Deceptive Nights

Deceptive Nights

Sylvia Hubbard

Published by HubBooks Literary Services at
Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Sylvia Hubbard

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All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or
locales, is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form without permission.

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For information address:

Sylvia Hubbard | PO Box 43439, Detroit, MI
48243

Visit her website at:
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Chapter 1

At one point she knew when her eyelids were
getting heavy and would be impossible to keep them open. Soon as
she realized this, Phoebe changed positions in her chair.
Exhaustion ran through every vein of her body, but she was
determined to get through this very long day.

“
...And furthermore, we
have seen a seventy percent improvement in the turnaround time...”
the co-owner of P&B Communications LLC, Madeline Porter said
into the speakerphone across from Phoebe to Lansing’s FIA office.
Her heavily made up face was picture perfect.

Unlike Phoebe, who stuck to eyeliner and a
light shade of lipstick, Madeline prided herself on covering every
centimeter of skin from her hairline to almost her collarbone.
Phoebe couldn’t imagine the job the woman had to do every morning
and every night.

“
I do commend your staff on
the fine job, Madeline, but there are reports that we are still
missing,” Leslie Cross, supervisor of the Lansing FIA office said
over the speaker.

Madeline motioned for Phoebe to begin taking
notes. “How many?” Madeline asked.

There was a brief silence, before Leslie
responded with, “Seventeen to count. Phoebe has done an excellent
job as your new manager finding the other two hundred.”

Phoebe immediately straightened herself at
the mention of her name and looked at Madeline trying to seem as
alert as possible. Looking through her folder of many notes, she
pulled out a specific list. “Leslie, I spoke with, Kyle, your
assistant yesterday. Eight of those aren’t on our system. Five of
them were partial dictations that were dumped and the rest were
purged off our system due to the time delay. I know this is an
inconvenience for your doctors, but we have found over eighty-five
percent of the reports that were lost due to the system shut
down.”

This was an old subject. Three days before
she was hired the recording network had shut down due to severe
electrical power outage. The server was literally struck with a
bolt of lightning frying the main drive. What had saved them was
that the back up hard drive had dumped all of its files onto the
C-drive of the tower, due to current pulses directing the
information in the wrong direction. It was supposed to dump it back
in the main network hard drive to replenish it.

The day had been saved when Phoebe went in
the C-drive by mistake thinking it was the main network and
recovered all the information. She never told anyone it had been a
mistake, she just said she had a hunch.

The prior manager had been fired two days
prior for losing the majority of reports from another account and
mismanaging the office.

Madeline Porter immediately promoted her to
office manager and Phoebe had benefits for her kids.

Next, Phoebe was aiming for a car, but needed
every paycheck to pay her bills her ex-husband had decided to run
up using her name and other personal information. Phoebe was just
lucky she had never given Daniel Newby their children’s personal
information too or he would have tried to make their credit bad
like he had done hers.

After the meeting was over, Madeline wanted
to discuss other things, but Phoebe had millions of other things to
do. Still she sat there and took notes while Madeline rattle on
about things. When that was over, Phoebe immediately got back to
work. Simon poked his head in her office at lunchtime. “Eat
yet?”

She looked up at his innocent yet charming
face and smiled, “No, but I had some peanut butter and fruit?”

“
For lunch? Are you still
on that diet?”

“
No pain no gain,” she
said, now concentrating on her computer screen as she answered as
many emails as possible. “Yes, I’m practicing control over food,
plus that was all I could grab this morning.”

“
How about some soup, my
treat?” he suggested.

“
I guess. Make sure it’s
not tomato and bring me wheat crackers, not saltine.”

He winked a light green eye at her and
disappeared.

She sighed sitting back and dialing her home.
Her mother, Patricia Green answered as expected. “Hi Mom. I’m going
to be working late again.”

“
Again, Phoebe? I thought
we agreed to a three day a week late hour. This is number five this
week and I know she’ll make you work the weekends.”

“
I know, but this is
important, Mom.”

“
It’s always
important.”

Phoebe sighed not able to give her mother a
good excuse. “I promise I won’t do it again, but you know how I’m
trying to catch up from the last manager, who was the one
responsible for not doing their job and I want to make a good
impression to Ms. Porter.”

“
I think you have gone
above and beyond making a good impression to your boss,” Patricia
snipped more to herself. “Alright, I’ll pick up the kids. You be
careful and if you need me to pick you up, just call. Don’t take
the bus home if you don’t have to, Phoebe.”

Phoebe wouldn’t dare use her mother for just
a ride home from work when she could catch the bus right in front
of her home from Downtown Detroit where she worked.

As she replaced the receiver and got back to
work, she was glad her mother was there for her. They were best of
friends more than anything.

After Daniel left her six months ago - six
months after she had the twins - to go his own way since there
wasn’t any more money from her father’s inheritance left. Phoebe
had been distraught over being left alone. He had simply been using
her, yet that had been her life story.

