Chapter 1
She was a lover of men and she used them. She used them as though they were as expendable as the cigarette butts she frequently flicked into the air as she drove her drop top S Class Mercedes through the most affluent of neighborhoods. Many would deem her a temptress, a heart breaker, a man-eater, a vixen. Call her what you may, but she was indeed a beauty. She was more captivating than her perfectly sculptured hair and her picturesque body – both have been known to make men careen their cars into oncoming traffic, along with her piercing blue eyes that appeared luminescent in the light. Her beauty was undeniable, even to herself. She walked through life with the notion that the world and everyone in it should take a bow in reverence to her. A woman who embodies this kind of beauty is required to possess a name only fitting for someone who bears the scorn of girlfriends and wives alike: Sapphire.
Sapphire sauntered through the doors of Brooksmen Hall and strolled into lecture hall 3C. As was customary for her, she arrived twenty minutes after the start of class. Was she worried about the ramifications of her tardiness? No. She was used to staying after class and using her feminine “talents” to ensure that she maintained her 4.0 grade point average. Sapphire never concerned herself with the fact that her professors were married men, nor did she care about anything other than what would ultimately benefit her.
When the day’s light draws to a close and the eyes of onlookers cease to crawl over her body in admiration, she finally begins to find solace; she escapes from the façade she uses when she steps foot outside of her townhouse. Sapphire is forced to face the demons that no amount of makeup, hair, money, or men could ever take away. She showers in vain, in desperate hopes of washing the pain away; however it doesn’t work. At night she nestles her head on her pillow and inconsolably weeps as the memories of her past creep back one by one; nights she desperately wants to and tries to forget…
The sapphire is a beautiful gem; but this Sapphire is damaged… truly damaged. As the semester draws to a close and final exams quickly approach, Sapphire sits in her Advanced Physics class in a daze, hatching the perfect plan. She needs to get ahead, and the best way to do that is to use what God has endowed her with: her undeniable beauty and information that could be used as leverage to destroy the careers and families of many distinguished professionals. Once the clock struck 11:45 A.M., the class was officially over and students rushed out of the room to tackle the rest of their day, all but Sapphire. Sapphire stayed there, sitting, legs crossed with pen in hand, lustfully staring at Professor Langston. He gave her an inviting nod indicating his wish for her to follow him to his office. She eagerly followed his lead. Once in the privacy of his office, Professor Langston excitedly admits, “I didn’t think you were going to show up for class today. I missed you.”
“Look, whether you missed me or not, I truly could care less! I need some money! I also don’t plan on taking the final. I’m sure you’ll be taking care of that,” she hissed in a dismissive, snide tone which bewildered the professor.
The professor stood silent for a moment. His mind and heart began to race as thoughts of his career, wife, and child came to mind. Had he made the biggest mistake of his life by allowing sex to trump what took him a lifetime to build? He stood quietly, contemplating how to respond to her demands for money and grades. He knew the leverage she had over him - he would lose everything should she feel it necessary to tell all they had done; the numerous times after class when she would stay and he would “tutor” her on the specifics of force, acceleration, and mass. She was whom he thought of at night; she saturated his mind and made it hard for him to concentrate in her absence from class. It wasn’t until this very moment that he really stopped to appreciate the gravity of the situation he’d gotten himself into.
“How much do you need Miss Taylor? I take it there is no way that we can have civility between us?” He could only hope that she would retort with an affirmative answer, but that wouldn’t be Sapphire’s style.
“Hell no!” she responded in a tenor voice. Her tone indicated that she found satisfaction in what she was about to do to him.
“You have had the pleasure of using my body, and you think that because you gave me a few thousand dollars and a few A’s that all is O.K.? Be satisfied knowing that you’ve had the privilege of touching this. As far as you and I go, it’s over. However, you will continue to give me A’s whether I show up for class or not, and you will indeed continue to pay me a comfortable stipend on a monthly basis; or let’s just say your pretty wife, the Director of Student Affairs, and the President of the University will be told about everything we’ve done. By the way, I know your daughter attends that prestigious private high school, Wingdom Hall. I would hate for this scandal to surface and for your daughter’s life and reputation to be ruined.”
