Chapter Eight
After a glass of whiskey in Frank’s personal barroom, he led her through to the lounge and they sat together in the plush, leather armchairs to discuss business.
“Paid a visit to Michael tonight, as instructed.”
Frank smiled and swirled his finger around the rim of the glass. “Good girl. Did you do what you do best?”
“I did.”
“And did he enjoy it?”
Sal smiled. “He’s a man, isn’t he?”
“Indeed,” Frank chuckled, then took a sip of his second whiskey. “And the hair?”
“Disposed of.”
“If needs be, we can throw Antonio under the bus for this. He’s expendable, and he can take one for the team.”
“True, but the press will find out Antonio works for you. They’ll have a field day.”
“Not if I erase his past…” Frank mused, mulling it over. He stood up and walked over to the fireplace. It was one of the fake ones, but it was very realistic. He flicked it on, then returned to his seat.
“Wouldn’t that require him to keep his mouth shut?”
“He will keep his mouth shut. I know his home address…and I know where his girlfriend lives. And he knows what I’m capable of.” Frank paused and took another sip of his drink. “I hope it won’t come to that. Is there anyone we can…frame?”
“I’m working on it,” Sal assured him.
“I’m relying on you. You’re my woman on the inside. You need to protect us, baby.”
“I’m doing my best, Frankie…there’s some employees he fired, but the most recent was over a year ago. Maybe if one of them was to…freak out…have a history of mental illness…”
“A history we can manipulate ourselves if needed,” Frank added.
“Yeah exactly. He might have flipped, killed his former boss – “
“And then killed himself.”
Sal nodded and took a sip of her whiskey. She knew whoever they framed for this would have to ‘commit suicide’ and confess to the murder of Trent Preston in his suicide note. Everything else she could smooth out herself.
“No offence, Frankie, but…why couldn’t you have made Trent’s death look like a suicide? You’ve got plenty of guys capable, it would have made this whole thing much easier…”
“Because I hated him, Sal,” Frank grumbled, gazing into the fake fire, his eyes narrowed. “And I wanted the whole world to know that someone hated him enough to want to murder him. He was always so…nice. With his happy smile, and his positive outlook. He was so friendly…”
“That’s part of the problem now…trying to find someone who actually disliked him.”
“…even to me! And he knew I was his main rival. He always called it a friendly rivalry. It wasn’t friendly to me. You know me, Sal. I’m interested in money and power, and now I’ve wiped him out, we’ll take down his stupid company and take all their business. Michael won’t be able to run it on his own.”
“He was already looking pretty stressed, and it’s only been just over a week.” Sal informed him.
Frank smiled at that news, and knocked back the rest of the whiskey. “Good. That pleases me. Now come here, my little slut…get on your goddamn knees and suck my cock like the whore you are.”
Twice in one evening wasn’t a problem for Sal. She smirked and got up from where she was sat, draining her drink, putting the glass down on the table, then sauntering over to Frank, shaking her hips as she walked.
He undid his pants and slipped out his thick cock, as she dropped to her knees in front of him obediently.
***
Tyler groaned loudly as Jamia’s alarm went off. In the week or so that had followed since their first date, they had been spending more and more time together whenever they could fit it in between Jamia’s busy work schedule, but waking up for her early morning alarm never got any easier for him. That morning, the morning of the day when everything happened, he ducked his head under the pillow and held it there, clamping it down over his ears. “Make it stop,” he grumbled.
Jamia looked at him and chuckled, shaking her head. She reached over and picked up her phone, swiping her finger over the screen to turn the alarm off. “Wake up, sugar,” she smiled and pulled back the covers, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.
Relative silence returned to the bedroom, with only the distant sounds of the city and birds outside.
Tyler looked up at her with a pouty expression. “Do you really have to go?’
“You know the drill by now, Tyler,” she sighed.
Yeah, that was true. He did. They’d taken to meeting up in between her shift at the bookshop and her shift at the bar. He would pick her up in his car, take her back to her place so she could change, then give her a ride to the bar. Most of the time he’d sit and eat with her, and they’d chat and flirt and maybe even kiss a bit. Then he’d leave her to start her shift, and come back later on in the evening when she’d finished, and give her a ride home. Sometimes he stayed over at her place, and they had sex, but sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they just cuddled, and kissed, and enjoyed the company of the other person. It was a new concept to Tyler, or at least, a concept that had been alien to him for many years. It was almost like having a girlfriend. Except, of course he and Jamia weren’t dating. That’s what he kept on telling himself, even after a week of doing this every single day.
