Aftermath (2 page)

Camille wasn't sure what to say, think, or feel as she looked at her sister and then glanced in the direction of Steven's body. Next, she quickly tried to recall if she had anything illegal in her house. Surely her home would be thoroughly searched when the police got there. Camille took a deep breath and looked at Misa, truly at a loss as to how to proceed.

Misa seemed to sense her sister's hesitance. “Call the cops, Camille,” she said, softly. “I'm ready to face what I did.”

Just at that moment, the phone began to ring. Camille nearly jumped out of her skin, startled by the sudden noise. Misa, however, sat stoically and waited for Camille to answer it.

Glancing at her Cartier watch, Camille noted that it was 2:52
A.M.
Who the hell could this be?
On shaky legs, Camille walked over to the wall and flipped on the light switch. Next, she picked up the nearby phone.

“Hello?”

“Camille!” Frankie's voice sent chills up her spine. “I've been calling you for like an hour now.”

Camille fought to catch her breath. “Frankie…” She looked over at Misa, who shrugged. It seemed that Camille's sister had resigned herself to her fate and didn't care what happened next. “What's wrong?”

Frankie was confused.
“What's wrong?”
he asked rhetorically. “You just came over here and dropped a bomb on me, and now you're asking
me
what's wrong?”

Camille was confused for a moment, before it all came back to her. She had completely forgotten about the events of her evening prior to coming home to a crime scene.

She had been following her husband and his best friend/mistress, Gillian, for days. Their affair was now public and Camille had been humiliated by it. She'd been stalking them nonstop, pretty much consumed by her jealousy. She couldn't come to grips with the fact that her marriage was over and that Frankie seemed oblivious to what people were whispering about them.

“Camille,” Frankie interrupted her thoughts, “are you really pregnant?”

Camille's heart was racing in her chest, and she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Yes,” she answered weakly.

Frankie sighed heavily and held his head in his hand. “How is that possible?” To his knowledge, Camille had been on birth control for years, and he hadn't even been intimate with his wife in ages. Frankie had been very vocal about his desire to remain childless and it was evident even now. “How can you be pregnant?”

Camille could sense Frankie's disappointment, and it stung. She had already been humiliated by Frankie and Gillian's betrayal. For the past several weeks she had become obsessed with it and hadn't eaten or slept much. So when she fell ill and felt slightly weak, she had assumed it was due to her recent lack of attention to her health and poor nutrition. Camille had gone to her family physician expecting to be scolded for her poor eating habits and excessive drinking. To her surprise, she discovered that she was pregnant.

Camille had secretly stopped taking her birth control pills more than six months ago. It had bothered her that Frankie insisted on her using them because he was reluctant to be a father. And when he began spending most of his time with Gillian, Camille had decided to take matters into her own hands, and neglected her pills. It had seemed that her efforts had been in vain, since she had only been intimate with her husband once or twice since then. And then their lives had gone into a tailspin and they'd separated, leaving Camille distraught. While she had noticed that her monthly visit was lighter than usual, she had chalked it up to all the stress of the past few weeks. But it was official: She was pregnant, and tonight—while Misa had apparently been executing Steven—Camille had been over at Gillian's Upper East Side town house delivering the good news.

“I don't know, Frankie,” Camille said. “It just happened.”

Frankie laughed, although he found nothing funny. “How the hell could this shit just happen all of a sudden, Camille? I've been with you for years and nothing like this ever just happened before.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I feel like you're trying to trap me.”

Camille shook her head and closed her eyes, trying to imagine the look on her husband's face at that moment. She wondered if it resembled his expression when she had appeared at Gillian's door earlier that night.

She had rung the doorbell and waited nervously. Gillian had answered and immediately asked Camille to wait in her car until Frankie came out to find out why she was there.

“Please don't bring drama to my door, Camille,” Gillian had said. “Frankie will be out in a minute.”

