seat for me by placing her briefcase on the stool beside her. We exchanged hugs and she put the case in her lap.
