Excerpt from The Group
Featured in Love Won’t Let Me Wait


Chapter 1


Elizabeth


She sped up the Garden State Parkway, bopping her head and bouncing in her seat to Ciara on her Sebring’s CD player. The temperature was in the seventies so she had the windows down, enjoying the breeze as she jammed at seventy-five miles an hour.

 
The trees along the highway bore the bright green leaves of a new spring. A few cotton ball clouds dotted the sky, which was such a brilliant blue that it almost didn’t look real.

 
Elizabeth smiled at the vista beyond her windshield. Man, when God decided to paint a picture, the greatest artists who ever lived had to bow down.

 
This day was as beautiful as her life, she thought, and her life sure was good these days. She had a good job. She had good friends. And she had a good man. Good, good, good.

In an hour she’d be in Brooklyn, where she was going to spend the day with her mother. Elizabeth felt a little guilty about not wanting to make the trip. She loved her mom, but she was already missing Michael. She wished she were spending this perfect spring day with him, maybe to take a drive down to Atlantic City, to laugh as the slots ate their quarters, and then have a nice dinner in one of the casinos. Or they could stay close to home and go window shopping in the mall. Or maybe just stay in bed all day with the windows open and spring drifting into their bedroom.

 
Yeah, that would’ve been nice. Just stay in bed with her fiancé, getting her freak on until her body was tuned up and purring as nicely as her car. But she hadn’t visited her mom in a couple of months, and every time they talked now the woman laid the guilt on hot and heavy. Besides, Brooklyn was only an hour and a half from Long Branch. She could spend the day with her mother and still be back home in time to get a quickie from Michael before she went out tonight on her monthly get together with her girlfriends.

 
As she approached the exit for Red Bank her cell phone chirped. Elizabeth’s smile widened. Maybe Michael was calling to tell her that even though she’d just left, he missed her already. He was sweet like that. It was one of the many reasons she loved him, one of the many reasons she was going to marry him next month.

The number on her caller ID wasn’t Michael, or any number she recognized.

 

“Hello?”

“You should go back home,” a voice whispered.

 

Elizabeth turned down her stereo. “Excuse me?”

“Go back home, Elizabeth. See what your man is doing.”

 

“Who is this?”

The line went dead.

 

She checked her received calls listing, but didn’t recognize the number. She didn’t even recognize the area code. But that was all right, she thought. When she found out who it was, they were going to catch some hell because this shit wasn’t funny. She pressed the call back button and waited, ready to cuss somebody out. But instead of a live human being, she heard a recorded message:

 

The message ended and started to repeat. She clicked her phone closed and tossed it into the passenger seat.

Okay, who knew she was going to New York today? Her family in the city knew she was coming. She told her girlfriends knew she was making the trip. She might have mentioned it to a few coworkers. But maybe it wasn’t any of those people. Who would think it was funny to ruin her day with this stupid joke?

 
That is, if it was a joke.

Michael said he was going to play basketball this morning. He was up when she left, already packing his gym bag. By now he should be out of the house. But whoever had called told her to go back home to see what he was doing.

 
He kept his cell phone turned off when he was home, almost without fail. Elizabeth hit the speed dial for his cell. It rang once and went immediately to his voicemail.

 
Okay, it’s possible he could have left the house and forgot to turn his phone on, or forgotten to take it with him. Or maybe she just assumed that he was leaving the house right after her because he was packing his gym stuff. He hadn’t said what time he was going to the gym. That made perfect sense, she thought. Michael’s cell phone was off because he was still at home.

She considered calling the house phone, but decided that that would just be too paranoid. This prank call had her tripping. Somebody was messing with her, most likely one of her girls, and when she saw them tonight they’d probably laugh at how they’d made her freak out over this joke.

 
Yes, that’s what it had to be, she thought - one of her girls messing with her. Elizabeth shook her head at herself for letting that stupid call get her so worked up. Michael loves me. He wants to marry me. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I don’t need to worry about my man.

 
The exit ramp for Red Bank was coming up on her right. She was only about ten miles from home. With what seemed like a will of its own, her hand flipped the turn signal lever, and Elizabeth maneuvered off the Parkway. Her mom was just going to have to wait.

When she turned onto her street she spotted Michael’s Corvette, still in the driveway. Okay, no problem. He might’ve decided to eat something before going to the gym. Or more likely he was hunched over the controller of his X-Box, directing the Jets in battle against the Patriots.

 
Then she saw the red Mazda parked at the curb in front of the house, and icy fingers of dread clawed up her spine.

That was Jamila’s car.

 
Jamila - one of her group – one of her best friends in the world.

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Okay, chill girl, she told herself as she slowed her Sebring and turned into her driveway.

 

This was nothing. There had to be a reason Mila was here. Mila and Michael worked together and had known each other for years. In fact, it was Mila who’d introduced Elizabeth to Michael three years ago.

Jamila was a man eater. Everyone who knew her knew that, because she’d be the first to tell you. If she’d wanted Michael, she never would have let Elizabeth get within a hundred yards of him, and certainly wouldn’t have played matchmaker and set them up on the blind date that led to their engagement. So there had to be a perfectly logical reason why she was here this morning.

 

Still, when Elizabeth got out of her car she left the door open so as not to make unnecessary noise. And she held her keys bunched in her fist so that they wouldn’t jingle when she turned the house key in the front door lock.

 
When she stepped inside she slipped on something and almost fell. She looked down, and saw a lightweight raincoat and a pair of high heels on the foyer floor.