Professor Langston knew all too well what needed to be done; now all he needed was the reserve and follow-through to secure the life that he built, making sure that it didn’t become destroyed.
“You’ll get everything that’s coming to you. Now leave my office, Miss Taylor. I know I exercised the poorest judgment, entering into this sordid arrangement with you, and now you threaten to destroy the lives of those I love… my wife, my daughter! I once saw a beautiful woman when I looked at you, now all I see is nothing more than a cheap little slut. Get the hell out… NOW!”
Taken aback by his expression of anger, because she was not accustomed to men exercising any assertiveness with her, she glared and responded, “Just make sure you have my money by Friday, or you know what will happen. Think about that little wife and child of yours.” Sapphire grabbed her Gucci handbag and exited the professor’s office.
While driving, Sapphire realizes, yet again, that she is going home alone. The only numbers in her cell phone are those of professors that she sleeps with for grades and those who provide her with the lifestyle that she feels is befitting for a woman of her beauty. Alone… she is always alone. She has no friends; women deem her toxic and men view her as nothing more than a personification of vanity; one to be used for their temporary enjoyment, not to bring home to meet the family. To most, she is seen as entirely devoid of any substance.
She arrives to an empty home where she has no one to dialogue with, except for her inner demons. She bathes in a shower large enough to fit several adults, allowing the warm air of her townhouse to dry her body naturally. She tries not to let her mind become adrift, letting memories of her past float back to the present, but her efforts are to no avail. She stands in front of her mirror in a daze. She is taken back several years to when she was a girl, ten years old. Sapphire never knew her father and her mother always worked two jobs to ensure that the rent was paid. There were times when Sapphire’s mother could not afford to maintain the utilities, so at any given time the lights or the heat were turned off. This is the life that Sapphire was accustomed to; her youth and innocence blinded her to the severity of her situation. The following year, when she turned eleven, her mother began dating and fell in love with a man who proved to shape Sapphire’s life in profound ways - she loved this man. He was the father that she never had. However, she never knew that he had a past and lived a lifestyle that would contaminate her life and irreparably damage her.
Sapphire’s mother allowed her love for her boyfriend to cloud her judgment, and she experimented with what started out as recreational drug use. Sapphire, who once received unyielding attention from her mother, noticed the attention she once received was becoming less and less frequent. Her mother’s presence in the home became almost non-existent. One day, upon arrival home from school, Sapphire was greeted by her teary-eyed mother delivering the news that the man whom she loved was murdered. This was Sapphire’s first exposure to death, and she received no parental comfort; instead she received a mother who became a shell of the woman she once was. Her mother would tell her how beautiful she was, and how “Pa-Pa” always mirrored the same sentiment. The compliments would come in plentifully, but her mother would become increasingly detached from Sapphire’s world. The innocent world she once knew began to take on many shades of gray. She found herself becoming angry and always longing for something she couldn’t quite explain.
The morning of January 9th, Sapphire’s birthday, she awoke shivering; a chill that was all too familiar. She tried to turn on the lamp, but the only light she would receive was from the flashlight she kept hidden under her bed and the street lights that glowed through the bed sheets that were used as curtains. She glanced at her watch and noticed that it was just past 3 A.M. She stumbled into her living room to find her mother on the couch in a compromising position with a man. Startled at the sight, she ran back to her room and jumped into her bed. All she could do was cry. How did her life take such a downward spiral? Could things become any worse?
The following night, while Sapphire was in her room trying to drift off to sleep, she heard the voices of two men and her mother in heated discussion.
“I know I owe you, but I already gave you all my jewelry and you know what we did last night. Just tell me what else you want!”
