Alibi II (19 page)

Scottsdale, Arizona
One Month Later

D
iana Praeliou emerged from the kitchen patio. “It’s absolutely beautiful out today,” she said to her husband as he kissed her cheek. “A perfect day for a hot-air balloon ride,” she said, like a kid wanting a lollipop in a candy store.

“I wish I could, but you know I’m out of here today.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” she said, having completely forgotten. “I remember, you did say that you had a convention in Miami, and next month, the Doctrine of Medical Excellence Ceremony, which I’m shopping for a dress to wear to as we speak.”

“I know my schedule is tight.”

“You think?” she asked sarcastically. “Do you think you could pencil me in for a quiet dinner alone, just the two of us?”

“Someone has to pay the bills around here, Diana.”

“This is true, and you do a wonderful job, honey,” she said jokingly, wrapping her arms around him.

“Do you remember the first time I ever hugged you?” he asked, as he lovingly stared into his wife’s eyes.

The first time we hugged. Only he would remember the first time we hugged. Jeez, he always does this to me.

“Hmmm, now let me see, darling,” she said, playing for more time.

“You don’t remember, so I might as well tell you.”

“No, I do, I do, wait,” she said, as her husband began fidgeting and tickling her sides.

“I know, stop that, our first hug, body to body, was at the game. Remember, the Hawks won the game seven to zero, remember, and I was there cheering and you were watching from the bleachers and you ran down on the field and you hugged me, swung me around, and squeezed the living daylights out of me,” she said, batting her perfectly fitted eyelashes at him as she felt his hand sliding down her back and into the middle of her legs.

“Now,” she said, as she passionately kissed him.

“Now,” he said, as he lay down on top of her, simply destroying her first attempt at getting dressed for the day. They passionately made love as they did most mornings, a perfect start to every waking day they spent together. Webster came inside his wife, taking less than five minutes from start to finish, but leaving Diana with a feeling that could last an eternity.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said, smiling as she wrapped her arms around her husband and moved her leg in between his, holding on to him as if to let him go would be to let go of her last breath.

“I wish I didn’t have to go, too, but can you wait for Spain or what?” he asked, kissing the tip of her nose.

“No, no, I absolutely can’t. Spain is going to simply be the best, our fourteenth wedding anniversary, and we’re going to see the bullfighting. Oh, my God, Webster, can you believe it’s been fourteen years?” she asked.

“No, it doesn’t seem like we’ve been married that long.”

“I know, right, but it’s been the best ride of my life and you’ve been the best husband a girl could ask for. I do dreadfully adore you, and I am most proud of you,” she said before kissing his lips gently.

“I love you, too, more than you will ever know.”

He kissed her cheek as several knocks on their bedroom door startled them.

“Yes, Rosa?” she asked, as Webster walked into the bathroom and out of sight.

“Excuse me, Señora Praeliou, would you like me to make your breakfast now?” asked Rosa, her housekeeper.

“No, I think I’ll take a ride this morning. I would like a hot bath drawn for me when I come back and then I’ll have my breakfast,” she said, tying her hair in a long ponytail on top of her head.

“You going for a ride?”

“Yes. I will see you when you get back. Safe travels, my love,” she said, offering a quick peck of the lips to seal the deal of his safely returning to her. While Webster showered, she quickly dressed and grabbed a pair of rusty brown Valentino riding boots from her closet.

The stables where her champion stallion Thoroughbreds were kept was a half-mile walk from the house. Carlos, their butler, had a golf cart. Rosa used a walkie-talkie to reach him, and he was at the side door waiting to whisk Diana away to the stables. Polo, Misfit, and Rags were all retired now from racing, but they had made their owner, Diana Praeliou, a very rich woman. Misfit had won the Kentucky Derby and had taken the Triple Crown. Misfit had made Diana rich beyond her wildest dreams. Rags had won four Grade One races, including the Breeder’s Cup Classic at Belmont Park, and he had been Horse of the Year in 2004, 2005, and 2006. He retired with a record of twelve wins, nine second-place finishes, and one third-place finish. His career earnings topped five million four hundred fifty-three thousand dollars, no cents required. She herself would have never believed it had she not known better. Polo, until he injured his left leg, had been a prize-winning racehorse. His record far outweighed that of Misfit and Rags. He took home first place at every race, and every horse show, but after he fell and suffered a fractured leg, she never raced him again. Instead, he retired to a quiet, tranquil life with her. “We might be a little broken, hey, Polo, but we’re survivors, huh, boy,” she’d always tell him, feeling most attached to him and most grateful for all the high times he had brought her.

