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Sure enough, I saw a throng of people milling about outside my condo. I didn’t need to see the cameras to know they were reporters. In my numbed haze, I’d driven right by my building and not even noticed them before.
Some surrounded the front door. Some hovered near the entrance to the building’s parking lot. Slowing, I drove past my condo, wondering what to do.
As I circled the block, I realized that I didn’t have a choice. I had to get inside, had to get to my daughter. And my best bet was to drive into the condo’s parking lot, as I always did. At the very least, it would provide me the protection of my car should the reporters recognize me, and I doubted any of them would risk getting run over simply to get the perfect photo of the grieving fiancée.
Eli and I had been photographed at the hospital fund-raiser, and that picture had made the pages of the Miami Herald. So had the photo that accompanied our engagement announcement. Clearly, the reporters surrounding my building figured they could spot me when I approached.
I wasn’t about to let that happen.
Before I rounded the corner that would take me back to my condo, I slipped off my sleek sunglasses and put on the large pair I always kept in my car. Then I placed my cell phone at my ear, and acted like I was in the middle of a fun conversation. A short while later, I drove past the reporters as though they didn’t faze me one bit. Cameras swung my way, as did curious glances, but I kept my cool and inched forward, even laughing loudly into my phone as I pressed my key card to the electronic sensor.
And then I was on my way into the indoor parking for the residents of Cosmopolitan Towers.
Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. Good grief, this was insane! Here I was, having to sneak past reporters to get to my own home. Damn Eli. He hadn’t just died in the sleaziest of situations. He’d thrown me into a potful of drama.
Oh, he’d been right to be concerned that my association with him might bring out the paparazzi. But never in my wildest dreams had I thought it would be under these circumstances.
Just before I rounded the corner inside the parking garage, I craned my neck for one last look at the reporters pacing the sidewalk.
And I couldn’t help thinking, My life is about to get seriously complicated.
chapter four
Carla opened her apartment door and immediately swept me into her arms. “Vanessa!”
“Mommy!” The shriek came immediately afterward. I broke apart from Carla in time to scoop up Rayna, who was racing toward me. There’s nothing that brings a brighter smile to your face than coming home to a child who loves you so much she’ll drop whatever she’s doing to throw herself into your arms.
“Rayna, sweetie.” I planted kisses all over my daughter’s face, which had her in a fit of giggles. “I missed you, baby.”
“I miss Mommy.”
“Well, Mommy’s home now.” I held her tight, emotion welling up inside me. “Mommy’s home.”
Rayna shimmied out of my arms, then headed back to the center of the living room. She lifted a paper full of colorful swirls. “Look, Mommy.”
I walked toward her and examined the artwork she held. “Oh, wow. You made that?” Rayna beamed. “It’s beautiful.”
“Rainbow.”
“Yes, a rainbow,” I agreed, amazed at how much the picture did resemble a rainbow. “Look at all the beautiful colors.”
“This for Daddy.” Rayna lifted another picture that had a big circle colored mostly black. “A cat.”
I had to swallow back the tears. “Yes. For Daddy.”
Rayna planted herself on the floor beside Carla’s daughter, Amani, and they resumed playing with a range of colorful ponies that they were both so fond of. It was a bit of a reprieve, thankfully, because I had no clue what I was going to say to Rayna about Eli.
“It’s been all over the news,” Carla said, her tone quiet. “You must have seen the media camped outside the building.”
I nodded. “I assume they were looking for me, but I drove past them and they didn’t notice me.”
“This is crazy.”
“Tell me about it.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I took a detour to the beach for a moment to clear my head, and a reporter from the Miami Herald approached me.”
Carla’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“Yeah. I’d apparently met her once with Eli at an event, and she remembered me. Plus she found my name on the condo’s deed. The woman had the nerve to follow me! I saw her when I was at Bayside earlier today. Of course, I didn’t realize who she was at the time. Until she approached me twenty minutes ago and said she wanted to ask me a few questions.”
“Wow.”
“Wow indeed.” I sighed softly. “Hopefully by tomorrow, they’ll lose interest in this story. Staking me out like this? It’s crazy. I’m not Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. I’m a woman whose fiancé was killed by a jealous husband. Happens every day.”
