Chapter 51
“What is this?” Danielle screamed as her momentary paralysis vanished. She charged toward the couple in the shower. Troy scrambled to right himself. The woman looked startled and confused.
Danielle stopped short of hitting them, instead, she looked for something to throw. She knocked the woman's bracelets off the counter and kicked one of the woman's heels across the room. “Troy, who is this?” Danielle demanded, grabbing the other shoe.
Troy held up his arms to shield himself from Danielle's assault as she wielded the woman's footwear. She came down with it, slapping his water-soaked skin, hard.
“Girl, you better watch it, with your crazy self!” Troy said and snatched the shoe from her.
“See, I knew you were cheating!” Danielle yelled, punching at him. Troy knocked her against the wall, and stepped out of the bathroom, water dripping on the oversized plush blue rug.
The woman hastily wrapped a robe around herself, her eyes moving from Danielle to Troy. “Troy, I thought you said your girlfriend was out of town.”
“She is,” he snapped. “Let me handle this.”
“Your girlfriend? How about your fiancée, you jerk? And I'm right here,” Danielle shot back, jamming her finger in his chest.
He grabbed her hand. “You touch me again, and I will break that finger.”
“Troy, I told you if you mess over me, I will kill you!” Danielle screamed, her wild eyes flashing. “I'll cut you up in little pieces and scatter you from here to Mexico. I'll burn you up and dump you where nobody can find your sorry behind. I'llâ”
“Shut up!” Troy said, “You don't even know what you're talking about.”
“You've got too much drama,” the other woman said, stomping out of the bathroom. “I'm going to get my stuff and be gone.”
“Yeah, you do that!” Danielle flung the words at her. She turned back to Troy, fire flashing from her coffee-colored eyes. “How could you do this to me? Don't you know how many men want to be with me? How many men wish they could be with me? How dare you cheat on me! On
me
!”
“ 'Cause you're crazy!” he said. “What sane person breaks into some dude's place?”
“That's 'cause I thought you were up to no good!”
“Okay, so now you know.”
“Well, you're going to have to beg me to marry your sorry tail!” she said, staring him down. “I'm through with you.”
“That's the best thing you've said all day.” Troy jerked on his boxers and walked into the living room, Danielle at his heels. The other woman marched back through the living room, dressed in jeans and a tank. “I'll call you,” Troy said.
“Don't bother,” she shot back and rolled her eyes, then slammed the door behind her.
“Troy, how can you disrespect me like this?” Danielle demanded.
“You know what, you need to get up out of my spot.” He turned his back to her and dug into the refrigerator.
“Okay, okay, I'm going!” Danielle said, nodding hard. “I don't need your sorry behind. You need me. And you'd better watch your back.”
Danielle stomped out of the apartment and slammed the door, breathing hard. The nerve of Troy, to treat her like that. He should have been grateful she would even go out with him, as far as she was concerned.
To think I was going to marry him
, she fumed. She stopped halfway down the stairs and turned, walking back up to his door. She pulled out a red lipstick and scrawled onto the wall next to his door.
Ladies: beware. Tiny man behind these doors. Don't waste your time, unless you like them small.
She underlined the word “small” and then stomped back to her car. She eyed the Navigator. She dialed information and found the number she wanted. She quickly hung up and dialed the number the information service had just given her.
She glanced back up at Troy's window. “Hi, I need to have a vehicle towed.”
Chapter 52
Olivia offered to order William something to eat, but he declined. He thanked her for the ride back to the campaign office, then climbed into the Protégé. He would just go home. He was drained. The day's embarrassment weighed on his shoulders. He had never even so much as had a speeding ticket, and now he was on his way to being a felon. How could Nikki have done this? William had never been angry with her this long, and even now, being mad at his wife was hard. So many emotions coursed through him. This was the woman he had pledged to spend the rest of his life with. This was the woman who gave him a baby.
But this was also the woman who had lied to him. When he thought of the lie, his temperature rose. He tried to put the last few days out of his mind.
William turned on his cell phone. When he checked his voice mail, all he heard was a recording, something about a collect call.
