Lovers and Takers (32 page)

“Shut the fuck up!” Druce screamed again.
 
“You know what they said!
 
They regurgitated everything you told them, you little backstabbing bastard!”
 

And before Troy could say another word in this life, Druce pulled out a switchblade knife, flicked it open, and slit Troy’s throat.
 

Just like that.

Druce immediately dropped the knife on top of Troy and stepped aside swiftly, as the blood gushed out.
 

Troy grabbed his throat with both hands to staunch the blood flow but even he, in his terror, knew that it was a losing battle.
 
The blood could not possibly be staunched.
 
His eyes began to show less and less life as the reality of his death was upon him.

Pam walked back into the living room with a can of beer in her hand.
 
When she saw first the blood, and then Troy’s ghostly face fighting to survive, she dropped the can where she stood, the beer squirting out in a loud fizz.
 
And then she covered her mouth and began to back up.

Druce stared at Troy as Troy quickly lost his struggle to live.
 
He was gurgling as the end came near.
 
And then his head lobbed backwards, half decapitated, and his eyes remained wide open with fright.
 

Druce knew he should have felt compassion for his lover.
 
He knew he should have felt sorrow.
 
But he felt nothing for him.
 
Nothing at all.

He then looked at Pam.
 
She was part two of this plan.
 
She was going to be the one to bring those mighty Varnadores down.
 
And that was what Druce had to have now.
 
He had to bring them to their knees.
 
Troy was out of the way.
 
Now it was Pam’s turn.

Druce hurried to her, putting on his best distressed look. “He pulled that knife on me, babe,” Druce said in agony. “He made me do it!”

“Call 911,” Pam was saying, her already fragile body growing faint.
 
“We need to call---”

“They aren’t going to believe me, Pam,” he said, holding her arms.
 
“You hear me?
 
They aren’t going to believe me.
 
I’ll go to prison for life if they know I did this.”

It was only then was Pam able to look away from Troy.
 
She looked at Druce.
 

“They’ll put me on death row, Pammie. I’ll die in prison if they think I did this!”

“What?” she
asked,
completely confused.
 
“What are you saying?”

“I can’t take the fall for this.
 
You’ve got to do it.”

Pam was stumped.
 
“Me?”

“You’ve got to say he came at you with that knife and you struggled with him and somehow his throat was cut.”

Pam nearly passed out.
 
Druce held her up.
 
“If you don’t do this, Pam, I’ll go to prison.
 
You know I will.
 
Nobody’s going to believe me!
 
But you’re Jake Varnadore’s daughter. They’ll believe every word you say.
 
If you love me you’ll do this for me, Pam.”

“But I can’t---”

“You have to, Pam.
 
If you love me you’ll do this for me.”

“I do love you, Druce, you know I love you.
 
But I can’t---”

“You’ve got to do it.
 
You’ve got to.
 
You can’t say I was even here today.
 
You’ve got to say you came over here to ask Troy why he lied on me, and that’s when it happened.
 
Troy is a small man.
 
They’ll believe you were able to struggle with him.
 
They’ll believe what you tell them, Pammie. They’ll believe it.”

But Pam couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
 
“Call 911,” she said again.
 
A man was dead, and they were talking about blame?

But Druce had to convince her.
 
“Will you do it for me?” he asked her.
 
“I’ll leave, and after I leave you can call 911 then, okay?
 
But you have to tell them it was you.
 
They’ll try to get you to implicate me.
 
They’ll try to get you to change your mind and say I did this.
 
But you can’t, Pammie.
 
You can’t!
 
You’ve got to say it was you.
 
They won’t even prosecute you.”

And if they did, Druce thought, that’ll be just fine
by
 
him
.

“Will you do it for me, Pam?
 
They’ll put me on Death Row if you don’t do this for me.”
 
He said this and pulled her into his arms.

Tears were in Pam’s eyes as Druce held her, and he knew he had her then.
 
He couldn’t wait to see the distraught Jake Varnadore when he realized his perfect little girl was now a murderer.
 
The Varnadore name would be tarnished forever.
 
This was going to be the scandal of the century!

Druce stopped hugging her.
 
“Are you going to do it for me, darling?” he asked her.
 
“Are you going to save my life?”

Pam looked at Druce.
 
She didn’t see how she had a choice.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“Yes.”

Druce kissed her.
 
And after clearing the knife of his fingerprints, and putting Troy’s first, and then Pam’s fingerprints on the knife, he kissed her again.

And then he left.
 

He slithered right out.

Pam did everything within her power not to look at Troy’s lifeless body.
 
She even went into the kitchen to make her phone call.
 
Only she didn’t call 911.
 
She was too terrified to face those officials alone.
 

She called her big brother Aubrey, instead.

SEVENTEEN

The door to Jake’s office sprung open and Dena Varnadore, in her head to toe Versace, hurried in.
 
Ann, Jake’s secretary, hurried in behind her.