It was Webster who first introduced Diana to the thrill of riding. Until then, the last creature she ever dreamed of having for a pet was a horse, but Diana loved her stallions so passionately that she cared for them personally. Even though she had stableboys to walk them, feed them, and brush them daily, she still every day was hands-on with them. For her, they were the babies she never had, and she loved each of them dearly. Some women get dogs from their husbands; Diana got Thoroughbreds. Sometimes she thought she was closer to her horses than she was to her husband. All the time he spent at the hospital and at Bio One’s pharmaceutical facility, took up the time he would have spent being the perfect doting husband. But Diana understood, and she gave her husband all the mental and physical support he needed to be one of the creative, genius forces behind Bio One’s search for a cure to Alzheimer’s. It was unbelievable, and she would have never imagined twenty years ago that her life would be this rich in luxury or love, but it was, and now her husband was receiving recognition for his contributions in medicine. His discoveries were groundbreaking. The practice of medicine had led Webster all over the world to care for the sick. And over the years he had grown into the security of having a beautiful, strong, faithful wife by his side. Not only was Diana the epitome of grace and charm, but she had a feminine quality that other women seemingly could not project. She walked into a room and effortlessly illuminated it. People were attracted to her beauty and charm, and of course most of the men in their tight-knit circle of friends secretly lusted to share her bed. They were unable to take their eyes off her, even in the presence of her husband. If he hadn’t been told what a lucky man he was at least one hundred thousand times, his name wasn’t Webster Praeliou. Her every move was watched, from how she held her husband’s hand, to how she danced the waltz, to every bite she’d take of her liver pâte. And she commanded respect. Had she wished for others to bow as if in the presence of true royalty, then it would have been so. In the secret society of Scottsdale’s Who’s Who, Webster and Diana Praeliou were at the top of the list, invited to every event and envied by everyone who had the pleasure of being in their company. They were the social couple of the century, throwing fundraisers and donating time to raising funds for city and state officials. Diana Praeliou could throw a barbecue in her backyard and rake in more than five hundred thousand dollars for charity. She was a mover and a shaker, and she made things happen. Every year Diana threw a Christmas party in their home for all Webster’s family and friends. The guest list was over five hundred people. Every name on the list was someone of great importance, from the city and state politicians to the medical professionals associated with her husband’s practice and every other scientist on his team from Bio One. They were all in attendance. No doubt, Webster and Diana Praeliou had the perfect life, she was the perfect wife, and he was the perfect husband. They were two souls that had joined together as man and wife in a union truly blessed by God. And in the past twenty years, there had been no man or woman who could come between them. How many women could say they were married to a neurosurgeon, a genius, a rich, handsome genius who happened to be on the cusp of a cure for Alzheimer’s? Forget the money. They were rich beyond their wildest dreams, but then again, money meant nothing, they already had everything they wanted financially and materially, and most important, they had each other, and for the two of them, that was all that mattered.

Diana finished her ride with Rags, patted him down, told him what a good boy he was at least one hundred times, then called for Carlos on the walkie-talkie. Once in her bedroom, she began to undress as Rosa prepared her bath and turned on the plasma flat-screen hanging on the wall above the Jacuzzi. She put on a robe and walked into the wall-to-wall marble bathroom. She handed her robe to Rosa as Rosa held her hand and helped her sit down.

“Bien?”
Rosa asked.

“Si, bien, Rosa. Gracias.”