The male voice, seemingly unmoved by the pleading tone of the mother, retorted quickly and forcefully. Sapphire snuck to her bedroom door and opened it slightly to see what was going on.
“Your daughter! She’s a sweet looking young thang. I know she’s fresh too… I know we can have some fun with that. We can consider all the debts cleared. If she is half as good as you are then I know it’ll be worth it. Yo, you already saw what happened when your boy neglected to own up and pay what he owed.” Sapphire watched the man take out a syringe and a bag from his coat, then toss them on the ground. Her mother looks at the two men, and begins to cry.
“Just don’t damage her face…”
Sapphire, after realizing the gravity of what is going on, tries to escape out of her window; but it is too late. One of the men grabs her and throws her to the floor. In the coldness of the night, all that can be seen are the silhouettes of men annihilating the innocence she has left, and the spark of a lighter from the other room.
As Sapphire awakes from her daze, alone and naked in her townhouse, she notices that the doorbell has been ringing. She quickly dresses in a silk robe and answers the door.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she snaps. “You’ve got some fucking nerve coming to my home unannounced,” she seethes with her
voice rising, and her agitation growing more and more by the second.
Before another word could be uttered by Sapphire, a knife was forced into her chest and abdomen in several swift, consecutive motions. Sapphire fell to the floor and the unannounced guest left as quickly as they had arrived
********************
Once the news of Sapphire Taylor’s death began to travel amongst the students on the campus of the University, questions began to swirl. Her personal life began to be scrutinized, and rumors were dissected for their percentage of truth. Discussion of the homes she had destroyed ran rampant, and her personality was torn to shreds. Noticeably absent from the conversations about the death of Sapphire was any sorrow… any outward display of grief over the loss of human life. She held no value to anyone. She was a loner; she never allowed anyone to breach the walls she built around herself when she was young. She never learned to let go.
The night of the murder, Professor Langston arrived home around 3 A.M. He was flushed, pale, and ready to confess his sins to a wife who was anxiously awaiting his arrival. He had been driving around aimlessly for several hours thinking of what he had done. He tried to figure out exactly how he would alleviate his soul and atone for his terrible and unforgivable lapse in judgment for doing the unforgivable…
When Professor Langston arrived home, there was a letter taped to his garage. Shaking, he exits the car, retrieves the letter, and returns to the warmth of his Mercedes. He hesitates before reading it, assuming that it was left there to bear bad tidings. How much more could he take? He decided to read the letter before entering the house; before he laid the weight of his burdens upon his wife; before he plead to her in desperation in order to salvage the family that he was hoping would not dessert him. When he opened the envelope, he recognized the familiar handwriting:
Daddy,
Please forgive me. There is quite a bit you don’t know; quite a bit I haven’t shared with you and Mommy. I’ve been dating this guy named Jonathan Torres for the past year. He is older than me. Daddy, I wanted to tell you and Mommy but I knew you would freak out. Jonathan works as a Mortgage Broker and is the youngest broker at his brokerage company; he’s 26 years old. I know he’s 9 years older than me, but I truly do love him.
Everything was going great between the two of us, that is, until one night while working on my calculus homework at his condo, he happened to leave his checkbook on the kitchen table. He usually leaves his checkbook in the nightstand, so I decided return it to its proper place. When I picked it up, a check fell out, signed and dated for the amount of $3500.00, made payable to a Sapphire Taylor. The memo line read: “Townhouse payment”.
