The Way You Make Me Feel (25 page)

Singing, Stevie felt as if a new world had opened to them, more beautiful than they had known, and she wouldn't have believed that possible. They were as one with the people in this room and the heart-moving tones of the two Zemaitis guitars soothed and spelled out wondrous passion. They were a man and a woman. Husband and wife. Lovers. And it showed for all the world to see as the song told them. They held the audience in the palms of their hands in a love fest.

“Yeah,” was the rumble of opinion around the room. This was the Queen of Passion and nobody else was ever gonna take her place.

 

His mind was busy again, buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. Yeah, Stevie was happy tonight, in her element, and he was unhappy. She could hurt him big-time and he wasn't going to let her.

She knew he'd killed Bretta. He was sure of that and she'd seal his fate. No way would she keep it to herself. She'd loved Bretta too much. He didn't know why she had kept it all this time. The suspense was killing him and he would wait no longer.

He was glad he'd been nice to her, sucked up. It was going to pay off when he killed her. The big car hadn't worked. He had a gun and a silencer that wouldn't fail.

A
s she walked along the road from the house where she lived with Damien, Stevie reflected on what her life had become. She was happier than she'd ever been. Now, on her way to the mall to pick up a blouse, she gloried in the bright late-August sun. Oh yes, she hated having to testify in October against Jake, but that was a little distance away and she could only give it her best shot.

Things had really settled down. Damien was an out-of-this-world lover. Honi seemed to be out of their lives. Jake wasn't giving any trouble. And Keith was in prison where he belonged. Stevie hoped Detective Rollins and his group could somehow prove without doubt that he'd killed Bretta. She was lost in thought when she became aware that a horn had sounded softly behind her and someone had called to her.

“Hey, Stevie, get in. I want to talk with you.”

She turned and saw a grinning Whip in his white pickup truck.

“I'm going to the mall,” she told him.

“Get in and I'll take you.”

Going around, she climbed into the cab of the truck. “That's kind of you.”

“Yeah. Look, my place is on the way and I'd like to give you a Sade CD I picked up. It's an old one when she first started out and I know you like her. I want to ask you about your singing technique. I really admire the way you do that.”

She smiled. “Mariah Carey's the one you need to talk with. She's the expert.”

“You'll do fine. Will you go with me first? It's a long way to the mall. Why're you walking?”

“I wanted the exercise.”

He started the truck and they drove in silence to his big, luxurious apartment complex where he stopped in the parking lot. He seemed nervous now and she wondered about it. “Just wanted to talk a minute,” he said. The lot was largely deserted and there were no cars close by.

 

Damien sat in his car in the parking lot of Nubian Gold Recording Company. He scrunched down a bit in his seat as he talked with Mick Chancellor who was talking about Whip.

“The kid's got a helluva lot of talent,” Mick said, “but he doesn't have what it takes to make it happen. Whip is lazy, Damien, and he's
so
conceited. Thinks he knows it all. And if he comes on to my wife one more time, I think I'm gonna punch his lights out.”

Damien laughed. Mick was the calmest man he knew. “Try to bear with him,” Damien said. “We've got a lot of money invested in him and the women do go crazy when he's around. I think he can be bigger than the old Frank Sinatra and I doubt I can hold him very long.”

“Yeah. Where are you off to? You said you were going someplace.”

“As a matter of fact I'm going by Whip's to talk with him. You tell me he missed his last session. That's not supposed to happen. His album comes out in November in time for the Christmas sales and it's got to be top-notch. I'm going to read him the riot act.”

“Well, you'd better. I'm getting busier all the time and I can't lose a minute bothering with someone who thinks he's there when he's got a long way to go.”

“Oh, listen. Let's talk about the new singer and her group. I want to lay out my plans for her and now is a good time to do it. I'm just going to pop in on Whip as a surprise. Maybe I can talk some sense into him. I haven't quite made up my mind. I may wait until later on and take Stevie with me. He admires her. I was supposed to meet a couple of guys in my office, but they cancelled at the last minute.”

“Okay. I wish you luck with Mr. Wilson. Now about the new woman…”

The two men launched into game plans and Damien settled in.