He pulled into the driveway beside the SUV. As he climbed out of the Protégé, he realized he still wasn't ready to forgive Nikki. He stepped into the living room. It was quiet. Nothing was cooking on the stove. Neither his wife nor daughter greeted him.
He looked around; something wasn't right. Her keys were there. So was her purse. The hairs on the back of his neck stood and his scalp tingled as a thought suddenly hit him. Had they arrested his wife, too?
His heart beating fast, he snatched his wallet out and flipped through the business cards, searching for his attorney's number. What did he do with that card? He threw his wallet down on the table and his eyes hungrily roamed the room, looking for the phone book. He found it and flipped through until he found the number.
He quickly dialed. When Jonathan answered, William was brief: “I need you to see if they arrested Nikki,” he said. “Find my wife.”
Chapter 53
“That jerk has made a fool of me for the last time,” Danielle fumed as she sat in traffic on her way back to her own place. The last guy she dated had tried the same thing. Come to think of it, she had been cheated on by everybody she'd ever been with. That sudden realization hit her.
When she was little, maybe seven, Danielle knew she was her uncle's favorite. He would always tell her she was pretty and let her sit on his lap. He'd hug her tight and even gave her grownup kisses, but only if she would be good and not tell anybody.
It was their secret.
The kisses made her feel gross, but he was her favorite uncle and she didn't want to say anything about them. And he seemed to always be buying her nice things. But then one day she heard him telling her twin, Gabrielle, just how pretty Gabrielle was. Danielle emerged from the next room. “You think I'm prettier, though, right?”
Her uncle had laughed. “You're both very pretty little girls. And very special. You're both my favorite.”
“But you can't have two favorites,” Danielle had pouted.
“I can when they are as pretty as you two.”
“But I'm prettier, right?” Danielle pressed.
Her uncle looked from one to the other. “Well, I can't really say,” he said. “But I think your sister here is prettier today.”
Gabrielle had stuck her tongue out at Danielle in victory and scrunched her nose. Even with all the uncomfortable things he did to Danielle, that wasn't enough to make him choose her. But it wasn't just her uncle. Everyone in her life chose someone else over her. And she wasn't going to keep letting that happen.
This latest betrayal had her mind racing. She wanted to lash out in so many ways, but she tried to calm herself.
You can't get yourself worked up
, she reminded herself. She needed to talk to her best friend. Nikki would know just what to say. She pressed the key Nikki's cell number was stored under. But when the call connected, it went straight to voice mail. Danielle's eyes widened and she slapped her palm to her forehead. “Nikki! I forgot. She's in jail! She wanted me to bail her out,” Danielle remembered.
In Danielle's one-track pursuit of Troy, she had forgotten her friend's desperate call. “Well, I'm sure she won't be mad. It's not like she was going anywhere. I'll just go get her now.”
Chapter 54
William saw Nikki emerge from the lockup, tired and worn. He knew she had spent stressful hours in the uncomfortable cell, waiting, hoping someone would come for her. Her skin looked sweaty and grimy and she wiped her hands on her pants, trying without success to get rid of whatever was on her palms. He could see her swallowing back tears, demanding they not come.
He saw her brows shoot up in surprise as she discovered William and his attorney waiting for her. She hadn't known who had bailed her out.
A pang shot through him as he realized she hadn't expected him to come for her. How had they gotten to this point?
William extended his hand to her when she walked into the open area. He put his arm around her. “You okay?”
“I am now,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
They bade good bye to Jonathan and walked to the Protégé.
Seeing Nikki brought forward so many feelings. He had been terrified at the thought of her in jail, alone, not knowing what to do.
But it was her own fault
, he thought. But that was quickly replaced by another thought:
She's still my wife, though, and I can't see her hurting
.
He could tell Nikki wanted to talk, to say something, but she was holding back. He was glad she didn't press for conversation because he didn't know how he felt. He had come for her, but he didn't know what that meant.
“Where is Psalm?” he asked when they got into the car.
“At Keedra's.”
“Where is that?” William asked.
Nikki rattled off the address and reached to touch his hand, but William moved it away. Nikki let her hand fall back into her lap and they rode the rest of the way in silence.