Camille wanted to snatch the bitch out and throw her down the stairs. Instead, thinking of the miracle growing in her womb, she calmly looked Gillian in the eye and shook her head. “I want to talk to
both
of you.” Camille had boldly pushed past Gillian and entered her house. Camille had been prepared for a fight. Fuck it. If Gillian took it there, so be it. But, to her surprise, Gillian had simply sighed deeply and shut the front door. Camille looked around, musing that this was the place Frankie longed to be as opposed to the home he'd built with her. Just as she thought of him, her husband appeared from around a corner and walked toward her looking angry as hell. Camille didn't care.

“I'm not here for no bullshit, so I'll keep this short,” she'd said, looking at each of them. She noticed that Frankie was shirtless, walking around in his socks—so comfortable in another woman's home. “I'm pregnant.”

Frankie's face fell instantly. “Pregnant?” His body language showed that this news had caught him completely off guard. He put his hands in his pockets, then wiped his mouth. Finally, he folded his arms across his chest.

Gillian, on the other hand, didn't flinch. To Camille, she looked almost numb, as if the pain of losing her father had drained all the fight out of her.

“Nine weeks,” Camille confirmed, staring at her rival. She turned her attention back to Frankie. “You may not want to be with
me
anymore, but now there's a child. When you're ready to talk, I'll be at home waiting.”

Gillian had looked to Frankie for his reaction. He had stood there in obvious shock as Camille calmly sauntered out, confident that she'd ruined their fairy-tale plans.

Frankie had been calling the house ever since. Camille's cell phone battery was dead so his calls went straight to voice mail. Frustrated, Frankie had started calling Camille at home. There had been no answer, and the ringing phone had tormented Misa, who had just committed first-degree murder.

Camille glanced at her sister, who was sitting there looking so dazed. She gripped the phone tighter, wondering how the hell she could tell Frankie that his brother was dead—that Misa had killed him.

“We have to talk,” Frankie said.

Camille shook her head. He had no idea how right he was. “Frankie, I can't right now … Misa's here…”

“Camille, come on. This can't really wait.”

“I'll call you back.” Camille hung up before Frankie could protest further, before he could ask if his brother was there. She looked helplessly at Misa. “We have to call the police.”

Misa shrugged her shoulders again. She didn't care. The pain of knowing that Shane had been touched inappropriately by a perverted freak was more punishment than any the police could dish out. “Call 'em.”

Camille took a deep breath and dialed 911. Two rings later, an operator answered.

“What is your emergency?”

“Somebody's been shot.”

Truth and Consequences

Police swarmed Camille's beautiful home. They sealed off the kitchen—the crime scene—as well as the dining room where Steven's blood stained the wall, and were attempting to interrogate Misa in the living room. Misa, however, had so far refused to answer most of the officers' questions. She had acknowledged that she was the shooter. But aside from that, she was not cooperating much. To each of their questions, she answered simply, “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

Camille had to laugh at that. Misa had no damn lawyer. Neither did Camille. In fact, Camille didn't have shit!
Everything
was Frankie's. And Misa had just murdered Frankie's brother. Camille trembled as the enormity of the situation became crystal clear. Her sister was going to jail, and Camille had no idea how they would manage to get her out. Now, the police were asking where her husband was—the brother of the dead man. Camille felt as if everything were moving in slow motion.

“I'll call him.”

They watched as she slowly, deliberately dialed Frankie's cell phone number. Camille didn't miss the irony that he was eagerly answering her phone calls ever since she'd dropped the pregnancy bombshell on him. Recently, he'd been ignoring her repeated attempts to reach him, but not tonight. She took a deep breath as his deep voice filled her ear after only two rings. “Hello?”

“Frankie…” Camille's voice was barely above a whisper. She looked around at the police milling about her home, snapping pictures and searching through things that had nothing to do with the crime scene. She looked at her sister again and saw that Misa was trying to be tough. Still, Camille could tell that she was scared to death and that she wanted to cry but was fighting that urge. Her own voice was shaky as she spoke. “Steven is hurt. You need to come home right away.”

