FREDDY PRINCE | CH. 12
Chapter Twelve
Instead of going back to her hotel that night, Kalani stayed the night on Freddy’s couch. She was a nervous wreck all night, but she felt safe being with him. There was still no telling who the shooter was, and neither of them had talked about anything since they got to his place, so everything was up in limbo.
“You sleep okay?”
Freddy came from the kitchen shirtless, holding two cups of freshly brewed coffee. His rippling abs and chiseled arms immediately caught Kalani’s eye. She tried to look away, but he was a fine man who easily distracted her from the anguish she felt about the night before.
“Barely.”
She replied, accepting the mug he handed her.
“I’m still shaken up about last night. Were you able to find out anything?”
“Nah. I been asking around and trying to think about shit myself, but I don’t know. Shonnie comes to mind, but man, I really don’t wanna believe she would have anything to do with this.”
Kalani thought about her beef with Shonnie, and things started to make sense. She knew Shonnie and Freddy had a thing going on; that was clear. Putting things into perspective about the two of them, on top of the beef Shonnie already had with her, sending a hit was possible. It seemed crazy, but so was Shonnie.
“She might have,” Kalani said. “That girl hates me. Ever since I published an article that got her boyfriend sent to prison, she’s had it out for me. What if she followed me to your office last night and got the wrong impression?”
Freddy thought about it. What she said made sense. But he was still confused. Shonnie trying to kill them because she was jealous seemed like too far of a stretch.
“So, y’all got beef?” he asked.
“y’all?” Kalani chuckled. “No, she has beef with me. I brought the town down on her boyfriend and his family for having ties to a huge government scandal, and she hates me for it. I can’t understand why, as a woman, you would want to protect someone like that. She’s ridiculous. I believe she started sleeping around with my dad as retaliation for that too.”
“I always thought they had something going on. Neither of them ever admitted to it, though.”
Finding out about Shonnie’s affair with the Mayor had him thinking about the conversation they had before his speech. The threats she made weren’t idle; he knew that for a fact. What he didn’t know was how he would find out the truth behind Naomi’s death. That felt like the key piece of information to everything he needed.
“Remember when you left the event the other day? You said you had to leave early because something came up. What was it?”
“Yeah,” Kalani nodded. “I went to talk to this woman named Dahlia. She worked with my mom at her rehab. I found out she’s Mack’s sister, and she thinks he and my dad had something to do with my mom's murder. She was also in love with my mom. That’s how I got the video footage.”
“Dahlia?”
Freddy thought back to the people he knew from Naomi’s rehab center. He felt like Dahlia sounded familiar. When the name finally matched a face, he jumped to his feet and ran over to a file cabinet to retrieve an envelope.
“Dahlia!” he handed the envelope to Kalani. “She sent me these pictures a while ago of my mom, but I never knew why. The only reason I knew it was her was because I found a diary she sent my sister. It was my mom's diary; old notes and letters about her work. I never read any of them in dept, but maybe I should have.”
“Your mom knew her?”
“I guess so. She never introduced us to her or anything, but it seems like they were close at some point. Maybe she knows something about my mom's death? That’s why she sent the pictures?”
He looked over the pictures again while they tried to piece the pieces together. It had been years since he looked at them. They were pictures of his mom when she was younger, people she helped, and people she made friends with. It broke his heart to look at them. Every time he saw her smiling face and all the people who showered her with love, it brought back too many painful memories.
“Wait.”
Kalani picked up one of the pictures when she recognized two faces.
“That’s Mack and Dahlia. Your mom knew him?”
Freddy took the picture from her hand and took a good look at it. The white man Montgomery had following Kalani had his arms wrapped around his mom like they were close. In all the years he could remember, he didn’t remember ever seeing Mack. Dahlia, maybe, but Mack was a no-go.
“I don’t remember him,” he said. “She never talked about him either. Maybe my sister knows him. She’s older than me and probably talked to my mom about dating more than I did.”
“Do you think they might have been dating? It’s only a picture, but they do look cozy.”
When Kalani took a better look at the picture, she zoned in on Mack’s smile. She’d never seen him look so expressive and happy to be anywhere. From what she knew of him, he hated being around people, and he hated taking pictures. But with Elm, he looked content.
“Look at him.” Freddy took the picture again. “That man looks like he’s the happiest man on the planet. I know a lot of men wanted to fuck with my mom, but she never gave anyone the time of day. It was always about us. We used to have to force her to go on dates, or even say what’s up to the guys who would hound her in the grocery store. Shit, sometimes I felt like she didn’t even like men.”