Chapter 55
Danielle arrived at Nikki's house shortly after the family got home.
“Hey,” she said, pushing past Nikki into the house.
“Hi,” Nikki said, cutting her eyes in her husband's direction. “We just got home. I need to talk to Will for a bit.”
But William didn't have the same thoughts. “I'm getting ready to get back to the headquarters,” he said, grabbing a soda out of the refrigerator. He kissed Psalm.
“But baby, we just got home,” Nikki said, startled. They had so much to discuss.
“Well, in case you haven't noticed, I've got to do damage control because of my wife's foolish actions,” he said. “So, if you don't mind, I'll be leaving to do that.”
“But, I thoughtâ”
“Check you later, Danielle,” William said, cutting Nikki off. “I'm out.”
He slammed the door. Nikki stood stunned. “Danielle, I don't know what I'm going to do,” she said, sinking into a chair and placing her head in her hands.
“Yeah, well, it'll blow over,” Danielle said. “Back to the matter at hand. By the time I got to the jail, you were gone. You could have told me so I didn't waste a trip looking for you.”
“Well, I didn't realize you were coming,” Nikki said, walking to the kitchen. “After it took you so long and all. And I was just glad to be free. I forgot to call you.”
“I bet you called that Keedra, didn't you?”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did.”
Danielle pursed her lips but said no more. Nikki saw her friend's pout but didn't care. She didn't feel like dealing with Danielle's tantrum tonight. The woman had left her stranded.
Nikki would never have done the same thing to Danielle.
She is so selfish
, Nikki thought. Moments later, Nikki chided herself:
I'm the one who caused this mess. It's not her fault I got myself arrested. At least she did come to get me. I'm such a terrible friend
.
“Hey, I'm sorry,” Nikki said. “Thanks for having my back.”
“No problem,” Danielle said. “That's what best friends are for.”
An hour later, Danielle left. Nikki flipped through the channels and stopped when she came to an image of her husband walking swiftly from the parish lock-up, a grim expression on his face. The screen then switched to a shot of Lo Dark in some cheesy photo-op, holding a baby.
The announcer's voice came over: “The city's mayoral campaign is shaping up to be about corruption and promise. The little known Broussard has been wrapped up in a most bizarre case of identity theftâand possibly the murder of another candidateâwhile the incumbent Dark spends his time serving his constituents.”
Then came Dark's smiling visage, looking directly at the camera. “I'd certainly prefer not to have to spend so much time campaigning. I'd rather handle the business of the city. I'm sure the voters are smart enough to realize I am the better choice; the one who has been working on their behalf. But even so, I realize I must be out there hitting the streets, educating anyone who may be tempted to vote otherwise. Though, who would vote for one wrapped up in such legal issues, I do not know.”
The reporter switched to a voter, chattering away. It was a woman, in her mid-thirties, with a big, floppy hat on her head. “Oh, no, I sure wouldn't vote for that Broussard. He's been mixed up in some bad things. We definitely don't want our city to go back to those days of corruption and scandal. No sirree!”
Nikki flipped to another channel. She was sick of the coverage and drama. These people didn't even know the whole story, yet they speculated and were sullying her husband's name. “It's my fault he's in this bind,” she reminded herself. William's popularity was down to single digits. The newspapers, TV and radio stations, and especially Internet bloggers, were having a field day. He seemed to be the punch line of every joke. He was the poster child for Shreveport corruption.
The next channel was playing a Lo Dark commercial, asking voters, in an ominous voice, if they wanted to continue to move forward for progress with the current mayor or go backward with a candidate who stood for the “old Shreveport” and corruption.
“But he's the king of the corrupt!” Nikki fumed, switching off the television. Unsubstantiated reports insinuated that William had a hand in Chance's deathâthat he had possibly murdered the man to take his spot on the campaign trail. The story had unnamed sources speculating that William would stop at nothing to get what he wanted; whether that was to steal a credit card or kill a competitor.
Nikki knew she had to do something. She felt it was her fault that everyone was looking at her husband as a lying, thieving murderer. “I've got to find out who killed Oliver Chance.”
But where should she begin?