“I hate to tell you this, but CNN hasn’t stopped running the story. They’re saying that neither you, his ‘live-in love—’” Carla made air quotes “—nor his family could be reached for comment.”
“What family? They tried to reach his mother in Barbados?” Eli’s father had died the year before he retired from baseball, and his mother had moved back to Barbados right after that. When we got engaged, I’d asked Eli if he would call his mother and let me say hello, but he didn’t want to. Something about her being a Christian and that she’d hate the idea of us living in sin. “I know he’s got some cousins somewhere,” I told Carla, “but I’ve never met them. Eli said I’d meet them all at a family reunion this summer, and that he was looking forward to surprising them with news of our engagement.”
“They certainly had enough to broadcast without comments from his family,” Carla said. “CNN spent the day replaying the scene outside the house where he was…well, you know. Showing the crime scene tape, and that woman’s husband in handcuffs. He wasn’t shy about talking to the press, that’s for sure. They also showed highlights of Eli’s career with the Braves, and even had people phone in to share their memories of Eli.”
“Share their memories? He hasn’t played pro ball in seven years.”
“It’s still big news. With how he was killed, and why…It’s a sensational story.”
I grew quiet. What else was there to say? Carla was right—it was the outlandish nature of Eli’s murder that had garnered such media interest. I wondered if the reporters were going to stick around until they got a statement from me.
Carla rubbed my forearm. “How are you holding up?”
“Okay. I think. But I don’t know how…” I had to stop, take a calming breath. “I’m afraid to go upstairs, Carla, and be there…knowing that Eli won’t be coming home.”
“You can stay here if you want.”
I shook my head, dismissing the idea without giving it a thought. “The routine has to be the same. For Rayna’s sake.”
Carla gripped both of my hands. “Don’t you worry about Rayna. She’s perfectly fine.”
As if to emphasize that point, my daughter’s high-pitched laughter pierced the room.
“I know,” I agreed.
“You need to take care of you,” Carla insisted. “If it’s too soon for you to go upstairs, you tell Rayna we’re having a sleepover. Trust me, she’ll think it’s fun.”
“I hear you. I do. But I can’t…” I swallowed, considered my words. “I can’t avoid this situation forever. I have to go home and deal with…with the truth. If I don’t go now, when will I? I may never be ready.”
Carla pulled me into her thick arms and gave me a heartfelt hug. “Oh, Vanessa. I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine how you’re feeling right now. But you’ll get through this.”
I nodded, but I didn’t entirely believe what she was saying. As it was, I felt like I was walking an emotional tightrope. One wrong move and I could fall into a pit of despair. The only thing keeping me walking a straight line at the moment was my daughter. She was the reason I was able to summon the strength to keep moving forward.
“What can I do?” Carla asked.
“Nothing. But I love you for caring.” I’d met Carla only three months earlier, when I’d moved into the building with Eli, the first time I went down to use the pool one warm January day. Our children had brought us together, the way so many women make friends with other mothers in play groups or at the park. Rayna and Amani had hit it off playing in the water, which had led to me and Carla talking. I soon learned that she was a military wife, and that her husband, stationed at the Homestead Air Reserve Base, was deployed in Iraq. Her daughter, Amani, was a year older than Rayna, and the second cutest child in the world—after Rayna, of course.
We talked for three hours straight that day, as if we’d been friends for years. Carla confided in me her fears that her husband could die any moment, and that sometimes it was a real struggle to stay strong. She also wasn’t happy with her weight, and hoped she could lose the twenty-five pounds she’d gained during pregnancy by the time Paul returned home from his tour of duty. Her problem, I’d soon learned, was that Carla ate sweets when she was down, which negated whatever progress she made in the building’s gym.
At five foot five, she carried the extra pounds well, I thought. She was pretty, with flawless skin the color of milk chocolate, and whenever we were out together, she attracted her fair share of masculine attention. The brothas appreciated the extra pounds on her butt, something she told me her husband, who was white, didn’t at first. Until he’d seen how men had tripped over themselves to get a good look at her behind.
Carla also shared her annoyance at the fact that many of the building’s residents had made a point of asking her how she and Paul could afford to live in this building, considering she was a stay-at-home mom and he was in the military. To others, she said they’d invested well in the stock market. But she’d admitted to me that Paul’s father had died, and he and his mother, the only two heirs, had split the million-dollar life insurance policy.