The memory of how closed off his mom was to dating made him smile. There were times when he felt bad because she was always alone, but she seemed happy that way. There were a few times when Freddy thought she might’ve had a secret boyfriend because she had that glow sometimes, but he never found that out.
“You think Dahlia will talk to us about my mom?”
“If she sent the pictures and the diary, I don’t see why she wouldn’t. I’ll call her right now.”
Dahlia’s phone rang a few times, then went to voicemail. When Kalani called again shortly after, she got the same thing. Something in her gut told her there was something wrong. She didn’t know what, or how she knew, but she had a terrible feeling that something was going to hit the fan.
“This must be her calling back.”
Kalani’s phone rang shortly after her last call. It wasn’t Dahlia’s number calling in, but the number had the same area code. She figured Dahlia was calling from a new number because she was afraid someone was after her after their talk, but when she answered, an angry voice that had nothing nice to say greeted her.
“This is all your fault! If you hadn’t come around asking questions and bringing up the past, this would’ve never happened! Now what am I supposed to do? Dahlia’s dead!”
“Wh-what?” Kalani stood on her feet. “What happened to her?”
Judy was flying off the hinges with words Kalani didn’t even understand. The only thing she could make out from her ranting and raging was that she found Dahlia dead in their kitchen. Someone had murdered her to keep her quiet.
“Judy, please calm down. I’m sorry this happened, but I need you to calm down and talk to me. It’s the only way we can figure out who did this.”
There was no calming Judy down. She was a frantic mess and with good reason. She fought with Dahlia for years to keep her mouth shut, or to at least wait until she had the proper protection. But when Kalani came around with her questions, all of that went out the window.
“Great!”
Kalani scoffed and tossed her phone down on the couch.
“She hung up on me.”
“What happened?” Freddy asked.
“She found Dahlia dead in her kitchen. I know it has something to do with my investigation, and I feel horrible, but I can’t stop now.”
Freddy sat down on the couch to take everything in. Dahlia’s death seemed all too familiar. The minute anyone got close to exposing something about the mayor, they were found dead. It was a pattern, and that pattern slowly came to light the closer they got to finding out what happened to their mothers.
“Would it be possible for me to take a look at your mother's diary? Maybe we can find something in there that can point us in the right direction. There was a lot Dahlia didn’t tell me because she was afraid to talk, but if we can piece together the connection between her and your mom, we might be able to find something.”
“Sure. Yeah,” Fredy nodded. “I’ll ask my sister for it. But what connection do you think you’ll find other than them working together? My mom was one of the biggest philanthropists in Virginia. She met a lot of people.”
“I don’t know. Hopefully, there’s something. I keep thinking about the picture of her and Mack. Before I met Dahlia and found out she was his sister, I didn’t even know Mack had any family.”
Kalani thought about asking Mack if he knew about Dahlia, but she didn’t trust him. He was her dad's best friend and do-boy. She thought he might have been the one who shot at them the night before; she also thought he could've played a part in both of their mother's murders. But when it all came down to it, she needed proof.
“I’m gonna go,” she said. “I have some things I need to look into. If you can, meet up with me at some point to go over your mom's diary.”
“Go?” Freddy frowned. “Go where? Somebody just tried to kill us last night. You think it’s safe for you to be walking around on your own? You need to lie low. It doesn’t have to be here, but seriously. Keep your head down before you’re the next woman on the news.”
What he said made sense, but Kalani was a stubborn bull who did things her own way. She didn’t think hiding out in his home would get her the answers she needed to put things to rest, so she had to go.
Her mind was made up, and she felt like even though her father might’ve had something to do with everything, he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She was all he had left.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I can’t just sit around waiting. Waiting for what? The police aren’t doing anything, and it’s obvious whoever played a part in our mother’s murders won't stop until everyone who knows something is dead. Do you wanna be next?”
The look she gave him reminded Freddy of his role in things. He felt like he was innocent because he didn’t have anything to do with the actual murders or hiding of the bodies -if that’s what happened the night he saw the mayor- but that look brought him back to reality. It made him feel like he was just as guilty for not speaking up. He was also just as much of a target to whoever wanted to silence anyone involved.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kalani sighed. “Maybe pressure my dad more? Let him know I know what’s going on and see if he’ll come clean?”
“That’s a stretch.” Freddy chuckled. “Montgomery is the kind of man who will take everything to the grave if it means his name stays clean.”
Kalani knew that better than anyone. Her dad never came clean about anything. Not cheating on her mom, not his scandalous business affairs, not even about how he falsified documents to help Shonnie’s boyfriend get out of prison early.
“I’ll be okay. I promise. Call me whenever you have the diary.”
Comments
Post a Comment