Frankie immediately panicked. Had Jojo—the Nobles family's murderous enemy who'd had a thirst for revenge ever since his brother Dusty had disappeared—come gunning for Steven as a way to get at Frankie? He climbed out of bed and walked into the nearby bathroom, leaving Gillian lying awake in the dark. She sat up and tried to listen closely to his end of the conversation.

“What's going on, Camille?” he asked, the desperation in his voice so clear. “Are you all right? Is somebody there with you? Where's my brother?” Frankie whispered, too, now hoping not to alarm Gillian.

Camille began to cry. How could she tell him that Steven's body was at that very moment being toe-tagged and bagged up? Thankfully, the senior officer on the scene took the telephone from her and cut to the chase. He identified himself as Sergeant Denton and asked if Frankie was the homeowner. When Frankie confirmed that he was, Sergeant Denton explained briefly that the residence was being processed as a crime scene and they had a suspect in custody at the scene. “Mr. Bingham, we have a deceased victim here, whom we'd like you to come home and identify, as your wife informs us that you are his next of kin.”

Frankie heard the word “deceased” echoing in his head again and again. He closed his eyes and tried to digest all of it. “My brother? He's dead?”

“We believe so, sir,” the officer answered honestly. “But we'd like for you to come down and—”

Frankie hung up and felt like he was living a nightmare. Steven was dead. First his father figure, Doug Nobles, had been murdered, and now his brother. Tears filled his eyes as he sat in the darkened bathroom, digesting what he'd just been told. He wondered if things could possibly get any worse.

Frankie went into defensive mode and called some of the goons to come over and secure the house until he came back. Assuming that whatever had happened to Steven was retaliation for Dusty's murder, Frankie surmised that the entire crew was now under attack. And as far as he was concerned, Gillian was the most important person among all of them. If a hair on her head was touched, he would never forgive himself. Hanging up with his boys, he went into the bedroom where Gillian was still lying in bed, and started getting dressed.

He replayed the conversation with Sergeant Denton in his mind. Steven was dead. A suspect was in custody. With a million thoughts racing through his head, Frankie spoke over his shoulder as he put on his clothes. “Danno and Biggs are coming over to keep an eye on things until I get back.”

Gillian was confused.

“What's wrong? Why do they need to come over here? What did Camille want?”

Frankie looked at Gillian. Her long hair hung loosely around her bare shoulders and the moonlight caught her face so delicately that she looked like a porcelain doll. It had already been a whirlwind evening since Camille had dropped her bombshell. Frankie had spent the past two hours reassuring Gillian that, kid or no kid, he was in love with her and not with Camille. Now, he was being called home to deal with the apparent death of his brother and the possibility that Camille was also in danger.

Gillian got out of bed and pulled on her long black silk bathrobe with concern etched on her face.

“I thought I heard you say that your brother is … dead?” She covered her mouth with her hands as she said it, her voice catching in her throat. She prayed that she hadn't heard him correctly.

Looking at Gigi, Frankie felt so sorry for her. Her father had just been murdered and her brother seriously wounded. Doug Nobles's funeral had just occurred only days prior and Gillian was still clearly fragile. Frankie didn't want to upset her further—at least not until he had all the facts.

“I don't know if it's him for sure. I'm gonna go and see. But I just want to make sure you're all right while I'm gone.” Frankie quickly kissed Gillian on the forehead before dialing Tremaine's number.

“I need you to come with me to Staten Island,” he said into the phone. “We got a problem.”

*   *   *

Earlier that evening
, Toya had come home from work, exhausted. Noticing that her screen door was unlocked, she had cursed herself for being careless and forgetting to lock it when she'd left for work that morning. But when she saw her front door was also unlocked, she knew immediately that something was wrong. Toya pulled her gun out of her purse and slowly opened the door, stepping quietly into her house.

She looked around for her dog. Her Pomeranian, Ginger, usually met her at the door, eager for a walk after being locked up all day with the wee-wee pads. But Ginger was nowhere to be found. She noticed the kitchen light on and knew that someone was in there. She slowly inched toward it, ready to fire at the slightest movement. Entering the kitchen, she cocked her gun and stopped, stunned.