Daddy, I was completely confused. I wanted to know who this Sapphire Taylor was, why he was writing a check to her for that amount of money, and why he was giving it to her for a townhouse; people are supposed to give him money; he’s the Mortgage Broker! Also, the name sounded so familiar to me. Then, it finally dawned on me where I knew the name. When we took a trip to your school, and received a tour from one of our previous graduates, she told many of us about the “dirt” at the University. She mentioned Sapphire and her rumored addiction to men, and her sordid relationships to different professors. Why would Jonathan be giving this skank money? Well, Daddy, I am your daughter and you’ve always taught me that “the solution to any question ends with active investigation”. So I followed him one night. I followed him to the townhouse of this Sapphire Taylor. Daddy, he’s been cheating on me with this whore. How could he do this to me? I told Mommy, and she confided in me that she believes the Sapphire I was talking about is the same Sapphire that your secretary’s daughter said that you were having an affair with!
We’ve known about you and your slut for quite some time now. That woman is poison! You’ve been sleeping with her, Jonathan slept with her, and she’s been blackmailing him; God only knows who else she’s got her hooks in. I just couldn’t take it any longer. She’s threatened to destroy our family, and not only that, she has come in-between me and the man I love. Mommy hides her pain differently than me. She can pretend as if everything is o.k., but I can’t. I refuse. I also learned another lesson from you: “Protect your family at all costs! Self-preservation is the number-one human instinct.” Well, I wasn’t given any choice. Daddy, I had to protect myself from the woman who didn’t even know me, but was set out to destroy me. So I went to her house. She knew exactly who I was without me even introducing myself. I can’t believe how condescending this woman was. She gave me attitude and she was extorting money from my father and boyfriend. She’s been sleeping with the two men in my life. That bitch had to be stopped! Before I knew it, I was stabbing her… Daddy, I wanted her dead, but I didn’t think I’d actually go through with it. I just wanted to scare her -threaten her to leave all of us alone and prey on someone else; but it was the look in her eyes; that cold unrepentant look just sent me into a complete frenzy.
Daddy, when the police find out what I did, I know everything I’ve worked for will be lost, and I will have disgraced the family. I’m so sorry. Please tell Mommy. I can’t face her or you.
I love you,
Anna
When the Professor finished reading the note, his heart was atremble and he was searching for breath. Was he dreaming? Did he just read that his only child had committed the heinous murder of his mistress? His wife lay in bed, waiting for his arrival, and he was left with a heavy choice to make. What to do? Raindrops began to fall upon the windshield of his car as he contemplated his options, and he tried to dissect the course of events that lead to this catastrophic night. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellular phone.
“911, what is your emergency?” The voice on the line answered.
“My name is Gregory Langston, and I just committed a murder...”
Sapphire sauntered through the doors of Brooksmen Hall and strolled into lecture hall 3C. As was customary for her, she arrived twenty minutes after the start of class. Was she worried about the ramifications of her tardiness? No. She was used to staying after class and using her feminine “talents” to ensure that she maintained her 4.0 grade point average. Sapphire never concerned herself with the fact that her professors were married men, nor did she care about anything other than what would ultimately benefit her.
When the day’s light draws to a close and the eyes of onlookers cease to crawl over her body in admiration, she finally begins to find solace; she escapes from the façade she uses when she steps foot outside of her townhouse. Sapphire is forced to face the demons that no amount of makeup, hair, money, or men could ever take away. She showers in vain, in desperate hopes of washing the pain away; however it doesn’t work. At night she nestles her head on her pillow and inconsolably weeps as the memories of her past creep back one by one; nights she desperately wants to and tries to forget…
The sapphire is a beautiful gem; but this Sapphire is damaged… truly damaged. As the semester draws to a close and final exams quickly approach, Sapphire sits in her Advanced Physics class in a daze, hatching the perfect plan. She needs to get ahead, and the best way to do that is to use what God has endowed her with: her undeniable beauty and information that could be used as leverage to destroy the careers and families of many distinguished professionals. Once the clock struck 11:45 A.M., the class was officially over and students rushed out of the room to tackle the rest of their day, all but Sapphire. Sapphire stayed there, sitting, legs crossed with pen in hand, lustfully staring at Professor Langston. He gave her an inviting nod indicating his wish for her to follow him to his office. She eagerly followed his lead. Once in the privacy of his office, Professor Langston excitedly admits, “I didn’t think you were going to show up for class today. I missed you.”