 

“Just a minute,” Stevie said, “I want to call Damien.”

“What's he up to?”

“Who knows, but he's very busy. He's meeting a couple of guys from New York and they'll be tied up in discussions most of the afternoon.”

Whip felt a surge of elation go through him. Lady Luck was loving him up good. “Then you can give me some time. I'll take you to the mall after we talk.”

Stevie reached into her tote to get her cell phone and remembered leaving it on the bed in her haste to get to the mall. She groaned. She wanted to talk with Damien.

“Okay,” she said. “Let's go in. I want to get back early.”

“Sure.” But he didn't move. Instead he slouched down. “Do you miss Bretta?”

“Do I…? Yes, I miss her. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “I just felt like it, I guess.” Her eyes were suddenly all over him; he looked shifty and ill-at-ease. Her breath began coming too fast. It was a dangerous time and a dangerous place for this to happen, but she was remembering what she had not been able to remember in all these months. Bretta. And the three men. Jake. Jake's bodyguard. And yes, Whip Wilson, all surrounding Bretta, crowding her, threatening her. Then Whip had grabbed her and shot her as the others watched.

She had stood near the edge of the dense forest where she'd followed Bretta after Bretta had come to her house and told her she was meeting someone who had something important to talk with her about. A man she couldn't tell Stevie about just then, but she would the next night. Her eyes had been sparkling.

“I think it's going to be good news,” Bretta had said. “I love him and I think he loves me. But he's married and I'm leaning on him to get a divorce. He seems to be weakening. Oh, Stevie. I've never been in love like this before. I'm meeting him at the old Coleman place. Isn't it romantic? A lovers' tryst. Oh, honey, wish me well.”

Stevie had been bothered, and she'd immediately gotten in her car and followed Bretta at a discreet distance to the Coleman place. She'd stopped a little distance away, parked in a side road and walked near the small clearing where the Coleman house had once stood.

Stevie watched as three men surrounded Bretta. She was too far away to hear what was said, but in the bright moonlight she could see clearly. Bretta wore the orange-red jogging suit and cap. She and Whip argued vehemently and she slapped him. He shot her then, and Stevie screamed Bretta's name.
“Bretta, Run!”

Then Whip came after her into the woods, and called out, “Who's there? Damn it,
who's there?
”

Jake would have recognized her voice. When she saw Whip coming, she turned and fled through the thick underbrush, running for her life. She heard Jake, “Come on, man. We've got to move it!”

Footsteps were no longer following her, but she kept running anyway until she had no more breath. It seemed she ran for hours through the big overgrown forest until she tripped and fell on the stone and everything went black.

Now she realized she had been in a trance.

She became aware of Whip's harsh voice.

“I knew from that night I'd have to kill you to keep you quiet. Jake said it was your voice screaming. You shouldn't have done that.”

“I had to help her.”

“You signed your death warrant. The part about you losing your memory was just a ruse to make me think you didn't remember.”

“No.”

“Lying bitch! I'll bet you've already spilled your guts to Rollins, but without you to testify against me, they can't prove a thing.”

“What do you plan to do?” How could she sound so calm? she wondered.

“After I've killed you?”

“You can't kill me. I've already told Detective Rollins.” She wasn't telling the truth, but he didn't have to know that.

A hysterical desire to laugh bubbled in Stevie's throat. So now she knew—when it was too late. Would Damien ever find out what happened to her?

Whip got out and told her to get out on his side. She had a wild, crazy desire to start screaming as she'd screamed at Bretta that night, but her throat wouldn't function. Only then did she notice that in the August heat he wore a light jacket and she knew why. He had a gun concealed under that jacket.

“Walk to the building,” he said. “We're going in the back entrance that few people use. I want to warn you now not to try anything funny. I'll kill you and myself if I have to. I haven't got a damned thing to lose.”