The Jacuzzi sat catty-corner under a large window with a perfect, picturesque view of the Arizona desert and Camelback Mountain. Several large saguaros, cactuses, and paloverdes lined the yard. There were scattered patches of red fairy dusters and desert willows and a few summer poppies strategically placed around the backyard. Arizona was truly the home of mother earth, and all the holistic benefits of the desert were there at Diana’s fingertips. At forty-two years old, she looked as if she could pass for her late twenties or early thirties.

“Señora Praeliou, will you be eating downstairs today?” asked Rosa.

“No, I’ll eat on the bedroom balcony. Bring the newspaper and the mail also,” she ordered, before pressing a button and turning on the twenty-two-jet Jacuzzi.

Diana finished her bath and dressed in a cool tan-colored sweatsuit and white tee. Her toes were perfectly manicured, and she slipped on a pair of Bonjour Fleurette slippers and made her way to the balcony. A tray containing fresh fruit, toast, preserves, and freshly squeezed orange juice was waiting on the master bedroom balcony. She sat down, glanced at the headlines in today’s
Arizona Capitol Times
, and then started to open the small pile of mail.

The envelope she held in her hand was handwritten, barely legible, foreign to her. She opened it and pulled out a folded sheet of yellow tablet paper. Small and large cut-out letters that had been pasted on the page read: “I know who you are, Daisy. Does your husband? Call this number, 602-555-3773, at 4:00 p.m. today or I call Webster!”

Large letters, small letters, red letters, black letters, white letters, all cut out and pasted on yellow tablet letter paper. She read it again, and again, and again as a horrible feeling of uncertainty fell on her shoulders like a heavy burden. It seemed as though someone was out there, watching her.
He called Webster by name
.
Oh, my God, what am I going to do?
She folded the note and put it back in the envelope.

“What am I going to do?”

“I am sorry, you talk to me, Señora?” asked Rosa, who was coming in to take the tray.

“Oh, my God, you startled me,” said Diana. She had not realized Rosa was in the room behind her. “Rosa, please, some privacy for one moment.”

“Do you need anything, Señora?”

“No, no, just a few minutes alone.”

“Si, Señora,” Rosa said, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Diana began to pace across the floor of the room.
What do they want? Why, why now, after all these years, why?
All those years of lying, pretending, and living a life that was a lie. She thought back to when she was younger, to all the mistakes of her past. She thought she had put them to rest, skeletons in a locked closet. She had paid her price and been given another chance at life. But now, all that was turning upside down, and her past was here, right here in her present.
Jesus, what am I going to do?
She had no options. The bottom line was that Webster could never, ever find out who she really was or any other sordid detail of her dirty, trifling life. Her secrets had to remain safe and unknown. It would ruin her marriage, ruin her life, and ruin everything. No, her secrets must never ever be exposed. She would do whatever had to be done to keep her past life a lie. She had to. She had no other choice. It was the only way to protect her husband, to protect their perfect life.

D
iana left her house at three-forty-five and went to the closest gas station where there was a pay phone. Whoever this person was, she didn’t want him connected to her in any way. That meant she wasn’t calling whoever it was from her house or her cell. She knew she had to think, and think smart. She wanted nothing more than to make sure that whoever this person was, he could never be traced back to her once this was over.

She parked her car, looked at her watch, and grabbed her purse. It cost fifty cents to make a pay phone call. She remembered the days it only cost a dime. She looked at the cut-and-paste note in her hand. It disgusted her that someone would even have the audacity to put her through this. Whatever it was he wanted she needed to know. Then she wanted him to be done with it. And if he even thought about coming back, then she would know she had a bigger problem. But first, she needed to find out exactly what this guy wanted.

She dialed the number, and a man’s voice answered on the first ring.

“Hello, what do you want from me?” she asked, completely frozen still at the thought of being blackmailed.

“I’m glad you don’t want to beat around the bush. Let’s just say I have video footage and photos of you doing what you do best.” Nard chuckled as he spoke, just fucking with her.

“And why should I believe you,” she asked.

