It's seems like every other week, I'm starting a new book. :0) Well, I did finish Soul Brothas and am editing it, but I also just started yet another novel,
Contract Killer... it's a working title. I can't help it. When I get an idea I start writing and I'll continue writing unless something else pops in my head. ;0) Well, one of my readers said I should call it
The Locket. I like that title... we'll see. Anyway, please tell me what you think so far. It's just one chapter - chapter one. It's rough but I think you'll enjoy.
Have a wonderful day!
~ Jennifer
The Contract Killer
By Jennifer Lightburn
“What’s up Menendez? What’cha got?”
Menendez nodded for the detective to follow him towards the bedroom of the victim’s apartment in
Arlington, Virginia.
They stood in the doorway watching forensics snap pictures of the scene.
There was a bullet hole near the center of the door and a partial shoe print was adjacent the knob.
In the middle of the chaos that surrounded them was a woman’s body on the floor outlined in tape next to a king-sized bed.
She was wearing a black, silk cocktail dress and open-toe, black Patten leather pumps.
“Janice Smalls… DOA… 27. From the position of her body and the cap to the back of her head, she probably didn’t know it was coming,” Menendez said. “She was a pretty girl. Smart too – graduated from Yale. She has brides magazines all over the place – must have been planning her wedding.”
Walking inside, Detective Tina Johnson looked around the enormous master bedroom. She noted the crown molding, posh furniture, 52” flat screen TV, and a jewelry box on the chest of drawers. There was costume jewelry that had to cost a fortune and gold and gemstone rings and necklaces that had to cost even more. Johnson waited until the photos of the body were taken. She put on her gloves and lifted the deceased woman’s hand, noticing at least a three carat diamond ring on the victim’s finger. Couldn’t have been a robbery, she thought and then stood observing a blotch of red from across the room. She walked over to the sliding glass door that led to a balcony. There was blood on the door handle.
“We took a sample and we’re dusting for fingerprints now,” Menendez said.
Johnson couldn’t help notice that Menendez was sweating. He tended to perspire without even the slightest overexertion. Murder cases made his perspiration worse and thus his body odor.
“Any witnesses?” Johnson asked.
With an accent from
New York or maybe
Jersey, Menendez said, “Nosy neighbors were lining up to see something gruesome, but the couple from 3B said they heard a gun shot and shortly thereafter they heard a woman scream.
The guy next door said moments after the shot he saw someone run out of the apartment through his peephole.”
“Male or female?”
“He couldn’t tell. The person wore a cloak.”
Besides the count, how many men wear a cloak? Johnson thought. “Just one gun shot?”
Menendez combed back his wet hair. “Yeah, there’s only one bullet hole and one casing,” he replied.
That didn’t make sense. Johnson walked back to the body, knelt down and tilted the woman’s head so she could get a better look. She gently lifted the victim’s hair to see the entry wound. Blood seeped out of one area. She looked at the hole in the door. Unless the killer screamed, there were more than two people in the apartment, and there had to be more than two shots fired, she thought. Just as she was about to ask if family had been notified, she heard loud commotion from the other room. She walked out of the bedroom. In the foyer was an older woman dressed in a mink coat. She wore diamond earrings and stood next to a man who looked as if he’d stepped off a photo shoot for GQ.
“This is my daughter’s house. The neighbor’s called me. I know something is terribly wrong,” the woman protested.
Telling family about the fate of a deceased loved one was what Johnson hated most about her job. She walked to the distraught woman, trying to find the words to console her but realized there were no words in the English dictionary, and English was the only language she spoke. As Johnson reached out to take the elderly woman’s hand, the woman collapsed on the floor. Johnson turned around to see the stretcher with Janice Smalls’ body covered in a white sheet. She helped the handsome man lift Mrs. Emily Smalls to her feet.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Your daughter is gone... she died,” Johnson said.
“What did they do to my daughter,” Emily Smalls wailed.
“You may want to wait until the coroner has time to…”
“I want to see my baby,” cried Mrs. Smalls.
Johnson swallowed and looked into the woman’s sorrowful eyes.