 

Damien sat up straight, glanced at his watch. He had talked with Mick twenty minutes and in the meantime, he still hadn't decided if he'd go to Whip's now or later. He dialed Stevie's cell number again and punched Talk. The phone rang and rang and no one answered before it took a message. She'd said something about walking to the mall. Maybe he'd pick her up. But he kept feeling strange, pushed. There was something he needed to do and he didn't know what it was. Oh hell, why not go to Whip's now?

He was set in that mode when Detective Rollins's black Crown Victoria swung into the parking lot and the flustered detective parked, got out and came to him.

“Hey, I'm glad I found you. Listen, Damien, I've got news that's going to blow you off your feet. A man just left my office, and he told me the night before Bretta was killed, he heard her talking to Whip Wilson. He hunts in those woods. They were arguing at first, but they kissed afterward and kissed again. He was close and he heard them plan to meet again the next night. He's a great fan of Wilson's and he knows about Whip's tangled marital mess.

“He said he was on his way to talk with me when his mother died in Sierra Leone, Africa, and he had to run home. He's just getting back and when he found out Bretta'd been killed he came to me. I'm going to question Whip now and I'd like you with me.”

 

As Stevie and Whip walked past the desk clerk of the apartment building, the woman smiled brightly, but she was frowning by the time they got to the elevators. Whip sure looked out of sorts, she decided. He had been in good spirits going out earlier. And Stevie had always been friendly when she'd visited with her husband. Today she looked—the woman hesitated—
frightened
. What was going on? Shrugging, she turned back to her magazine. Show-business people had their own way of life.

 

In Whip's big living room, he commanded Stevie to sit down before he began talking as he paced. “I've got it all planned out. I've been yakking on to the desk clerk about how I'm giving some items away, moving them to a friend's house. Your body is going to be rolled up into that rug over there and I'll have no trouble carting you off to the creek. You'll be weighted with small boulders and it'll be a long time before they find your body.”

His eyes glittered with malice and Stevie thought he personified evil.

She had to know. “Why did you kill Bretta?”

He laughed shortly. “Just like a damned woman to ask the nonessential questions when she's not going to live to think about them.”

“What happened?”

He sat down in a chair opposite her. “You want to know what happened? Bretta Evans and I were making it. Only thing was, she was fool enough to fall for me. She wanted me to get a divorce and marry her, but I wasn't going that route. Bretta had plenty of money. I needed money and she lent me over a hundred thousand dollars. Then, when she knew I wasn't going to marry her, she demanded it all back right away.

“And that's not all. I'd told her my wife and I didn't get along. Told her I stayed with my wife because she threatened to take me to the cleaners if I got a divorce and make sure I never saw my kid again. Now, my son is the love of my life and nobody's taking him away. Bretta said she'd go to my wife with the whole affair and that would give my wife a world of ammunition to shoot me down.”

Whip stopped then and seemed to be reliving what had happened. “We quarreled and I was really pissed, but I hid it. We always met at the old Coleman place. I had to keep things hidden from my wife. I'll say this much. It was good while it lasted. The night before you followed us, I'd told her to meet me there and we'd talk about a divorce and us getting married. I had it all mapped out. We had reached a dead end. No way could I pay that money back anytime soon and I sure as hell wasn't going to marry her.

“You were watching, so you saw it all go down. She called me names and she slapped me and I lost it. I had the gun in my jacket pocket and I shot her twice. She looked so shocked as she fell, and I took my foot and pushed her aside. Then we all realized we'd heard a woman scream ‘Bretta, Run!' and I took off in that direction.

“As I ran, I heard Jake say, ‘That's Stevie's voice,' and I knew you'd followed us. I thought Bretta'd told you.”

“I guess she was ashamed. She knew how no-good you are.”

“Go on. Beat on me. It's gonna be a real pleasure killing you. Anyway, I started to find you and I saw you once in the moonlight, but with all that foliage you weren't clear. Then you disappeared and Jake came to the edge of the forest and hollered, ‘Let's get the hell out of here.' And I knew he was right.”

“She loved you and you killed her.”

“Yeah, something like that. Now you're gonna follow your friend.” He stroked his face. “I wanted to throw you off-base, make you think Jake was after you. I tossed a note in Damien's yard, faxed you on Diamond Point and called you in Maryland.