“I can post it online for you, if you like, or just turn the bachelor party with you and your girlfriend into a DVD. Wow, I didn’t know some of the shit you’re doing was humanly possible, but somehow you managed, amazing, really amazing. One hundred thousand dollars, bitch. No more questions. You meet me in one hour at the Sleep Inn near the airport. Go into the back of the hotel and park next to the green Dumpster. And you better be there in one hour, alone, or the deal’s off. Understood?”

“That’s not enough time,” she said calmly, recalling the night she and Trixie did a bachelor party for Sticks and were drugged with the date-rape drug, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, which the streets referred to as a mickey. Trixie never came back from it. That night, thanks to Daisy, messed her up for the rest of her life.

“You got plenty of time, go get the money out them safety deposit boxes you got and stop playing, before I go post your videos and photos on the Internet.”

He knows a lot. How? How the hell does he know and how did he find me?
Diana had thought that life was buried deep in the depths of her memory, but nothing is forgotten, and there’s always tomorrow to remind you of yesterday.

“Hey, you hear me talking the fuck to you? One hour, you got that?” Nard asked one last time.

“One hour,” Diana said, agreeing to the meet.

She hung up the phone and got back into her car, looking at her watch.
This is too much, this can’t be happening,
she thought as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

She pulled into the Bank of America and hopped out of the car. She swung open one of the double glass doors and walked inside.

“Hi, Mrs. Praeliou.”

She turned around and faced Inez, an assistant manager of the bank, who knew her well.

“Hi, Inez, can you please pull my safety deposit box for me?” asked Diana, not wanting to appear as if anything were wrong, even though she felt as if her world were crashing all around her. She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, feeling as if she could barely finish her sentence.

“Of course, is everything all right?” asked Inez, feeling as if Ms. Praeliou wasn’t herself.

“Oh, yes, just tired. That’s all,” Diana responded, feeling a wave of anxiety and a rush of adrenaline.
I just want this day to be over. I just want it over.
Little did she know, it was just beginning.

With less than thirty minutes of time and counting, she counted out a total of ten ten-thousand-dollar stacks from her personal safety deposit box for a whopping grand total of one hundred thousand.

A small price to pay for peace of mind
. Thank God she had her own money. She was fortunate, she had hers, Webster had his, and then they had accounts and safety deposit boxes that they shared. She had her money already counted and bound before placing it in the box. She knew what she had, where she had it, and how much at all times. Diana Praeliou was a woman of great wealth, and her husband was ten times wealthier than she. Together they were the ultimate power couple, invincible, or so it seemed.

Nard watched as Daisy left the bank, hopped into her car, and headed for the highway. He followed several cars behind her just in case she was paranoid and watching to see if she was being followed. She pulled into the parking lot of the Sleep Inn and drove to the back. All the way to the left side of the lot, next to the hotel, was a green Dumpster, an empty parking spot beside it.

Great, now what?
she thought to herself as she looked around the deserted parking lot.
What now?
Just sit here. Maybe I’m to put the money in the Dumpster. Why would I do that, I want my photos and video. What if there isn’t a video and there are no photos? What if this is just some asshole trying to get money from me? But then he wouldn’t have called me Daisy.
Diana sat there, her mind scrambling, thought after thought, trying to put the situation into perspective. Fifteen minutes passed and the time was seven after four. Just as she was ready to start her car and drive off, her cell phone rang.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Daisy, you got that?” the voice asked.

“Yes, I got it,” she said, her heart sinking at the thought of this character invading her space and calling her cell phone.
How the hell does he have my number?

“A’ight, come on, take the back door, you heard, and come up the stairwell to the second floor, room 215. And hurry up,” the voice demanded before disconnecting.

Nard watched out the window as Daisy crossed the parking lot and took the back door as he had instructed, up to the second floor.

The door to the room was left cracked open, and as she approached it, she became nervous about what was waiting for her on the other side.

“Hello,” she said as she pushed the door open.

The room was dark as night, not even the television was playing, so there was little light except that which played peekaboo through the drawn curtains.

Just as Diana stepped into the room, the door was pushed shut behind her, and a body approached her from the right side out of the bathroom doorway, quickly moving behind her, placing a gun to her side.

