A Kiss Before I Die
Read A Kiss Before I Die Online
Authors: T. K. Madrid
A Kiss Before I Die
by
T. K. Madrid
All names, characters, places, icons, businesses, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Physical locations, directions, and other landmarks have been purposely altered, omitted, or otherwise adapted for the demands of the story. It is not, in any legal or strict sense, factual, and its values, attitudes, and opinions are not necessarily shared by the author. Select errors in spelling are purposeful.
Thomas,
In one of my last conversations with your father he expressed an admiration for your intellect and honesty that went beyond a father expressing fidelity for his son – in other words, I thought he was bragging. It was only after he retired and you took the reins that I realized how understated his praise was.
Before the age of nineteen, I murdered two men. I attempted the murder of another man, a murderer in his own right. I was also involved with and take responsibility for an additional four deaths. These deaths coincide with Foursquare’s public record, events that occurred over nearly two decades, from 1971 through that horrific year in 1987. The first two deaths were personal vendettas I do not regret; I tried to not shy from the horror of those events by speaking in generics.
In a separate package, I’ve provided the final instructions regarding
The Sisters
and the remainder of the estate. I leave it to you to contact the executor. I think you will like her. Her name is Samantha Moretti. We call her Sam.
Yours, faithfully,
Stephen Laragia
12/28/2012
Samantha Moretti’s beauty was natural and undeniable. Her facial features were elegant and simple: her eyes were dark, her skin a duskier hue than most, and her lips were a brighter pink than her general tone. She used makeup sparingly. Her black hair was swept from her forehead, behind her ears, and it fell slightly above her shoulders. Both sexes were attracted to her for the usual reasons, and she’d grown up with the siren songs of love and lust.
“You read the manuscript?” she asked the lawyer, Thomas Wilcox, Junior.
“Three times.”
“What did you think?”
“I think your godfather was lucky.”
“He said as much, didn’t he?”
“You?”
“Once. I read it once.”
“Was it, uh, difficult or awkward or…?”
“I knew what my parents were,” she said flatly. “Or had been.”
Wilcox nodded, letting her statement stand.
“They seemed honorable people considering their, uh…”
“Methods?”
“Career choices.”
“They probably didn’t score well on their SAT’s.”
Wilcox laughed and agreed that was probably true.
He was a large man with handsome features, a face tanned by weekend golf. She guessed he’d played football at some point in his life. High school, definitely, college, probably. His teeth looked like they had been whitened. His thin hair was a dark brown but bore no evidence of dye or touchup. His swivel chair spoke with a lax squeak as he moved. They were alone in his office; the door to the reception room was closed.
They were discussing her godparent’s estate – of which she was the sole inheritor.
Her godfather, Stephen Laragia, had written a two-hundred page, graphic explanation of six murders: that of a pedophile priest, an incestuous rapist, and four others. He’d revealed a plot of fraud, revenge, and arson that scorched the village of Foursquare, New York. In that manuscript he gave up her parents, private contractors who had once been in the death business. The month before their murders her godmother had died of lymphoma and a month after their deaths her godfather took his own life. Stephen Laragia did not call the manuscript a confession; he called it an explanation.
Wilcox and his father had been mentioned in the explanation. Her godfather considered them honorable and just men, honest lawyers.
“So where do we go from here?” she asked.
“Well, I can offer advice if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s a good place to start. Is it free?”
He laughed again. The sound was pleasant.
“It’s on the house.”
“Because you’re turning a profit on the estate.”
“Because it’s what I choose to do.”
He smiled broadly.
“Sorry,” she said. “I have a cynicism regarding lawyers.”
“As do I. That’s why I look out for my clients first. That way I never second guess.”
“What if your clients second guess?”
“I fire them.”
Her eyes squinted a little as she laughed.
“You fire them?”
“I don’t need money so badly I can’t tell a client to go to hell. And I don’t need a TV lawyer devotee to lecture me on law. Or for that matter, what’s right and wrong.”
“Screw-you money.”
