Something Just Ain't Right 3 Page 13

  “That can’t be possible. He was dying in front of me.”

  “Craig knew a person who does prop work for a movie studio, so it was possible to make it believable. I’m only telling you what I know from Sophia. Anyway, he was unconscious for a while, which made him not have a pulse. When you went off to meet up with Lamar and left Craig’s body on the floor, your mom took it upon herself to revive him. Since they figured you wouldn’t look in the rug after you moved it, they had this great idea to replace his body with a dummy. That was what you burned when you went in the park; so you didn’t kill anyone, Morgan.”

  I put my head in my hands and took a deep breath. I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t believe my mom let me believe for seven years that I killed someone when I didn’t. The fact that they went through all of this to try and pin me as a murderer was even more painful. Whatever he had on her had to be pretty big to do something this damn stupid.

  “This sounds like something from a bad cable movie.” Lamar said.

  “Now, the real question is, is Craig still alive?”

  “No. He actually was shot and killed, by who, I don’t know. His body was discovered in the river by a fisherman. To this day, no one knows who really killed him.”

  “If Travis was in on this plan, why he assumed Morgan killed Craig?” Hayley asked.

  “Because he was the only person that hated Craig enough to actually kill him, besides Sophia.”

  “But why would my mom do this? I had suffered a lot over the years, so why would she continue to let me think that I killed him.”

  “That’s something you have to ask her, Morgan. Like I said before, Sophia’s mind is not wrapped too tight.”

  Hayley came over to me and gave me a hug. Now, I knew what I had to do. To clear myself and Lamar. I had to find a way to get my mom to confess and possibly turn herself in. Since she was going to let me take the rap for a crime that I did not commit, then I didn’t feel no remorse for what will happen to her. Now, I had to think about myself and the people who I now consider my real family.

  Hayley

  After Doris gave that shocking confession, I had to call my mom to find out if everything she said was true, but unfortunately, I got her voicemail. I sighed and looked at Morgan, who was staring at the ceiling. I knew all of this was hard on him. It was hard on me too, especially knowing that my dad and his mom were together. We could had been related, which made me sick to my stomach. I knew my dad was a cheater, but the idea that he picked up a random stranger to have sex with was pathetic. Finding out later that that his one-night stand was his son’s best friend’s mother was even disturbing.

  After getting her voicemail for a third time, I decided I was going to go see her first thing tomorrow morning. If I can wait that long.

  Morgan looked over at me and caressed my shoulder. “You know, if we were related, that would had been incest with all the things we have done.” He said with a grin.

  “Luckily, we’re not. And it’s not funny.” I said while playfully hitting him.

  “I know it’s not, but you have to admit, our families are fucking twisted.”

  “Tell me about it. I can’t believe my dad. And the worst part is that he didn’t even tell anyone.”

  “My mom didn’t either, but she didn’t tell me a lot of things.”

  I dialed my mom’s cell again and it went straight to voicemail. I understand that she has a newborn to take care of, but she would had answered if she saw it was me. Something was wrong.

  “Still no luck?”

  “No. This is the fifth time I’d called. I’m calling my dad. Maybe he’ll answer.”

  I called and got his voicemail as well.

  “They could be busy with Ophelia.”

  “I know, but my mom would still pick up.”

  “Well, to put your mind at ease, we could try and head to their house now.”

  I looked at him. “Really.”

  “Yeah. Either that, or I could call Kyle to stop by the house to check on her.”

  “Call him first.”

  He nodded and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. I leaned against him as I waited for him to respond.

  “Don’t worry, baby, everything is okay.”

  I wished my nerves thought that.

  When he couldn’t get a response from Kyle, he got up and grabbed his jeans.

  “Come on, we probably need to go.”

  Now, my nerves were at an all-time high. Hopefully everything is okay with my parents.

  ***

  After calling Lamar about where we were heading, him and Tamara wanted to ride along, which was fine since I’m sure he was concerned as well.

  Once we met up with the two, we headed on our drive. Morgan held my hand as I stared ahead out the window, praying that everyone was okay. It wasn’t like either of my parents to not answer, so something had to been wrong.

  “Don’t worry, Hales, everything is fine.” Lamar said.

  I looked behind me and gave a tiny smile before turning to look out the window again.

  “I’m sure your mom is with Ophelia. You know babies need lots of attention.” Tamara said, trying to ease the tension.

  “We know, but we still need to be sure.” I said.

  Morgan squeezed my hand tighter as he approached the exit ramp of the freeway. I called my mom, getting her voicemail again.

  “Damn it!” I exclaimed as I threw the phone down. I swear, if anything happened to my mom or my baby sister, I will kill Sophia with my bare hands. She’s Morgan’s mom, but no one hurts my family.

  We got to the house within 20 minutes. As soon as we got there, Kyle was standing by his truck with a somber expression. We got out, wondering why he was standing outside.

  “Hey. I rang the doorbell and knocked on the door several times, but no luck.”