“Please don’t kill me, I have the money,” she whispered, scared to breathe as she began to feel faint, her heart pounding a mile a minute.

“Where is it?” Nard asked, wanting to see it for himself.

“Where are my pictures and my video you claim to have?”

Nard locked the hotel door as Diana held out the bag containing the money. “Here you go,” she said.

“At least you do as you’re told, but then again, you always did,” said Nard as he pressed play on the video machine containing Sticks’s homemade video special.

“Damn, how you got two dicks in your mouth like that is crazy. That is you, right?” he joked.

Daisy looked at herself as five men were gathered around her waiting for available parking space. Her friend, Trixie, had three other guys, and there were four more in another room that would have sex with the both of them. She remembered the next morning, waking up, realizing that she had had anal sex as well as group sex with a bunch of men Sticks had put her in the room with. She remembered feeling light-headed and knew she had been drugged, but she never remembered the night itself. Now she had it in living color, full view, no denying the reality of what she had felt the next morning, no questions needed to be asked. She watched as a man slid his penis in and out of her vagina while the others stood around in a circle over her waiting their turn for oral, anal, or vaginal sex, as if her body were nothing more than a Stop and Go.

“I’ve seen enough,” she said, as if she was the one who could make demands.

“I haven’t,” said Nard, approaching her from behind completely naked. “Take off your clothes,” Nard said as he took his hand, cupped her breast, and began to fondle her nipple.

“This wasn’t part of the deal. You asked me to bring you the money and I did,” she said as she pushed his hand off her.

“Bitch, I know you ain’t got no problem letting a nigga fuck you. Look at them niggas,” he said, pointing to the screen as Daisy was taking it three to one, and the cameraman was giving you an in-depth view, literally, of her ass. “You got to be kidding me. You’re a fucking whore; take your clothes off and fold them neatly on the chair,” he demanded. “Or do I got to make you?” he asked, pointing the gun at her head.

“You have to make me,” she said, as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“If a gun to your head will make you feel better, bitch, then so fucking be it,” Nard declared, forcing her down on her knees as he placed his dick in her mouth.

“Uh-uh, like the fucking video, bitch, suck it like you sucking that clown-ass nigga. Better, but you gonna get it right. Don’t worry, Diana, we gonna find that Daisy girl, and I know she’s in there somewhere.”

“Daisy’s been gone for twenty years now.”

“Yeah, and so have I,” he said sarcastically, Diana still not realizing who he was. “But don’t worry, I’m gonna bring her back and fuck her real good, I know she likes getting fucked. Maybe you don’t, but she does, ain’t that right, Daisy?” asked Nard, grabbing her cheeks as he thrust himself up and down her throat, still standing above her. He came in her mouth, choking her as she tried not to swallow his semen. “Take it, swallow it, you know it’s what you want.”

She couldn’t fight him, as he was too strong, his hands holding the sides of her face with so much force, he was able to stuff his penis down her throat and make her swallow it, still thrusting in and out of her mouth.

“Take it all, Daisy, take it just like you did in your movie.”

A tear of frustration and anger rolled down her cheek, which she quickly wiped away. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was getting at her. It seemed the more she resisted, the more he tried to hurt her, the more she pulled away, the more he forced himself harder. He pulled himself out of her, turning her around, and entered her from behind. His hands pulled at her hair as he stood on his feet, still forcing himself on her, but instead of her fighting, she spread her legs, opening herself so he could have his way. Hoping that it would all be over, that her secret would be safe and she could go home to her wonderful life, she lay there as he she felt him penetrating her anally, fucking her like an animal, purposely and forcefully stroking her, then vaginally, and again anally until he finally came in her rectum and collapsed on top of her.

She began to roll over to get off the bed. “Where do you think you’re going?” said Nard as he grabbed her hair, smacked her face, and threw her back down on the bed.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he said as he reached over to the nightstand, grabbed a prefilled needle, and stuck her in the arm. Within seconds she was out cold, her naked body lying peacefully still as he pulled out a video camera.

“This party’s just getting started, Daisy, it’s just getting started.”