***
After his experience with Sal, his unique and incredible experience, Michael was suspicious. He may have been a weak man, to give in to her advances in such a way, but he wasn’t a stupid man. He could tell when he was getting played, and when he was getting threatened and blackmailed. Sal had basically told him that she would ruin him, if he so much as breathed a word about what had gone on between them, and he knew that it could be easily done. Nobody would believe his side of the story. But, after what had gone on, he knew that Sal was unprofessional and couldn’t be trusted. Why had she done that? What kind of game was she playing? Why was she trying to control him and stop him from asking too many questions? He wasn’t as submissive and easily malleable as she assumed he was. He might not be asking any more questions of her, but he would ask them of himself. He made up his mind in the hours that followed their sexual encounter, that he would do his best to continue the investigation into Trent Preston’s murder, on his own.
The very next morning after it happened, when he probably should have been working on the business accounts or staying in bed because it was Saturday, he sat in front of the computer trying to think up theories. Where had Detective Sal Foster left off? He’d given her the names of everyone Trent had fired, but neither of them believed that any of those could be responsible. He’d also given her the names of Trent’s rivals, but the only main one he could think of was Frank Morton. He was the only real, genuine rival to the PII business. Everyone else was a small fry compared to them and not worth worrying about. Better start with him then, he said to himself. And although he genuinely believed that Frank was a nice enough guy and had had nothing to do with it, he knew that, if he was going to act as the leading independent investigator into the Trent Preston murder, he would have to explore every possible avenue and lead.
And so, he typed Frank Morton into his internet search engine. In all honesty, Michael didn’t really know that much about him, so an internet search proved very lucrative and interesting.
Actually, very interesting indeed.
He was about half an hour into reading various articles and items about the Morgans and their business when he discovered something about their family tree.
Frank Morgan had a daughter.
Her name was Jamia.
***
Tyler had pretty much been ignoring his phone all day. First of all he’d been asleep, after having got up early with Jamia, then crashed out after he’d dropped her off. And then he’d got up in the afternoon to give her a ride to work. He’d barely looked at his phone throughout the whole of the day, so it was only in the early evening, once he’d dropped Jamia at the bar, and had nothing left to do, that he finally pick it up. He lazily trawled through the various messages and notifications he’d picked up throughout the day. Michael’s one wasn’t at the top, since it had been sent much earlier in the late morning (when he’d been asleep) so it wasn’t immediately seen in the previews on his locked home screen, and he’d gone through a bunch of other messages and social media notifications before getting to that one message. The message that sent a chill through him.
Did you ever bother to ask Jamia’s last name? Frank Morgan has a daughter named Jamia. As in Frank Morgan, your father’s biggest business rival, and a suspect in his murder.
Tyler’s heart raced. Michael was right. He’d never even bothered to ask Jamia’s last name. It hadn’t crossed his mind in the slightest this entire time, and they’d been seeing each other for about a week and a half now, nearly two weeks. Who cared about surnames and families and all that bullshit though? But now, it suddenly seemed slightly important. Frank Morgan was a suspect in his father’s murder? He knew that Frank was a business rival, but he didn’t know much more than that. It was safe to say he didn’t really pay much attention; but he supposed that any business rival could feasibly be considered a suspect in a murder case seeing as they were rivals. And perhaps there was more reason than most to suspect Frank. He trusted Michael, and he knew he wouldn’t throw that kind of thing around without cause.
There was really only one way of getting to the bottom of this.
First of all, he typed in “Jamia Morgan” into his search engine. The search was too vague, so he typed in “Jamia Morgan, Frank Morgan”, and now he hit the jackpot, with the same articles that Michael had obviously seen that had led him to send the text message. There were no pictures though, and that was what he was really after.
His next step was to call the bar he knew she worked in. He waited until someone picked up, and was thankful that it was a male voice on the end and not hers.
“Could I speak to Jamia Morgan, please?” he asked quietly.
There was a slight pause, during which he held his breath.
Then the voice on the other end said, “Yeah sure. One sec.”
Tyler’s heart sank. A moment later, Jamia was on the phone. His Jamia. Jamia Morgan. Frank Morgan’s daughter. “Hello?...Hello?...Hello, is anyone there?”
He hung up.