I’d never met Paul, but based on everything Carla said about him, I could tell that they had what I wanted—a happy marriage. Why was that so hard to find?
“Let me at least feed you,” Carla said, interrupting my thoughts. “I made a pot of spaghetti.”
I waved off the suggestion. “No. I’m gonna take Rayna and go.”
“This isn’t about pity. You know I enjoy the company.”
Shortly before Eli and I had moved into this building, Paul had left for Iraq. He was to be gone for a year, which meant he had eight months left to serve before returning home. And ever since his departure, Carla had been lonely. She never said so, but I could tell.
“Another time,” I told her. Tonight, I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Needed to be. I wasn’t interested in talking with anyone about how I felt. I simply wanted to be with my baby and act like our world was still normal.
I approached my daughter. “Rayna, sweetie. Time to go home.”
She immediately got up and came to me, still holding a pony in each fist. Before I could try to wrestle them from her—a task I knew would be difficult—Carla said, “It’s okay. Amani won’t miss them. Bring them back next time.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I got her double of each pony in case she ever lost one,” Carla explained. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“All right, then. Thanks.”
I scooped Rayna into one arm, then went back to the door, where I lifted her diaper bag with the other. Amani wrapped an arm around her mother’s leg.
Carla lifted her daughter, kissed the girl’s cheek, then gave me a look full of sympathy. “If you change your mind, I’ll be here. Like I said, the kids can have a sleepover, and we can watch a movie to take your mind off things.”
“I’ll let you know,” I murmured, but I knew I wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer. I couldn’t watch a movie and pretend everything was okay. A romantic comedy would make me cry. A murder mystery would make me cry.
Anything would make me cry.
Rayna rested her head against the crook of my neck, and I treasured the warm feeling of her little body. She seemed tired, which was good. If she went down early, she wouldn’t have a chance to ask me where Daddy was.
No sooner than I had entered my apartment, than the phone rang. Carrying Rayna on my hip, I raced to answer it.
“Hello?” I said breathlessly.
“Vanessa Cain?”
“Yes,” I answered, my tone guarded.
“This is Robert Rooney from Channel 2 News. Can I set up an interview—”
I hung up the phone. It rang again.
I picked it up, but replaced the receiver without answering.
That happened five more times. So when it rang yet again, I snatched up the receiver and put it to my ear. “No, I won’t give you an interview. Please leave me alone.”
“Baby, you know the last thing I want from you is an interview.”
My eyes narrowed—and then it clicked that Lewis Carter was on the other end of my line. Thankful that it wasn’t another reporter, I felt my body relax—then immediately tense. I hadn’t heard from Lewis in about six weeks, and the last time he’d called, he had been hoping to get me to cheat on Eli.
“Lewis?” I asked.
“Who else, baby?”
Rayna started to squirm, so I let her down. “What do you want?”
“Is that any way to greet me? After everything we once meant to each other?”
I rolled my eyes. If we meant so much to each other, why hadn’t he proposed? “You know exactly what we meant to each other,” I said frankly. Lewis had been, for lack of a better word, a booty call. “More importantly, I know it.”
“Baby, don’t be like that.”
“What do you want, Lewis?”
“I’m phoning to see how you’re doing. Is that against the law?”
I didn’t say anything. I wondered if the timing of his call was coincidental, or if he, like most of America, had learned about Eli’s death on CNN.
“I heard about your fiancé on the radio,” he stated, answering my question.
“Of course.”
“So how are you?”
I lowered myself onto a chair in my kitchen. “I’m hanging in.”
“You sure? Because if I was as shocked as I was to learn that Eli was killed while in the arms of some other honey, I can only imagine how you took the news. Especially after how much you raved about him being the perfect guy.”
“If you’re calling to gloat, then I’m going to hang up now.”
“No, no, I’m not,” he said hurriedly. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. I know how much you cared about him.”
I waited for more, but there was none. Maybe Lewis was being sincere. “Thank you,” I told him.
“I could come over, if you like,” he murmured.
Of course. “Why?”
“To keep you company. Offer you my shoulder to cry on.”