“I told her you weren’t available, sir, but she refused to wait.”

Jake looked at Dena and then he looked at his secretary.
 
“It’s alright, Ann,” he said.
 
And then added: “Hold my calls.”

“Yes, sir,” Ann said tightly, looked at that woman again, and then left out of the office, closing the door behind her.

Dena walked toward the desk, taking off her gloves as she did.
 
“You really ought to hire a more professional staff,” she said.

“What is it that you want?” Jake asked her. He was swamped with paperwork and really didn’t have time for anyone.
 
Least of which his ex-wife.

“My
my are
we nasty today.
 
You were a lot more accommodating the other night.”

“Either say what you came to say or leave,” Jake fired back, still embarrassed by his behavior.
 
“I don’t have the patience.”

Dena looked angrily at her ex.
 
But then she sat down.
 
Softball didn’t work.
 
It was time for hardball.

“I have eight shares of Varnadore Global that you need to keep control of.”

Jake knew, in the end, it would come to this.
 
Her sudden appearance on the scene, despite what she told Pam, had everything to do with cutting some deal.
 
It was unfortunate that his children’s mother could be this cruel, but it was a fact.
 
He tossed his pen on the desk, and leaned back in his chair.
 
“Has Halprin contacted you?”

“Of course he contacted me!
 
He’s no fool.
 
He knows I have what both of you must have to gain majority ownership.
 
I have the trump card.
 
He can get all of the remaining shares, and still would need some of mine to gain that majority.
 
And you absolutely have to have mine.
 
Of course Halprin has contacted me.
 
What’s remarkable isn’t the fact that he’s contacted me, but the fact that you haven’t.”

She and Jake exchanged a glance.
 
Their breakup always seemed so easy for her, when it nearly did him in.
 
“How much to do you want?” he asked her.

“Halprin has offered five million a share.”

Jake was astounded by that figure.
 
But he refused to let her know it.
 
“I can’t match that,” he said bluntly.

“Yes, you can,” replied Dena.

Jake hesitated. He should have known money wouldn’t be enough for her.
 
“What do you want?” he asked her.

Dena looked him dead in the eye. “My family back,” she said.
 
“My son, my daughter, and my husband.
 
I want my family back.”

Jake could hardly believe his ears.
 
Was this woman delusional?
 
“Your family?” he asked her.
 
“Are you shitting me?”

His desk intercom buzzed and he angrily pressed the button.
 
“Ann, didn’t I tell you to hold my calls?”

“It’s the chief of police, sir.
 
He says it’s urgent.”

The chief of police
, Jake thought.
 
What would he want?
 
And then he immediately picked up his blinking desk phone.
 
“Hello, Willie, how
are
you?” he said into the phone.

“Not good at all, Jake, my friend.”

“What is it?”

“Heads up.”

“Okay.”

“Your son has just confessed to murder.”

Jake jumped from his seat.
 
“What?” he said, unable to believe it.

“What is it?” Dena asked, suddenly concerned.
 

“I know it’s a shocker,” the police chief said into the phone.
 
“I have him right here.”

“Where?”

“At the apartment of one of his employees.
 
We’re getting ready to take him in now.”

“Don’t take him anywhere. You hear me, Ed?
 
Not until I see him.”

“Jake, you know I can’t do that.
 
I’m breaking protocol by phoning you at all.”

“It’s my son you’re talking about.
 
To hell with protocol!”

“All right,” the chief said with a little bite of his own.
 
“But come now.”

Jake grabbed his pen, got the address, and then hung up.
 
He grabbed his suit coat from the back of the chair and hurried from around his desk.

“What is it?” Dena asked, rising to her feet.

“It’s Aubrey,” he said.
 
“They’re saying he just confessed to murder.”

“
What
?” Dena
said,
her face now a mask of anguish too.
 
Jake heard her voice and looked at her.
 
To his amazement, she looked stricken.

“I’ll get him out of this,” he made clear, and then kept going.

But Dena wasn’t about to just wait there.
 
She grabbed her purse and her gloves, and hurried out behind him.

Dena’s Rolls Royce pulled up just behind Jake’s Audi and both of them hurried out of their respective vehicles.
 
Dena was still on her cell phone as she and Jake made their way up to Troy’s apartment.
 
The police presence was strong, and the entire area had been cordoned off.
 
But Willie Suarez waved them in.
 

“Where is he?” Jake asked the police chief.

“Follow me,” Willie said, surprised to see a woman with Jake, but knowing not to question it.
 
Jake and his various women were legendary around Miami.

They entered Troy’s apartment, where blood still stained his couch, although the body was no longer present.
 
They made their way to a back room, where Aubrey was seated on the bed with, to Jake’s pleasant surprise, the attorney he had phoned on his way to the scene.

“Roni,” he said as he went to her.
 
She stood and they hugged.
 
Dena looked at the black woman suddenly in Jake’s arms, but then she and Jake both looked at their son.