  “I’m really getting worried.” I said.

  “I’ll use my key.” Lamar said. He went up to the door and opened it, revealing an empty house. We all walked in and saw all the house lights and the television on.

  “What the hell.” He said, walking over to the living room. Chairs were turned over and a few items were thrown on the floor.

  I looked around, noticing a faint sound coming from upstairs. It sounded as if a baby was crying.

  “Ophelia?” I said and ran upstairs.

  I went into her room and saw her laying in her crib. I quickly picked her up, hoping I didn’t startled her as I held her against me.

  “It’s okay, sweet girl. We have to find Mom.” I said and went back downstairs.

  “Guys, you might want to see this.” Tamara said. She held up a phone, which looked as if it was my mom’s. The screenshot showed her, bound and gagged in a chair.

  “Shit.” Lamar said.

  “Maybe we should go into the phone and see if there’s anything else.” Kyle said.

  I took the phone from Tamara and swiped the screen to go to the menu. There was a notification indicating a video was uploaded. I clicked on it and saw it was my mom on the screen, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “If anyone sees this, please help me. I’m being held against my will. Please help me for my daughter….”

  “Shut up! If anyone sees this, know that this bitch will be dead before you get to her. Once I’m done with her, I’m coming for you, Hayley.” Sophia said with a smile.

  “Oh my God!” Tamara exclaimed.

  “Crazy bitch.” Kyle said. He looked over at Morgan, who looked just as shocked as everyone else.

  “She’s at my house. We need to go.” He said as he went to the door.

  “I can stay with Ophelia.” Tamara said and I handed my sister to her.

  “You’re not staying here, just in case Sophia comes back.” Lamar said.

  “She can stay at my aunt’s. I’ll call her to see if it’s okay.” Kyle said and went to the door as well.

  “Where is Dad? He must know something is wrong.” I said.

  “I tried calling
him as well, but no answer. I would go to his apartment, but I need to be with Mom, too.”

  “Go. We can handle Sophia.” I said while looking at Morgan.

  He nodded and opened the door and went outside.

  “The both of you, be careful, okay.” Lamar said.

  I nodded and he gave me a hug. I couldn’t believe this was happening. That the one person we never really thought about was the mastermind over everything. She had destroyed so many people’s lives and she was on the hunt to finish even more.

  I pulled myself together and went to the door. It was time to stop this bitch once and for all.

  Morgan

  I sped to my childhood home, contemplating on what I was going to do. I had went up against some crazy people, but I never thought my mom would become one of them.

  Hayley looked nervously ahead while folding her hands together. I knew her emotions were all over the place now, but I needed her to stay focus.

  “You sure you want to be here? I can handle my mom.”

  “Of course I want to. She has my mom!”

  Her phone beeped and she glanced at it. She threw it on the floor and sighed.

  “Lamar found my dad unconscious at his place. Evidentially, that bitch did it!”

  I pushed my foot on the gas as I tried to get to my house sooner. Five minutes later, I arrived. Before I could even turn off the car, Hayley rushed out and ran to the door. I went after her as she was banging on the door.

  “Open the door, crazy bitch!” Hayley yelled.

  “Stop it! You don’t need to aggravate her even more.” I said.

  I grabbed my key and opened the door, not knowing what to expect inside. We walked in and saw the house completely dark. I turned on the flashlight app on my phone to guide us inside.

  “What type of game is your mother playing?” Hayley asked as we walked further inside.

  She held onto me as we walked to the living room to the patio, but there’s was no one around. The only other option was upstairs.

  We slowly crept upstairs, taking our time as we approached the hallway. I checked my mom’s room and the guest room and everything was intact. When I approached my old room, I opened the door and saw Zoe seated in the middle still bound and gagged. Hayley rushed over to her and untied her.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

  We turned around and saw my mom pointing a gun at us. She gave an evil glance as she walked closer.

  “Do not untie her.”

  “Fuck you!” Hayley exclaimed as she began unknotting the ropes from her mother’s feet.

  “We know what happened, Mom? Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I have the right to. Throughout the years I have been in the background while I watched everyone else have their bit of happiness. From that bitch over there with her spoiled kids to that slut of a woman that is Kyle’s mom; they had the good life while I had to take crap from an abusive man. I deserved to have a bit of happiness. When was it my time to have that?”

  “You could have had that if you stayed faithful to Dad. But you didn’t. When things got rough, you went out and cheated with the first man that gave you attention.”

  “I had to find it elsewhere since your dad surely didn’t give me any.”

  “That’s not anyone’s fault but yours and Dad’s. Because of your selfishness, you two had created a web of lies and deceit. Don’t you think it’s time for all of this to stop?”

  “Not until everyone gets what they deserved.”

  “In that case, you should be in this chair then instead of my mom.” Hayley fumed as she got her mother’s feet untied.

  “If you untie her, you could be liable for destroying this entire house with all of us inside.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I drenched her with lighter fluid. One fickle of this match and her and this entire house will go up in flames.”

