A Sugar Baby & A Black Widow

By Tabitha Swann

Tony is a middle-aged homicide detective going suffering through an unexpected divorce. He begins investigation of a rich man murdered by what the investigators believe to be one of the "sugar babies" he hired for companionship. Impersonating a rich man himself, Tony begins dating each of the sugar babies...falling in love with one only to realize that she may be the killer. He begins seeking ways to pin the crime on one of the other sugar babies in order to realize a future with the young woman he has become enamored with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201954437

Book preview

A SUGAR BABY & A BLACK WIDOW

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TABITHA SWANN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A SUGAR BABY & A BLACK WIDOW

THANATOPHOBIA

SCENE OF THE CRIME

SLASHED

Miami had not been kind to Tony Auckland. Not as kind as it had been to the flocks of retirees who came here year after year. His face was pock-marked. His mouth was set down to such an extent that even a smile usually came across as a mild frown. Life hadn’t given Tony Auckland much to smile about. His wife, before she tackled cancer and lost, fought him tooth and claw over just about anything she could think of. The dishes weren’t done, so he got an earful. Or the dishes were done but they were old and Tony should replace them. Or the new dishes smelled funny and Tony should’ve asked for a refund. Anything and everything that woman could gripe about, Tony heard about it. The sun may have been shining in the beautiful city of Miami, but life for Tony was always overcast.

Things always turn around.

That’s what Tony used to tell himself every morning to coax himself out of his stale apartment. It never happened - he never expected it to happen - but that phrase was the key that unlocked the door to the outside world. He was too old to start again and ten years too young and far too poor to retire. If he didn’t say this phrase out loud to himself in the mirror, he wouldn’t be able to set a foot outside. It was the band-aid on the open wound that was his life.

Things always turn around, he said to himself this morning as he pulled on his least dirty tie.

Today, for the first time in a long time, it actually happened.

Things turned around.

Layla Freemont was twenty-one and hungry. She had the kind of figure women have when they’ve been out all night dancing, skipping a couple of meals in the process. Her face was that of a good girl gone bad, a straight-A student thrown off course by the promises of frat boys, shuffled down the wrong path by more than a few encounters with drugs recreational and otherwise. She was blonde and cute and wore glasses and fluffy onesies, but only when no-one was looking. And, as young and carefree as she was, someone was always looking.

And here she was, in a Days Inn hotel room with Tony Auckland.

I don’t normally do this, Layla said. It’s not really what the site is about.

I know that, baby, Tony said, knowing that she was lying.

Baby Sugar was a hive of young women selling their bodies to older men. It was dressed up as companionship, but Tony knew what it was all about. These girls weren’t putting up photos of themselves in bikinis to advertise how comforting a companion they would be.

Tony placed $500 on the counter, his hands shaking. He had bought Layla dinners, clothes, shoes, and jewellery. This was the first time he had bought her. He knew it was wrong and he knew he would be finished if anyone at work found out, but he couldn’t help himself.

Tony Auckland was in love.

Layla was everything he had dreamed. Those ten minutes in a run-down hotel room were happier than the preceding ten years. He knew he was being reckless. He knew he was making a mistake. But he let himself make it. For the first time in years, Tony cut himself some slack. He knew that even if it never happened again, he would live happily on the sense memory of Layla’s hair between his fingers, the image of her eyes looking up at him, the feel of her lips on him.

She’s perfect, he told himself. She’s so perfect.

After she had earned her $500, reality began to creep back in.

Layla was not perfect. Not even close. Tony knew all about Layla Freemont.

He looked into her smiling eyes as she cleaned herself up.

I know you, Tony thought. You’re a murderer.

But, still, he couldn’t help but love her.

She pocketed the cash and left, saying, Thank you, daddy.

Tony allowed himself to doze for an hour, maybe two, and then he took his stack of files, his badge, and his cuffs out from the bag hidden under the bed.  They weren’t befitting his cover as a car salesman and he knew Layla would never have done what she did for a cop. At the bottom of the bag was a small bunching of plastic. Inside, wrapped in more plastic, was the knife Tony had taken from Layla’s house.

It was the murder weapon.

It had to be.

It matched the description of the wounds on Michael Kingsley’s corpse. Kingsley only had two active sugar babies at the time of his death. The man had barely a single other contact in the world. No friends. No family. His neighbors didn't even know his name. He gave keys to his house to Layla Freemont, from the University of Miami, and to Britney Marks, of Florida International University.

Finding the knife, hidden at the back of a wardrobe under a pull-away panel, had sealed it. It had to be Layla.

What Layla had just done for Tony had also sealed it.

He had been turning the idea over in his head ever since he found it. He’d had his suspicions about her, but he had never really thought about taking her in.

He realized that from day one this case was about finding leverage over this beautiful creature. The only thing that truly mattered about all of this was making Layla his girl for real. No money. No other men. Just Tony and Layla.

Layla was kind and generous and looked at him in a way he had never been looked at before. He told himself if she turned down his offer, he would hand over the evidence to his colleagues at the Miami Police Department. Kingsley was dead and there wasn’t a thing they could do about that. No-one else would need to get hurt, Tony kept telling himself. Well, no-one apart from Kingsley’s other squeeze.

Layla Freemont had taken Tony’s money and his love, so Britney Marks had to take the fall.

Shame, he thought.

Tony turned the knife over in his hands. It was his ticket to a better life. He just needed to be strong. He was desperately in love with a girl who he knew full well would never love him back. He was in debt over his head and the only girl he loved would only ever touch him for money. If anyone found out he’d gotten involved with one of the two lead suspects on a murder investigation, he’d be out of homicide. Shit, he would be out of the force. He'd end up living on the street, sleeping on a park bench somewhere with only his memories of Layla for company. Things couldn’t be worse.

He glanced up and looked at the gaunt, unshaven face in the mirror opposite.

Things always turn around, he told himself.

The knife was his ticket.

*

Britney Marks lived in an apartment in the Art Plaza in Town Square that cost more per month to rent than Tony earned in three. It was a seventh-floor place in a four-building complex. You could fit two of Tony’s apartment into just the lounge area. The doorman looked him up and down as he let him into the building.

Probably seen a