“Look, whether you missed me or not, I truly could care less! I need some money! I also don’t plan on taking the final. I’m sure you’ll be taking care of that,” she hissed in a dismissive, snide tone which bewildered the professor.
The professor stood silent for a moment. His mind and heart began to race as thoughts of his career, wife, and child came to mind. Had he made the biggest mistake of his life by allowing sex to trump what took him a lifetime to build? He stood quietly, contemplating how to respond to her demands for money and grades. He knew the leverage she had over him - he would lose everything should she feel it necessary to tell all they had done; the numerous times after class when she would stay and he would “tutor” her on the specifics of force, acceleration, and mass. She was whom he thought of at night; she saturated his mind and made it hard for him to concentrate in her absence from class. It wasn’t until this very moment that he really stopped to appreciate the gravity of the situation he’d gotten himself into.
“How much do you need Miss Taylor? I take it there is no way that we can have civility between us?” He could only hope that she would retort with an affirmative answer, but that wouldn’t be Sapphire’s style.
“Hell no!” she responded in a tenor voice. Her tone indicated that she found satisfaction in what she was about to do to him.
“You have had the pleasure of using my body, and you think that because you gave me a few thousand dollars and a few A’s that all is O.K.? Be satisfied knowing that you’ve had the privilege of touching this. As far as you and I go, it’s over. However, you will continue to give me A’s whether I show up for class or not, and you will indeed continue to pay me a comfortable stipend on a monthly basis; or let’s just say your pretty wife, the Director of Student Affairs, and the President of the University will be told about everything we’ve done. By the way, I know your daughter attends that prestigious private high school, Wingdom Hall. I would hate for this scandal to surface and for your daughter’s life and reputation to be ruined.”
Professor Langston knew all too well what needed to be done; now all he needed was the reserve and follow-through to secure the life that he built, making sure that it didn’t become destroyed.
“You’ll get everything that’s coming to you. Now leave my office, Miss Taylor. I know I exercised the poorest judgment, entering into this sordid arrangement with you, and now you threaten to destroy the lives of those I love… my wife, my daughter! I once saw a beautiful woman when I looked at you, now all I see is nothing more than a cheap little slut. Get the hell out… NOW!”
Taken aback by his expression of anger, because she was not accustomed to men exercising any assertiveness with her, she glared and responded, “Just make sure you have my money by Friday, or you know what will happen. Think about that little wife and child of yours.” Sapphire grabbed her Gucci handbag and exited the professor’s office.
While driving, Sapphire realizes, yet again, that she is going home alone. The only numbers in her cell phone are those of professors that she sleeps with for grades and those who provide her with the lifestyle that she feels is befitting for a woman of her beauty. Alone… she is always alone. She has no friends; women deem her toxic and men view her as nothing more than a personification of vanity; one to be used for their temporary enjoyment, not to bring home to meet the family. To most, she is seen as entirely devoid of any substance.
She arrives to an empty home where she has no one to dialogue with, except for her inner demons. She bathes in a shower large enough to fit several adults, allowing the warm air of her townhouse to dry her body naturally. She tries not to let her mind become adrift, letting memories of her past float back to the present, but her efforts are to no avail. She stands in front of her mirror in a daze. She is taken back several years to when she was a girl, ten years old. Sapphire never knew her father and her mother always worked two jobs to ensure that the rent was paid. There were times when Sapphire’s mother could not afford to maintain the utilities, so at any given time the lights or the heat were turned off. This is the life that Sapphire was accustomed to; her youth and innocence blinded her to the severity of her situation. The following year, when she turned eleven, her mother began dating and fell in love with a man who proved to shape Sapphire’s life in profound ways - she loved this man. He was the father that she never had. However, she never knew that he had a past and lived a lifestyle that would contaminate her life and irreparably damage her.