  “Why are you doing this? My mom just had a child.”

  “Like I give a shit! She doesn’t deserve to be a mother again. Cedric supposed to have been with me! Not with her!”

  “Cedric was my husband at the time. He was just a fuck to you!” Zoe yelled.

  My mom tried to go up to Zoe, but Hayley held her back.

  “Try to hit her and I swear I’ll kill you.”

  “And you, I don’t know what my son sees in you. You’re nothing but a spoiled princess who thinks everything should be given to you. Out of all the women he’d been with, he had to choose your black ass.”

  “You fucking bitch!” Hayley yelled. She slapped her across her left cheek, which my mom tried to deck her. That didn’t happen, because I pushed her off of Hayley.

  “Touch her and you’ll be the one in flames.” I threatened.

  I turned her around so her back could be facing the door.

  My mom stared at me in shock. “Morgan, I’m your mother.”

  “Yeah, the same mother who set me up to kill her husband for insurance money.”

  “What? I didn’t…”

  “Stop the bullshit! I know about your damn scheme. What you did to Kyle’s mom and to me, your own son. All because of that bastard.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “If that bastard didn’t have a gun to your head, then you had a choice. After everything, the idiot still ended up dead.”

  “I did it to not only make him happy, but to protect us. That money was for us too.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was for you and for him. I was just a pawn in your twisted game.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Morgan.”

  “Well, you did.”

  I looked over and saw that Hayley had completely untied her mom. My mom looked over and saw that the two were gone.

  “How the hell did that happened?” She asked.

  I walked to the door and stared at her.

  “Now you know how it feels to be set-up.” I said while going to the stairs. Before my foot hit the first step, I felt a push and I was tumbling to the bottom of the stairs. I hit my head on the railing, which made me a little dizzy.

  “Don’t ever try that shit again, Morgan!” My mom yelled. She came down the stairs, waving her gun at me.

  I looked up as she pointed the gun in my face.

  “So, it has come to this. You waving a gun at your own son. I should be the one killing you after everything you had done to me.”

  “You wouldn’t do that; I’m your mother.”

  “I don’t give a damn anymore. Besides, you didn’t think of me as your son when you were setting me up to kill someone. After all the lies you had told, how can you still act like you’re the damn victim?”

  “I never said I was.”

  I slowly got up and quickly looked to the door. I saw Hayley trying to pull her mom outside.

  I tried to distract my mom the best way I could. If she saw the two of them, she will try to do something else.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I turned back around and saw Uncle Rick, who had Hayley while Shantel had my mom. I

  glanced at my uncle, wondering what he was doing.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing, Uncle Rick?”

  “You were right about one thing; there were a lot more to the story that I gave you.” He said as he tried to bring Hayley back inside of the house. She dragged her feet on the floor, preventing her from moving.

  “You better walk or I’ll shoot you right now!”

  “And you, I should had known you were still lurking around. Are you sleeping with him too?” I asked Shantel.

  She smiled as she shoved Zoe inside. “Would you be upset if I was?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me since everyone had a turn with you.”

  “Stop it! You two take them in the living room and tie them up.” My mom yelled.

  “What about him?” Shantel asked.

  “Don’t worry, we have bigger plans for my son.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘our’ son?
”

  I stared at my uncle, who had a devious smile on his lips. My mom walked over to me and sighed.

  “I told you not to bring that up.”

  “I think he needs to know, Sophia, that I’m his father.”

  I laughed. “Are you fucking crazy?! My father, which is also your brother, passed away!”

  “He may have raised you, but he wasn’t your father. I was the one who got your mother pregnant; my brother wouldn’t touch her since he knew about her affairs.”

  “Shut up, Rick!”

  “Or what? He deserves to know the truth for once. After my brother deserted her and her fuck of the week rejected her, she came to me, saying she was lonely and needed someone to talk to. One thing led to another and we had sex. That one night turned into a three month affair.”

  I suddenly felt weak as I held onto the railing. This can’t be happening.

  “Didn’t you pick up on the clues to why your dad and me never talked to each other all of those years? Why we had a fight over the motorcycle? Why your mother always came to me about everything.”

  I looked from my mom to Rick and shook my head. “You all are fucking crazy!” I yelled and went to the living room. Zoe was in the chair while Hayley was trying to push Shantel off of her. I threw Shantel to the floor, knocking her out cold. While Hayley went to her mom, I turned around and saw Rick about to pistol-whip me. I blocked the gun with my hand, causing it to fall to the floor.

  “You ungrateful bastard. I have done a lot for you in your life.”

  “Evidentially, you didn’t do enough.” I said and punched him.

  Rick lost his balance and gave a swift punch to my nose. I threw him down on the ground and held him by the throat.

  “How could you keep all of this from me? I thought I could trust you.”

  Rick gave me an empty stare. His face was turning blue as he was struggling to breathe.

  At this point, everything in my life was a lie. From my mom and her double life, to learning my uncle was really my father. I don’t know how much more I can take.