Mike, her high school sweetheart, had used
her for the car her father had gotten for her in high school. When
Mike had wrecked the car, he left her.

Harris, a college sweetheart, just needed a
place to stay for free and someone to pay for all his music
equipment. After that he left.

Daniel, who had convinced her to marry him,
had used the twenty thousand dollars she had gotten from her
father’s trust fund after college expenses were paid for had used
it to buy his car, his clothes and new women, then left her.

That had been the last straw for Phoebe. She
had decided to hell with men and devoted her time to raising her
children. No other man would ever use her unless she got something
in return for her own self.

Chapter 2

It was seven when Phoebe walked out on the
dark mid-November streets of Detroit. A cold river chill encircled
her, making her to hurry and close the ankle length brown coat, and
pull her cheap thick wool hat on her head with her matching gloves
over her hands. Her job was a block away from Cadillac Square. The
walk did her well. She walked past the Renaissance Center, the
Millender Center, then to Cadillac where all the buses came. Well
most of them. She could catch the Gratiot straight home. It dropped
her off at the corner of Grinnell on the east side and her mother’s
house was on the corner from the bus stop.

Phoebe hurried along down Jefferson to get to
the bus stop. Detroit was on the brink of exploding into a
world-class city. With the casino’s coming into town, and General
Motors moving into the Renaissance Center, the city was making
changes. With this in mind, Phoebe often saw limousines in the
nightlife of Detroit of visitors to the city or citizens of the
city living it up. Parties, business functions, and even just
casino runs often drew these people who loved to spend their money
on absolutely nothing in Phoebe’s opinion who could use the money
to pay off her own debts her ex-husband had run up.

She had come to ignore the fancy cars and
limousines that drove by or pulled up beside her and keep walking,
yet when one came to a stop next to her as she was waiting for a
red light, then didn’t moved even when the light turned green, she
gave the back window a very grim frown then sighed tiredly.
‘Probably a little teenager showing off to his friends with his
rich daddy’s money,’ she assumed. Phoebe really didn’t care. Men
being attracted to her no matter what age, race or financial status
at this point in her life didn’t matter to her anymore. She didn’t
want to be bothered by them at all.

The limousine finally turned just as the
light turned from yellow to red. She proceeded on to Cadillac
Square not giving the limousine another thought.

****

The well-dressed three men sitting in the
chamber of the limousine all were silent. Different thoughts
running through all their heads, but one was able to read the most
troubled man’s thoughts. All were quite handsome and very
successful in their own rights.

“
What was that about? Did
you know her?” Desmond White asked his friend from inside the
limousine as it drove on to the Renaissance Center. They would be
staying in the hotel for the night.

Lawrence Ripley, Jacoby Walter’s best friend
and blood brother, chuckled to himself knowing full well what was
going through Jacoby’s head. Earlier in the night when the dates
Desmond had promised to bring them from out of town had fallen
through, and then Lawrence was unable to get suitable overnight
dates for them, Jacoby had been pretty pissed off or probably just
horny.

“
Aren’t there any good
women anymore who just want a one night stand?” Lawrence had said.
“Makes me want to stop the next women on the street and offer her
five hundred dollars just to get some pussy.”

Desmond, who was always the consciences one
in the bunch, said, “With the diseases going around and the needs
of women changing you can’t expect a good one anymore.”

“
I’m willing to bet I can
buy a good one,” Jacoby announced, who loved to gamble. He hated to
sleep alone and it really wasn’t sleep he wanted either. The way he
was feeling he would spend a whole grand to get a good woman
underneath him. Damn, he wished he were back in Lansing about now
where he had a woman just waiting for him to call her. It was a
simple arrangement he had there. He could just go over her house,
make love to her and leave. They didn’t have to speak, and they
didn’t have to stay the whole night if he didn’t want it. No
strings-attached was their relationship and neither discussed it
any further.

Desmond changed the topic to business to ease
the tension. Hell what did Desmond care, he was about to get
married. Something Jacoby at thirty-three had longed for, but was
too damn picky and selfish to do it. The woman was either too dumb
or just couldn’t satisfy all his needs.

Sheryl Cobb, Desmond’s fiancée was perfect
for Desmond. She was so together and they made a perfect
couple.

Jacoby couldn’t find one like that. He seemed
to only attract the ones that were interested in joining bank
accounts with him. He never had real chances to get out. He was
usually always doing business. The woman he slept with whenever he
felt the need or she called him up for a good time was about the
only woman right now in his life and he had no real feelings about
their relationship. She provided a way for him to release himself
with any hassles. He didn’t want anything more with her. True she
was an older woman, but he knew he would probably never find a
younger woman who would want an arrangement like the one he had
with his older woman.

The limousine finally arrived at the hotel
and let them out. Horny and tired, Jacoby went quietly to his room
mumbling a goodnight to his friends, who had opted to stop in at
the bar near the lobby of the hotel.