“Money has nothing to do with it. I know who I am and what I stand for. I knew what my parents were, too.”
Wilcox wore a white shirt with crisp folds from shoulders to elbows, the sleeves rolled back. He wore suspenders and a belt and the look suited him. His shoes, she’d noted on their introduction, were polished but off the shelf, a typical set of Florsheim’s. His trousers, like his shirt, seemed slightly more expensive. Samantha thought he looked the part he was playing: a wealthy, small town lawyer with a touch of frugality.
“What do you suggest, Mr. Wilcox?”
“My advice is to let
The Sisters
maintain its course, with your consultation and approval, naturally. I have a complete dossier on the current projects and benefits, and you’ll find it’s exactly as it was since the Laragia’s passed.”
The Sisters
was a charitable trust “for the benefit of others”, as her godfather expressed it.
“You haven’t made any new investments?”
“No,” he said. “I’m maintaining the existing accountants, lawyers and clients, the institutions and personal clients as dictated by your godfather.”
“And when do I assume control of the estate?”
“You already have that control. We’re in a, let’s say, ceremonial state right now.”
“Are you married, Mr. Wilcox?”
He didn’t hesitate answering.
“Divorced. Three years. I have two children, both girls, ages twelve and eighteen, Minot and Clarisse. Their mother is a doctor, and she fell in love with another doctor. They’re local and we remain on good terms. I make a comfortable living, do not pay alimony, and do not attend church on a regular basis. I’ve been a practicing lawyer my entire life. I inherited my father’s practice while establishing my own. I’ve lived in Foursquare my entire adult life. I date, but not often. I’m forty-nine years old, weigh two hundred pounds, and wear a size twelve shoe. I keep my personal relationships separate from my business relationships. I can provide my doctor’s number if you’d like. You?”
“Single. Twenty-five. No children. I barely graduated from Middlebury three years ago and that schooling was strictly the result of my godmother’s influence and my parent’s insistence I didn’t take the same career path as they did. That was quite an introduction.”
“I didn’t even mention the gas mileage of my Silverado. Why did you ask if I was married?”
“I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about me or our relationship.”
“And what is our relationship?”
“I’d like to retain you as
The Sisters
lawyer and guide me through this. I wanted to establish up front that we won’t become involved. I won’t allow it.”
Wilcox said, “Why would you assume I want to?”
“All men do.”
“Do what?”
“Want to become involved.”
“You’re talking about sex? Or something more?”
“Sex is always right there, don’t you think? And ‘more’ is always there, especially for the possessive, controlling types.” She motioned to the dossier and papers of the estate. “Then there’s this preview of coming attractions.”
The lawyer nodded.
“You should hire another lawyer.”
Samantha Moretti smiled.
“You can call me Sam.”
“Sam,” Thomas Wilcox said. “I advise you to hire another lawyer.”
She looked like she’d stepped out of a Neiman-Marcus catalog: black calve-high boots with a low heel, dark blue jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and a thigh-high black coat. Her wardrobe was decidedly out of sync with Foursquare, New York. She stood on the sidewalk outside the offices of Wilcox & Associates, and looking around saw the town library, a hotel, her hotel, that had seen better days, and the slush and snow of a late winter storm. The sun was warming her, the earth, and the air so she wore the coat loosely. She knew Wilcox was at his office window watching her. She had decided to stay in Foursquare until the business of her godparent’s estate was settled. She was planning on a month.
A red Ford pickup with massive tires rolled by her. The driver, a man with slick hair and a neat beard, tapped the horn. He appeared to be about thirty-five years old. His left hand was on the wheel and his right arm was strung across the passenger seat headrest.
She walked to the hotel. She was looking forward to moving out of it and into the Laragia home on Deerfield. She was not surprised when the man in the red Ford pickup began his second sweep, making a U-turn at the stop sign at the end of the block. Her parents had trained her to manage visual detail, to sort the wheat from the chaff. The man in the red Ford was chaff.