Sapphire’s mother allowed her love for her boyfriend to cloud her judgment, and she experimented with what started out as recreational drug use. Sapphire, who once received unyielding attention from her mother, noticed the attention she once received was becoming less and less frequent. Her mother’s presence in the home became almost non-existent. One day, upon arrival home from school, Sapphire was greeted by her teary-eyed mother delivering the news that the man whom she loved was murdered. This was Sapphire’s first exposure to death, and she received no parental comfort; instead she received a mother who became a shell of the woman she once was. Her mother would tell her how beautiful she was, and how “Pa-Pa” always mirrored the same sentiment. The compliments would come in plentifully, but her mother would become increasingly detached from Sapphire’s world. The innocent world she once knew began to take on many shades of gray. She found herself becoming angry and always longing for something she couldn’t quite explain.
The morning of January 9th, Sapphire’s birthday, she awoke shivering; a chill that was all too familiar. She tried to turn on the lamp, but the only light she would receive was from the flashlight she kept hidden under her bed and the street lights that glowed through the bed sheets that were used as curtains. She glanced at her watch and noticed that it was just past 3 A.M. She stumbled into her living room to find her mother on the couch in a compromising position with a man. Startled at the sight, she ran back to her room and jumped into her bed. All she could do was cry. How did her life take such a downward spiral? Could things become any worse?
The following night, while Sapphire was in her room trying to drift off to sleep, she heard the voices of two men and her mother in heated discussion.
“I know I owe you, but I already gave you all my jewelry and you know what we did last night. Just tell me what else you want!”
The male voice, seemingly unmoved by the pleading tone of the mother, retorted quickly and forcefully. Sapphire snuck to her bedroom door and opened it slightly to see what was going on.
“Your daughter! She’s a sweet looking young thang. I know she’s fresh too… I know we can have some fun with that. We can consider all the debts cleared. If she is half as good as you are then I know it’ll be worth it. Yo, you already saw what happened when your boy neglected to own up and pay what he owed.” Sapphire watched the man take out a syringe and a bag from his coat, then toss them on the ground. Her mother looks at the two men, and begins to cry.
“Just don’t damage her face…”
Sapphire, after realizing the gravity of what is going on, tries to escape out of her window; but it is too late. One of the men grabs her and throws her to the floor. In the coldness of the night, all that can be seen are the silhouettes of men annihilating the innocence she has left, and the spark of a lighter from the other room.
As Sapphire awakes from her daze, alone and naked in her townhouse, she notices that the doorbell has been ringing. She quickly dresses in a silk robe and answers the door.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she snaps. “You’ve got some fucking nerve coming to my home unannounced,” she seethes with her
voice rising, and her agitation growing more and more by the second.
Before another word could be uttered by Sapphire, a knife was forced into her chest and abdomen in several swift, consecutive motions. Sapphire fell to the floor and the unannounced guest left as quickly as they had arrived
********************
Once the news of Sapphire Taylor’s death began to travel amongst the students on the campus of the University, questions began to swirl. Her personal life began to be scrutinized, and rumors were dissected for their percentage of truth. Discussion of the homes she had destroyed ran rampant, and her personality was torn to shreds. Noticeably absent from the conversations about the death of Sapphire was any sorrow… any outward display of grief over the loss of human life. She held no value to anyone. She was a loner; she never allowed anyone to breach the walls she built around herself when she was young. She never learned to let go.