Though she could empathize with the woman’s pain, something bothered her.
It was the way Mrs. Smalls responded to her daughter's death that made Tina Johnson wonder if she had an idea who was responsible.
Who are
they that she was referring to?
Against her better judgment she nodded for
EMS to lift the covering.
Mrs. Smalls would have to identify her daughter soon enough, Johnson thought.
It was difficult to tell the color of the Janice Smalls hair as it was dyed with red blood.
Still, she looked peaceful, as peaceful as one could look laying dead on a stretcher.
“Call another bus,” Johnson commanded as Mrs. Smalls lost consciousness.
Dominique Watson didn’t have time to slip on her heals or grab her coat for that matter. She barely had time to close the door when she saw the gunman standing in the living room. She managed to shut and lock the door just before the bullet penetrated the wood bedroom door and skinned her hand. She ran to the balcony, hastily climbed the railing and didn’t hesitate to jump to the oak tree. She tore her stockings and broke her pinky finger as she clumsily fell down the side, barely able to grasp the oak for dear life. She fell to the ground. For a moment she didn’t know if she could move, but she got up. She limped in the darkness down the residential neighborhood to 23rd Street. People who stood outside the community restaurants and bars moved out of her way as if she was a vagabond. She waived down a taxi. The first driver took one look at her and sped by. Normally she’d think it was racial profiling, but then she thought, if she were a taxi driver she may not have picked herself up. The second taxi driver took his chances. The middle-aged Pakistani needed the fare. She looked a mess. Her hair, which was neatly in a bun, was now shaggy and all over her face. Her rich brown skin was dotted with blood and there was a cut on her face where a limb nicked her. Her expensive dress and hosiery were torn and she was barefooted. She was definitely in some type of trouble, but the Middle Eastern man learned a long time ago to mind his own business. He was paid to drive people around not play social worker. He had his doubts if he should pick her up, but she was a woman and he felt if worse came to worse he could handle her.
Dominique jumped in the car and scooted down into the seat.
“Let me see some money,” the driver said before he left the curb.
Dominique thanked God for listening to her mother. On her very first date when she was a teenager, her mother told her to always keep money in her bra in case of emergencies. She pulled out a fifty and tossed it to the front seat.
“Foggy Bottom. Hurry!”
Vinny Michaels was hiding in the hall closet when Janice Smalls came into her apartment. She turned the hallway light on and walked to the bedroom. He heard her talking to someone and figured she was on the phone because he didn’t hear any response. He tiptoed towards her bedroom, placing the silencer on his 45 as he reached the doorway. Typically he liked to torture his victims with scare tactics and see the frightened look on their face as they took the bullet, but he had dinner plans and didn’t want to be late. He shot her in the back of the head and turned to walk away, twisting the silencer off the gun. Just as he got to the door, he thought he heard a sound… movement. It couldn’t have been his contract. There was no way she could have survived that close range bullet wound. Pretending to leave the premises, he opened the front door and closed it, and he heard the movement again. He walked towards the bedroom and saw a woman kneeling next to Small’s body. She looked up, and before he could run inside the bedroom, she closed the door and locked it. He shot the door, kicked it in and rushed inside, but the woman had already jumped out the window. He saw her lying on the ground.
It’s their lucky day. They got two for the price of one, he thought.
He walked outside to make sure the woman was dead, but she was gone. There were only traces of her blood. This unnerved him, but he did the job that he was paid to do. That’s what he kept telling himself. The problem was that he left a loose end, and even though he’d still get paid half a million dollars, he couldn’t live with the thought of doing such sloppy work. He had a reputation to consider. People paid him top dollar because he never left traces of evidence.
Michaels high-tailed it out of site before the cops arrived. From a distance he saw them storm into the building like a stampede of wild elephants. He’d always wanted to be cop, but his line of business paid more, and his father always told him to make as much money as he could. He walked leisurely to his car, not able to get the woman’s face out of his mind. She had large brown eyes, warm brown skin, high cheek bones and a button nose. He’d seen her before. But where? He couldn’t place her face. Just as he put the key in the ignition of his car, he remembered… the locket.