She stuck to her side of the road, opposite him, walking west as he came from the east. She heard the tires as the snow and dirt – that certain echo and whir of rubber connecting with asphalt – gave way to the thump of a pothole, the grumble of the engine and the sound of second gear into first.
Stephen Laragia talked to her about time. He told her time was constant, unyielding, and, depending on its use, unforgiving: he told her to make good use of hers.
But it was her parents that taught her about timing.
She walked into the street when the driver was closer and because she understood time and timing she understood his mind was focused more on sex than his machine. She feigned walking in front of the truck and he over-corrected and despite braking lost control. In the snow and at the speed he was moving, not anticipating her movement, he rolled over the curb and into what she guessed was a sycamore.
The grill and hood cracked and folded, the airbags deployed, and she continued walking, now on his side of the street, on the sidewalk, not looking back.
The loud and colorful obscenities behind her made her eyes squint as if she was laughing. She tried to contain a smile and could not. She considered turning to salute Wilcox but thought that would be showing off.
The Foursquare Hotel stood at the corner of Lenox and Main. She stood at the path leading to the hotel and saw the marquee of
The Regal
.
“ON ENIGTH OLNY” were the words she could make out. However, her common sense told her it was “ONE NIGHT ONLY”. The words below those were even more of a jumble. She dyslexic was like her mother, unsure of the printed word but sure of the meaning of words. And like her mother, she could read well enough, and like her, she lied to everyone about her own dyslexia, everyone but her parents. It had taken the better part of a month, every day for a month, to understand what her godfather had written. She could not let the lawyer know as men, and women, no matter what they purported to be, liked to take advantage of people like her and her mother.
She imagined the late Senator Smith as a young man, watching a tire bounce in front of his patrol car, the harbinger of two deliberate deaths and one who wanted to die. She imagined the next step: her godfather standing in the lobby of that old theater waiting to kill a man that had murdered his in-laws.
So few people had experienced so much violence. It was as if her family was cursed.
Behind the hotel, within walking distance, was a New York State Trooper helipad. It must’ve seemed a good idea at the time. It explained why the hotel was so empty. The night before she’d endured the chop and thump of a late night arrival and departure. She had considered firing a round at the beast. She considered tactics and odds. It wasn’t the movies. SWAT would storm the hotel and she would die with no reason other than wanting sleep. In addition, her thirty-million dollars inheritance wasn’t worth losing over something as trivial as noise. Ambien was a smarter choice.
These thoughts distracted her as she listened for the shoes in the snow behind her.
“
What the hell is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
The driver of the red Ford truck was a foot taller than her five-four frame and out-weighed her by at least one-hundred pounds.
Not that it mattered.
When a hand touched her shoulder, she reacted in an automatic method, sure, precise, and final.
Her parents and godfather had disciplined her, taught her, and practiced her. The large man crumpled as she bent his wrist and broke three of his ribs with one kick of her black, low-heel boot.
Foursquare does not have an abundance of surveillance cameras, and despite the fact she was less than a tenth of a mile from the trooper helipad, she was able to completely terrorize, hurt, and otherwise humiliate the large man who she assumed wanted to rob her or rape her.
“
Listen
,” she said. “
Listen up
.”
Her words found their way into his brain.
She searched him, found his phone, and dialed 911.
“
Listen
,” she repeated to the man on the sidewalk. “
I’m doing you a favor
.”
“9-1-1,” a man’s voice said. “What is your emergency?”
“Yes, hi, there’s been a car accident and there’s an injured man.”
“Can you provide your exact location, ma’am?”
“He’s at the corner of Lenox and Main in front of the hotel. He’s injured and bleeding and needs help as soon as you can arrive. Please send an ambulance.”
“Ma’am, can you tell me if he’s…”
She pressed the button on the top right side.
Slide to power off
.
The man remained conscious.
“Don’t talk to me again. Do not come near me.”
She left him.
A few minutes later in her room, watching another chopper land, she heard an ambulance and one, maybe two cop cars.
She lit a cigarette. It was a No Smoking room.
She examined the key to the house her godparents had willed her and decided it was time to move.
