“Hudson Financial, Bill Hudson?”
“One and the same.”
“Kinda coincidental that we're investigating somebody at his company and out of the blue, he asks you to run for DA,” Carmen said and bought the food to the table.
“I thought so, too.”
“But maybe he just wants to capitalize on your approval ratings.”
“I thought that, too.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Just a little while ago at Cheetah III.”
“The strip club downtown?” Carmen frowned. “What were you doing there?”
“I went to Hudson Financial to have lunch with Mondrya Foster, but she was murdered last night in a robbery at a Starbucks. I ended up running into Hudson and he invited me there to have a drink with him. Like you said he just came out of the blue with it.”
“Who is Mondrya Foster?”
“She was my source at Hudson. She left a message for me yesterday and said that she had some things that she was sure would interest me. But whatever she had, died with her.”
“And you were having lunch with her?” Carmen asked with just a bit of an attitude.
“I wanted to know what she had.”
“Is that what you snuck out of bed for? To have lunch with what's-her-name?”
“Carmen, are you jealous?”
“No!” Carmen said quickly and definitely. “Well, maybe just a little,” Carmen said, surprised at herself. Her feelings for Marcus were developing faster than she thought. Maybe she needed to give herself some space. After all she had been with Marcus the better part of everyday since she'd been in Atlanta. Not to mention all of the last four days.
“Don't be jealous, Carmen,” Marcus said. He got up from the table and put his arms around her waist, while he kissed her on the back of her neck.
“On second thought, who needs food.” Carmen turned into his arms and kissed his lips. “Let's get started now.” Then the doorbell rang.
TIME TO KILL
Garrett drove slowly down Herndon Pkwy on the way back from East Point, a suburb of Atlanta. He turned off the radio. Garrett liked driving in silence; it gave him a chance to think without being bombarded with the musical thoughts, needs, desires, and thug passions of every singer and rapper that came over the airwaves.
Mostly he thought about the past weekend with his children. His first weekend without Paven and his first weekend in years without work. It felt a little funny at first; not rushing out the house first thing in the morning, but he could get used to it. Garrett picked up the children on Friday night and they spent the rest of the evening talking. They went to the movies and out to dinner on Saturday and to the park on Sunday. The children told their father that they missed him and wanted to come home. He told them that they had to talk to their mother about that.
“She is welcome to come home anytime she wants to.”
“Every time I ask her when we're going home, she just says she needs time to think,” his oldest daughter Aleana said. She was sixteen and reminded Garrett so much of her mother when she was that age.
“I asked her what's there to think about,” his son Gary said.
“Your mother and I are having some problems right now and she needs a little time to sort things out for herself.”
“I know, she told us all about it. You're never home and she feels trapped,” Aleana said. “But why do we have to suffer. I can't live another day with grandma.”
“Why not?” Garrett asked.
“She's so picky about everything,” Aleana answered with attitude.
“And we always gotta be quiet. We can't have any fun,” Monique, his youngest said. At eight years old, she was the apple of her father’s eye. She sat down in her father’s lap. “Daddy, I wanna come home.”