The night of the murder, Professor Langston arrived home around 3 A.M. He was flushed, pale, and ready to confess his sins to a wife who was anxiously awaiting his arrival. He had been driving around aimlessly for several hours thinking of what he had done. He tried to figure out exactly how he would alleviate his soul and atone for his terrible and unforgivable lapse in judgment for doing the unforgivable…
When Professor Langston arrived home, there was a letter taped to his garage. Shaking, he exits the car, retrieves the letter, and returns to the warmth of his Mercedes. He hesitates before reading it, assuming that it was left there to bear bad tidings. How much more could he take? He decided to read the letter before entering the house; before he laid the weight of his burdens upon his wife; before he plead to her in desperation in order to salvage the family that he was hoping would not dessert him. When he opened the envelope, he recognized the familiar handwriting:
Daddy,
Please forgive me. There is quite a bit you don’t know; quite a bit I haven’t shared with you and Mommy. I’ve been dating this guy named Jonathan Torres for the past year. He is older than me. Daddy, I wanted to tell you and Mommy but I knew you would freak out. Jonathan works as a Mortgage Broker and is the youngest broker at his brokerage company; he’s 26 years old. I know he’s 9 years older than me, but I truly do love him.
Everything was going great between the two of us, that is, until one night while working on my calculus homework at his condo, he happened to leave his checkbook on the kitchen table. He usually leaves his checkbook in the nightstand, so I decided return it to its proper place. When I picked it up, a check fell out, signed and dated for the amount of $3500.00, made payable to a Sapphire Taylor. The memo line read: “Townhouse payment”.
Daddy, I was completely confused. I wanted to know who this Sapphire Taylor was, why he was writing a check to her for that amount of money, and why he was giving it to her for a townhouse; people are supposed to give him money; he’s the Mortgage Broker! Also, the name sounded so familiar to me. Then, it finally dawned on me where I knew the name. When we took a trip to your school, and received a tour from one of our previous graduates, she told many of us about the “dirt” at the University. She mentioned Sapphire and her rumored addiction to men, and her sordid relationships to different professors. Why would Jonathan be giving this skank money? Well, Daddy, I am your daughter and you’ve always taught me that “the solution to any question ends with active investigation”. So I followed him one night. I followed him to the townhouse of this Sapphire Taylor. Daddy, he’s been cheating on me with this whore. How could he do this to me? I told Mommy, and she confided in me that she believes the Sapphire I was talking about is the same Sapphire that your secretary’s daughter said that you were having an affair with!
We’ve known about you and your slut for quite some time now. That woman is poison! You’ve been sleeping with her, Jonathan slept with her, and she’s been blackmailing him; God only knows who else she’s got her hooks in. I just couldn’t take it any longer. She’s threatened to destroy our family, and not only that, she has come in-between me and the man I love. Mommy hides her pain differently than me. She can pretend as if everything is o.k., but I can’t. I refuse. I also learned another lesson from you: “Protect your family at all costs! Self-preservation is the number-one human instinct.” Well, I wasn’t given any choice. Daddy, I had to protect myself from the woman who didn’t even know me, but was set out to destroy me. So I went to her house. She knew exactly who I was without me even introducing myself. I can’t believe how condescending this woman was. She gave me attitude and she was extorting money from my father and boyfriend. She’s been sleeping with the two men in my life. That bitch had to be stopped! Before I knew it, I was stabbing her… Daddy, I wanted her dead, but I didn’t think I’d actually go through with it. I just wanted to scare her -threaten her to leave all of us alone and prey on someone else; but it was the look in her eyes; that cold unrepentant look just sent me into a complete frenzy.
Daddy, when the police find out what I did, I know everything I’ve worked for will be lost, and I will have disgraced the family. I’m so sorry. Please tell Mommy. I can’t face her or you.
I love you,
Anna
When the Professor finished reading the note, his heart was atremble and he was searching for breath. Was he dreaming? Did he just read that his only child had committed the heinous murder of his mistress? His wife lay in bed, waiting for his arrival, and he was left with a heavy choice to make. What to do? Raindrops began to fall upon the windshield of his car as he contemplated his options, and he tried to dissect the course of events that lead to this catastrophic night. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellular phone.
“911, what is your emergency?” The voice on the line answered.
“My name is Gregory Langston, and I just committed a murder...”
